City Council · 2024-04-25

All right, well, let's, let's go ahead and call this meeting to order. And we appreciate Linda coming over to visit us, and, uh, we talk fairly regularly, but it's always good to get the whole group. I know, uh, your mayor fairly well. Uh, I don't know the rest of you, but I thought it would be good to just meet and see who's who and, and talk about common interests. Why don't we just, to help everyone understand who's here, let me start over here. And if you can just introduce yourself and certainly how you fit in.

My name is Tyler Pay. I'm the Assistant Public Works Director here at the City of Warren. Been here for 16 years.

David Spencer on the Orem City Council.

Lenae Millett, Orem City Council.

Van Broderick grew up in Lyndon— or in Orem and then moved to Lyndon.

I like that.

Nice try.

Uh, Carolyn Ludford, Lyndon City Mayor.

Steve Stewart, Lyndon City Council.

Lincoln Jacobs, Lyndon City Council.

Paul Hooli, Lyndon City Council.

Chris Kilquack, Orem City Council.

Jeff Lamson, Orem City Council. Calvin Donald, City Council. And Lincoln, I'm taking a page from your book and have your website. I know, faces together.

Yeah. So thank you.

I'm Jennifer.

Thank you.

Brent Bybee, Orem City Manager.

And Dave Young, Orem Mayor. Good to meet all of you officially. So I think we don't have— we've got some items on an agenda. It's not like we have to go through these cut and dry. We will, we will just in the meantime.

Yeah, Mayor, I would love the additional staff that maybe aren't able to be at the table to also do introductions if we like.

Sure, that'd be great. Why don't we just start back over there and Uh, Brandon Nelson, Finance Director for Orem.

Uh, Steve Earl, Orem City Attorney.

Uh, Mike Browder, Chief of Police, Linden.

I'm Mark Sanderson, aspired Chief.

Citizen.

Brian Clark, Assistant City Manager for Orem.

Adam Cowley, City Administrator.

Mike Flores, the K-12 Director for Orem.

Juan Garrido, Public Works Director.

And make sure you roll that R.

And you're not exempt in the corner. Oh, sorry. Tracy McKendrick, City Recorder.

All right, be willing to walk communication back.

All right, start to give everyone an idea of who's who. Um, all the amazing things you see on social media and everywhere else, or from that corner over there.

The ones we want reported.

Yep.

Um, maybe just to, to start off, we don't have to talk about them right now, but are there any areas that you— that anyone particularly wants to make sure that we talk about in this meeting? I'll just— if they're not on the agenda, I'll put them on the agenda. You want to know any deep dark secrets about Orem?

Excellent.

Well, I think we should talk about school district. Is that not on our agenda?

Education?

Oh, okay. Anything else?

Okay, well, we'll just go with the flow. Let's just start out with, uh, as far as common interest, common border, our utilities. And so maybe if— Tyler, sorry, if you, if you want to just talk to our utility relationship.

Does this go with the flow?

Yes.

Yeah, so on, on the north Between our cities on 2000 North, we, we have some interconnections in some vaults there where we have the ability to exchange water if needed.

We're also currently working on essentially a maintenance agreement where we partner on maintenance of the 2000 North Road. I call it 2000 North. It's your—

2000 South. Yeah.

So, yeah, we had any questions or concerns, or—

I don't personally have any. We, we've got good relationships with their managers and their, uh, public works director. Uh, we are currently still working through that agreement, uh, and I don't have any questions really. We're good. Okay, if they have any for me though, I'd be happy to—

I have, I have a question. Last year when we had that crazy runoff You know, we were all worried about flooding and everything, and it felt like Warner and Linden really worked together. We had some barriers that were ready to go in place and, and, uh, and help prevent that. I'm assuming we're not really having those concerns or issues this year, uh, based on what I've seen and reading. But thank you for a good example of 2 cities working together and preparing for something that may or may not have been an issue. But grateful to— Thank you. to you guys in Public Works and staff for being ahead of that. Even grateful it didn't turn into anything like we saw in other parts of the state.

So yeah, yeah, yes, yeah. We also share, uh, sewer connections. Some of the part of, uh, Orem actually goes all the way to the Lynden City sewer system, and then it comes down to our outfall that is there on— but Harvey Davidson Uh, and then we go through a flow meter, and then we kind of do an accounting of how many units are in Orem. We figure out some kind of flows, and then we reconciliation with that. Stormwater is also one of the things that it comes out, it comes to Orem, but then we go through— we call it the main ditch, which is the border between Lindbergh and Vineyard. but Orem has a state connection there for the north part of town. And also, of course, we have the sewer treatment plant where Lyndon City owns about 12.25% of the facilities and will participate in all the capital improvements.

Okay.

Now, can I ask a question? I have a neighbor that is losing their pasture, their flood irrigation because of the canal's closure. Um, are we— you know, they said Lyndon bought their water shares or something along those lines. I'm sure they're demonizing someone, but is there a— what's going on with that? Can I ask that question?

Good question. So that, uh, Lyndon City is one of the bigger customers for the Provo Bench water that still goes to there. We are about 75-80% of the water in the canal. We have to, uh, in Lindon's interest, we have to kind of police all the water that goes through about 6 miles of open ditch canal that starts at the mouth of the canyon, and then it goes almost all the way to about 200 south on Palisades Drive before it turns around and goes back up north. There's a A lot of, uh, in the past couple years we've spent a lot of money trying to fix the canal, keep the water from exfiltrating. We had some properties in the lower side of Provo where the water was just kind of coming through the hillside, and we were actually fearing that there was going to be a landslide and lose the canal.

