City Council · 2024-05-14

All right, we're ready to start. Was like a—

all right, line up.

Hey, so welcome back from the Hillcrest grand opening, and welcome to this part of the work meeting. Um, and everyone that was there saw Hillcrest was amazing and awesome and A great new park for Orem.

We're all very excited about that.

It's going to be a major change over there. So next item on our agenda is Brandon can talk to us about CARE grant deliberations. Thanks, Mayor. Uh, continue with, as we talked about during the Hillcrest celebration, the CARE tax. funding pieces of Hillcrest Park. We're here for the 2024 version of the CARE tax awards. And so just to give you a little bit of an idea, we met on 2 different nights here in the last few weeks as the— with the CARE Advisory Commission members, with Councilman Fenzer and Councilman Lamson, as well as Trevor Bell and myself. In those meetings, we discussed all of the applications, and I should mention one of our newest members, Elsie Cowley, here is one of our newest board members, and she happens to be here with us. So we appreciate that. She was great. It's always nice to see new members on board. We had 31 applications for the mini and mid-major type grants. We listened to 29 presentations over those 2 nights. One of the— one of those nights was a little long, but we got through it. So, and we appreciate everybody who's willing to come and tell us about themselves. And you only fell asleep once. I did fall asleep. What you see in front of you, you have a copy of that because I know that's as big as I can make it given the width of it. So I knew we might need some paper to be able to see. You can see the amounts requested from all the applicants as well as what the Advisory Commission has identified as their proposed award for the current year. Um, you'll notice that the total requests were $236,000. Um, we have approximately— target approximately $110,000-ish each year. Um, but we, we do know we have a little bit of, you know, funds available if needed. Um, and you can see we— the commission, uh, wanted to go to $118,000, um, which is not out of the realm of possibility in relation to some of those available extra funds that we have. And so that's where we fell in relation to each of these applicants. I don't know if there's any specific thing other than, you know, many of these, they range from choirs to musicals, musical instrument related, whether it be orchestras or ensembles. We have a number of them who are related to, I'd say, maybe a health program, but it has an art element in relation to that program. Um, we have some opera, um, and some various dance-related items in their groups as well. Um, we had several new ones, as you can see. So, um, you can see from the prior years where they were blank, and now they had a request this year that they were new, at least for the Given, given year. See, just, just as a side note, you'll notice the very last page down the bottom, super small script. Any of the totals that you see, the subtotals that you see, If you were to add those up, you might go, that doesn't add up. And so if they were not a current requester, we left the totals in so you could at least kind of see how much was being allocated each year. But we didn't want to necessarily— it'd be really quite long if we left every single one that we've ever awarded in there. And so, so that's the main reason why, just, just to make you aware in case you happen to be looking at that going, that doesn't seem right. as far as the total goes. All right, keep in mind, the— obviously this is just a presentation to you about what the proposed awards are. Um, we will be coming back during the council meeting, um, in the next council meeting, May 28th, um, for your resolution to accept, um, these proposed awards. So you have a couple weeks to look through this and think about it. And if you have any questions, certainly you're welcome to talk to any of us, Councilman Spencer and Councilman Lamson as well. Um, and, and we can try to address any of your questions in, in relation to any of these. On the, um, just so you're aware, on the 2nd page, the 2nd page consists of, um, other grants. So major grants we do not have presentations for. As those grantees are over 10— any grantee that's over $10,000. And you can see the 2 that we currently have, um, that were requests, as well as what they were awarded and their past histories in relation to that. On the arts side, we also have various elements that are proposed by various entities, but primarily by the city.

that are—

have an art element to them, and that's in that last city-related arts grant section. Um, and you can see the elements that, uh, are in that particular section as well. Um, in the bottom section is our recreation and parks section. Um, and you can see the— again, same concept. Keep in mind there are many, especially in the recreation area, there are lots in there, but in the current year there's only— there was only one that really fit specifically through recreation. Um, you know, when we did the fitness center, that would have been a big one that was up in that top section, but that was kind of prior. And that's why, like you see, 2020, $1,103,000 is your total, but yet there's only the one co-sponsored development there. So keep that in mind as you're looking through that. Um, and then you'll see many of the— all— most of the items for the 2024 awards have been Proposed to be these various park-related programs. Oh yeah, let me put that up. Thanks. So there's those. Um, you'll notice the total on the far right, total for the arts, $1,685,000, and then the total for recreation parks, $1,685,000. Uh, attempting to try to follow that 50/50 split between the two. Um, I don't know if there are any questions about the process or about any of these in particular that, you know, jump off the page at you, you'd like to know about. Just because it's a bigger one, can you tell us Library Park, a little bit about that? Uh, so the Library Park, the, uh, down in the center courtyard area between the The adult set on the side and the youth side, that area down in there will be being developed into a park-type area. That's like an indoor park? Outdoor park? No, that part will be outdoor. Um, and then, and it'll be accessible, so they'll be changing the way that you can get in and out of there so that it'll be much more accessible. That's after the remodel is all done? And Correct. Yeah, I believe it's part of when they're destroying all of this, that would be part of that construction as well. I can jump in. We're hoping to do the library interior and exterior with our city projects so that everything's done at the same time. Okay, there you go. Up to date. We're hoping to add that to our contractor scope. Perfect. That's right.

Thank you.

And then the park there would have essentially a connection to our library programming. So one thing that we're looking at, essentially like a greenhouse or community garden sort of thing, that then we would do programming there, but also connect to some of the books and sort of education programming with the garden. Question? 2 questions.

Maybe you can just give just a general overview about how you make this—

how you make these decisions.

Because how do you decide who gets what? And then also there was one that was oddly specific.

I just want to know the story.

Orem Heritage Advisory Commission asked for $4,000, received $2,003.

Shy. Not $2,000, $2,003. I can tell the story about that too. So part of the process, as we, as we go through and evaluate each one, um, we're trying to evaluate, um, the impact on Orem residents.

So how many Citizens are—

does it—

coming to their events? How many citizens are part of that group? They're participating as part of that group, right? Because part of the requirement is obviously that they're, they're making— they have a performance here, or they have an event in a park that's here in, in the boundary of Orem, regardless of whether the entity actually resides in, in Orem itself. That does play into it. If they are an entity in and of themselves, then sure, that gives maybe a little bit extra thought to, yeah, we want to support you maybe a little bit more because of that. So, so those are some of the thought processes that go into it. You know, who are they helping in that regard? Is it truly art-related? Is it not just a small piece, but is it— do we actually think it's functionally part of the arts? In that regard. And then we deliberate on that process, comparing maybe what they received in prior years, how much money we have available, right? So initially, we may go through and everybody puts down what they think we should award to each one of those awardees. And then at the end of the night, when we're all done on the 2nd night, we each go back through and we start talking about each one of them and what we thought And kind of becomes a negotiation at that point of how much should we award them based on what everybody's thought process is. And we talked about their thought process as to why maybe they included this amount versus that amount. So that's the process that we generally go to until we get that number down into that, like I said, into that range. That's why I went to 10:30 at night. And that's why I went till 10:30 on that one night.

Well, we have a great commission of citizens that We all took our notes and we all prepared and came to a conclusion that these were the $2,000 or the $2,003. That was just because we were going to make it $118,000 even.

So, because you'll notice that 9— some of them are $999, $999 because they fall underneath either the categories, particularly the drop— don't want to drop them into a major category that has different requirements to it. So if you You add those all up, and like Dave said, we wanted to make it a nice— maybe next time you use the $3 for treats for the fishermen. That's not our— the $3 ain't got to go far, so let's hold it. That answer your question? Yes, thank you. Great. Any other questions? And it's, it's interesting through that process how anything else you can to this, how everyone was kind of on the same wavelength as far as how much they thought should be awarded to each one. And if someone had a different thought, we talked about it. And I want to give a shout out to some of our members who couldn't be here. Elsie was sick on the 2nd, but they still were willing to Zoom in to our meeting, despite the fact that they weren't able to be here on some of them on one night, some of them on another night. So we greatly appreciate that they made those efforts to be part of that, the decision-making in that regard. And so maybe we can, you know, your perspective.

Um, first of all, I'm very honored to have the opportunity to have any influence on these funds because very cognizant that these are taxpayer dollars that citizens have voted to say, yes, we will, we will take on this additional tax. We value the arts, we value the parks and recreation opportunities in the city. And so, as we kind of evaluate qualifications and the applications, we, you know, I really was trying to make sure that taxpayers got value back, you know, and a diversity of opportunities and options for people to have the experience with the art. Some of the groups are prioritizing operating free of ordinances. who really wouldn't pay $5, $10, $20 for something, they can still have an opportunity because of some of these funds we're helping to make more affordable for all citizens. So again, really grateful for the opportunity to be involved.

So any other final thoughts? I just, I just want to put Adam on the spot. And just get an idea, as your revenue's gone up through the CARES Act, what that's allowed you to do in terms of Sarah. Yeah, I'm sitting here, I'm a little emotional because I'm so glad that this thing passed again for 10 more years. Yeah, I mean, Sarah continues to grow year over year in attendance.

You know, we—

I mean, you've got hundreds of thousands of people that come and enjoy something annually at Sierra. And, and, um, uh, but as, as our, as our revenues have increased, our attendance increased, we've been able to do more, right? And, and grow, grow Sierra in, in ways that were only dreams before. And so we're, we're grateful for that. And, and also able to maintain facilities with the support for programming that we have. Um, we're, we're very grateful for the support of you all, uh, from CARE. Um, you know, that, that's a lot of money. And I, I explain to people that, uh, when you take out all your non-qual— you know this, all of you know this— but you, when you take out your non-qualifying expenses and that leaves qualifying expenses And you can ask for 35% of qualifying expenses, which end up being about 25 to 30% of your total expenses. And, and so rest assured that we're working very hard to bring in that other 65 to 70% through donors and sponsors and ticket sales and, and everything else to, you know, but CARE really helps. And, and we, we, we've said this in our application every year. Just one sentence: care allows organizations to thrive, not just survive. And, and we, we really feel that way, and we feel so strongly about it that we've left that sentence in every single year. Um, the arts need support. They always have needed support. They always will need support. But like you were saying, look what it does for our families, for our citizens. And all those that, that take part in what we're offering. It, it's just a great, great thing at Family City USA. Anyway, thank you. We appreciate it. I would like to just see some time because I've heard some of the stats as far as the number of kids that you teach over there and the programming. Just like to see a breakdown. Maybe we can visit the council just to all the different things that you're doing. So maybe that's an idea, program over there. Absolutely, we can provide that every year. Uh, we put together a CERO by the Numbers, and we can present that to you. Yeah, that'd be great.

Thank you, Mayor.

So also, I think, uh, it's your 40th anniversary outdoor. That's CERO Shell, 40 years.

40 years this year.

So, uh, that's huge, but we appreciate Adam and leadership shows and outserves a sense of community, and we, we're grateful for that. It's definitely a magnet. Mayor, some final thoughts. So as I mentioned, the recently passed— the fair tax was recently renewed. That renewal began April 1st here in 2024. And just to make sort of— again, back to Chris in particular— to remind and/or let you know The funds that we are awarding this right now, even though they get spent in our next fiscal year, are actually the funds that we've just collected in CARE tax here in fiscal '24. So it's always in arrears. So just to make you aware, right? So in a year, let's say it had passed, you would actually have got 1 more year of being able to use funds because we elected to say— we wanted to say when we very first started CARE. We wanted to say, you know what, we want to make sure we have the money before we go and tell all of these entities that, hey, yeah, you've been awarded this money, go spend it. Oh, sorry, we don't— we didn't get as much as we thought we were going to get. We're going to have to pull that back. We did not want that to happen, so we elected to save our money for a whole year before we actually started awarding it. So it's kind of offset by that one year. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, maybe the, the question about the, the library park gardens and indoor playground— we have Bryce here, we can put him on the spot and help him sort of remind us about some of the details about what we want, what's being proposed specifically for the Care Tax, the, the outdoor courtyard area. Did I— did we do visuals yet on that? I don't have those, Bryce.

Okay, perfect.

I know we shared them as part of the CIP a couple weeks ago, but essentially we are looking to activate both the courtyard in the library and then what will be the new south-facing wall to the plaza, which is after the demolition of this building. We will be activating those outdoor spaces as a city park, and so we will have a community and demonstration gardening element. We will have some seating, we will have some event space up on the upper plaza, which will be adjacent to the library hall. So we'd be able to do some indoor-outdoor event hosting. And then the children's patio was where I'm looking for children's—

Your playground?

No, no, no, no, no. The upstairs of the children's wing, it has another balcony. Balcony, thank you, that we will design. So we did a facility master plan to connect all 3 together. We'd have exterior egress that you'd be able to access all 3 areas. And while recognizing that it is a library first, it will become a part of the city parks system, and we'll look to develop it as such. So we've— we worked with Method Studio as part of our facility master plan this past year and used that facility master plan to develop a budget for that work. Is that—

how does that connect into the Freedom Pavilion?

Or does it? It does, yeah. So the budget is separate, but where we would have the old south-facing wall of the library, which is not quite up to what is being designed on the Freedom Plaza, this will use the same vendors, contractors, same materials. So it looks like a unified plaza rather than an old library south-facing wall next to this gorgeous brand new plaza Gold Star Monument. So it'll, it'll sort of connect the two. Through materials, trees, planting, stuff like that. And if I may also say, one thing that's been really neat for me to see is anytime you have a finite amount of money and multiple entities, you know, applying for it and coming with, you know, wonderful applications for things to do with that money. It brings up the possibility of competition, right? But working with Sarah, Adam, and bringing on Bryce with his creativity, Brandon with his excellent financial quantitative skills, I feel like we've been able to, rather than compete, get everyone to align under a body. mind, heart, and then, you know, one, one group rather than competing and fighting. So this list kind of represents trying to have that balance and coming together so we can benefit all those aspects of quality of life. That's all I have. So we will begin May 28th, our next council meeting, come forward with We'll put this up on the screen, but basically a resolution to approve, and/or if there were any changes that we wanted to make, we'd be making them at that time. Obviously, we would talk about them during that time to make any changes, and it felt like the group that we wanted to make. Anyway, that's all I've got. Thank you, Brendan. So we need a strategic direction here. We've got, uh, this MDT study update for about 30 minutes, then we're adjourning to a closed session, then we've got this food. So you guys prefer to grab the food now and eat during MDT, or you want to Hopefully you have enough time after having it here before your closed session. What's your pleasure? Yes, thank you. What does Jen think? It seems to make sense for me to grab a food while you watch this presentation. So let's just, let's just take a 3-minute break, grab food, right back. Oh, we need to have a prayer. My bad. We have a volunteer. Chris, you remember this song. Thank you, Mayor. We're grateful, Heavenly Father, for this beautiful afternoon. Thank thee for this day. We pray that the food that we partake of may bless and nourish us. Thankful for the opportunity we each individually have in our lives and various roles and responsibilities to help move forward the blessings of Orem for residents and all who come through our city. We are grateful for our many privileges, families, loved ones, those that are struggling. May we find resources that will assist and bless them. We are grateful for this day and pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.

We also have a birthday treat.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I can talk about it if you want me to, or I cannot. All right, are we ready to go?

Dinner and a show.

Popcorn. All right, we will, uh, We've got our MGT study, this update for the Justice Corps, fire, IT, development services, and, uh, Carrie and Carson are gonna take us down this path.

Yeah, and I, I know what most of you are thinking— there's still more reports. But as you could tell by the book on your desk, this is the last session of these, uh, presentations that we're going to be giving on these MGT um, departmental studies. Um, and if you want a good riveting, uh, read to wind down at the end of the day, the books are fantastic. Um, but we're going to just jump right into— I know we're short on time. Um, the first department we'll be talking about today is, is fire. Um, for this one, we specifically asked MDT to help give guidance to the city of Orem on our methodologies for allocating costs to the cities of Lyndon and Vineyard. For our fire and EMS services. Currently, they're, they're under different contracts because they came into the Orange Fire Department at different times, and we're trying to make that uniform. So we asked for some guidance on that. They found that they gave us some guidance based on their experience helping other fire departments across the country come up with cost formulas to allocate costs to cities for these types of services. And like I said, there's not a uniform way currently to get the finances back from the cities for the services that we provide to them for fire and EMS. So they provided us with a template with a— I guess you could call it a calculator based on several components, one being population size of cities. One being the, the call volume within the cities, and the last being fixed costs for being part of a fire department and those administrative costs that are associated with, with those. The next steps for that are currently ongoing as we meet with the cities of Linden and Vineyard to discuss these cost allocations of this new methodology, to update the contracts and get everyone on the same page. And the goal really is to make sure every city is being charged equitably and uniformly. Any questions on that?

Do you review that every year? Like, call volume, I guess, would be something that would change, right?

Yep, yep, it is an annual thing. It's all— it's a year in the rear as well, so that we know what the costs were, and it allows us to provide them with a budget in advance of their budget preparation. Um, because as you can tell, we just barely finalized— or we're getting there, we haven't finalized ours yet— and they wouldn't have enough time to pass their budgets with our updated costs. So it's always a year in the rears, but it is annual population, all volume, every—

yes, especially with the changes in Vineyard, right? We need to obviously be looking at that.

Yeah, perfect.

Thank you. Yep. Any other questions on those? Just out of curiosity, is there a And I don't know if you know the answer to this, but is there a significant difference between the call volume and the population, you know, the percentages across the 3 communities?

Yeah, there is a significant difference. One being Vineyard's a lot newer infrastructure. They don't have as many fires yet, despite their population size and growth. The other things that affect it are demographics. So aging populations get more ambulance calls. So there, there is a difference between the demographics, population, and age of the city.

And this is fire only. This is not police.

This is not police.

Does fire go out? You guys ever go together on anything?

Yeah.

How do you, how do you break those down? Do you count those with this?

You know what I mean?

Yeah, we capture that call as a medical call. Fire response, we capture that as medical. police call or mayor with a caption.

Okay.

And so, and in Orem, when we go together, they're tracked independent. PD gets a stat, fire gets a stat. Okay, thank you. So there is a dispatch element here. That dispatch is applicable to—

for both PD and fire, as Mike was mentioning, for midday.

That dispatch is not necessarily applicable To Vineyard, because as mentioned, that's through the county. Oh, okay. Good questions.

Is that something you want to further explore?

What do we—

do we need to?

I can just say the way it currently works, so you're aware, um, it's an immediate transfer. All of our Vineyard residents call 911, it goes to Valley dispatch. if it's medical call, it automatically routes to Provo via the dispatcher to then dispatch us. They maintain their own police dispatch to the Sheriff's Office. And so it's perfect.

Thank, thanks for that clarification.

Thank you. Yeah, and, uh, Provo— the way Provo Metro Dispatch charges us is based off of the populations of all 3 cities over here, Vineyard, Linden, and Orem. and our call volume with all 3 cities. And so that is accounted for in this methodology proposed by, uh, MGT. Yes. Okay, our next department we're going to be talking about is the Development Services Department, where they— MGT reviewed the staffing structure workload in the department and the permitting process within the department. Um, the Development Services Department as an entire organization is larger than the peer cities that were reviewed. That doesn't really, in MDT's opinion, matter though, because every city is different. Whether you house engineering and public works or development services, the work is getting done regardless. So they don't think there's a need for any reorganization because that is more of a, of a cost and there's no, uh, loss— losses in efficiency there. Um, the workload per worker, um, findings show that OREM is highly efficient with the building inspection process. Um, MGT, as you'll see, does— does find that some of our, um, building permits, um, and that, that division has a higher staffing level than some of the peer cities, um, which is a good thing actually with the state legislature modifying that bill where the city has to, um, go, uh, on-site within and conduct inspections within 3 days. Um, so we were very proactive in that area, so it's going to be very beneficial to Orem. And because it is so hard to find building inspectors, um, which we've been able to attract and retain them for for future, um, as people retire, we'll have enough staffing there. Um, when building permit demand does go down, um, they do say that there's always an opportunity to reduce that staffing through attrition. For the permitting process, um, their finding was that we were largely efficient there. So, uh, good for the development services. department on that. The next steps, like I said, are determining in the future what the demand is for building inspections and what the staffing levels look like. And then in the future as well, tying the permitting system to our other systems that are used by Public Works, if at all possible, where they go in and do their inspections for water. and different utilities. Uh, but they say the cost of that currently would be way too expensive for any value we could get out of that. Any questions on development services?

All right.

Okay, IT. A lot of questions here. Um, we asked MPT to look at their organizational structure and their staffing levels. Um, we asked them to look at— because you'll see Warren's IT department is one of the most unique maybe in the nation where we develop internal software. Um, and they investigated whether there should be a, a project or quality manager that you have in software firms that develop software as well for internal services. Um, they also asked about— or we asked about investigating IT help desk for after hours, for specifically for police department when they need, you know, IT help, and best practices for internal software development versus third-party software. And this is a really long list. Um, I'll summarize it really quickly for you. Um, our IT department, when you count developers, has more IT to staff than other, other cities. But when you exclude those software developers, we have less, meaning we're more efficient in our IT help to our city staff than other cities. And we have the added benefit of internal software development for customizations that fit for workflows of various divisions and departments of the city. They do think that it would be beneficial for the city to have a project manager to work on these developing— or these, uh, internal software development projects, um, to make sure everything is on time, on track, and meeting the expectations of the departments or divisions that are requesting those services. Um, however, uh, the city recently had a, a reorganization of the IT department that I'm sure Terry will, will talk about here after I finish up. Um, that has allowed a larger focus on development and security, and therefore more, uh, focus on that quality assurance and project management for software development. So we believe the city is already meeting that now with, uh, project management. Did you want to add anything to that, Carrie, with the IT divisions?

Um, yeah, so we did split the IT division into 2 divisions. Uh, a lot of it was spurred from the need to have a project manager over the development team. But also in the last legislative session, um, there was a new bill that requires us to have more strict rules when it comes to security. And so by having, um, someone be over security, um, with the city, we feel like that we'll be able to make sure that we protect our, our, uh, virtual assets.

Yep.

So a great, great innovative change there with the department meeting these needs that are being recommended by MGT. Um, for the help desk, 24/7 help desk, MGT did not find that it was necessary for the city to have somebody, um, 24/7 or after hours because only 10% of requests come in after hours, and there's somebody already on call in IT if there's a, a big situation that that would need those, uh, types of services. And lastly, because we do build our internal software, they do point out in the report that this is very unique, um, amongst peer cities in our peer group and nationally. Um, but the quality of the products they found are really good, especially because each department division can ask for customizations, which you cannot do with third parties, and integrations with other city software. So that software communicating with each other, it makes our staff have an easier time moving through their workflows, and it makes them more efficient. They just recommend always conducting a buy versus build analysis for software needs in the city, which we currently already do. So the next steps, they, they talk about building, building out a plan for how to measure third-party software versus internally developed software. Our city has a—

what is that thing called that meets to choose software development projects? Steering committee.

The steering committee. Thank you. So they have a steering committee that goes— they work together to review all the requests coming in, and they work together to determine whether there's a third-party solution that's better or if it merits an internal development for those customizations.

Carson, if I don't keep you aligned, I, I wanted to add that this IT steering committee is the executive leadership team, so that each department has buy-in on which projects that the developers should be working on.

Yep.

Thanks, Carrie. All right. Okay. Were there any questions on IT? I know that was a lot of information. So I guess in summary, We are unique, and it's pretty cool, actually. And I think we stand out amongst our peers. It's not normal. That does not mean we're not efficient. I think it means we're more innovative, and it leads to greater efficiency.

All right, Justice Court, the last one.

We have MGT look at various court hearing formats. Oh, and I wanted to recognize—

oh, Joey.

Jody's here. She's our Justice Court administrator.

And—

Okay, we had to go back. We're in all the jury trials.

Oh, okay. Well, great. Well, thank you for attending, Jody. Um, and as you'll see, she has a great team at the Justice Court, and the work they do is, uh, great compared to our peers. Um, and we asked them to evaluate the staffing workload, which we'll— which I was just touching on. Um, so court format— our, our Justice Court operates, um, in a hybrid format. So there are virtual hearings and there are in-person hearings. Um, this was initiated at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic so that we could continue to operate our courts through those, uh, those, uh, stay-at-home times. And that has continued on into the present time with those hybrid hearings. Currently, our, our Justice Court staff all operate in person, but— and the judge comes in person occasionally. The city, the city leadership voiced a strong preference for the judge to come in person so that people who prefer court in person would have that option, um, and MGT agreed with that assertion. However, justice courts operate under a different branch of government, and the justice court judge has the discretion on whether or not those hearings should be in person or virtual, except for jury trials, which are mandated by the state to be in person. Um, and then the last finding is that Orange Justice Court is more productive than the peers. Um, our Justice Court staff all handle more caseload casework than the peers for the amount of staff you would have. Um, so they did find that we were efficient, very efficient in our Justice Court. And yeah, we definitely commend Jody for her work over there. And I know when we were meeting with MDT and the uh, Justice Court that they were saying that our peers look up to our Justice Court and call us for recommendations and advice on how to innovate and change and be efficient.

And Carson, if you don't mind, Jody does a fantastic job of being innovative. And part of the reason why that you can be more, um, responsible with your staffing is because we have done some internal software development too that has made them the flagship court, right, for our state. So yeah.

Um, and then I just wanted to hit on one more thing at the end of the conclusion of this, uh, big study. I, I saw this in the introduction to the report, and I just wanted to make sure you guys read it because I thought it was great and is a great summary of this whole process. Um, they put their overall consultant impression in here, which I thought was was nice and unexpected. Um, but they say that the consultant's impression is that the departments were open-minded about the findings and were eager to learn ways in which they could be better and improve their efficiencies.

There were no—

there was no resistance. People were open to change, um, open to innovation. And I just think that speaks to the, the leadership of the city for initiating the study, which they talk about here. And, and for our executive staff who helped coordinate the— and lead MGT in the right direction, provide all the data. Our city staff are phenomenal. I love working with them. I love this opportunity to work on this report because I got to know everyone, and I do know that everyone in our city is striving to be efficient. They are open to innovation and are continuously doing it. Even during this report, it was really hard for MGT to get a poll goals, because while they were doing it, our staff was already at work making changes. Um, so it, it was a great exercise, and I, I know that we've already started acting on these recommendations and will continue to do so, um, after this report is done.

If I can add to that, I would say the worst thing that could be done with any study is that it just Gets put on the shelf and collects dust. And that became a continual topic of conversation is how do we implement? How do we apply? How do we get these things done? And so I would say that not only has it not just become a book of recommendations that gathers dust on the shelf, it's become I think part of our culture of continuous improvement and building a better OHRP. And that, some evidence of that is not only that I think in every one of these presentations we've said, this is the recommendation and we're already doing it, but also in the creation of our Strategy and Innovation Division that is continuing to take new ideas and recommendations from all levels of the organization and studying out quantitatively and qualitatively the different ideas that are coming up from, again, employees everywhere. So, so we genuinely have enjoyed this process, enjoyed this study, and wanted to be a part of just who the Orem employee family is. I think, I think this, I mean, this study is a big deal in that not that many cities do this type of study as far as do a deep dive onto, you know, what's going on. And we've done it on 2 levels. We did it on employee happiness and we did it on employee, you know, just as far as the day-to-day processes and everything else. So the goal was to get us to best practices in this. And so anyway, I don't know that people really know. this, but I think it's a huge plus. Uh, I mean, I tell people all the time, you know, I mean, because people talk about government employees, I tell them, okay, I don't see OREM as government employees. OREM is run a lot different, uh, a lot, a lot more like a regular business in that their employees are working hard.

They want to improve.

They want to be the best. They want to really make a difference. And that's, you know, They should be proud of that. But I think this study is taking that next level. We got to consider, um, just letting people know that the city went through this process. We can even go as far as to put some of these studies on our transparency website. But we should talk about ways to get this out because this really is impressive for the city to step back, embrace this, and any areas that can be improved for approval. So, I don't think about that.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right, thank you guys so much.

Thank you. Thanks for speaking. Okay, so what I'm thinking about doing is— and you probably know as far as this closed-door meeting we're having, right?

Yeah.

As far as an estimated time, what I'm thinking about is Continuing through everything and then adjourning to a closed session so we can come back and just— Yeah, I think that's great. I don't think we're going to need a ton of time for the closed meeting. I mean, 10 minutes maybe.

It's just going to be a pretty brief update, I think.

Yeah. All right, well, let's go ahead and go through everything, and that way we can just adjourn to closed meeting. So we've got a general review right now. We've got city council reports, boards and commissions, new business. Uh, Jeff, if you'd like to tell us about your boards and commissions. Absolutely. Um, and I've got a whole lot of time to do it, so please. So, uh, my commissions— I serve on the Transportation Advisory Commission, uh, with Tiger Bowen and John Dorney. We meet monthly and we discuss a lot of issues with traffic. Obviously, we've had our eye especially on 400 East and 1600 North and the roundabout, just give you kind of an ever-changing situation. And then all of the, you know, 1600 North and the road and all the things happening there. And then we had some great discussions recently as well. about crosswalks, crossings, and ways to improve those for kids, uh, and, and others crossing streets. Um, something else that's, that's been a lot of fun with regards to that is the bike forum group. Uh, they've been pretty involved with bike lanes and improving in that area. And I just want to give a shout out that May 16th, in 2 days, is Bike Tour Day. And there are some different stations set up throughout the city. There's one at the rec center. Is there one here, Bryce? I see you shaking your head. There's one at University Place. And then one up at the Mueller Group up on the Murdoch Canal Trail. And they'll have different things that they'll be passing out and doing those different stations. So if you can find a way to ride your bike to work that day, that would be awesome. And if not, at least stop in the morning at one of those stations. So, so what's going to be going on at stations? Um, people are listening there. So I think different things at the different stations, but I think they'll have like granola bars, things that they'll give. So people be just riding to these different stations and Yeah, so the, the plan was to have these at different routes depending on where you were, that you could just ride in, stop in, get a free hot tub, or bike work or something. That'd be a good way. Um, the CARE Commission, we just had probably the best report on that, and everyone, what we've just learned. So that's, that's one of my commissions. Dave and Spencer and I sit on that, and Brandon and Trevor have been amazing to work with on that. if they put it in the free account. Uh, the Heritage Commission, uh, with Pete and Kenneth, so they'll be giving a report, uh, in our council meeting this evening. They've got Memorial Day program all wrapped up, and, uh, so we'll hear from them, uh, a little more in detail about that. But they're in need of some more members. If you know of anyone that, that would like to serve on a patriotic, uh, service-oriented commission How many do you need? Uh, 2 or 3 would be good.

So is it a 5-commission?

So you're down—

I think we've got— we thought we had another, wasn't able to do it, so I think we're down to 2.

Okay.

Uh, Utopia, um, they, uh, are continuing to grow. Uh, Ora is continuing to gain subscribers, uh, on a monthly basis. And they're adding in some new cities and, and, uh, doing some different things to improve there. Um, I can't remember if I reported this last time or not, but they, they recently did a refinance and restructure on the Utopia bonds, which will save about $8.3 million on the life of the bond, which is good. And then, um, their budgeted, uh, fiscal year '24, they will be paying for them, $958,136 per year. Uh, and it also tells you that will go up this year, '25, to over $1 million we'll pay for them, $1,027,000. So that's continuing to grow, get a little better each year. So, and then, um, the last one is the UVU Community Relations Well, I think you're doing well there. I want to give a shout out. I'm not sure who pulled this together. Probably Pete has something to do with this. But recently there was— it was the landscape design class. They had a professor that they had a design competition. And what they did is they partnered with OEMC staff, other words, and they were able to— is that you, Carson?

Yeah, with a lot of help.

Awesome. So thank you, everyone. I think so. So what they did is they had this competition. And so you have these design students that were working with people that are already in the field doing what they're going to school to do. So they're working with best of the best here at Long City. And they're learning all kinds of things on the job, the latest, the latest technologies, and they're getting real-life experience. And they're learning, they're learning to talk the language. They're just rubbing shoulders and really having a great experience that it was fun. We actually went and presented some awards And they were just— they were on fire with what they had learned and the way that that experience had gone for them. I really think it would be awesome to duplicate that in lots of other ways with you. And we've got this pool of students and giving them the opportunity to come and work side by side with different people in Orange City departments, whatever field it is that they're studying. And And I think it would just be something that we could mirror over and over and over again and give them a real-life look at reality, what they're going into. But more importantly than that, give them the opportunity of working with the best of the best. And so, well, to learn of the things that we just heard about in this study, innovation, you know, and coming up with new ideas and new ways to see things, you know, things that have never been done before. We can do that at work. So it's wonderful. So huge kudos, huge shout out. I think it would be something that would be awesome to just keep rolling that ball, duplicate it. Okay, well, thank you. Just one quick question on Utopia. So are we still paying money into Utopia?

But we're getting money back.

Can you clarify that? So currently we've been down $3+ million each year as part of the sales tax pledge on the original bonds that were issued back when they started.

And then they have—

as their finances have improved, they now contribute back close to a million now, um, as part of paying, if you will, a dividend on their earnings each year. Obviously, the eventual hope is that we would be able to stop paying pledge, and then potentially even start recovering some of the money that we had previously paid the bank. So to put it in perspective, as far as originally, we were paying, say, entire $4 million or whatever, right? Now we're getting back So, so we started out paying more and now we're paying— Originally it was around $2.5 million, in that $2.2, $2.5, somewhere in that range when the pledge went into effect. It has risen to $3.2 or so, $4, somewhere in that range, because it has an escalator every year as the bonds have additional principal payments on them. And so it's risen approximately $1 million from when we started having to pay it to this point. And that will continue as that until such point as the bond starts on its downward trend. And then I believe that it stabilizes. But the city is, as Utopia as a whole has got stronger and financially better. Then they've now been able to produce income that they've been able to return to the city. I don't know. So, so, so the net— so the net is we're still paying approximately $2.5— $2 to $2.5 million of sales— of our sales tax towards their bond payments. Okay, but, but that amount has gone down by this dividend, right? Continue decreasing because they've built out their entire network. It's built up, right? That, that escalator that I talked about, that is being covered for sure every year. And then they attempt to try to make an extra amount above that with their revenue base. So, okay, yeah, so it's going in the right direction. In some cases, small increments, but it is getting more. How long is that bond? It goes till '24. There is something else that Brandon said there that's important, is that Utopia is keeping track of essentially what our city is paying from our sales tax. And that essentially is an increasing liability on their books. So then even when their bonds retire, they would continue to pay us back what we put in over time.

What's your anticipated timeframe on that?

It's a way out there, long, 40 more years, long after we're Right.

Tell me, 40 years?

2070?

30 years? Oh my gosh, really? 2070?

If they continue on their current trend, it might be sooner.

So say that one more time.

If they continue on their current trend, it could be sooner. Yes. So it's a long time. Okay. Right now, they currently project that right about the time when the bonds fall off is about when they would be paying About what the bond amounts are. And so, but the, the— so it's good that they're keeping track of all of our money in, because that— it means that when the bonds fall off, they won't stop paying us, or they won't start paying us less after that.

Now, that's with the caveat of that they're still in business.

Yes, that they continue along the current trend.

Which, with technology, you just never know, right?

Yes, but fiber optic is More of the higher end.

That's our hope, huh?

Okay. It's the latest. They also do calculated interest on that payable.

Okay.

So the amount that is due us not only includes the amount originally paid, but an interest calculation.

Nice.

It's based off of the PTIF rate. So that's part of why I say it could be a long time if you're talking about not only the original principal that we paid in, but also the interest that's been accrued.

Yeah, yeah, I saw your sticker.

That'll be a nice bonus starting in 2024. Somebody, hopefully us, children, be 29 still.

Be 29 still. That's right.

Okay, well, thanks, Jack, for all those updates. Okay, um, let's just run through the Tonight's agenda. Got item 3, call to order, invocation. Who invited?

That's me.

Okay, so Chris, I'll just let you introduce them. Okay, and then we've got, uh, item number 6, mayor's report. So we'll have an annual judicial report. Judge Barka. We'll have item 6.2, Heritage of I-3 Memorial Day program, and item 6.3, National Police Week recognition. Item 6.4, a recognition—

excuse me—

for National Public Works Week. And 6.5, a proclamation for Building Safety Month. 6.6, Utah Valley Chamber of Business Up and Mucked. Curtis Flair, Chamber. Item 6.7, UCOPA accreditation for police department. Item 6.8, recognition from custodial staff from Mark Sanderson, our fire chief. And then we'll have item 7, which is personal appearances.