So as part of that project we have an opportunity to tap into the Myrto Canal that is now— it's called the Pono River Aqueduct— and make a tap. And instead of having 6 miles to police, now we only have about 2,000 feet of pipe to get a quick connection to our secondary water system. If and when Lynden starts getting 100% of their secondary water from there, We're afraid that there's not going to be enough water left to push all that volume of water to the current users, which are pastures and orchards and things. There are some incentives out there from Central Utah Water and other water conservation organizations where they will help provide more efficient irrigation and possibly tap into the Orem's culinary water system to keep those farms going. Thank you. But we're just looking after our interest to be able to deliver water safely and not waste it.

Yeah, these are the properties on 4th West. There's a number of horse pastures still there, right? They're a little concerned.

So yeah, so when the canal was used 100%, as orens started growing and some of those farms turning water in. I don't know if you guys turn water in for water use. Now, actually, Orem Metro and Orem City are the larger shareholders, but they do not put any of the water in the canal for their use, right? You take it out of the canyon and then put it in the water treatment plant. So technically, Orem already pulled their water out from the canal. Now it's kind of Linda's turn to do that. I mean, just sign up.

So, I guess they're wondering, can they have a secondary water? You know, we don't have secondary water in our— so the primary, the culinary is quite expensive for pasture to maintain that. I don't know if you're having conversations with the canal company of remitting those people.

We've been talking about this for years with the shareholders. Letting them know this was is coming, possibly, and then trying to talk to them about their options of how it impacts them. Each water shareholder, it impacts them differently. So we've been working really hard. If they come to the meetings, if they participate, if they respond to the letters and the notifications, try to figure out the best way for them to water the property or the parcel that they have. Flood irrigation. Going away, plain and simple. There's no way to sugarcoat that. It is such an ineffective way to water. But again, we want to— we've been trying to work with each people, each person individually to see what the best solution is to them. Lots of resources have been made available. People that have made the switchover, orchard owners that are using drip irrigation, lots of people have been sharing their expertise and the experience that they've had.

So if they're still complaining to me, they haven't been to talk to you, basically. What'd you say?

Depends.

And Van has served on our— as our water liaison, so he's super knowledgeable, which we really appreciate. I would love for you to share the other thing. Sometimes there's a misunderstanding about the canal itself and just how much the cities have been basically subsidizing the maintenance of that canal still being in existence and the millions it would cost to properly pipe it and keep it from leaking and the evaporation. And if each water user privately kind of paid their share into that, it would probably be cost prohibitive.

Yeah, so there's 2 components. One, you have the canal or the ditch company, and that's your main line, if you will, going down. And all of the shareholders participate in the costs and the O&M of that. There are many laterals that go off of that, that each of the shareholders that receive their water off of that lateral are responsible for the upkeep of their lateral. As years have gone on, as people have sold and developers have come in, sometimes there's a lateral that might be 2 or 3 miles long that maybe there's 1 or 2 users left on it. That's a staggering expense if— and that's their responsibility. That's part of the agreements that they have as shareholders. They are responsible for taking care of that lateral. What the mayor was saying, that for a number of years, the canal company was really helping and kind of hiding what the true impact of that was going to be because it was being paid for by the entire canal. But that starts to become very difficult if it's one person at the end of a 3-mile lateral that's deteriorating, and it might be hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair. That's when we're looking— figure out a way that you can maybe use another source of water. In Linden and places, it's secondary water, drip irrigation. Use grants and things to try to figure out what's the best solution for you.

Perfect. I'll have a chat with you. Thanks.

So it sounds like, just in summary, it's an incredibly expensive way to water and to get water from point A to point B. And so that's why it's kind of being phased out, right?

Yes. You look at that main canal, the 6 miles, it was dug a long time ago. If we were to pipe that now, Probably a conservative estimate is $25 million. Could be significantly more than that. So if you have 200 other shareholders and you want to divide up $25 million, not too many people want to. That doesn't become the most economical sense. So we look at all that data. We try to be sensitive to each person. And, and yes, if Linden pulls out, as Orum has already pulled out of the water, it does impact people.

Okay, any other comments, thoughts on utilities?

And always pray for snow for me. It's a lot better when we don't have a severe drought.

So, so the residents on the 4th West, I mean, can they reach out to you if they have not already?

They really just want to see if there's some gray water options for them. You know, they're willing to try some of these new, you know, go away from the flooded irrigation, new for them, but go away from the flood irrigation. But I, you know, I don't know Once again, that's— we're in the pitch of home run.

Do you know what canal company they're off of now, or where they get their water? No, it's going to be the best source.

What, how far north?

Northwest, uh, 17th or north, probably. Do you know Steve's? 16th? 16th.

So they'll be on the North Union Canal. That's probably at the very end of the gravity side. Once, uh, right now we're at the end of the gravity line. Uh, is pretty much the last user. Okay, we are almost all the way to the north of Linden. So, you know, if we take our water, in order to push the water that far north, I don't think it's going to have the volume to get there.

Steve is on the board of directors now, by the way.

Okay, so yes.

So he's tuned in.

Yes, he's—

why is he complaining to me?

The other big thing I wanted to bring up is the sewer treatment plant. And I don't know if you guys have been updated on the cost of what that's going to do to our utilities. It's an old plant, and we need to spend the money to invest in keeping it functioning. That's a, that's a big gorilla in the room.

Yeah, we've had a lot of discussions about it. And a year and a half ago, I think it's about when we adopted a new capital facilities plan for our treatment plant.

That talks about $160 million worth of estimated improvements, upgrades to the treatment plant over the next 50-plus years. In the short term, what we're talking about is, is we've prioritized all these different projects and narrowed down our first phase to about $60 million worth of projects. And we Our next phase on that is to look into how we might finance that. And then we want to phase in over multiple years, then associated fee increase into our sewer utility fee charges.