We move on to our consent items.

8.1, approval of meeting minutes. 8.2, recreation and binding conditions. And that's appointments— Mike Jones, Reed Payne, and Doug Charding. And we're all good with that.

And then we've got 8.3, a resolution, adopt construction standards and specifications.

Thank you for that. Um, I have 9 scheduled items. Public hearing, rezone ordinance, amending Article 22-5-3 and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 442 North 300 West from R-75 to R-65. Chase, tell us about that. I have 9.2, a resolution. Adopting the Warren City— or the City of Warren fiscal year '24-'25 tentative budget. It's Brandon. Hours and hours of fun there. Is that it? No, I hope not. I'm just trying to get a general feel for, you know, where we're going. Mayor, it doesn't say on the agenda, but that needs to be a public hearing also.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Davis. Okay, and then 9.3, discussion, uh, which is a follow-up on the school district considerations. Item number 10, communications items. Item 11, city manager information items. And on 12, adjourn to a meeting of the Orem Redevelopment Agency. And that looks like it's just RDA consent items, RDA scheduled items, recognition. I believe that's also— so, so item 14.1 is a public hearing.

All right.

Okay, okay. It's been a while since we've had item 15 adjourned to another meeting, the Warm Springs Special Service District Lighting District. Um, item 16, set items. Item 17, scheduled items. Same thing there. Yeah, close to late. I'm not expecting a lot of public comment. I don't know. Item number 18 adjourned. So by the time— 7 o'clock. Okay, I'm calling it. Okay, so let's Uh, let's go ahead and adjourn this to a closed session in Room 107, and then from there we'll just find a seat.

Chair, I make a motion that we adjourn to a closed session in Room 107.

I second.

Do I need a purpose? To discuss the purchase of or lease of real property.

I second.

We're adjourned.

I wish that, like, you know, after doing something like Hillcrest, we could, we could have just gone home. You know, that would have been a fun way to end the day. Yeah.

Nope, we just go to long meetings.

Um, I am not. She's the deputy PIO.

And then the recorder is— she doesn't have her nameplate yet.

She's new. She doesn't have a name tag?

Not yet. It's been ordered.

How long has it been? Uh, 2 weeks. Yeah, not long.

How long?

2 weeks.

2 weeks it takes to make a plaque?

Well, we had to make sure she was going to stick around.

Well, I'll tell you what, if you treat her right, if you bring her goodies once in a while I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome everyone here tonight. We're going to start out with an invocation and a Pledge of Allegiance, and Chris has asked Susan Erickson and Rod Erickson if they would do that. But Chris, I'd like you to welcome your friends.

Thank you very much. I'd like to, uh, acknowledge and recognize Suzanne Erickson and Rod Erickson. They're wonderful residents of Horam and, and grateful for all they do to benefit all of us. They're model citizens. Particularly call the service that they both rendered when a member of a family is in the military services. They all are as a family, so we're grateful. Rod Erickson has provided service to our country for nearly 40 years in the Army and and completed his service as a lieutenant colonel and now is part of our city and, and raised here and now retired here and, and continuing forward. So grateful to have them here and, and appreciate their being willing to offer the prayer and provide us the pledge. Thank you very much. Great neighbors, great friends.

Okay, thank you. We'll start with Suzanne. Suzanne giving the invocation.

Our Father in heaven, we come before thee and give thee thanks for the blessing of being in this country where we have freedom.

We give thee thanks that for those who work to preserve our freedoms and that we have a voice We pray that thou bless the leaders of this country, that they will work for the good of the people of this country and for our freedoms.

We pray that thou bless this city council meeting today, that voices of the community will be heard and understood.

and decisions will be made that will be for the best of this community. We thank thee, Heavenly Father, for all that thou hast blessed us with, and we say these things in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Please rise for the pledge.

Please join me at 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.

Thank you. We've got several items on the mayor's report tonight, referred— mayor's report referred by the council. We'll go to item 6.1, and this is our annual judicial report with Judge Parkin. If you'd like to come up.

Mayor David Young and members of the council, is this on? Good evening to you, and thank you for all that you do. I look forward each year to the opportunity to give an annual report to the City of Orem Justice Court, or on the City of Orem Justice Court. Jody Tenno is the court administrator. She's here with us tonight as well.

You may have met her.

I appreciate her great work and the work of all of our clerical staff who day in and day out handle the workload and the public. In a professional and dignified manner. I so much appreciate their good service and the great attitudes they have in dealing with the public. I'm also thankful and grateful to be entrusted to be involved in the work of the people, a duty to keep our community safer, a duty to fairness, and a duty to maintain the independence of a judiciary. I might start also tonight vindicating the invitation. If you have any questions at the end, please ask if there's time, if you want to. If there's not time and you have questions, I'm happy to meet with anyone individually at any time and talk about the court in any manner if you so desire. I wish to highlight some of the ways which the court has been recognized since its existence and a few examples of how we engage students in judicial services. The City of Orem Justice Court has been recognized in many ways over the 14 years of its existence. I have received Judge of the Year, Our court received Court of the Year, and our court administrator was recently recognized for her contributions to the statewide clerk certification program. These recognition— recognitions have led us to be asked to pilot new programs. We co-piloted and participated in an online dispute resolution program involving small claims cases for the state of Utah. We're also gearing up to be a pilot court for the newly rewritten state case software for the recordings of minutes in courts, and we plan to start that copilot program this fall. We have had the fortune— we've been fortunate to have interns from Alpine School District, UVU, and BYU assist us at the Orem Justice Court. It's a great community partnership to help students learn more about the court, and a few of them have even become our employees. All of our customers are not happy to be in court. Shockaroo. But they are treated fairly and have an opportunity to be heard. The mission statement for this court reads as follows: The mission of the Utah Judiciary is to provide the people an open, fair, efficient, and independent system for the advancement of justice under the law. I feel as a court that we have done that and will continue to strive to be dignified and professional in carrying out our— out this mission. I'm passionate about how we treat and how we communicate with individuals who find themselves in the courtroom. The court is a very busy court. Last year, the court handled 11,340 cases. This included 9,811 traffic cases, 993 criminal cases, and 536 small claims cases. Our court is busy, as I've indicated, and we strive to provide the best customer service through efficient use of technology, and providing various options for the public to interact with us. It's important for us to provide easy access to justice, so court staff are available by phone, email, text, and in person to accommodate the public. For the full 10 years of history of summary of information of this court, I've included at the back of my report all 14 years of history— or 10 years worth of history of statistics, and it's part of the packet you should have received.

Thank you.

I wish to address the importance of independence of a judiciary in my remarks, how its independence helps to strengthen the community and thwarts corruption. When we keep strictly to the legislative branch working to make the policies of society and allow for enforcement of those policies by the executive branch of government, and we allow for the independent judiciary to place— to be in place where the accused can appear and be received with fairness and due process, then we are at a strong strongest. Any erosion of these principles weakens the systems intended by the writers of the Constitution in our governments. An extreme example you're familiar with of the erosion of the separations of powers principles occurred in Germany of 1930 and carried out for many years later. Even though legislative bodies passed laws supporting dictatorship-style principles, and even though executive branch members enforced those new laws, I emphasize that it was It was not until the judiciary became so polluted and corrupt, failing the people, did Nazi Germany officially come into existence, from a 3-branch system to a dictatorship. This is because the people had no place to go to uphold long-held constitutional-based values. When lines between branches of government become muddied, then the people have no safe harbor to turn. When there are no clear roles between officials, we who create laws, and our policy, from those who enforce it, and to my point, from a judiciary who rules on cases brought before them, then society suffers greatly. The breaking down and evolving from the 3-branch government system to a sole dictatorship did not take place overnight, but occurred slowly over time. The ultimate display— I'll just give this a chord— judges used to swear oaths to Constitution, and supporting the laws, which is familiar. Each of us did the same when we took our oaths. But not at this time. The oath was replaced with this verbiage, and I quote, I swear loyalty to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, obedience to law and conscientious fulfillment of the duties of my office, so help me God. It switched from Constitution to a person. Unfathomable in our day. Not one judge in history stood up and defended and refused to take oath. That's shameful in my opinion. There was one attorney though who did, and he swore a letter to his brother, and I quote, I could not swear an unlimited oath of loyalty and obedience to a man who is bound neither by law Nor by the traditions of justice. It is very fortunate that we are not in this state. We all know the horrors of history around the world, of horrible dictatorships and the damage they cause to human lives. So is judicial independence important for the Justice Court?

Absolutely.

Litigants need a place of fairness and independence. Prosecutors who allege offenses and those defendants accused of committing crimes both equally need an atmosphere where all parties can present in an open and objective manner, a place where facts can be applied to the law and decisions can be rendered that are free from improper influences of politics, media, and other interests. Our state constitution and laws enacted by our state legislature provides the framework for a healthy and independent judiciary and are particularly instructive. Title 78 of Utah Code Annotated, Chapter 7, verse— Chapter 101 Reads as follows. Its general title is Creation of Justice Courts, and it reads: Under Article 8, Section 1, Utah Constitution, there is created a court not of record known as the Justice Court. The judges of this court are Justice Court judges. A Justice Court is a court of the state in accordance with Section 78A-1-101. A part of the state, a part of the state judiciary, even though the justice court is funded and staffed by a municipality or county and independent from the other branches of government for a municipality or county. A justice court may not be treated as part of the executive or legislative branches of offices of a municipality or county. A municipality or county may not, may only operate a justice court as authorized summarized by this chapter. The City of Orem has had a Justice Court since September 1st, 2010. This body— not you individually, but this body— in 2009 gave the policy decision to the executive branch to petition the state judiciary for permission to run a Justice Court. It was granted and has been in existence now for 14 years this September. This relationship is governed by a certification process. Every 4 years, cities and counties asked to renew their commitment to adhere to the independent principles, fund justice courts, and follow state laws and rules created by the judiciary to ensure that judicial business is conducted in a manner that upholds constitutional values. Orem City has been a good partner when it comes to measuring up to these standards. And I'd like to highlight Mr. Brandon Nelson, who sits to my left, whom you do know, whom we interact most with, with within the city of Orem has been the perfect gentleman. It's an honor to serve this great community of Orem. I appreciate those who are willing to run for office and join the hands with others to protect and to improve lives. Thank you, Council, for your service and your support. Thank you for all you do. May we all act in accordance with our constitutional duty. May we all uphold the laws of this great state and ordinances of this great city as we serve our great citizenry. Thank you for your time. Any questions?

So, Judge, um, I've been on the council quite a while, and you've been very impressive over the years, and I appreciate your leadership and, and the way you run your court. And it's just props to you because you guys do a great job. So we appreciate you.

Well, thank you. Jody Tenno is the one. She carries it. We all know the importance of our staff. Any other questions?

Just a comment. Thank you for the history lesson and reminding us how precious freedom is and how, how easy it would be to lose that. You know, to learn from others' mistakes in the past is a huge lesson to learn. And so thank you for bringing that to our knowledge and to the forefront that You know, we, we see what happens when people don't stand up, and, well, you're— things can slide very quickly.

You're welcome. But the city of Orr has been, uh, the perfect gentlemen to work with and coordinate judicial functions with. So, any other questions? Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Judge.

And Mayor, I need to go back to a jury trial. We're in the middle of a jury trial, so I better go back and finish that trial.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Let's move on to item 6.2, uh, a report from the Heritage Advisory and Memorial Day program.

Yes, as the judge was speaking, it reminded me of 1964, just before— about a week before I left on my mission. I got pulled over for an illegal U-turn on State Street. And I appeared before Judge Joey, who I happened to be his home teacher.

Wow.

And that courthouse was about the size of this room, the whole building, with the basement being the library and the courthouse up on the top floor. Man, have you ever grown, Orm City. Under great leadership, and I want to personally thank the mayor and the city council for your leadership.

In—

at one point in our history, the Heritage Commission was established to help preserve our heritage and to promote patriotism in our community, in our schools, and to help us to remember those that have served to protect our freedoms. Last year, the American Legion performed 101 funerals doing their gun salute and flag presentation. The Heritage Commission is also responsible for 2 patriotic programs a year, the Veterans Day and the Memorial Day, plus other responsibilities. At this time, I'd like to invite The mayor and the city council and all the citizens of the great community of Orem to attend our Memorial Day program that this year we've moved it to 10 o'clock AM, hoping that more will be able to get up to attend. And it will be on Memorial Day, May 27th. Last year we were pleased to, as our keynote speaker, Councilman Spencer's father, who delivered a wonderful message. We also had Mayor Young's father participate. I believe he helped in exchanging the POW flag, and we hope to have Some participation from the community this coming Memorial Day. Also, our keynote speaker for this program will be Jack Rhodes, who was a warrant officer and a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. He will be introduced by Ott Dameron.

Hi.

Who was a Navy aircraft— I should say a Navy pilot that landed on aircraft carriers. He has some great experiences there also. So with that, we'll extend an invitation to the City Council and the mayor and all the citizens of Orem to attend our celebration on Memorial Day. My good friend Pete, and also I must mention McKenna, do a super job in helping us to prepare the program and getting the word out. I appreciate them. So Pete, do you have anything to add?

All I wanted to say was that it's been said in this very room that Bryce has the best job in the city, so I'd like to claim the second best job in the city, and a lot of that has to do with working with Rodney and our great Heritage Commission. I love what they do in promoting patriotism, and we have a great Memorial Day program planned for you, so I hope everyone can make it out.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rodney and Pete. And just to back up, um, Pete, so we've talked about this quite a bit. Memorial Day program is a great event, and we've moved it to 10 AM And our intent is for this year to be one of the biggest ones we've had. And so we're going to be inviting, you know, city employees, city council, all your friends, and just from this point forward, start getting the word out because there's nothing like a huge group up there and right there in the cemetery. It's awesome. So Pete's going to make it big this year.

Thank you.

Um, item 6.3, uh, a recognition of National Police Week. This is BJ Robinson.

Mayor, City Council, it's my privilege to recognize, uh, National Police Week. Uh, it began Sunday and continues, um, throughout the week. A little bit of history: in 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation which designated May 15th as Police Officers Memorial Day and the week in which that date falls as National Police Week. Beginning in 1984, each year prior to National Police Week, the names of the officers fallen in the line of duty from the previous year are engraved on the walls of National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Memorial located in Washington, D.C. Chief Adams and a contingent of officers this year participated in those memorial services. Chief rode in the, the bike ride, which culminates in a candlelight vigil on Sunday. I participated in that event in 2007. And today still remains as being probably one of the most inspiring and humbling experiences of my lifetime. In addition to the names of the fallen, also engraved are a few inspirational phrases below statues of lions. One phrase is a plea for all of us to remember: it's not how these officers died that made them heroes, it's how they lived. Another is a proverb: 28, verse 1. The wicked flee when no man pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. On another, there is valor, in valor there is hope. So as we finish out National Police Week, I ask, ask yourself, how can we best memorize these fallen officers? We can be a little better than we were yesterday. Today, we can live as they lived. We can be better by serving one another and just look to be a little bit better. Look for those opportunities and pounce upon them before they pass by and it becomes too awkward to act. We can be as bold as a lion in defense of all ill-treated in the face— in face of the bully or the abuser. Let us watch how fast the bully runs when the courageous grow in number, standing our ground and collectively saying, hey, this is Orem, we don't do that here. No, your Orem Police Department is filled with honorable men and women who answer the call on the daily to serve our community, and we say, hey, this is Orem, we don't do that here. It's my privilege to be numbered among them. For right or wrong, for better or worse, it's not our job. It's not what we do to make a living. It's part of who we are. And to the citizens of Orem, we are your police department.

We love you.

We love this city, the diversity of the people which make it up, this community. We are grateful For your continued and outpouring support of the council and from the citizens that we feel on the daily, and especially after this week when our wounds are still fresh from the the death of Sergeant Hooser. They're still fresh in our minds. This love and support from our community and the brotherhood of law enforcement was on full display this last Monday yesterday. For the funeral services of Sergeant Hooser. The talents of Peter Wolflier were able to capture some of those moments, and as the saying goes, I'm sure his footage is better than the thousand words that I've spoken to you here today. He's going to play a video that shows some of the procession yesterday. I'd ask at the end of this that we all pause for a moment and in your own way Say thank you for the service of the fallen men and women of law enforcement. Mayor and City Council, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you for that, BJ. Next, we've got item 6.4, and this is another recognition. This is National Public Works Week with Chris Shirkey.

Well, I don't know what to say. I can't really follow that, I don't think. So, uh, appreciate the— all of the men and women who, who protect us and our freedoms. So, um, our National Public Works Week is a— it's a recognition that takes place next week, May 19th to May 24th. And I just wanted to share with you a few, a few items and an invitation. Our budget this year is just over $57 million, so it's approximately half of the Orem city budget. We have 118 full-time employees and approximately 50 part-time employees. We have 8 divisions. This year we created a new division. It's called our GIS division, our Geographic Information Systems Division that has 6 people that are dedicated to providing asset management for all of our utilities and major assets of all of the infrastructure for which we provide services to the city and its citizens. We've— we're divided in our department in 2 areas. One is our Water Resources area. Reed Price is our my assistant division manager, our assistant public works director over that area. And also Tyler Pay is here tonight. I'd like to recognize Tyler as an assistant public works director as well over public services. In water, we have 479 miles of water pipe and delivery systems, over 24,000 water meters. In water reclamation, we have over 300 miles of sewer pipe, and we treat over 3 billion gallons of wastewater annually. In stormwater, we have 100 miles of stormwater pipes and 1,900 injection wells, 47 detention basins. Our parks are comprised of 25 employees who manage over 25 parks, almost 300 acres of property, and they also help and assist with our cemetery, urban forestry, and volunteer programs. We've been keenly aware of some interest by the City Council to enhance our volunteerism in the City of Orem, and we are looking to ramp that up and join efforts with other community leaders. Our Traffic Operations Group has 6 full-time employees. They manage 79 traffic signals, 13,500 signs, and 6,300 streetlights, of which 99.5% of those are lit today, or will be tonight when you go home. So we have about 0.5% of those that aren't functioning properly that we are giving attention to. In fleet, we have 345 licensed vehicles and approximately 675 other pieces of small equipment, 245 40 pieces of other equipment. They do a fantastic job. Our streets group, I just kind of created a little motto as I was sitting there. Tyler, I haven't passed this by you yet, but a motto that I like to present for streets is, no pothole goes unfilled. So they maintain hundreds of— over 500 miles of streets and, uh, in and the complementary curb gutter sidewalk. We also have 3 boards and commissions that we're involved with. Beautification— Councilwoman Jen Gale is a part of that group. Their focus most recently has been on community gardens and also urban forestry. We had Arbor Day presentation at our last council meeting. We have a Public Works Works Advisory Commission. Councilman Tom McDonald is a representative on that. The biggest nut that we have to crack there is a $160 million Orem Water Reclamation Facility capital facility plan and financing plan for that. We also have a local district, it's called the Metropolitan Water District of Orem. Their biggest issues that are facing them are canal closures, enhancing and maintaining our water rights for an abundant supply into the future. So that kind of gives you an overview of who we are and what we do. I'm proud to be a part of the City of Orem and a part of the Public Works organization. That's where my heart is. So we would like to extend you an invitation next Tuesday on May 21st, 2024. Last time I did this, everyone that was in attendance thought that they were invited as well. And as much as we'd like to invite everybody here, we only have enough budget. So we have about 150 pounds of chicken we'd like to invite you to join us in partaking of. They'll be prepared by our own staff. We don't have any chefs, but we do have a lot of really well-seasoned cooks and chefs in our, in our department. So that'll be at 11:30. The invitation has been sent to each of you We will also have some fun games and other things to partake of at that. So with that, do you have any questions regarding Public Works or what we do? And we just want to make sure you're invited and you're well aware of that. So thank you.