We've, we've been able to offset a lot of these improvements with grants in the past. Right now we're doing what's called a water reuse project.

You could maybe share a little bit about that if you'd like. That's been about a $20 million project, and we got about $13 million in grants for that. We will still look at doing additional grants to try and offset these costs moving forward. But, but yeah, it's, it's of course an eyebrow-raising number that we're trying to then take one bite at a time of the elephant. That's, that's sort of the bad news. In good news, it's every, every wastewater treatment plant along, you know, the whole Wasatch Front is seeing even bigger numbers of costs for upgrading and updating their treatment plants. So a lot of the reasoning behind it is the federal EPA regulations seem to just keep going up and up. And we have to try and keep up with those, that, those increases in regulations. Tyler, anything else you'd add on, on any of that?

Um, I can speak to the reuse project if you guys want. Um, you may or may not know what that is. Anyone need information on that? You want me to fill you in on that? Yes, please.

So our water master plan identified that we had a shortage of storage. We've got some big, big water users down on the west side of the city. Namely Sleepy Ridge Golf Course. We've got our Lake Sky Sports Complex that you guys also— well, that's actually a vineyard partnership down there, but we've got a big demand for water down there, and we needed to provide some more storage. We found that as we're doing this treatment plant upgrade, we can actually take a great deal of burden off of our water supply by essentially treating our effluent water that gets dumped in the lake and piping it over those large use facilities. And so what we're doing is essentially, like was stated earlier, we're entirely culinary water. We don't really have any secondary water here in the city. This would be the first secondary water, so to speak, in the city of Warren that we're going to use specifically for irrigation on the big sports facility and the golf course down there. So that is Starting construction now. We're working on that now.

And another way to look at that also is that facility, I said it's close to a $20 million facility, but we were able to come up with $13 million in grants. So that facility will effectively reduce our water usage in Aurora by about 10%. So if you look at 100,000 people, 10% water reduction is saving water for 10,000 people. So it's, it's really a positive thing, and you guys would directly benefit from that.

Maybe you need less fertilizer granules on the lawns.

Yeah. No, that's a good point. The other thing from what Brent said is, and this is something I think you guys would be interested in, is we've kind of put up full-court press the last few years on grants. Because there's all kinds of grants out there for everything you can imagine. And like our main water, uh, reclamation facility, as far as that goes, a lot of these things are being imposed on us by the EPA. So, it's not like we thought this up. They're kind of being imposed on us by Big Brother, right? And so, because of that, there are opportunities to get grants for that. Pretty much everything you do in your city, there's grants out there. It's just you need good grant writers. Good people looking in, and we've had a ton of success with that in the last couple of years.

Yeah, we would— oh, go ahead.

I think one of the last big updates we did down there was in the early part of 2000s, right? And we worked with you all at that time to apply for some cheap financing. I think recently you've been kind enough to provide some letters of support to continue to try and go after some of that cheap financing moving forward. So grants and inexpensive financing is— we are putting the full-court press on that to try and make it as inexpensive as possible, for sure.

Sorry, I interrupted you.

Oh no, I just want to say, I think Councilmember Hoyt, I think Stan and Adam, we toured your facility some months ago, and it was really impressive using the anaerobic, less smell, you know, system. And we'd love another neighboring facility to maybe have that technology.

Nice.

Yeah.

In terms of those neighboring facilities, I mean, we've been hearing big numbers, huge dollars. Provo, we're hearing, is staring down like $320 million, and Timpanogos, like $700 million. And Salt Lake are talking about the $1 billion upgrade. So it's, it's staggering for sure.

And so we, we have done some amount of looking ahead and being ahead of some of these regulations. And a big part of that was this water reuse project, but there's still more we have to do. Okay.

Do you feel like they're all useful that the EPA is pushing and directing, or does there need to be some pushback from state, federal legislative?

This is the open meeting.

We've had a few education meetings in terms of the nutrients that get into Utah Lake and how this is supposed to prevent that, and then that hopefully will make Utah Lake more recreationally available and inviting. But I'm not an expert on the exact science of it. Juan, maybe you can speak to that.

A lot of the expenses, I think, is more driven by aging infrastructure where a lot of the plants were built in the '50s. So there's a— there is that factor where instead of nutrient removal, cogeneration of methane and things like that to reuse. But what they're trying to do now are water capturing resources. So reuse, you know, get the nutrients out. And but I think the bigger expense of the $160 million is just upgrading.

Yeah, that's what's going to happen. And that's, that's exactly right. But there is there, there are these EPA regulations, if I remember right, nitrogen. Yes, I mean, they're taking it teenier and teenier and teenier and teenier. And so at some point you say, you know, what makes sense? Right now, unless you've got better connections than us, we just have to do it.

We all want clean water and be responsible to the environment, but you're right, at some point it just— that's way expensive to get that smaller improvement.

And that is pushing us to a whole different level of up what we got to build. So, okay, um, better move on. Any other thoughts on this? Okay, next up on our list, we got very non-controversial topic. That's education.

We love kids. We're all in favor of that.

Any thoughts from the group? Because there's definitely things in play happening that will soon be imposed on us unless we decide where we want to go. But— I'll lead out.

I can lead out if you want. Um, I don't know how many of you were aware of the meeting yesterday that the board had. Excellent conversation. I can send you the link. They— I was very impressed with the way they, they were reviewing. They got the data dump from MTT. Went through it, evaluated the different options. In a nutshell, they're studying it over the weekend, and then Tuesday, I believe, they're going to vote what they're going to submit to the county to have for possibilities of being on the ballot. But the thing I liked about their conversation is it was very— I mean, it was back and forth. It was quite lively. Very collaborative. Very insightful from a data perspective, from the needs perspective. It seemed to be the conversations that— and plus, I feel like they were giving the okay for municipalities to really talk about it too, because it is something that impacts all of us. I appreciated how they pulled in— there were conversations about the impacts on the taxpayer. And impacts on the students and impacts on the teachers, you know, all of that. So I guess I'm— my first lead into this discussion really is saying I'm grateful these conversations are happening and that they aren't taboo to talk about. Just for your information, towards the end of the meeting that they were trying to narrow down the options, if you know there's 6. Yeah. Trying to narrow those down. And 3 and 4 were the 2, which one of those really impacts our municipalities. So 4 is the PG, Lyndon, Orem, Vineyard option. So, um, anyway, that's, that's what I'm, what I'm hearing. I could add some more of things that I found out, but I'm interested to hear how others are feeling or where your conversations are. We, we know it. We know other municipalities are taking action.

Some have engaged Lewis Young to study. I'm sure that's maybe what you're making reference to. I don't— we haven't outsourced anyone to study yet, is this right?

Haven't officially outsourced. I had— I did see Laura Lewis down at the ULCT and UCMA meeting and just started to pick her brain on it.

Yes.

And she, she told me she suspected that many cities would be reaching out to her. And he said that could be a real possibility for us.

But have you actually pulled the trigger? Anyone yet?

No. So, Lyndon, we have not had formal public discussions. I think we've been very keenly watching and conversing and I mean, I think one of the other things to mention is Lehigh, I understand, has been doing a formal study that should be getting their results here any day. That's right. And so I think the sense I got at the league was that a lot of cities were saying, okay, based upon Lehigh, how they decide they want to go, that may cause a shift in how the other cities may align potentially, or waiting to see the district's initiation of a particular recommendation, I think is important as well for a lot of people.

It was interesting in that conversation. Cole, you look like— did you listen to it?

Yeah, so I was just in a school meeting yesterday.

To me, it was interesting, the different conversations. You know, there were some who were, well, this is what the survey said in these meetings, and that's you know, where I'm going to base it on, and others were, you know, here's the, um, the MGT numbers. And there were actually board members who said, we feel there are some things that we're lacking from the MGT study. We'd like to see capital needs so these different areas are prepared for what their needs are going to be. So I thought it was a very, um, productive conversation.

That, that is one thing that Everything I've seen, if we run any numbers or look at anything, I mean, it's one thing to have the basic budgets and all that and figure out the kids and everything, but unless you look at the future capital needs, uh, you're just going to have completely skewed data, right? I mean, because we need to know, like, for Orem, if we were going down this path, how many of our schools, uh, have earthquake issues that need to be fixed up? Um, you know, if we— if any of our Our biggest issue is probably fixing up our schools. And so what does that look like from a cost perspective? And then, like, was it option 3 that you said was the 4 cities?

3, I think 3 is like a choice split with Lehigh going east. So it's either Lehigh. Yeah, I mean, we're all assuming Eagle Mountain and Saratoga are going to go west. That's what they've indicated. I don't know that anyone— I think in the next week we'll be seeing an official You know, yeah, 3 is the high, all everybody else.

I guess my point was, is that if we go down the path, you know, of Pleasant Grove or you guys, you know, what your capital infrastructure needs are over the next 10 years, that needs to all be put in, you know, into the models to really understand where anyone's going.

Because it was one thing I thought was interesting is, I mean, I've had numerous people reach out to me, right? And I'll just share some of the things they said to me. There's been conversations about, oh, the bus garages at American Fork and Saratoga. But those of us who have lived here for quite some time know that the warehouse in Linden was a bus garage back in the '90s, right? So, but now it's a SPED and warehousing facility. Those are some of the things that they've been— Oh, and then, and, you know, this, I'm going to throw this one out. Because I was given a bunch of papers here, and these are screenshots from, from, you know, our nightmare of Prop 2, of the people who were against it, who were saying we don't want the warm only, but we would like a PG Linden warm vineyard split. So, you know, whether you gauge where you gauge that, I don't know. You know, people, it all depends on the information where people are at the time. But I think the public is willing and getting ready to— getting educated and looking, understanding more as time goes on. So I think the narrative that 72% of Orem said they weren't in favor of that would be erroneous to be stating, in my opinion, at this point. I think that a lot has been learned. the last couple of years. Um, yeah, right.

And there is— I mean, my perspective, the conversation used to be, should we split or should we not split? And that was the conversation 2 years ago. That conversation's over. We know something's going to happen, we just don't know what. And so we hear these rumblings of, you know, Eagle Mountain, Saratoga looking at doing something. We hear Lehigh, Alpine Highlands, Cedar Hills, maybe we're looking at doing something. So everyone is out there looking at doing something. And so, in my mind, it would kind of be irresponsible for us just to, like, see what happens. And in my mind, and this, this is probably not politically correct, but I don't just want to wind up being the leftover district. I want to proactively decide what makes the most sense for our communities, and then we'll try and go that direction. And I don't know what the answer to that is, but that, that would involve discussions, conversations, and what does make the most sense for our communities. And then as city leaders, make sure that we lead towards what we think will be the best. When I say what will be the best, I'm saying this is not just about— I mean, this, this is like an earthquake that just occurred. So, Here we are. So let's look out over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years and say what makes sense. You know what, absolutely. And even regardless of some of the finance issues, just from a structural issue, what should these school districts look like, you know, 20 years from now? Uh, but anyway, I just think they're really important conversations to have because they're going to happen whether we're involved or not. So since they affect our future, I think we should be involved.