Can I just make a comment really quick?

Sure.

I met with Chris and his staff, I guess, a few weeks back for several hours. And I just have to say, I think most of the citizens in our city have no idea all of the things you do. You and your staff keep our city running in ways that we just can't even imagine, and we are so grateful. So thank you.

Thank you very much.

I will pass that along. We have some amazing employees that offer great wisdom and sacrifice on behalf of the citizens of Orem to bring forth the services that we provide. So thank you very Thank you, Chris.

And it is, it is ironic that this month, uh, we're honoring 3 of our, what we consider our first responders. They work with different levels of risk, but we've got our fire, uh, department that does an amazing job, we've got our police department that does an amazing job, and we've got our public works that does an amazing job. And those 3 really form the heart of what makes everything happen in this city. So we appreciate all that you do, and, and, uh, we're really grateful for it. And like Jen said, a lot of you, uh, I mean, if everyone takes it for granted that their water works or their sewer works or their roads they can drive on, but it takes— there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. And so we really appreciate all the 3 of you groups too. Okay, moving on. We've got item 6.5. This is Ryan Clark with Building Safety Month.

Good evening, Mayor Young and fellow council members. Um, I'd like to introduce you to Paul Ashton, our Chief Building Official. Uh, we're here together to, um, ask for your support tonight in having the mayor sign a proclamation deeming May Building Safety Month. Uh, to kind of add on to what the mayor just said about the groups of first responders, these are often people in our building department that no one really pays attention to. Because they're the ones that tell you you can't do things. Um, but what they do is they try to make sure those fires never happen and that those buildings never fall down. And so they're kind of our unsung heroes in the city that go out and make sure things are built correctly to begin with. So I'm going to turn the time over to Paul, and he'll share a little bit about Building Safety Month with you.

Mayor and council members, I appreciate the time that, that you've given me to To address you. We have 4 inspectors on our staff. We have 1 plans examiner, 1 deputy building official, and 3 permit techs that help us out in making sure that the buildings and the construction in the City of Orem is safe. We, like the police officers and the firemen, are here to protect the safety of the the citizens of Orem as they build their homes, as they construct new buildings, and different things like that so that we meet the minimum standard of code requirements so that buildings are safe, that if there is a problem that they can get out safely and quickly. That's our charge in the Building Safety Division. We're grateful for the support that you have given us. We've been a little shorthanded over the last year or so. We are fully staffed at this time, and we're excited about that. Each of our inspectors do about 15 inspections a day to where one inspection may take 15 minutes to 20 minutes, and others may take up to 2 hours or longer, depending on the size of the project. We are watching our building very closely out here to make sure that we have a safe building being built just to the south of us at this time. It's kind of interesting that this month is designated Building Safety Month. As of late, there have been a number of building projects that have been— that have bypassed the building permit process. One such example is an existing home with an excavation taking place under the home to create a basement. Uh, the resident— a resident witnessed the excavation from afar and alerted our building safety staff to the concern. The lack of building permit and numerous code violations resulted in one of our building inspectors placing a red tag on the home. Because of the excavation being about 4 feet below the existing footings and so close to that footing, we had to put a, a unsafe-to-occupy tag on that building because of possible collapse. As of 2:30 today, as I drove by, the building is still intact, and we're waiting on engineering to be submitted to see what we can do to correct the problem. It is timely that May is Building Safety Month. and a great reminder of why building permits and inspections are required. It is also— it is all in, in the name of safety. Modern building codes include safeguards to protect the public from hazards such as hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, fires, floods, and earthquakes. Building Safety Month is sponsored by the International Code Council to remind the public about the critical role of our community's largely unknown protectors of public safety, our local code officials who assure us of safe, sustainable, and affordable buildings that are essential to our prosperity. Therefore, we ask that, uh, for— we ask for your support in having the mayor sign the proclamation designating May as Building Safety Month.

Thank you.

Any questions for me?

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank for— thank you for all your group does to keep us safe. We'll move on to item 6.6. This is a recognition from Utah Valley Chamber. Uh, Curtis Blair, if you'd like to come up.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council members. It's a privilege to be on your agenda today, especially as we break ranks a little bit. And, and while we are a business chamber for the region, uh, every once in a while we get to recognize an organization that runs themselves as well as a business should, and that's the City of Orem. And so we, um, are, are, um, privileged really to, to honor and recognize the City of Orem as our Business of the Month. And with that comes a certificate, a few comments. I want to do, if I may, just do a little recognition for the folks that are here with us and especially highlight a member of your team, Kathy Lewis, that serves as an ambassador for the Utah Valley Chamber, and she does a marvelous job. And if I could just have our team stand and maybe we could just wave at them, but Amy Martinez and Caitlin Cowley serve with us on, on, on the staff. And then our ambassador, Scott Johnson, is our chair. Robin Roberts, former chair. And then I've mentioned already Kathy Lewis, that is just an angel at the chamber, and the work that she does that is both seen and unseen, um, uh, is, is marvelous and felt throughout our business community. And, and so we want to just take a minute and thank you for representing our county so well as a city that adheres to the principles and values that we feel that got us here. And it's one of the reasons why we feel like this award is so well-deserving. Um, the principles of spend less than you make, or leave it better than when you came, do the hard work first, it becomes easier later, um, um, give a hand up rather than a handout— those principles are what brought our business community to the level of economic prosperity that we're experiencing now. And Orem has set the example in that, not only nurturing, cultivating businesses within your city boundaries, but the way that you administer the roles that you play here as, as the mayor and city council members. The dais is looking extraordinarily handsome tonight. I don't know why. Are we missing anyone from our ranks?

No.

I, I, I love and I've known Tom McDonald for many, many years, and, uh, let's not let get back to him. Um, but, uh, as a, as a business community member that he has been, um, uh, I think that, uh, that the time— timing is, is, is well suited for us to recognize Orem City as, um, as the Business of the Month. So I first got to meet Mayor— actually, the first time we met was a little over 2 years ago when I moderated a debate between you and Jim Evans. And I didn't know you personally very well at the time. I knew a little bit about your platform and your politics, and the way you articulated yourself that night and the way that you provided the value and vision for what you saw for Orem City, I just wanted to say congratulations on executing on that vision. And it's hard to believe that we're in our current seats about the same time when we started around the same in our current roles. But, uh, um, I want to, I want to feel like you've been leading out by example for the chamber in the way that you administer. And so with that, um, Scott, as chair, would you come help me just maybe deliver this, uh, to the mayor? Um, and, uh, with our vote of confidence, um, if you'll run up there and just deliver that. Um, and a final thought. Um, the, the— while the mayor's last name starts with Y, it's not necessarily the reason. But, um, towards the Christmas season, the chamber, um, brings some gifts to, to our, our executive roundtable and, and members of our Board of Governors, on which Mayor Young serves. And so for 2 years running— I hope not to make it a third— but on Christmas Eve day at 12 noon, I get to visit Mayor Young in his office and he's there. And I'm grateful for it because it's hard to carry chocolates or water bottles or other, you know, small gifts. And, um, and it just is— it just encapsulates the, the, the, the servant leader that the mayor is. It's a privilege to work alongside you and to honor you with this recognition. And so thank you and keep up the good work.

Thank you.

Keep up the good work. We're grateful for your partnership.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, Chris.

We really appreciate that, and more than you know, as far as, uh, we talk in Orem all the time that we're not run like a government agency, we're run like a business, and, uh, our employees and our staff and everyone takes that to heart, and I and does a, a great job. So for you guys to recognize that is, is really, really kind. Thank you. Okay, we're up to item 6.7, uh, UCOPA accreditation for the police department. Val Shoop.

Mayor and City Council, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm executive director with the Utah Chiefs of Police Association. As you know, your department, your police department, has been accredited for the last 5 years. After 5 years, they have to reaccredit again, and Chief Adams has been a stalwart in getting that done to make sure that his Department is accredited and certified by the Utah Accreditation Alliance and the Utah Chiefs of Police Association. Just to give you a background a little bit, the accreditation— there are 30 accredited agencies in the state of Utah with another 18 that are in the process. We have 5, 6 of our major cities who are accredited, Orem being one of those. We have the Utah Department of Public Safety that's coming on shortly. shortly, and also Salt Lake City. So we're anxious to also have them join that group. The accreditation process consists of 169 standards that your police department is required to— and mandated to accomplish. And those standards include city ordinances, they include state laws, and we have reviews each year so that new state laws that come out of the Salt Lake City, out of the legislature, are updated so that they, they are updated each year. The departments are required to submit a report each year in January to make sure that they are up to date, uh, and they have assessors that come in and they check to make sure, and they have to show that they have these policies and procedures and standards met, to include— and to give you an example, if they had They have to show that they have a disciplinary procedure through the city and how they handle that disciplinary procedure, and it has to be up to standard by both federal, state, and city laws. So having said that, Orem City Police Department has completed their reaccreditation. We are happy to make a presentation to them. We do want to recognize Sergeant Travis Nye, who is is the accreditation manager and does— has done a phenomenal job in getting this up and running and making sure that their department is up to par on the way that they're supposed to be with regards to accreditation. And we're happy to do that. So at this time, I would ask Deputy Chief Robinson and Sergeant Nye to come up, and I'll read this while they're coming up. This says the Orem Police Department approved and accredited in recognition for the completion of the standards for certification and accreditation as prescribed and mandated by the Utah Chiefs of Police Association, March of 2024.

Congratulations. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Val. Moving on to item 6.8, we have another recognition by Chief Mark Sanderson.

Mayor, Council, Mr. Bybee, um, citizens in the audience, my name is Mark Sanderson. I'm the fire chief. It's my privilege tonight to present to you 3 of our amazing amazing city employees. This is a recognition that I must admit is a long time coming, um, and if I could ask 3 of them to please join me up front and face the Mayor and Council: Amadeo Gonzalez, Maria Monsalve, and Jacob Thomas. Come on up.

Just stand right here.

This is a perfect opportunity as a combined police and fire administration to recognize these 3, um, police and fire team members, and I hope each of you recognize we truly value you as police and fire team members. Thank you for all you do. These 3 employees are not firefighters. And they're not police officers. These 3 employees are the custodial staff that take care of our facility and provide our teams the ability to work in a clean and effective professional environment. Due to the work ethic of these 3 employees, our police and fire administrations are able to focus on the specific responsibilities that we do day in and day out without having to focus on maintaining our facility, which is clearly a full-time job. For multiple employees. And if you can just imagine the sheer responsibility of a facility that size, that is a 24/7 facility that houses on a daily 150 employees and happen to clean up after all of us and maintain that, it's just, it's mind-boggling that the attitudes and how they show up and perform their duties every day, it goes without saying. I'm proud to stand here today and recognize these 3 employees who are dedicated while maintaining those great attitudes. I want to also publicly thank Byron Workman for his leadership over all the custodial staff throughout the city. But most importantly, thank you 3 for a job well done. And at this time, I'd like to provide each of you with a token of our appreciation. I'd also like to ask Chief Robinson, if he would come up and join me, and then we'd love a picture, Mayor, with the 2 leaders and your leadership.

Let's go ahead and move out and take a picture.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, everyone, for all the different recognitions tonight. As you can see, it takes a lot of people to make a city happen, and we really appreciate all these different parts.

Mayor, if I can just interject quickly, I think with all of the accomplishments and recognition that we've had today, I, as the city manager, I'm going to commandeer best job designation moving forward. So, Stand back, Pete, Bryce.

I've got it now.

Definitely. Okay, let's move on to personal appearances. We've got 3, but I think one of these is for, uh, one of the public hearings later. Uh, I'll just clarify that. So, Sheldon Taylor, you're here for, uh, a discussion about a rezone, right? Okay, so we'll hold you until that, and then you can come speak during the public hearing on that. So that leaves us with 2. Uh, John DePalma, if you'd like to come up.

I, uh, start off, I want to know That I appreciate, and I know the city of Orem appreciates the work of the council and the mayor. I've watched Orem grow. I moved here 57 years ago when there was one restaurant, one gas station, one pharmacy, and that was it. When I moved here I immediately felt the need to be part of the city, not only as a resident, but to volunteer. So my beginnings were, I became a coach, and I became a coach of one of your members, Lamb Chops. Better known as Jeff Lamson. I, too, honor and respect the men and women who wear a uniform in our city. I once wore a uniform as a veteran of the United States Navy during the Korean conflict. I've had the opportunity to serve on many committees in this city. for which I'm grateful. Tonight I'm here to represent on behalf of the, the seniors. I received this booklet a while back, and as I was going through it, I said, uh-oh, the same thing happened about 8 years ago. And what was that, John? Well, I noticed that the annual pass at the rec center for a senior was $155. A family pass was $485. So I started thinking, a family of 4 members— husband, wife, 2 children— when you equate what they pay, it comes out to $121 per person. So Is that fair? A senior is paying more than members of 4 families. I, I came across this 8 years ago, and again I came before this council and asked you to look at that and see if there's not some inequality there. Do you get what I'm saying? Who's going to use it more, the family of 4 or a senior citizen? The family of 4. So I would ask you to reconsider making changes on that annual pass for the seniors. Uh, I, I'm a senior citizen, and like I say, when I came here 57 years ago, I watched this city grow from very little, one Main Street, and you've done a great job. and making our city a model city for others. I mean, as I look at the parks that we've developed, as I look at the industry that's come in, uh—

Say, John, we'll have to wrap up because it's been over 3 minutes.

Okay, one last thing. On, uh, on our Armfest Day, You've given the citizens an opportunity to go to the pool for half price. The city's going to bring in a lot of money from that festival. Why not just make it free? Come on, make it free. You don't need that $3 extra from the pool. That's my comment. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we've got Karen Adamson.

Hi, you've seen me before. Um, I put my thoughts together just a little while ago, so I hope this makes this makes sense and I get my point across. Small government is when the citizens take responsibility for taking care of themselves and their neighbors. We take care of the widows, we assist the families with special situations and help alleviate their burdens. We take responsibility for the care and education of our young people, and we teach them the values that are important to us. Big government is when the citizens hand off some of their money and pay someone else to take care of their neighbors. They pay someone else to teach the youth the values of the society and trust them to do the right thing. Sadly, we know that human nature plays a part, and when people are given leadership positions, there's a risk that the power goes to their heads. We've seen this happen in many types of leadership roles. The power of small government is that it's easier to remove the leader who gets too big for their role. This is why it's super important to keep our government small. This applies to our District. Our board members at our— at Alpine School District are a part of our school's government, and we need to keep that government small as well. We have an opportunity to form an interlocal agreement and study all the figures that it would take to determine if we can handle a smaller district here in our part of Utah County. As I understand it, forming this agreement is not a commitment to split, but a commitment to get correct information to the public and into the light and to allow the citizen— sorry, to allow the citizens that are affected by this information to give their opinions on the matter. Then after that process, the option may go on the ballot. This is what I believe we need to do. How else will we know what the citizens really want? Each citizen has the ability to learn the information and come to our own conclusions. The citizens need to have a chance to vote on it and to make their voice voices heard. If we don't make the interlocal agreement, we are leaving our future in the hands of people who don't know us and may not have the same values that we have, and that may leave us in a situation that makes all of us unhappy. I was at last week's council— or meeting of the 4 city councils, and I appreciate that you have a lot to learn so you can have all these conversations. We can learn it too as citizens, but it's evident that some of the discuss— some of the councils at that meeting don't want to leave the decision in the hands of their citizens. I am grateful that I know that several of you do, so I am petitioning for an interlocal agreement.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to item 8, which is our consent items. We've got 3 items on the consent agenda. Uh, we've got the approval of the meeting minutes from April 23rd to April 25th, 2024, uh, special joint meeting, and the April 30th, 2024 special joint meeting. We've got item 8.2, an appointment to the Recreation Advisory Commission. There's 3 of them: Mike Jones, Reed Payne, and Doug Jardine. And item 8.3, a resolution to adopt construction standards and specifications. We've talked about that in our work meeting. Somebody like to make a motion?

I make a motion that we approve the consent items.

I second.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The consent items are approved. Thank you. Next, we'll move to item 9, scheduled items. We've got item 9.1, a public rezone. a public hearing on a rezone. It's an ordinance amending Article 22-5-3 and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 442 North 300 West from the R-7-5 zone to the R-6-5 zone. And Jason Bench, would you like to present that to us?