And to Lenee's point, next Tuesday is a big day, right?

It is. They're going to narrow it down to 2. And frankly, you know, my approach has always been, unfortunately, maybe it wasn't always communicated in the newspaper that way, but my approach has always been to partner with Alpine. You know, the best outcomes come when everybody's talking and on the same page. Now, I just got off the phone with a board member on the way here and made that comment. And she says, well, that's a great aspiration to have, right, after their meeting yesterday. Just with the board, but I really somewhat— yes, they were very divided. Right, Cole? I mean, I don't want to say divided, but there's a lot of opinions and great debate going on there. And but also, I thought that debate was very healthy in the sense that they said, we do not want to put 6 options out to our public.

It's too confusing.

Yes, we want to lead out with 2.

I mean, so that has changed because in the past they said they would only have one on a ballot potentially. They're saying they might offer 2.

I think the question is, I think they want to certify both and then maybe get behind one.

Okay.

Is that the 45-day period, public comment period? Yeah. So that's why they're waiting. Yeah, that's the main first deadline is they want this 45-day period to start. Do you want to talk about that, Jen? I mean, I need a lot of time because I've been graduating this week, but I did talk to Sarah Hackett yesterday, though, and that's basically what she said. You know, we're going to look at 2 options. We're going to start Title I. We're going to have the public comment period for 45 days, and then at that point, we'll just make a decision about what to do. Okay, cool.

You're at BYU, but you've been studying. It's not like you're at the Alpine School, but you've spent the time to get a pretty good insight, it sounds like. We're trying to.

Good. Thank you.

We connected with our Lindon Elementary SCC and Oak Canyon SCC.

So that's where I'm getting that.

Do you have any insights from them that you think would be valuable for us to hear?

Most of the conversations that have been coming through have been, I think, Mayor, what you had said, the question of response, like reactive or responsive. And lots of questions regarding if they're leaning towards just a 2-district split recommendation. There's a lot of leaning towards that. So that would be option 3. As opposed to Option 4. And so I also speaking with board members and others, it's clear that there are conversations already going on, particularly in the west and Lehigh, and then less formal but conversations going up north of the county. What's confusing is, how do you have more transparent conversations? You know, how is it like, hey, you want to— what are you doing? What do you want to do? How do you want to do? And that doesn't seem right. You know, it seems better to have an open forum. Unfortunately, we don't have very many venues that allow city officials to have that kind of conversation. So then it leads to these conversations. So it would be awesome, I think, if somehow someone could lead out and invite in a way that would create space, having a delegate from these different municipalities to say, You know, if there is an interlocal agreement, the district could back down from it entirely and let the interlocal agreement try to lead out.

And if that's the case, then all of our hands would be forced in some ways.

And so—

All of our hands would have been played versus forced.

We would have been proactive, right? Exactly.

Well, and do you all agree? My sense has been in my conversations with the the district staff and board is they almost would invite the cities to sort of take it out of their hands. Take it out.

Yeah, get that same— I didn't get that same vibe from all.

You're getting a vibe that they want to— I think that they're saying— I think they're saying if we can get everybody on board, it would be better for the district to do it.

And I, I don't, I don't know how that's going to go. I think, I think the West is still kind of tenuous that they're going to do something. So either the district will decide let's split and they'll get behind that, or they'll split themselves. So what the complicating factor is, um, interlocals provide an opportunity for just those municipalities to vote. A district-wide proposition means everyone in the district votes.

Right.

So, you know, if we're doing these conversations and, you know, my hope would be having the conversations, having the interlocals, and then having the district say, I endorse this, I support this, you know, because then we don't have it— the, the look that the district's not— yeah, we don't want that. Yeah.

Steve, can you opine on the different voting? I've heard some, uh, if the district gets it, it's a simple majority, but interlocals, each city has to carry. Am I getting confused there, or do you know enough to opine on that?

Yeah, so as far as if it's done by interlocal agreement, say there's 3 cities that agreement, then it would be the residents of those 3 cities.

And it has to be a majority in each city, does it not?

Yeah, not just a simple majority. Well, actually, let me qualify that. Let me— that's what I—

dangerous on that part. Maybe you can say, okay, well, let's be dangerous together.

Let's see.

But going back to, I guess, what if I could clarify the district? I'm not saying the district wants to be out of the conversation or out of the recommendation. I think everyone they're saying let's all collaborate. But I think that what they indicated to me, Shane Farnworth, was if there's an interloper on the ballot, we're just going to pull off the ballot recommendation. Is that still what they're saying?

Oh, I think that they— there can be competing initiatives on the ballot, which is why they would, right? But I don't know that that was their practice. I can't speak to that.

I don't know. And maybe the city— I don't know that I can speak to that.

I haven't spoken with enough folks.

And I think there's the worry that A district-wide— what I heard a couple board members express was worried that, well, if we put a recommendation, an option on the ballot, it has to go across all 14 cities. There's such disparate needs and opinions across the 14 cities. Could we really get a unified answer? And one board member said, well, if it fails, that's, that's a mandate that no one wants to split. And the other said, oh, no, no, that just means we didn't— offer the right one, right?

And so it creates animosity, in my opinion. Yeah, having lived it.

I mean, the simplest would obviously be for interlocal agreements in terms of if it's going to actually happen. I mean, to try and get an entire district, 14 cities, I mean, it's possible, but it's so diluted, and so, so many people wouldn't believe in understand what was going on, I don't think. But anyway, so how do we be proactive, Mayor?

Well, Steve, sorry, I didn't hear your question.

But to answer Tom's question, so if it's done by interlocal agreement, it would be— would have to be a majority vote of the voters within the proposed district boundaries. So not each city. Clarify.

That's a good—

and the Alpine, would it be the same thing for the school district No, I'll have to look that up.

We can have something from both the district and the city at the same time. Yeah. Do they both have to have a majority? And yeah, then what happens if they both—

I'll put that question in the queue.

So how do we— don't let her jump my question.

So, so this had to be very proactive.

I mean, we're talking about interlocal agreements, and I've heard that other cities are doing so. What do we do? What do we do?

How do we go down that path. Well, I think step 1 is to find out something on Tuesday, right?

So that doesn't necessarily— all that does is indicate where they are.

Yeah, but it teaches us something about economies of scale and where they see the growth is and all those kind of things.

Which interestingly enough, since you brought that up, someone sent me an article about once you get at 30,000 students, the economies of scale is just— it doesn't matter after that. So we would be PG, Lyndon Norman, 27,000.

And the whole east side's about 6.

Yeah. So, but that would be the Tuesday thing. I mean, what's Tuesday? We can wait, right? But the Tuesday, I think it's just, they're just trying to help the discussion by narrowing it down. That's the impression I got.

So, to answer Dave's question, how do we, what could we do to be proactive to go forward? It would be, I mean, see what happens on Tuesday.

And, uh, and Lehigh— what leadership Lehigh is— I mean, I think a lot of people want to see.

We'll also have— I mean, we should start to understand what's happening with Lehigh pretty soon.

But there's also a deadline.

I mean, timing-wise, that's why the district's doing May 1st, because they've got the 45 days. So we do have to— by May— well, I don't know, it seemed like May 15th was kind of a buzzword I heard.

But so does anyone know what the actual deadline is to put in a local agreement on the ballot with the proper notice? Sorry, Mayor, does anyone know what the actual deadline is? I've heard like May 1st, May 15th, in terms of how much time the county needs to— in other words, if someone wants to put it in a local agreement on the ballot, what is the drop-dead date to make that happen?

Yeah, so there, there's a lot of different, um, um, time periods It's kind of a timeline. I think we'd have to create a timeline and work it back and figure out what that date would be.

Okay, so maybe we can do some research on that. Yeah, because as far as to answer Dave's question, how do we do something about it? We need to understand the timeline. Uh, we need to see what some of these other people are doing. We need to get financials. Um, and then we just need to have conversations. Um, is this something we're interested in? Is this something that we're not interested in?

You know, Can I add one thing? Yes. That I did Saturday. So at the convention, um, great opportunity to talk to legislators, right? Because they're all there. Um, I approached one of them because this is a concern that came up in Prop 2, is the teachers, the Tier 1 retirement teachers, right? I asked one of the legislators, will the— can we get some legislation? Can you start working on this in the interim sessions, um, that will protect that, give us some funding in case of, uh, you know, reconfiguration, give us some funding to protect the promises that were made those Tier 1 teachers. Um, in my opinion, that's what we can do as elected officials is continue with that narrative to our state officials. You know, that's a big concern, and I get it. They've been working 20 years. You know, they, they want to have that assurance. We need to take out some of the fear that the unknowns— and it is an unknown because it depends on the board of the new district what they decide. So why not? Let's backfill some of that. And the legislator that I asked actually said, well, I don't know how many of those individuals there are. Good answer. Good question, right? Let's find out. Let's see what the cost would be and see if we can— it can't be that expensive. You know, maybe it is, but I just compared to some of the other budgets we have. But I don't know. I think there's a lot of conversations we can be having that will be bring peace to this discussion. It needs to be about the teachers. It needs to be about the students. It needs to be about our neighborhood schools and our busing and what are the, you know, all of these conversations that were had, and, and gratefully so, that we're tuned into. Um, anyway, that was just an idea that I had over the weekend, and the group that was talking to this legislator seems, um, you know, very in support of that.

And I know a lot of people bring up the Canyons-Jordan split and how tough that was, and maybe in a friendly way. And I think all of our goal here with this would be collaborative, that there would be opportunities to allow each entity, whatever it may be, to thrive, not leave any winners and losers in that situation. Some of the legislators mentioned— one of the legislators mentioned to me that there was some legislation passed recently that allows kind of interlocal sharing of resources among districts to be a little bit easier, clarification of, you know, how assets are determined and apportioned. And so I think that's something they felt was a statewide need to lay that groundwork. It's not just targeting here, but so those are all maybe some new things that would be helpful.

That latest bill went through, clarifies a lot of that. That's where a lot of it came from. So we're going to 10 more minutes. We want to catch these other things, but it sounds to me, unless there's other ideas, that communication is a key here. I mean, to the extent that, I mean, school district kind of became a taboo conversation. And that's not the best outcome for anyone. And so I think we just need to keep the conversation going. I don't know where that conversation goes, but I think we, we figure out our timelines, we figure out, you know, what other people are doing, but we just start to communicate and talk about it.

And I believe Cedar Hills is going to host another meeting tomorrow. Tomorrow, yes, believe so. So kind of getting elected officials together. Obviously we can't form quorums and be making legislative decisions, but there's Discussing the new NTT draw and that information.

So, is that Cedar Hill City Council, or is that—

I think they're just hosting.

They're just hosting it.

Yeah.

Okay, because I think the more cities that get involved in the conversation, the more you're likely to have people not just left out in the cold and, you know, get what the best thing is for their city.

So, And I actually feel like we should all listen to that recording from yesterday.

You said you were going to send out the link.

Would you do that, please?

And then maybe, Brian, you could forward it on to the Linden folks.

Thank you.

How long is it?

Just over an hour.

Okay.