Yes, thank you, Mayor, members of the council. So tonight before you is a rezone of a Property that's just over, just under 7,000— 17,000 square feet. Excuse me. It's a fairly large lot within the middle of an existing subdivision. You can see on the map just next to the MPS there, Orem Boulevard. You can see on the east side. So it's a property that has an existing— no, it's a vacant property. They want to subdivide it into 2 lots to be able to do 2 2 single-family homes on the property. It's currently zoned R-75. Roughly, it's about just under 800 square feet short of being able to do it without having this rezone. So they're wanting to, to rezone it to be able to do a deep lot on that property. This is the proposed concept. You can see Lot 1 on the front that would have the frontage on 300 West is 7,700 square feet. feet. The D plot, not including, uh, the panhandle portion, is 8,184 square feet, which is 125% of the underlying 6.5 zone. Uh, they have provided a diagram showing 2-car garage, uh, and the ability to park off the street. One of the issues with the Planning Commission, they were divided on their vote, 3-3 vote, and the parking was kind of their biggest issue. Of how they're going to park if they have spillover onto the street. So the applicant has provided kind of a diagram showing not only a 2-car garage, but be able to park in the driveways too, and then still have that access available for the owners of the property. This is the existing condition of the property. It's just part of the subdivision. They will be putting the curb gutter sidewalk along the frontage. This is This is a view of the property to the— looking south. You see the existing street there with some vehicles parked. And this is a kind of a bird's-eye view of the portion outlined in red as the existing current property that they want to divide into 2. This is the proposed elevations of the buildings. There are 3-bedroom on the main floor units. So just single-family homes. As indicated, the Planning Commission did have a split vote. It was a 3 to 3 vote. So there is no recommendation from the Planning Commission. Staff does recommend the council consider the rezone from the R-75 to the 6.5 zone. Be glad to address any questions you may have.

Can you go back to the picture? That one. Okay, so you've got one deep lot, and then you'll have access along the side.

The crosstie area is the driveway ingress and egress that cannot be blocked by the front lot. So that'll be open in perpetuity with the property in the back. They'll both be able to access it to their garages, but won't be able to Park on that end block.

So is lot number 2 a flag lot, or does that have access on the other side?

So it is a flag lot by definition, but it does— the front lot, lot number 1, actually owns the entire area, including the— let me just turn on my highlighter here. So lot 1 will own this entire lot, but there is an easement that would be on the plat giving lot 2 the right to cross that. And have that in perpetuity. And like I said, this would not be able to be parked on, so it will be open for Lot 2. So this one would own this portion, and this one would own that back portion, which is a standard way to do deep lots in the city.

Okay, this is Jason.

I've got a question on— my concern is fire or a fire hazard. Um, with this deep lot and with the cars parked there, could the, could the fire get in there, the fire truck, and help them put out the fire?

I don't know.

My guess is yes. They probably won't bring their engine all the way in here. If worst case, they'll fight it from here, or they would park here, which would be open because they're not going to be able to park cars here.

I mean, if the fire was in the front, you wouldn't be able to get to the back of the house. It could be gone too.

Right.

Well, I mean, yeah, typically, and I'll— Chief Sanderson would have to address this, but within 150 feet, that's where that hose length would be able to drag hoses and different things. So this, this is not uncommon to any other D plot that we have in the city.

It wouldn't be an issue.

No, no.

Who, who's going to enforce this? So you're saying they can't park on that ingress-egress I mean, is that— how do you enforce that? Isn't that private property? How can our parking enforcement— how will they be notified? Is that marked?

It is on the plat. So when somebody buys it, and we have had calls over the years, we get calls periodically that somebody is parking on that. We basically call them and remind them that that is a public— or I mean, an access easement that's not allowed to be parked on. So yes, we do get calls periodically. We have, you know, not having a number, but 50 to 100 of these types of plats. in the city. So we do get an occasional call with somebody like Lot 2 or Lot 1, somebody's parked on the access and they can't get back there. So we just— an education to say, hey, this is not to be parked on, and they resolve that issue. So it is something that we do in the city.

And I was just gonna ask one more question. So where you're showing the cars on the front lot, is that the garage or is that the driveway?

Was leading to a garage. Yeah.

And so why are you— what are you showing? Are you counting those as parking spots for that home?

The engineer was just showing that there's an ability to park there, like any single-family home has the garage, or garage, and then the carport to park on.

Okay.

But the parking is sufficient without counting the driveway.

So the only required parking for any single-family home is 2 stalls. Whether that's garage, carport, driveway, any of those, as long as there's 2 off-street is the requirement from the city. So this plan really doesn't— is not necessary to show. He was just, because of the Planning Commission, kind of felt a need to show that there's an ability for somebody to park off the street and not. But really, those 4 stalls you see on Lot 2 are not required because he's got the 2-car garage. would be counted as far as the requirement from, from the city.

So, so Jason, changing it from R-7.5 to R-6.5, can you— does that change anything in the neighborhood? Because the neighborhood is zoned 7.5, so does that change anything in the whole neighborhood because of it?

Or—

Uh, you, you can see just south of this lot there's an R-5, so they have some— an R-5 designation. You can see To the west, the council— it's probably been a year or so, maybe 2 years ago— rezoned this to an R-6-5 to allow them to have the 4 lots, 2 facing on either street. So this is a case-by-case, and that comes before the council, but this is not, you know, out of the ordinary to come in. You can see to the north, this here, they just barely had enough to not have to rezone, so they were able to do a deplot similar to what they're proposing here. Just north of that property. So it's, it's not uncommon for somebody to come in and request a deep lot when they have enough square footage, or if it's close, to come request the council to downzone it enough so they can get those lots.

So I remember that 6-5, the 4 you have over there, and in the case, all 4 of those lots have frontage, street frontage, correct?

Correct.

So I don't know that that's a good comparison, but I am concerned about changing the nature of the neighborhood, allowing— I mean, you're just setting a trend there where you start splitting up lots. Once it happens, once it happens again, right? I mean, we see it at the end of the street, right? So are we— are we—

Well, you can see up here, these are fourplexes as well. So right around the corner. Although they— there are 7-5, they are multifamily, right?

But I mean, the— this Street 300 West is not a fourplex. It's not subdivided. They— other than the one that they're— I can see a flag lot right there that was approved. I don't know when, right? So I don't know. I'm really nervous about setting a trend here. of subdividing, subdividing our neighborhoods, um, especially into deep lots or flag lots to stick a home behind a home. I don't mind having frontage when they're— where there's frontage, if they can do that. But a home behind a home, I think, would be— I would not want that to happen next to my home, next to where I own a house. Um, that seems problematic to me, I guess, is what I'm saying.

And in this instance, just to the east, you can see there's multifamily units as well. So just, just in this case, I mean, not always, but—

Right.

But there's still that row is— I mean, there's an integrity issue there with the homes that are there.

And you said that the single owner is going to own that entire spot. So Would the house in the back just be a rental, or the house in the front be a rental?

It would be subdivided into 2 lots, so they could eventually sell it. My understanding is it's family, that they're going to build a home. They're going to live in one and their kids are going to live in the other, but eventually they could sell. And, you know, it's going to be a legal lot that they can do whatever they want, right? They could keep it, they could sell it, they could do whatever. So it, by legal purposes, it would be a valid lot that anybody could purchase in the future.

Well, actually, I attended the neighborhood meeting. Is he here, the gentleman who owns this property?

I spoke with you.

Come on up. We found out we had a connection. My brother delivered his daughter when she was born. Was that right?

Yes.

Um, I guess that's my question.

You—

I think you stated in that meeting that you're— you were building the front house for your daughter's To live in. Because you live in Heber.

My my wife and I, and the one in the back will be for my kids. Yeah.

So you're gonna move from here? You told me you were. Oh, you told me you were still gonna keep living in Heber.

Excuse me.

Didn't you say you're gonna move from Heber to that home?

Yes. So I live in here.

Yeah.

Vas a vas a vivir en esta casa. Que está construyendo. Ah, no me dijo eso.

¿Cómo?

No me dijo eso en el en este reunión.

Sí.

Did you?

Le dije que íbamos a vivir en una y íbamos a nuestras hijas iban a vivir en la otra.

Okay.

Ese era el plan.

Muy bien.

Okay.

No, I'm just I was just clarifying with him because at the neighborhood meeting he told me that. He was gonna keep living in Heber and his daughters were gonna live in the front house, and you were maybe gonna have to— while they go to UVU. Congratulations to them for that.

So our older daughter went to UVU, the second one is going to UVU, and the third one is going to UVU.

Awesome.

So they all going to UVU, and we have a 4th one too. I have 4 daughters.

Congratulations on that. That's amazing.

Okay. And the plan is to kind of— my wife and I, you know, leave in one house and don't have to have the kid live with us. He can live in the back house or something. If it works out, if it doesn't work out, it would be okay.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Thank you.

One thing I do want to say, one thing. Tell me your name again. Sir Diego, um, I just want to say I was very impressed when I spoke with Diego, because one of the things that, um, you stated to me is that if you didn't get this zone change, you were just going to build a really nice home anyway, because that's what you did. And sometimes your wife gets mad at you for putting more time and effort and money into a home, but you like a nice product.

Yeah, every home that I've built so far, I go beyond what she's thinking.

So I just want to say, you know, I appreciate that because in my opinion, this area is an area that is in need of renewal. You know, I know we look at it and we go, oh, there's fourplexes there, there's duplexes there, let's just put whatever, whatever there. And I, I just really feel like, um, you know, we're working really hard as a council to create and encourage renewal in the City of Orem. We're an older established community. We truly want to encourage that happening, and the way I see that occurring through some of these older neighborhoods is we have, you know, people move in and build a nice home, maybe with an accessory dwelling unit in the basement, but a home that fits in with the current zoning that's there and that encourages other people to remodel, expand. I mean, I know in my neighborhood we had one person come in and remodel and add on to their house. And guess what? 2 more people did. I mean, it's, it's just really— I believe that's how we encourage this renewal to happen, is by approving good projects that maintain the integrity of our neighborhoods. And I appreciated that you said that you're invested in, you know, building a good project. I may not agree. I'm not sure that I agree with the Increasing the density and in that area. But I do appreciate that you're willing to build a good product.

Yeah, definitely. If I build 2 or 1, it would be nice. 2 nice homes or 1 really nice home. It will be— it will make the neighborhood, you know, the value even— it'll make it better.

And you're okay with Building— if you don't get the 2, you'll build one really nice home.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Diego.

Okay, unless we have more questions.

Quick question. So Jason, the neighborhood meeting, any concerns or comments?

My understanding based on the minutes, there wasn't a concern with the rezone. There were some issues with traffic and some other things like that.

I saw the neighborhood meeting minutes, and they did not accurately reflect my comments in that meeting.

And what was the size difference, the square footage?

As far as what they're lacking? Yeah, so it's about 700— well, exactly 758 square feet short.

Okay, unless there's more comments, we'll open this up for a public hearing, uh, if there's anyone that would like to make a comment on this. Sheldon Taylor, were you part of this?

Just representing the developer.

Okay.

Did you hear any questions? I was here. I just— I'm used to signing in on every meeting I go to, so I signed in.

Okay, I, I just want to make sure you had a chance to be heard of you.

Thank you.

Anything else from the public? Okay, we'll, we'll close the public hearing and we'll bring them back to council.

Can I just make one more comment? And this is just my— I'm just putting forth a little more perspective here as far as where I am on this. Um, the past 2 years that I've served on the city council, our council has made a determined effort to bring Orem back to focusing on our slogan of Family City USA and creating an environment where families can thrive. And part of that was to redirect the development in our city. We discontinued the State Street Master Plan and we stopped 10,000 apartments from coming on State Street. And since then, we've been advocating on the state level and through our Utah League of Cities and Towns to change the practice of increasing density and plopping down rentals anywhere in the city where they can, where there's land. At nearly 48% rentals, some of those are not official. I feel we need a more owner-occupied balance in our city, and that's kind of the direction that we have indicated in many of our development plans. A great way to renew our neighborhoods is to encourage renewal by denying increase in densities instead of— and encouraging maintaining our current zoning of R-8 and above. In this case, the 7.5 is fine too. There's such a demand for owner-occupied housing. I hear all the time that, you know, my kids had to move out to Eagle Mountain or Saratoga Springs to build a home. home on a lot this size. I think that they would love to have those opportunities to purchase homes in Orem on this exact type of lot. And perhaps some of these older homes, the time will come. I see the market moving to the direction of, you know, the land is valuable enough that the people want to buy the home, these smaller, what I call them, the Geneva Steel homes, you know, on these lots and put a nice home that they can forward and, and our families can really come back to Orem. I feel like if we allow our lots to be subdivided, placing flag lots behind some of these deeper lots, we are really, um, setting ourselves up to where we are just increasing density again and, and not providing the product that our children and grandchildren are asking for— these opportunities to live in Orem, to revitalize some of these homes and to, you know, have some nice single-family owner-occupied homes with a lot, with a yard that they can live in. I feel we'll lose this wonderful culture if we don't stand firm on our desires to bring those owner-occupied single-family home opportunities While I understand Diego's desire here, I appreciate him saying, you know, if this doesn't pass, I'll build a very nice home anyway. And that's kind of the direction that I feel that our city needs to encourage our developers to go so we can provide these opportunities for these newer homes and/or remodeled homes for our children and grandchildren instead of being overtaken by more rentals and more investment properties. So that's my thoughts.

Thank you.

to—

for the council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lorraine.

So I've got a question, Jason. So on R7.5 compared to R6.5, is there a difference in the setbacks? Because the one in the back, you've got the house turned and it's a 12-foot and a 15, and the backyard's 25. So on those 2 zones, are they— are they different setbacks, or—

No, not in the D plot. The D plot will be the same. They have 2 25s And then a 12 on the interior and a 15 on the back. So those would stay the same regardless of the zone for the deep lot. The front lot would have a little smaller— it's like a foot difference with the side yard setback.

And can you, um, on the Planning Commission, it was 3-3, uh, the concerns? Because I, I don't know, I think I must have been out of town.

Um, it was this parking on the street, is there—

was their main concern on the street?

And there wasn't—

If it turns into a rental, they would force to be parked on the street. That was their main concern, which is why the applicant came in and said, well, here's where they could park if there was, you know, if it wasn't a family, it was, you know, rented to 3 individuals and they needed a place to park. This is kind of the kind of an outline of where they could park.

Jason, can you just tell us the width and length of that lot?

You know, the one thing I did not provide— I think it's about 200 deep and about 100 feet wide, if I remember right. This morning I was looking at it roughly.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, which—

Mayor, I have those numbers. It's, it's in the packet. The width of the lot is 93 feet, and the overall depth is 171.

A little off, but I was close.

And you need—

what frontage do you need for a home? So they can't put 2, you know, deep lots next to each other too?

Yeah, they would not be able to do that. They would need at least, uh, For the R-75, R-65 is 65 square feet or 65 feet. Yeah, this would be the maximum if, if it was rezoned to 65. 2 lots is all they would get on this property.

Okay, any other discussion? Would somebody like to move forward with this?

I'll make a motion.

Oh, go ahead.

Oh, did you—

were going to say something?

I was just going to say something. I think that— I think you brought up some really good points, and I think that the need for family homes, for families to get into, is pressing, not just in Orem but in other places. And if there's ways to do it without increasing our density astronomically, I think we should look at those. And I think maybe I think a little bit differently about this in that this is, for me, within the character of this neighborhood. It's a good project. They're beautiful homes, and I think that alone will increase the value, property values there, but, and help maybe encourage more development in that area. And I think it's a good opportunity for families to get into homes they may not otherwise be able to afford in a neighborhood like that. So I think for that reason, I probably think it's a good idea. So you were gonna motion?

Yeah.

Oh, good.

I haven't said anything, but my main concern is just essentially developing a flag lot. like that, especially 93 feet deep, and then you wind up with a flag lot back there. It's just, it's, uh, it's not optimal, especially if you have the option of, you know, building something, a full-size home and yard and all the rest. So anyway.

Okay.

I make a motion that we deny the ordinance amending Article 2253A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 442 North 300 West from the R7.5 zone to the R6.5 zone.

Second.

Aye.

Nay. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Nay.

Okay, the, uh, the rezone is, is denied. Thank you, Jason. Okay, moving on to item 9.2. A resolution adopting the City of Orem fiscal year 2024-2025 tentative budget. Brandon Nelson, if you'd like to present that.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm sure this is the day you've all been waiting for, because I know I have. As you know, every year, the finance department, along with the city, city manager, and all of the departments of the city, uh, get together to produce a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, uh, July 1st— in this case, July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025. Um, this meeting is to go through the— and present to you, um, our proposed tentative budget, um, in which, uh, we would, um— you have the— a month basically till June 18th. Our meeting in June, uh, will Mm-hmm. Be at the time when we would adopt the budget, and you have, uh, time in between there to, um, review and identify anything that you think you might want changed or, uh, that you have questions about, and we can potentially address in that time period. Um, if for whatever reason we were unable to adopt the budget on June 18th, um, tonight, uh, the, uh, hope is that you would adopt the tentative budget and it would act in place of, uh, the budget until such time as we could actually adopt the, the full budget based on whatever the reasons might be, you know, hurricane, flood, whatever it might be, um, property tax increase, whatever. Um, and so I, I just wanted to make sure that you are aware of the parameters around this. We are required under state law to um, adopt a tentative budget by, uh, the first council meeting in May. And that's another reason why we're here. So without further ado, um, our current proposed tentative budget as a total for the city is 100 and just over $160 million, as you can see. Um, give you a budget calendar review very quickly. It seems like forever ago, but January 5th and 6th is when we actually actually start this process with our council retreat. We have several work sessions since then— March 12th, March 26th, and April 23rd— where we discussed revenue and compensation, operations, fleet, and IT items, as well as our capital components. And here we are today with our tentative budget presentation. Some of the budget highlights of this budget. Our revenues increased in this budget by almost $8 million over the fiscal '23-'24 budget, as you can see, primarily due to— and, and we've had those discussions— primarily, normally it's been sales taxes, but this budget actually has sales taxes, uh, pretty, pretty darn flat, as you will see in a minute. But we've had other elements that have allowed us to increase those revenues, primarily because in the past franchise taxes have been budgeted at a very, very conservative amount. Same with our ambulance fees. And then we've had interest earnings, and which, as we've discussed in the past, the recent rate increases in interest rates have allowed the city to gain some additional revenues in relation to what we have budgeted in the past. Um, and then there are some, uh, increases in revenues related to fee increases in our water user fees and water reclamation fees. Um, we also include funding step adjustments for the employees that are in step programs, as well as increases for those employees who are in a merit program. And then, uh, Those adjustments— there are also certain adjustments identified by our Human Resource Division and Management Services Department that for particular employees who may be out outside of the market. Then a couple of other items. You said no health insurance increase in the given— in the current year. Our fleet replacement exceeded $3 million this year, as well as our capital projects exceeding Just to give you a quick overview of how our budgets have gone over the last 4 years, you can see the progression in relation to each of those fiscal years. And as I mentioned, the prior 3— to fiscal '21— sorry, '22 and '23— those were primarily sales tax increases for a large portion of that. Um, uh, in those increases. Not so much, um, for fiscal '25. Of course, fiscal '24 as well had a— which did not come to fruition, and we are dealing with that currently, um, um, with some, um, other things obviously that have increased, as I've already mentioned. And that's why in fiscal '25 we are increasing those budgets, is to make up for those sales tax revenues that we hadn't, uh, thought we were going to potentially get in fiscal '24 but have not come to fruition. Um, this, this, uh, chart is just to give you an idea of the size of each of the individual funds within the city. Um, it doesn't include all the funds. You can see at the very bottom we do have an other funds category, which includes, um, a lot of, uh, some of our smaller funds as well as our internal service funds. Um, but the, the relative size to of each one of those. Um, as you saw, our general fund is our largest fund of the city. Um, and you— this, uh, table here is to give you an idea of how that fund has, uh, performed over the last 3 years, as well as what we were proposing in the current budget. And you can see, um, proposed versus our fiscal '24 estimated is pretty flat. There's not much growth in that fund. And again, because we're basically trying to cover the sales taxes that we thought we were going to get with other taxes that are— and interest, etc.— that have one going up and the other one going down. Just to give an idea of our general fund and where those sources come from and what ratio those are comparative to the total, you can see taxes of course, is the largest piece of our general fund revenues at 65%. And then we have various other elements that make up the large pieces that the revenues of the city come from. And just so you're aware, grants— that number usually will all be pretty small because we generally don't budget for grants because we want to make sure we have them awarded before we actually get them. budget for them. But we do have some grants that we, we pretty much know we're going to get every year. And so we do budget for those particular grants because we've received them, quite honestly, ever since I've been here, which is a number of years. So, so we feel pretty comfortable that we're going to receive, if not the full amount, usually something even higher than the amount that we budget for. As I mentioned, sales tax revenues, as you can see, we are proposing a 30— just over $32 million for sales taxes, and we expect to receive just over $32 million in the current fiscal year. So pretty much no increase, small decrease even. And that's partly due to, you know, a lot of economic factors that we're seeing, as well as what we're seeing in the current year. So we don't want to, you know, jump too high with that and make a guess as to where we're going until we see something that might indicate otherwise. Property taxes also relatively flat. We're budgeting a 2.4% increase in the expected property tax rate— or amount received, sorry, not the rate. And then what that generally means is we would receive the exact same amount of property tax except for growth of commercial, or not any commercial or residential new growth. And so that's the amount we kind of expect to see from those new construction or reconstruction type items. And as you can see, it doesn't make a huge impact because we don't have a— unless we go out for a property Property tax increase, the natural growth is not going to produce a lot of additional tax revenues. Our franchise tax revenues— while you can see that we don't anticipate a large amount of growth necessarily, only, um, you know, $100,000, as I mentioned, in fiscal '24, the budget, the amount we we budgeted for fiscal '24 was only $8 million. So by increasing our expectation to what we've been receiving— as you can see, in fiscal '23, we received just short of $8.9 million, we estimate we're going to receive $8.9 million this year— well, we might as well budget to what we've been receiving over the past few years. And so this fiscal '25 proposed tentative budget includes an increase to that expectation. Um, give you an idea in relation to business licenses and building permits within the city, these charges. And you can see that business licenses and permits has pretty much flattened. And we— so we don't expect much, if any, change in those charges. Uh, building permits, while the building permits do exist within our development fees fund. Uh, the development fees fund is incorporated into our general fund, um, at the end of the year. And again, uh, you can see the last 3 years it's relatively flat, and we don't expect necessarily any, um, increase because there's no super, you know, large, uh, thing that we necessarily expect. And in the past, we've always budgeted building permits at a base level, um, and with the expectation this is how much we're pretty comfortable with that we're going to receive. And if we happen to have something come up that really, you know, pushes that up over the top, then great, that just falls to our bottom line and ends up in our capital projects fund. Uh, other— some other general fund revenues which I've mentioned, 2 of those Um, the interest earnings in the given year. Um, you can see how consistent they've been over the last, uh, fiscal '23 and what we expect to finish with in fiscal '24 and, uh, what we're proposing for fiscal '25. Um, ambulance fees, uh, same thing. We do see a slight dip, but that's only because we changed vendors, who our billing vendor is, and the, uh, billings from the prior vendor kind of trickle filled in during that year. And so we kind of expect a more consistent flow of revenue going forward. And, and again, similar to what I mentioned with franchise taxes being budgeted significantly lower, ambulance fees— so just to give you an idea, for fiscal '24, you can see the expectation of the $2.7 million. We budgeted for $2.2 million. So again, we've Raise that threshold to that $2.8 million and feel comfortable that that's not going to be much of an issue to hit that target. Now, that's all the— a lot of the revenue side of things and the city's wide expenditures trying to— so obviously we have a balanced budget, so the total is the same, but this gives you an idea of where those funds are being spent. in relation to 3 pretty broad categories: personnel, operations, and capital, comparative to our prior year adopted budget. The personnel costs have been budgeted increase of 4.4%, operations at 2.7%, and capital 14.7%. Now I will say the capital piece has grown significantly as we've had discussions As you know about water fees and our water reclamation fee increases, and a large portion of those increases are going towards capital, and thus you can see that, and our fleet as well, and you can see the result of those raises. Also, to give similar to the revenues, you— this chart is to give you an idea of of how the— each of the funds, where those funds generally fall within those broad categories. Um, you can see obviously the personnel part in the general fund is the significant piece, especially since public safety is, is the one of the largest groups within the general fund. And they're just— this really just to give you an idea of where those funds sit within their expenditures. Uh, we've talked in pre— previous work session meetings about the additions to our fiscal, uh, '25 budget. Um, I'm not going to go through each one of these items as we discussed those during that work session, um, but you can see many of the items related to fire and police, um, and many of those are either providing, uh, pool pots of money that have previously been just grabbing from here and there to try to cover each year at the cost of whatever it was that they would have spent the money on originally had they been budgeted to the proper level. So this gives them accounts that are specific to those particular items that they can rely on as far as funding being there to, to cover those particular elements. Uh, and then some more of those type items in, in the finance department, management services, and, and our rec. These are all within the general fund. Uh, in relation— those are all operational increases. Um, relation increases in relation to personnel, um, we propose that we, um, offer— have a new police officer position, which would allow then, um, to have a detective who focuses specifically on domestic violence. Um, as well as 2 rec positions being promoted, and, and a moving— there's a cost to moving our coordinators in our rec program into the STEP program, which they are not currently in. I mentioned fleet replacements as part of our— that large capital increase, and you can see the prior adopted budget fiscal '24, the $2.9 million, and this year's a little over half a million dollars higher. Um, you can see the number of vehicles, um, that are related to that. Not all of those vehicles are purchases. Uh, many of those vehicles we've been, um, going towards a leasing program and identif— trying to identify ways that we can better, um, use money, uh, to get more vehicles, um, through lease programs without hindering operations. Our streets capital projects— each year we have to determine how, where best to spend the money based on the requirements around each of those taxes. We have B&C Road Fund tax, which every time you go to the pump there's a tax related to that. And then recently we haven't— we had the transportation sales tax. Every time we have a sales tax, every time you buy something, you pay that sales tax. It includes both a transportation sales tax as well as January 1st, a public transit tax went into effect. And so that fund accounts for both of those taxes. And the items that we identify— here's the items that we have identified to spend spend those particular tax, um, in relation to the city's overall street projects, as well as any traffic type things. Our debt service fund is any, um, debt that is really not related to the enterprise funds, uh, which are water, sewer, stormwater, and rec. Those funds Debt, that debt is accounted for in our debt service fund. And you can see the breakdown between the 3 most recent years, as what are 2 most recent years in our tentative budget. This does include the sales tax bonds that we are anticipating issuing for the fire training facility and public safety building. So that's what you can see. You can see there in the top section, the transfers in, how that jumps up, as well as down in the expenditures on the interest, how it jumps from $1.2 to $1.8. So that's where you see that increase in relation to the, the expected bond amount there. I mentioned internal service funds. We have 5 internal service funds of the city providing fleet services to all of the, the vehicles. And Chris mentioned that not only vehicles but equipment. Uh, we have self-insurance fund handling our workers' comp and various other property insurances. Uh, our IT division, um, also in handling all of the IT functions of the city. Facilities maintenance, which you saw 3 of— honored 3 of them today that are part of our facilities maintenance group, uh, handling the Custodial and repair work for a lot of the facilities throughout the city, and our purchasing and warehouse that deals with— we have a warehouse down at the public works facility. Jumping to our enterprise funds, we have the water fund. Um, that is, you can see that we're proposing an actual total that drops as far as revenues goes, but that's primarily because we've been receiving a large amount of money in interest earnings from the 2021 bonds, and those bonds obviously are being spent down. And so we expect that the interest earnings from that is going to decrease pretty— as you can see, relatively significantly. That said, there is a proposed increase to the base rate on the 3/4-inch, on our, you know, most common 3/4-inch line. The other sized lines also have similar increases, not to that amount necessarily, but potentially to that same percentage, that 3.5% you see. So there's an increase from 20— proposed increase from $20.45 to $21.17. And then also on the usage rate, the Tier 1 usage rate, and again, the other tiers all 2, 3, and 4 also have increases in them as well. But there's a proposed increase to the most common, which is Tier 1, which from $0.85 to $0.88. Just to give you an idea, I know you've seen the comparison as we've brought it up before. Even with this increase that we've proposed, you can see where Orem cities' water rate falls in comparison to other cities, and that's other cities' existing rate, not necessarily what they may be raising their rate to. And you can see how we fare, which is still pretty, pretty good. Water reclamation, or otherwise known as sewer. Um, you can see the increase in the revenues in our The tentative proposed budget, primarily related to a sewer base rate proposal increase from $1,248 to $1,698, as we've— and then as well with the volume charge from $259 to $268. And as we've had discussions with you before in the work session, this is kind of the precursor to the overhaul of the water reclamation facility that is going to be occurring. And So obviously we need to have some foot in the game, get ahead of that a little bit. And so this starts that process. Even with that large increase in the base rate in particular, you can see where Orem falls much— obviously it pushes us much closer to the average and the average cities and still significantly Yeah.

Uh, storm—

yeah, uh, stormwater. Um, we are proposing a 2.8% increase in the base ESU rate from $8.20 to $8.43 as we continue to try to identify what we can do with the various canal abandonments that are occurring and how we can get those taken care of going into the future. And again, even with that rate increase, you can see where we fall in relation to the various other cities that we either compare to or that are in our area. Still pretty favorable. Our recreation fund, um, you can— there's a, you know, close to a $600,000 increase in the current year. A large portion of that is related to the little party that we had earlier today down at Hillcrest Park. So the programming for that facility is now included within this fund, and that's a— you can see approximately $315,000 of that increase is related to programming at that facility. Um, and then the remaining part continues to be related to our continued growth in, uh, data in Admissions, not only daily admissions but passes as well. And so we continue to look forward to our recreation fund continuing to grow and those programs continuing to grow and the facilities continuing to be improved upon and enjoyed by the citizens of Orem. Solid waste fund growth there is generally followed because of increases passed on to the consumer. As Waste Management increases their rates, then we increase our rates to make sure that we can cover those costs. You can see in here there's a breakdown of the proposed rate increases for solid waste and the various percentage increases Which we've covered in previous meetings. And with those increases, you can still see that we fall pretty close to near the average, just below the average. So we still fare pretty comfortably in relation to those solid waste fees. And to give you an overall idea in relation to the utility fees, We are at the bottom, and you usually don't say that with a good smile on your face, but in this particular instance, I can say we should smile and say, hallelujah, we're at the bottom. Are there any questions about everything I've just run through as fast as I think I can possibly do it?

Yes, and, and keep in mind that we've, we've gone through these numbers several times, so we're not just hearing this for the first time and have a million questions. We've done it over and over and over. So this is kind of a summary. So this is more to open up a public hearing. Go ahead.

Well, and that's actually what I was going to say, but also just thank you for your months and months and months of work putting it together for us, because I know it's a lot.

So thanks.

I'm not gonna lie. Yes, it is. And thank you for your, your support in, in identifying the things that are important to you and helping us to try to incorporate those things, as well as allowing us to— all our departments to express the needs that they have, and your support for those items as well.

Okay, thank you, Brendan. Any other questions or comments before we open a public hearing?

I just maybe go back to Mr. John DePalma. concern about the seniors and maybe the, the, you know, the daily pass or the yearly pass for seniors. Maybe we can look at that and maybe we can tweak it, and I don't know, but I— that concerns me. So hopefully we can look at that.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're—

I, I was able to speak with him out in the hall briefly after his public comment, and as always, we're glad to take into consideration, uh, citizen feedback, and we look at some other fitness facilities here in the valley. Uh, we look at how it sort of interacts with, uh, our senior operation over at the Senior Friendship Center, and we, we, we try to have a sort of a system approach for a resident that is a senior in Orem. Which, um, facilities, which access do they have, and are we providing them good services at different types of facilities, and are we charging the right price there? We, we would never want want the burden, the financial burden of an amenity to be placed on one particular group. We try to spread it out based off of use, based off of, uh, the cost of use. And so glad to have that discussion, glad to look at it like we do with all of our fees.

Thanks, Bryce. Appreciate it.

Thanks.

Any other questions? We'll go ahead and open this up if anyone would like to make a public comment regarding the budget. Everyone loves the budget. Oh, we have one.

My name's Greg Dorden. I know we have been very Open about not raising taxes in Orem, but there's a little tweak. When we raise fees, a fee is also a form of taxation in the fact that raising fees increases revenue. It's not technically a tax.

But user fees, program fees could be considered un poco tax.

Just one opinion.

Thank you. Any, any other comments? Okay, we'll go ahead and close the public comment. And what's our next step?

We're—

that's just public comments, right?

Yeah, just approve the resolution or deny it.

So, Mayor, I, I'd like to make a motion.

Okay.

That, uh, City Council, by resolution adopting the City of Or fiscal year 2024-2025 tentative budget.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The budget's approved. Good job, Brandon. Okay, moving on, we're up to item 9.3. And this is a, a follow-up on, on the ongoing school district conversations that have been going on in the valley. We've talked, um, we, we talked about that we needed to have a conversation about the school district. And just let people know where we stand and let each other know where we stand, because we've been— we haven't really talked to each other that much as a council about where we're at. And so school district conversations are always so nice and peaceful and friendly and happy. It's a great time. But tonight, the Orem City Council is committed to essentially have a clinic on how to have a positive, productive discussion about something that's difficult to talk about. And just to make the point, this is missing in our national politics. And so tonight, let's have Orem show it— show how this should be done. Now, why are we even having this conversation? Well, there's been 13 cities in Alpine School District, and we're the 14th, and everyone but Orem has had this conversation in a public meeting with each— with their own councils, except for us. So that's why we need to have it. And also, we're, we're dealing with a completely set of different set of facts than we were 2 years ago when we had this conversation. So we need to revisit this this, this discussion. Previously, the conversation was about whether or not the district should split. Now we have 10 cities throughout our district whose leadership have voted unanimously to enter into interlocal agreements to discuss the possibility of forming new school districts. So our goal tonight is simple. It's not really to— and we can, we can see where this goes. My intent is not to have this be a debate, but have it be more of a chance for each council member to give their viewpoint and say where they're coming from and how they, how they see this. So the goal tonight is to discuss the pros and cons of forming an interlocal agreement with the other cities that are still not in an interlocal agreement, and that would be The cities involved in that would be Orem, Vineyard, Linden, and Pleasant Grove, potentially. So anyway, does anyone— we can— and the way we can do— we can do this right. Well, I think the simplest way to do this— I mean, tell me what you think— is maybe if each council member just kind of says what their position on this is and how they see the world and, and what they think. And okay, did you say that Tom had a statement? Why don't we just start with that and then we'll, we'll go from there. Tom's out of town, um, but he wanted to have some input on this.

Um, I'm just going to read verbatim what Tom said. Um, I saw the terrible divide in our city 2 years ago when we contemplated a similar thing. It hurt the city immensely and divided the council into 2 opposing camps with differing views. Given the votes against entering into an interlocal by other cities that would be part of the southern ASD subset, I prefer to encourage ASD to put Option 3, the 2-way split, on the ballot. Therefore, I would vote against moving forward with a 4-city option.

Do, do you want to just—

we'll just continue around and So first of all, I just want to say thank you to the mayor for putting this on the agenda for discussion and also for arranging the 4-city council meeting that we had last week. I think that has been a great start for productive dialogue. I mean, I think through those meetings we've been able to see— I think we all share the same goal, and that is how do we take care of our people? How do we educate our students in the best way possible? possible, and I— and there probably are different ways of getting there, and maybe there's not one right answer. But I appreciate this chance to have the conversation. Um, and I have gone round and round and round on this issue. So I— maybe to clarify what the issue at hand is, it's should Orem City form an interlocal agreement? And for those not following the conversation, that's a much broader discussion that maybe you can look into late— at a later date. But I've gone round and round and round on this issue, and I've talked with people on both sides of the In our city and outside of our city. I've talked to teachers, I've talked to students, I've talked to parents, I've talked to taxpayers, and there are really strong feelings about this. And I appreciate that because it means that people really care, and it means that we want to do the right things to take care of our people. And I just want to say up front that whatever happens, I am absolutely committed to working together with this council and with the councils in other cities to have a great outcome for our students. So just want to get that on the table.