But it's just that it's a work meeting of school board members on the gym. No, you're going to be entertained, Tom. It's good.

They're usually good though.

It really is. I was very impressed that they were asking the hard questions of each other.

Did you have something, Steve?

I'm just gonna circle back and answer the other question. Thank you, Steve. If it is a school district-initiated split, then it's only approved if the voters, majority of voters within the proposed new school district boundaries approve, as well as the majority of the existing school district. Okay, voters approve. So it could be kind of 2 parts.

Yeah.

Okay. Twice?

How do you do that?

No, it's just—

it's just one splitting off has to have a majority and the total has to have a majority too. So the big one can't say, we're tired of you, we're getting rid of you, because if they don't say yes, it backfires.

So they tap— that's okay. Yeah, 2 separate majorities. That's kind of wild though. Yeah, no one could ever get out if the rest want to keep them in.

Well, no, that's not, that's not quite true. So we're talking about a school district initiated split versus an interlocal. But if interlocal in 2 communities decided they wanted to split, then it only takes majority of the voters all in. I do know those interlocal entities.

And that might be why I got that sense that they were saying if the city speaks out, they would defer to allowing that to happen because they wanted that to be the way it But what it does do is it makes it difficult to get a school district-initiated split.

Yeah, yeah.

Say that one more time.

It makes it more difficult to get a school district-initiated split approved.

Much easier to get an interlocal, which is why the school district says, please do that, right? Okay, Mayor, I think that's what you were alluding to. We'll find out.

We'll find out.

Okay, well, Unless anyone else has any last thoughts, we'll just move on these last 2 things really quickly so we get you out of here. Any other— does everyone think that's a good path to go down? Okay, okay, we'll do everything we can to facilitate that and keep that going.

Fire and EMS, we just had a fantastic presentation by Chief Sanderson.

How is that possible? When was that? You see it every week.

What are you talking about? Awesome.

Chief, do you want to just give like the elevator version to our council on how the station— Yeah, highlights for the fire department.

Things are very exciting right now. It's really, really ramped up the last 2 years based off of the mayor's challenge and the council support and us being the very best fire department in the state. With our operating guidelines, standard operating guidelines, with our truck manual, our engine manual, we're fighting fire. and providing EMS extender that isn't seen in the communities within the state. Specifically, our paramedic squad, our critical care squad, we've taken all the services that you see Life Flight and AirMed fly above us with.

People pushing cars into houses, you go to those too.

Yeah, we go to those. Even to that point, we were called down to Provo with our critical care squad to help 4 respiratory therapists at a long-term facility intubate and manage the airway of a patient because of the capabilities we have. And so other communities are recognizing that level of service. And we had an amazing— the mayor said presentation— we identified through that. There was some really good discussion based off of our contract moving forward and the fees associated with that contract. Right. And we brought that back to the table so everybody's aware.

We're in the process currently of coordinating a meeting, including Brent and Adam, in the next week to go through those finances, address the issues and concerns that were brought up.

And I think we'll come to a really good solution that we'll all agree with, that will maintain the relationship and the partnership that is amazing. And the partnership with not only Linden but Vineyard now. You all— I don't know if you noticed, but last night they approved a Independent item, $1.7 million not to exceed, a residential fire facility that they anticipate building and having us in their community within the next 9 to 12 months. So that then provides additional resources to Orem and Lyndon, and then for the needs of multiple calls in either of our jurisdictions, it's just again enhancing our abilities.

So Yeah, so looking at the increased requests, I mean, it's, it's a little, it's a little bit of a big request. And so just understanding, you know, where, what you were, what was all involved with that was really important to see, um, and appreciate the ongoing discussions to really fine-tune you know, maybe where there's some value we feel that we were bringing with our building and facility in those numbers, um, get to a good spot for sure.

Yeah, no, I can't say enough good about our fire department. We've, as Chief Sanderson said, we made a challenge to all the departments in the city to be the best in the state and actually do best practices and lead out and just, just show everyone else the best way to do it. And to start that out, we started with our fire department because we felt like they were the furthest along that path to start with. And so Chief Anderson's done a phenomenal job embracing— so we're not just— it's not just a talking point. We expect Orem to be the best fire department in the state, and that would directly be a huge benefit to everybody here. So, so we're happy for the partnership. Okay, transportation item 3.4. I just have one random, really quick thing on that. Um, this, this would just be an example of something that we can keep collaborating on. Uh, that Sweet Burrito, is that on Sweet Burrito? Anyway, it's, it's right on your border.

Yes.

And, and so we've got some issues because— so we don't want to have any of our projects essentially have a parking lot on the street. In other words, they should be self-sustaining and have the parking within the property, right? And anytime there's an opening for parking on the street, a lot of times that seems to happen for a variety of reasons. And so the project that's being proposed on there, we want to make sure that our border doesn't become a parking lot. Mm-hmm. And so we're going to do things on our side to make that— protect that from happening, but we'll be reaching out to you to see what you can do also, just to, you know, because it's—

if you don't know something's been approved on our side, if you can—

okay, you're going to make sure there's enough parking required, enough parking required, and then make it so that they, they're not allowed to park on the street outside of those, those properties for convenience. But we'll need your help to do it on your side. Otherwise, they'll all go across the other side of the thing.

On that same road.

We appreciate that. We appreciate that. Because there's a lot of neighborhoods around there that could be impacted by that. And we're excited to see something happen there. You know, when I first moved to Linden 32 years ago, that was the old Allen's Grocery Store. It was the only game in town. And, uh, it's been this closed-down building, and the Worthingtons— I'm glad, you know, they had that Neeters. Neeters was supposed to be in Linden because they're Lindenites. We'll agree to anything. We just annex that one.