Thank you.

right now. I'm really grateful to be here and to be part of the conversation and to have great outcomes. Um, that said, as I've gone round and round and round on what do we do about this, I see really good points on both sides. Um, so what's the best option? I keep coming back to, for me, that right now is not the time to form an interlocal, and there's probably a few reasons for that. I looked at political support— what kind of political support does it have? And if you look at the 4 cities in our, our our area that we're talking about here. 2 of them have come out and said— one of them came out and said absolutely not. That was Pleasant Grove. One of them said— all 5 of the council members didn't make a formal resolution, but said we don't want to do that. That was Linden. Vineyard has said they are to be determined. They haven't made any ruling one way or the other. So that alone tells me that there's not a lot of political support for this right now. So maybe now is not the time to do it. The next point was financial viability. As I look at financial viability, as I look at all the the numbers that have been coming out. I've been to all the Alpine School District meetings that they're hosting, and every set of numbers that they've issued show significant tax increases for our citizens. And I just— I'm not really comfortable with that, especially as we talk about not raising taxes and being fiscally responsible. I think that we've generally done a good job educating our students for, uh, I don't want to say the least money possible— it's certainly never enough— but not, not this much money. So a significant increase in taxes makes me concerned. Um, and then another factor I think I consider is I feel like it's a really rushed decision. The legislation that allows cities to form interlocal agreements just happened on May 1st, so that was 2 weeks ago that, that legislation became a possibility so that we could form an interlocal agreement. And this is such a weighty decision with generational impacts that it makes me very concerned to think we're just going to jump into it, especially when there are a number of unanswered questions that, that our attorneys don't know the answer to, that no attorneys know the answers to. Um, so, um, and then the last one I think is, as I look at the option to form an interlocal agreement, I know the idea is that we just, you know, form it and we study it out and we consider it further. But the truth, the truth is there's only one choice. Like, there's one choice that we have, and that is to form an interlocal agreement. Because if we vote not to form an interlocal agreement, that choice Doesn't matter because whatever our— the northern pod or the western pod, you know, whether that's the Lehi pod or the Eagle Mountain pod, whatever they decide is going to ultimately determine our destiny. So it's like a false choice that either we vote to do it or we vote not to do it, but it doesn't matter. So ultimately, right now, I'm of a position that it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to enter an interlocal agreement.

Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, along with Tom McDonald, I, you know, I, I shudder at the thought of talking about school district splits and, and everything new that we went through together a couple of years ago. But I'm grateful to be able to have this, this discussion, to be able to share our thoughts and our perspectives with my fellow council members and my friends here this evening. I want to say thank you to Alpine School District who came and met with us as a council a few weeks ago, and also to our, our friends and neighbors, Pleasant Grove, Linden, and Vineyard, that we were able to meet together, talk together, and have some discussion about this important situation. We all want what is best for our children, our teachers, and our community. We may disagree about how we get there, but again, we all want what is best for our children, our teachers, and our community. After hearing the presentations from MGT and looking at the data, it seems to me that our best option is with a larger district. I think a Lehi to Orem is the strongest and best option. Also, after meeting with the 4 other cities— or the 3 other cities that would That would form our 4-city pod the other day. It appears that none of our neighbors want to enter into an interlocal agreement. And the way that I— and from what I'm hearing, after those cities have met together, after their meetings, none of them are in favor of an interlocal agreement. My understanding is that we would need all 4 cities to be willing to do this, and apparently at this time, no one city— not one of these cities wants to do this. Um, if Lehi and other central— the other central cities decide that they do not want to go on their own to create a second district in a 3-way split, and if I believe that a 2-way split is the strongest option, I don't want to take that possibility off of the table. I want a 2-way split to still be a possibility. Um, if they decide that they, that they do want to create their new district, then we can join with our other neighboring cities at that time. The other concern is with the new Alpine School District numbers and the apparent larger increase with a smaller district. I worry about what that tax increase for some of our citizens on a fixed income and how that will affect them. And we've heard part of that earlier this evening. A 3-way split is the most expensive option to our taxpayers. I'm also concerned about overstepping our bounds, as there is another legislative body elected by the citizens to oversee the school district. That is not us. Let the district do their job that they were elected to do. Once they have done their job and make a recommendation, After looking at the study and all of the data and reviewing all of the 11,000 responses after public meetings, I trust them to make the right decision, just like I hope the citizens trust us to make the right decisions regarding the city police, fire, water, public works, etc. It's critical, no matter what the outcome is, that we continue in a spirit of collaboration and goodwill as we continue to work with these amazing cities that we are so blessed to call our neighbors. In my, my, uh, my opinion, I think Option 3, which is a 2-district split, is our best option.

Thank you, Jeff. Um, let me just clarify one thing because I think there is some misunderstanding about this, but as far as, as far as forming an interlocal agreement I mean, where we're at right now is Pleasant Grove was not in favor of an interlocal. Linden was not in favor. Linden's council was not in favor, but Linden's mayor was, even though— but she doesn't get a vote, but she was very much in favor. Did I just say Vineyard?

Linden.

Linden. Okay. And then Vineyard. Vineyard, actually, in my conversations with them, they have been in favor if we went towards an interlocal agreement, that they would go also. And so that's there. And then, and then we also— an interlocal agreement can actually be formed between any 2 of us, 3 of us, or 4 of us. So that option is available. But, you know, that said, I think you made some great points.

Thank you.

This—

these are my beliefs on why we need an interlocal agreement between Orem Vineyard and Linden and potentially Pleasant Grove. In 2021, Rob Smith, the business manager of ASD, originally recommended an Orem Vineyard and Linden as a preferred school district to the south. So that was the last time that Alpine really spoke out on that, and that was in 2021. And then 2 years ago, Orem Annabella issue to separate Orem from Alpine School District, that felt— that vote failed in part because of the narrative that a split would increase property taxes 56%. That wasn't accurate, but that scared a lot of voters. Even more important, a lot of voters said that they wanted an Orem-Vineyard-Linden district, but not an Orem-only district. And that was, that was said over and over, that they wanted Orem-Vineyard-Linden but not an Orem-only district. And then after the election, Alpine School District raised taxes 20%, 19.6% or something, shut down Sharon Elementary. and then proposed shutting down Windsor Elementary. Those 3 things changed some voters' opinion on how they had originally voted. Now, 18 months later, 10 city councils— in other words, 10 other cities' city councils— like Jen said, over the last few couple weeks entered into interlocal agreements and voted unanimously to study the issues and potentially give their citizens the right to vote for their own school districts. With that in mind, what has changed so much that 10 cities in Alpine School District proactively decided that they want to have this conversation again? With every, with every Eastside city voting against the last bond, these 10 cities said they are taking this stand Because they don't believe that Alpine School District will ever be able to run a general revenue bond again with the current school district. Without a general revenue bond, it's not possible for ASD to effectively manage the growth in their district. For example, the last bond in Orem failed because our residents would have paid $120 million of that bond and only received $15 million in new construction. And that model just doesn't work anymore. And that's why that bond was, was defeated so soundly. There's just— the district has gotten so big that there's a disconnect between the money that's being raised and how the money is being spent. And that's really hard to talk taxpayers into. The 10 cities also said they don't feel they are adequately represented by the current school board structure. They feel their voice is not heard and their city is not adequately represented. And to put this in perspective, currently there's 7 school board members representing 92 schools, 85,000 students, and 466,000 residents. By way of comparison, the 85,000 students and 466,000 residents are also represented by roughly 81 mayors and city council members. So representation for all those 14 cities comes down to 81— 81, not mayors— 81 mayors and city council members. And so when you compare that with 7 school district members managing a massive school district, versus 81 city council members running these communities. Since Pleasant Grove was denied participation in the new Lehi district, they're now trying to force one large district from Lehi to Orem by refusing to enter into an interlocal agreement with Orem. There's a problem with trying to force this outcome. I've talked with Lehi people that are involved with this, and they've stated adamantly that if their 6-city split proposal is torpedoed by other cities, then Lehi will leave the east side and join Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs. Now, this is a major problem. Lehi leaving could financially weaken the remaining Alpine School District group because currently you would have— what's being proposed is a Lehi to Orem district. But if you take Lehi as one of the economic pillars out of that, now all of a sudden it's just all on Orem. And currently the Alpine School District financial projections have not— have been constantly changing. And as Jen said, the split process is not clearly defined. There's— it's partially defined, but there's a lot of holes. And in my opinion, now is not the time to bury our heads in the sand. This is not the time to lead out by doing nothing. Superintendent Farnsworth told myself and several of us, Swarms Council members, that we were crazy if we didn't enter into an interlocal agreement so that we had time to gather and review the data, become informed, stay flexible in the face of all the uncertainty. and continue to give our citizens options. If we wind up with 2 current interlocal agreements— and this is where it gets too confusing— if we wind up with 2 interlocal agreements, which is what's happening right now, representing 10 cities on the ballot, and there's also an option for 2 or— for a 2 or 3-way split on the ballot from Alpine School District, I think we're creating a very confusing situation for the voters. However, if we simply put a 3rd interlocal agreement on the ballot, then that would provide our voters with a clear choice. It's simple and straightforward. For each interlocal group, either yes, we form a new school district, or no, we don't. The voters get to decide their own future. In Orm, whether this goes— whether or not this goes on the ballot is a long ways from being decided. So no, we're not talking about putting it on the ballot right now. We're talking about just simply forming an interlocal agreement to explore it.

All this—

at this point, the interlocal agreement would simply give us the time we need to evaluate the constantly changing data and adjust our plans forward as we gain more clarity in the current chaos. If we don't enter into an interlocal agreement, then we're giving up our opportunity to be a part of the conversation, and most importantly, the option to adjust our direction in this upcoming election cycle. So anyway, those are my thoughts.

Dave? Thank you, Mayor. So the last time we met with Alpine School District, um, I asked the question to the board And I said, why do you think these cities are doing this in a local agreement? And the bottom line was representation. And I think that's the key part that I think we're missing, is with 85,000 kids and 14 cities, 7 people should not make the decision. The voters should make the decision. My question is, are we forfeiting our citizens the right to vote if Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain split? and Lehi and American Fork split, then the leftover is our district. I'd like to be proactive and not reactive and do a study of this 4-city school district and make sure that we have all the facts and not skewed numbers from the district who cannot get the numbers right or even straight. After their study came out, which they gave MGT the numbers, they had to correct the errors again. This seems to be a pattern with the district. If the studies— if a study does not put anything on the ballot, but it opens the door to be educated on this school district. This discussion item tonight, I was told that there's— that the only way this was put on the agenda was— and that we could not take a vote. Jen read Tom McDonald's text, and he voted no. So I'm not sure where the line of communication there is. But I would like to ask those on the council members, what is your reason why not to vote tonight on this issue? Vineyard is willing to enter into an interlocal agreement, and if we do that with Vineyard, maybe possibly Lyndon would follow. Let's see what happens, because the rhetoric 2 years ago was Not an Orem-only school district, but an Orem, Vineyard, and Linden school district would be fine. And I think we need to look at that.

I've appreciated all the comments that have been made thus far and, and, uh, appreciate the opportunity to share my, my viewpoints and feelings. This has been one of those areas that, uh, I recognize Again, has been— it has been mentioned that there's many thanks that need to be given to all who are striving to find, um, understanding on all the major issues that are at hand here. And, and there's, there's several, so it can, can be complicated. But encourage all of us to continue in that process of dialogue, of openness. I know that that's been the intent over the last several weeks as we invited Alpine School to come and talk talk to us, and then we invited the 4 cities. And, and I commend leadership of the city to— and what's happened thus far, and also appreciate my fellow members of the council and mayor in, in the open dialogue and, and the, uh, way in which we've discussed all of this. And my position right now is that as I've studied what I know at this point that as we look to what would be the best benefit for the programs, for all of the students, for the students themselves, for the teachers, and for the taxpayers, which are our citizens and all of the citizens of the school district right now, what impact would, would there be on either— as we all know, you know, the MGT study provided us staying together, 2-way, 3-way, what— there were 6 options that they proposed or shared from their study. And I think what it turned into now, most viable from at least the school board's perspective and their analysis and review and their votes back and forth, has been either a 2-way or a 3-way, which is option 3 or 4. And that's in essence kind of what we're all talking about tonight. And, um, so a 3-way is, uh, is, is this opportunity for for, um, the 3 pods to decide how they want their future to be. And with, uh, the, the 2 pods being created and the 3rd pod being considered last week, that provided that 3rd pod to come together and, and see our position as an entire pod. And the views there were, were discussed, and, and lots of good questions and lots of, uh, Again, with the help of openness and an opportunity to see as much options as possible, thank you for providing that, Mayor. And, and for me, that helped me just get a sense and a feel. And again, studying both sides of this issue, I think that's very important. So as I've done my personal analysis and, and encouraging everyone else to do the same, the voters have an opportunity to make a decision. And I know that, uh, the district is just in the middle of, uh, their meetings right now, and they're going to, uh, vote for one option that, that will go before the voters. And, uh, we'll see what that, that outcome is. And my, uh, personal desire would be that we, uh, look to see what that is, but as we continue all the other options down the road. Um, I would hope that if we did an interlocal that that interlocal agreement would include all of the cities in the remaining district of the— of all the, all the 14 cities that make up our current district. And so if not all 4 are in favor of moving forward, then my hope would be that we somehow try and make arrangements so that we could work together and continue dialogue, even if we don't decide to do interlocal with all 4 of us, that we all continue the dialogue of working together, because as the voters decide on a district option, that may turn into either Option 3 or Option 4 depending on that vote, then we'd need to make that opportunity for us to continue to have that dialogue occur. So I'm in agreement with all that has been said regarding transparency, open dialogue, making sure that we're all aware of all and understanding as best we can, and coming to that position based on all of that. Currently, I'm of the impression and would think that with a 2-district split, that would provide the greatest programs, the greatest amount of support for teachers in their career paths, and also the greatest help for taxpayers in the cost per student.

Thank you.

home that the tax comes from, the property taxes come from. So that's my current position, but I'm also amenable to the continuation of the discussion for interlocal and our 4, if we could have all 4. If it's less than the 4, then I wouldn't be in favor of dividing or subdividing, as, as has been suggested by some. But I think that all 4, if we all 4 decided then that might be an option for me to consider. But currently, if they're— if we're not all for, then I don't know that I would be in favor of a smaller interlocal leaving some other cities out. Um, as I view the blessings and benefit of the entire school district, um, and the size that they've gotten and all the other considerations that several of you have with the discussion of, of Westside issues and others. I think partially that will be taken care of by the west side doing what they're doing. And then for Lehi to make the decision based on representation, that's also been discussed, is, is a critical and important piece. So weighing all of those things again, I think my position, rather than continuing to talk, would be just to support a 2-way split. And if, if that doesn't come together, then I would be in favor if all 4 cities of the third would come together unanimously, then I would support that as well. But if that doesn't occur, then I'd continue to support the two-way. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chris. Lynnae?

Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm really grateful that we're finally having this discussion. I feel like we're at a huge disadvantage. Lehi has actually been discussing this for over 6 months. Many of these municipalities have been discussing it since the law was first voted in the beginning of January. We became aware of these changes in this law, and those discussions have been happening more fervently, I would say. But the minute that ASD announced they were going to do a split study, I know for a fact that the west side cities, some of the central cities began conversations about that. So we are really behind the game here in Orem. We've sat on our hands, and to our detriment in my opinion. Let me kind of explain to you why I think that's true. I really think as a city council, well, first let me say one thing about this law. I think this law, you know, I've heard people say cities need to stay in their lane, this is not their lane. No, this law exactly put us in that lane. This law gave us, as the representatives of our cities, who are closer to our— the heartbeat of what's going on in our cities to have this opportunity to have these discussions. And I'm not saying this opportunity to split. I'm tonight going to be speaking about opportunities to create an interlocal agreement and maybe tell you a little bit about that. To me, this is contrary to what some are saying. An interlocal does not signal a preference.

Thank you.

reference for a ballot proposition. An interlocal gives communities an opportunity to have public discussion, vet financials for each individual interlocal area. I feel our community, especially here in Orem, could be healed by these discussions. Now that we have this MGT study to look at, we have the district engaging in this. What a great opportunity for us to bring our community members together who at one point were on different sides and to really have these positive discussions. Um, the Interlocal puts a 45-day time period giving that discussion opportunity, um, that, that time period as an opportunity to focus and shape conversations around this point. And I'm going to say this, let's do this not just for ourselves but to ensure the needs of every child in School District are met and that concerns for our teachers are given a path forward. That's my impression of what an interlocal does. As I've spoken with community city council leaders in the central area and the west area, that's the way they are approaching this. They are approaching it from a holistic way, not from a political way. So when you hear people say this is political, it is not. The conversations that are being had and that I have sat in have been about let's make sure everyone is taken care of. Let's make sure we can address these issues, our differences, our concerns, the non-passing of the bond and why that happened, and the future of other general obligation bonds passing. Let's, let's, let's have positive conversations about that. And that's what I have seen. So I want to clarify also some chatter that I'm hearing. I'm hearing that 72% of Orem voted against splitting. Um, let me read you some comments from those who were opposed to Prop 2, and these are Facebook comments during Prop 2. I'm just going to say the first name because I don't want to out these people, but you know, that's— I guess it's public record. So, um, Gwyneth said, um, and I can't read the whole comment, but Gwyneth said, I am in favor of a multi-city split if at least Vineyard, Linden, and PG broke off together, but I will be opposed to an Orem-only split as it has been proposed. Orem-only split is what was voted up against. Well, I'm not an expert, but from what I've learned, I too think a 3-way split is best. Um, Julie Julie Walker, um, we want to split, just not this split. I'm on the board of Stronger Together and I'm telling you this directly. Let me say it again louder: we want to split, but not this split. The vote was against an Orem-only split, not a 3-way split. Many of us know that ASD needs to split, but we don't want an Orem-only split. That's what the vote was about, was an Orem-only split. Stronger Together, Charlie, Is one of the main posters here. She said, I would love to see another scenario in which Orem City works with ASD to move forward an eventual split of the district. I've heard the superintendent say that the school district knows it's too big, knows eventually it will split. If, for example, we had a PG, Linden, Orem, and Vineyard together, we would have 4 solid high schools with plenty of students and plenty of resources, and the mess of figuring out which students go to which schools over city borders would be eliminated. Plus, when a district split itself, the resources like bus depots are split equitably. Teacher benefits and insurance are more stable. Let me just point out, Linden has a bus depot. Linden has a, a building there that could be used as a district office. Linden has the warehouse for the district. It may not have— and then, um, another story. The best way for us— and this is me um, opining here. The best way for us to work with ASD is through an interlocal agreement where we're able to have unified, productive discussions together about our children. I feel like Orem should lead out. We should encourage conversations with Alpine School District. We could review all options and opportunities as we have those discussions. And I'm going back to the quote from this individual, Charlie. She said, it may not happen as soon as Orem would like, but if going to push for a smaller district, working with the current school district and the surrounding cities who are directly affected, to help encourage ASD to split itself is going to be a much better scenario than anything they've come up with so far. That's what we're talking about, folks. We're talking about an interlocal agreement that creates these conversations for a split option. And in this case, the other 2 areas, the other city councils, all but 4, have understood the importance of an interlocal in that it promotes conversation, it promotes unity of message, and it promotes information and education to the public. That way we can come out with one message, unified with Alpine in arriving at what that message is. Let me tell you where I am right now. I went to the district meeting last Wednesday. They're actually showing these slides tonight at the Alpine School District meeting, but they let us as elected officials see these slides and hear this presentation last Wednesday. Um, I gotta tell you, I came away from that so confused. I'm about data, and there is such a state of confusion right now. Even with these— this corrected data that the mayor talked about, um, MGT's data was deficient. Alpine School District has tried to correct some of that, and that's what they presented to us on Wednesday. Let me tell you some of this.