You don't really want the property, you just want the tax revenue.

I would just be concerned there that if you're asking us to park in front of our own businesses on their side of the street, that—

Yeah, that seems a conflict to me. No, we wouldn't be asking for that. We're just trying to keep— there's several office— well, there's an office building there that would potentially want to park on that street instead of in the parking lot. So we— but we can look at the details of this problem-wise the best we can.

Sure. And that same road, if you continue east, as you know, the Linden Temple is coming in, and we've had a lot of residents speak to us about the concern. You know, obviously, Orem is— that's going to be their temple too, part of some people there.

Northeast side.

Yeah. And so just the traffic, just the nature of how that played out, that, uh, you know, now people have to traverse If they're, say, coming from that Heather Ridge Road at the top, and then come down and go through our neighborhoods or our Center Street. 2000 North has 2 pinch points. You know, you have the Murdoch Canal Trail. Sometimes a lot of people are— the bicyclists and stuff are zooming across there, and that's— the traffic's just going to increase there. And so we've had residents come forward and say, could you do something? there at the Murdock Canal Trail to mitigate, create a little bit better safety. And I know there's been certain things in there. And then further up east where that Heather Ridge Road comes and people turn down, I know I— our staff reached out to yours about— that's a resident suggestion by your elementary school. Further east, further east, or up the hill? Oh, up the hill.

Yep, I know. Thank you.

So where the hill is probably the steepest, people could really start to Accelerate. They accelerate. By the time they're crossing Murdoch Canal, they're going 40. Yeah, is that northeast you want a stop sign? So we've had some residents recommend a stop, a 4-way stop.

Because there's a 2-way right now, right?

Yeah, just for those that are, you know, coming north, south, and the north. And so creating a 4-way stop there keeps people from, you know, collecting momentum towards the Murdoch Canal Trail, but also those people coming out of those neighborhoods There's gonna be more traffic trying to maybe come to the temple at the same hours people are trying to come to the schools. It's true, we have several schools, and so it's just going to create kind of a crunch time. So 4-way stop will give them better ability to get onto that road.

So, so Tyler, do you know, like, put a stop sign— stoplight— that— what, what kind of volumes do you need for that?

Stop signs—

the warrants for stop signs, not stoplight, but Mayor, you may not recall, Warren's engineers actually did a study on this intersection.

With the added traffic now, in the future, I mean, I'm assuming it's going to double.

Just recently. Yeah, so currently warrants are not met, but, but the anticipation of— you're building that project down there at the bottom of the hill. We have you know, the Temple traffic that will start— No, that—

you're going to definitely see an increase.

That's 18 months out. As our engineering group goes through that development review, I think we'll be reevaluating all of that, take that into consideration.

And if you could take into consideration slowing the traffic as it approaches the Murdoch Canal as well, down that hill, maybe that stop sign could help with that as well as part of— It's a good—

well, just put big speed bumps.

Speed tables.

Seriously, put a light up there. No, no, it's Mark doesn't like it.

That will be our first physical activity, we chip them up.

All right.

Okay, so, Mayor, we'll take all that and give it to our traffic team and have them work directly with you guys to, to see what— it'll probably be a multi-year approach, but it's something we definitely want to take into account.

Yeah, the temple will be opening next year, so we'd love to be proactive instead of reactive.

Do you know Do you have a scheduled date that they'd announce?

Yeah, just next year, maybe around this time.

Yeah, they're very tight-lipped with that.

They don't like to do open houses in January, February, so my guess is it pushes a little bit.

We would love the open house to be after school lets out, but we don't know for sure.

So it made it on this list, and that means it's gonna happen.

Trent is the tour man.

City manager Department needs to follow the fire department, be the best. I stiff competition with Adam Cowley. He does a great job for you guys.

But council, any other transportation? I think 1600 North, UDOT is, uh, that's going to be widening, you know, here.

Brian, do you want to share kind of high-level timeline on 1600 North widening between State Street and I-15.

Yes, so I've been taking notes on the trail crossings. We're talking about those, but let me recharge the brain. They're in the process of purchasing right-of-way right now. Sure, you're all aware of that. Um, I think they're hoping to start construction next spring. Hopefully we get right-of-way locked up.

They're at about their little past 30% design.

Yes. Yeah, 30% design. So maybe it's next summer they start, but it's all dependent on right-of-way purchase. Funding that's earmarked or just future funding? UDOT has assured us that they will find the rest of the funding that they need to do the project.

It's been a very elusive project, but it's finally coming together.

Yeah. So he's been trying to get timing.

They don't necessarily have money.

And we're trying to get the timing so that construction starts right when the temple opens.

Yeah, that's perfect.

And the school still in session. The school.

Yeah. Wow. And you're not the city planner.

So we have to get around it, but not on Geneva Road with the Durham Temple. Yeah. So we'll shut Geneva Road down until possibly this fall to get the temple time to open. Yeah.

So good point.

You got to work with yourself.

Yeah. All right. Any other thoughts, comments?

To my knowledge, this is the first one of these we've had before recently.

We appreciate it.

We got together.

I missed it for whatever reason.

Thank you.

This has been great.

Thank you. It's good to meet you.

Next time we'll have your pictures up. I saw your campaign posters, but now we can see face to face. I noticed your campaign picture didn't have a beard.

Good catch.

I feel like we should maybe do a quick picture together. I'm all about doing pictures. Pete, Pete, Pete, get your camera.

Oh yeah, I just want— we can go up on the dais if you want.

Okay, so let's get— let's go ahead and adjourn.

Okay, I feel like we adjourn and then we'll go take a quick— you need a motion for adjournment?

Sure, I'll second.

Yeah. I