Um, oh, let's see.

How much would a 3-way split cost? We don't know without an interlocal agreement. We don't have time to study it. We don't know. The data is all over the place. Like I said, we more— we need more time to study it. The MGT study has significant financial errors that are being corrected.

weekly.

This is the second time we've had these numbers changed. We don't know all of the errors yet. Without an interlocal agreement, it won't be studied and we won't know. We need more time. We need more time. This is too rushed. One of the things in these— if these slides— you look at these slides and you know what these slides have in it? They have the— they, they're estimating the cost of an elementary school. They're using the figures from 2022, $30 million. An elementary school, Alpine stated now costs $50 million. A high school costs $175 million. They don't have the correct numbers in these slides that they just gave us on Wednesday. Those figures are incorrect. Um, that— let's see, bond layering. And just to tell you what bond layering is, in other words, that means that your taxes go down as old bonds are paid off. This presentation that they gave us did not include any type of bond layering effect. I asked that question at the presentation. I said, is that number that you're saying, that out-of-pocket number for Orem taxpayers, the, the, the, the east side— PG, Vineyard, Linden, Orem— is that number, the out-of-pocket number, does that include the effects of the bonds that have been dropped off? They said no. That needs to be changed. We need to see what the adequate, what the accurate number is that it's going to cost our taxpayers, and then our taxpayers can make the decision as to whether they want to pay that extra money in order to keep our taxpayer money in our cities, our 4 cities. Okay, so that's— that is a problem. Um, we need more time. We need more time to study that. This is too rushed. Revenue numbers from— One more time in here. Revenue numbers from fiscal year 2022 were used used, but student numbers from fiscal year 2023 were used. Because of that, we, you know, there's probably at least $60 million that wasn't included. Now, they said the reason they did that is because the budget's not finalized. We, you know, they haven't gotten the final— I'm sorry, they said it— they haven't gotten the final numbers for fiscal year 2023. We just heard our budget tonight, right? We have estimated budgets. Everybody has their budgets estimated for the coming year. They can estimate for this study. That needs to be done for, for our taxpayers to know. We don't know exactly what the impact is yet. We need more time to study it. An interlocal agreement will help us do that. Eastside neighborhood schools have many students that aren't bused. However, back in 2022, we learned the overhead charges— ASD assesses $247 per student. Let's say just in Orem— I don't know the other schools But in Orem, we have 14,000 students. 10,000 are likely not bused. That's probably a conservative figure. $2.47 million then that is being counted against Orem because of that, um, lumping in of the overhead classes. They, um, they tried to say that, well, our schools are less efficient, so, you know, our heating and air conditioning is is more. Maybe, but you know what, we're also a smaller square footage. We also have a smaller footprint. Let's get those overhead costs actually correct. We don't know what they are. We don't know exactly what the impact is. We need more time to study this. Um, also, um, let's see, comprehensive seismic needs on the east side are not mentioned. East side communities need— we need to know where our schools stand seismically. From a financial perspective? What future tax needs are there? Is the ASD school— is Alpine School District planning to close schools to, to address seismic needs? Our residents need to know that. I know residents were very upset after Prop 2. The next month after Prop 2 failed, Alpine came out, was going to close 5 schools throughout the district, 2 of them in Orem. Let us know. Just tell us what we're dealing with here. We need to know what the 5 and 10-year plan is for our schools. If we had time, if we had more time to study this, an interlocal would, would help us have more time and we could find those things out. I mean, frankly, we just had 2 more 5.0 earthquakes here in Utah this last couple weeks. I think it's time to start remediating our schools and have a plan. Just show us the plan. What's the plan? help us know what our financial, um, responsibilities will be. Um, there's a chance that this is a, this is a huge liability for us. We could end up paying if those aren't identified before the split. Our communities on the east side could end up paying for our schools twice because we don't get that added in. Those, those were not added in in this presentation I went to, um, Wednesday. Once again, we need more time. This decision is rushed. Um, I just want to say that interlocals do not send a message that a 3-way is preferred. I'm open, I'm open to the data, you know, but please, I just can't. I'm, I'm, I'm, I guess I'm feeling frustrated here because, um, we have another 2 or 3 weeks that we could enter an interlocal. We had an extra buffer that our attorney gave us of 30 days. We have another 2 or 3 weeks where we could enter into an interlocal agreement, and I really hope that, you know, these councils understand these things that are going on and are from our 4 cities and see the importance of adding an additional 45 days to study these issues. Um, okay, one more time. Interlocals don't send a message to the 3-way preferred. It does not say that we don't support Alpine School District. Complete contrary. An interlocal accomplishes the complete opposite. It allows for collaboration. In fact, after our city council meeting, as with Alpine School District, as was mentioned, Superintendent Farnsworth made a point to tell our Orem City Council that we would be crazy— those were his words— if we didn't do an interlocal agreement. He was supportive of it. This is not going against Alpine School District. This is this is not going outside of our lane. This was encouraged by our superintendent, Shane Farnsworth. He was a good man. Um, it seems to me that it's ASD board members, some of them, who are not in favor of interlocals. An interlocal agreement to study a 3-way split— and this is what's really key for me, and this is what I see as the benefit to an interlocal— I feel like it gets us talking. It helps us to come together. Um, it allows for a free flow of information and ideas. It allows our communities to be heard. Right now there are special— there are issues with special education students in Alpine. There's issues with our 2 successful DLI programs happening in Orem right now. One of those is going to be shut down. There's issues with students being moved to other schools, with gen ed programs being moved out of Orchard Elementary. You know, those issues can be discussed during these interlocal conversations. I feel very strongly that that would be an amazing opportunity to have those conversations in an, in an attitude of, boy, let's come together and figure out how to make this work. Yeah, maybe, maybe there's some bad, some decisions that we don't want to have happen, but maybe, you know, let's see if we can figure this out. Let's work together to, to at least agree instead of have something forced on someone. Um, oh, I think I've said this before, but interlocal allows our community members to meet together with each other, to collaborate, to communicate, to unify our objectives for our student needs. That's why we need everyone at the table, everyone at the table to do this so we can vet and further clarify these financials. Um, I want to say one other thing. I feel like an interlocal is also a great opportunity and maybe the best way for us to have, you know, 4 more cities advocating for teachers. Um, at our meeting with Lyndon, I indicated that I'm having talks with state legislators to try to figure out if they can backfill some opportunities to preserve our Tier 1 retirement benefits for our teachers. You know, if we could get 4 other city councils also on board with creating those conversations, we can help our teachers feel peace from these decisions. Um, I also want to say that, um, just one more time, I, I, I feel, I feel bad that Pleasant Grove is, um, I'm feeling that there's some animosity there towards Orem. Um, I, I really would like to have an opportunity. I don't know what happened years ago. I was, I was told that Warmth thinks they're the belle of the ball, and, um, I just really would prefer that we can have positive conversations together and set aside any of these. Um, I mean, not talk past each other, instead talk with each other. I just want to say the last, a last couple things. Um, I'm not saying a 3-way it's the best. I'm open to the data. I'm open to letting our residents see the tax impact and then to decide what they want to do with their tax dollars. As I said before, my core value is that we as city leaders have the responsibility to provide accurate information to our citizens, to give them the opportunity to provide feedback, and then to let them make the decision. Right now I'm saying we need more time. This is rushed. If anything's rushed, this is what's rushed, is this interlocal conversations that are being had and these decisions that are being made. They should not be made yet. We need more time. We need more information. We need it to slow down. Give us the data that we need. Let's get that done. Let's have some time to study this. Um, saying yes to an interlocal agreement would would give our children, our teachers, and our citizens more time. It would allow us the opportunity to partner with Alpine School District as data and scenarios are vetted and agreed upon. Um, that's my hope. My hope is that this can be a productive— we don't see the division that happened during Prop 2, that we can unify upon a multi-city district and have those conversations. in the future. That's why I'm in favor of an interlocal, if you couldn't tell.

Thank you, Lynette. So as a council, I mean, we could— I mean, unless there's anything that anyone thinks needs to be corrected, but at the same time, I do like that everyone's been able to speak in a positive way and make their case. Do you guys feel good just to let it lie where it's at and move forward? I have one more statement.

Sorry, you're done.

You know me, I'm not going to accept that. Um, I want to say one more thing that concerns me, and this is a little bit on the— just not relating to the interlocal, okay? I'm very concerned That the MGT survey that was done, it was— is not statistically sound. Unfortunately, it was easily corrupted, meaning what has happened is people were able to take the survey multiple times. All they needed was a different device, a different email address. So in short, if someone had 3 cell phones, 8 devices, you know, an iPad, a desktop, a laptop, they could take the survey every single time with every one of those devices. Um, some, you know, I had someone say, oh, I took it 10 times, you know, just to see if I could. And, and there's no way they could track it if they had different devices. So it's not a valid survey. I'm concerned that I've heard rumors that some ASD board members are trying to get the cities to use their email addresses to send out a survey from the, from Alpine School District. And I just want to say that should not happen. A survey is not a statistically accurate product. There's absolutely no reason for Orem City or any other city to do a survey on this split. It would only create more confusion and yield the same easily corruptible results that the MGT survey did. There's no way to guarantee a sufficient population sample in a survey, so I just wanted to make that statement too.

Okay.

Jen.

Just really quickly, um, I think— thank you. You can tell that we've all thought strongly about this and have strong feelings about it and have researched it thoroughly. And I know that we've come to different conclusions in some regards, and I think actually that's healthy. Um, I do want to say this though, that whatever we do, we may end up in an interlocal agreement anyway. And so I think it would behoove us to start working with our sister cities and say, look, even if we don't an official interlocal agreement, what's our plan for when November rolls around if we're an interlocal, you know, by default? What does that look like? Let's hit the ground running. I don't want to be behind if that's the case. So I think it would be a good idea for us to look at options there.

Yeah, no, I agree with that completely. Because if— I mean, if let's say the 2 other groups, both those interlocals pass, now by default we're the 3rd one, and there's a lot of work that has to be done Right out of the gate, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. So that makes sense.

Okay.

Well, I think everyone's been heard. And I think, you know, like, like we say, different people have different opinions. And, but I think this is good, because now we know where everyone stands. And this may have helped us gather more information that we weren't aware of. Because, as Lynette said, we actually have 2 or 3 weeks that we could still form an interlocal if we wanted to. So anyway, good job, Warren. Um, let's move on. Yeah, we've got item 10, communication items, which is, uh, the monthly financial summary for March 2024. And then we've got item 11, city manager information items. And if you'd like to add in how you feel about school district— I'm just kidding.

Your city's in an—

I'm not a superintendent, but, um, no, always a big fan of, of you all communicating. I just had one quick thing that was super applicable to one of your main areas of focus, which is related to renewing neighborhoods. And so we got some good news yesterday from the My Hometown organization. They indicated that they are going to start in the Geneva Heights neighborhood, and they're going to open a community resource center this September with the intent then to participate in spring service projects next spring. So they're going to start that community resource center at the Geneva Heights Stake Center on 546 North 500 West. And so I guess that's a 2-story building and kind of fits their needs and desires for that program. And then Councilmember Kilpatrick, I think, is mentioning they've got some representatives that we hope to bring back to a future work session to introduce you and continue these conversations. But Jim and Marilyn Berry have been assigned to be the chairs in in the Orem My Hometown Partnership. And then Brent and Beverly Reary are going to be the Geneva Heights exec— Reary, sorry, will be the Geneva Heights executive director. So just want to make sure you know that. A really good bit of news. We continue to be anxiously engaged with them, with the My Hometown organization, and conversations continue to go really positively and constructively.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Bren. Okay, we're gonna try and blitz through the rest of this. We've got a couple quick things. First of all, we need to adjourn this city council meeting.

Uh, I make a motion we adjourn.

Second?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

I accept. We're, we're adjourning to The Orem Redevelopment Agency meeting.

Okay, Mayor, I make a motion that we adjourn the City Council meeting and— what do you say? Convene, is that what we say? And then convene our Orem Redevelopment Agency meeting.

I second.

Aye again.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye again. Aye.

Okay, we're adjourned and we're reconvened. So we've got item 13, the RDA consent items. Which is approval of the minutes. Would someone like to make a motion?

May I make a motion that we approve the consent items?

I second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The consent items are approved. Next, we've got item 14, the RDA scheduled items, which is a resolution adopting the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Orem fiscal year '24-'25 budget. Okay, Brandon, can you show us the budget quickly? This is just the RDA.

There we go.

All right.

So The RDA of the City of Orem. We currently only have one for fiscal '25. We will only have one remaining active RDA area, which is the mall CDA area. All of the other RDAs have expired as of the end of this year. There may still be some money trickling in on past-due property taxes that have not been paid. But for the most part, they are completed as far as a revenue— drawing revenue in. They do have— several of the RDAs do have funds remaining, and we continue to look for ways that we can use that money within those RDA areas to make various improvements, etc. So that said, you can see the history across the top of the RDA revenues, as I refer to, as it will continue to decline. And the— down at the bottom, the estimated expenditures, and you can see the top line there, University Place CDA incentive. And that's really the only element within that CDA. is to pay out the 90% of the taxes that we receive to Woodbury in that universe, in that CDA. We retain 5% of those as an admin fee, and we keep 5% actually in the RDA for future improvements to that RDA area. And you can see that some various other— we still have Some, some other expenditures that we anticipate within the other area— areas of the older RDAs. That is all I have for the RDA. Are there any questions about what remains within the RDA?

Any questions? Okay, we'll open this up for public hearing. like to comment? Nobody wants to comment. We'll close the public hearing. And would somebody like to make a motion on this resolution?

Wait, can I ask one thing? Remind me when that RDA— what year does that run off, that mall? It's like 14 years or something.

2040-something.

You're asking the, uh, the University Place CDA?

Yeah, it's going for like 20 years.

I, I think it's about to 2040, 2038, something like that. Maybe Ryan knows for sure. 2018.

But then they tacked up a couple years for COVID, so I think it's, I think it's 2040.

Yeah, okay, that's what I remember.

That seems to be a magical year between Utopia and—

It's gonna be a great year. So does somebody want to make a resolution motion?

I make a motion that the, uh, resolution for adopting the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Orem, you know, the RDA fiscal year 2024-2025 tentative budget be approved.

I'll second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

The resolution is approved. Thank you, Brandon. Okay, now we need to adjourn to a meeting of the Special Aurum Service Lighting District.

I move that we adjourn to a meeting of the Aurum Special Service Lighting District.

Second. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, we're convened for this SSLD. The consent items are item 16.1, approval of meeting minutes. Someone like to make a motion?

So moved.

Yeah, I second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The minutes are approved. Now we've got the SSLD scheduled items. Item 17.1, a resolution adopting the Special Service Lighting District of the City of Orem fiscal 2024-2025 budget. Brandon?

So just to give a slight background, the Street Lighting Fund was created as a separate legal entity back around 2001, and the purpose of the Street Lighting Fund is to— was to replace all of the Rocky Mountain Power poles and lights within the city And the fund has continued to try to finish that. They ran out of money in the original bonds that were created under that fund, but we've now recently identified funding sources and are continuing to try to complete that process. So outside of that, the street lighting fund, as we commonly refer to it as, has gone into maintenance mode, where we're now just maintaining for the most part these poles. You can see with the current revenue sources that the fund anticipates between the street lighting fee that is charged on utility bills and the interest earnings and some other item, miscellaneous items in relation to creating the total revenues of the fund. Those funds are primarily spent on these— the operating budget, which includes some personnel and includes various maintenance, including replacement of poles, etc. And then obviously power for those— all those streetlights. And then once upon a time, I'm trying to remember when it was, we entered into a lease with Siemens to replace all of the lights fixtures with LED lighting instead of the old halogen lighting. And so that lease was entered into and we continue to pay on, and that has quite a— wouldn't surprise me if it ends in 2040, but there's still quite a time frame left on that lease. And so anyway, those are where those revenues that you were indicated will be proposed to be spent. Any questions?

Any questions, Dave?

Nope.

Okay.

I do have one more thing. So we do have a rate increase proposed for the street lighting to cover those costs, and that is a raise from $2.61 to $3.16. And that is to complete the Pole, all the old poles being pulled out.

That is to do what?

To finish off all of the old poles.

There's still old poles in place.

They haven't removed them, replaced them.

So this would replace them all.

We're done after this?

Correct.

By the, by the end of this year, the end of 2025?

I don't know when they'll actually be done, but this money would have them be set aside to be able to complete them.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay, any questions? Don't like the percentage. Um, public hearing, any questions? Okay, well, thank you. We'll close this for a minute and we'll go to public hearing.

Thank you.

So if any 4 of you would like to comment, you're welcome to comment. Okay, we'll close the public hearing and we'll bring it back to council.

And I'll make a motion.

You, you want to be responsible for the 21%?

Whatever. Okay.

I'll make a motion that the City Council make resolution adopting the Special Service Lighting District of the City of Orem Utah SSLD fiscal year 2024-2025 tentative budget.

I second.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the budget passes. Okay, thank you, Brandon.

I make a motion.

Yeah, um, would someone like to make a motion to adjourn?

I make a motion we adjourn.

I second it.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Hi.

Hi.

Thank you for all of your efforts, and we're adjourned.

Chris said 7. Chris?