City Council · 2025-01-10

All right, I guess we're ready to go.

We're ready.

Ready?

In case none of you have been on the walk from the beyond other side to here, they've made it more interesting because there's all kinds of barriers and plastic things on the walls. And so you have to go up and around and over and through and in and out. And So if you have an experience— we should do it as a team-building exercise.

But those of us who are innately directionally challenged—

I'm good with directions. It's still an issue. Anyway, we just want to welcome everyone here. And we're excited for this. Brenda and I have been talking about it quite a bit. And what I'd like to do as far as my hope for this retreat is that we, we ask ourselves, whether we're executive staff or whether we're city council, why do I do what I do? And hopefully by the end of this retreat, you'll have very clear clarity. Because a lot of times we don't really think of why we do what we do. We just do it. And it's just habits. And that could be for better or for worse. But anyway, I want everyone to ask themselves why I do what I do. That's one of the goals of coming out of here. And then another thing is, how can my personal efforts— because you're all executive staff, we're your city council— but how can my personal efforts make Orem the best city in the state to live? Because that's our goal. And if we're going to get there, it takes each of our efforts to make that happen. And I know Brent's all over that. He's a great leader. He's always focusing on that. But I just want, as we're gathered here at the start of 2025, to really try and figure that out, what your personal efforts can do to make a difference in the coming year. And then, so that's your personal efforts. But then all of you as city council members, we represent, you know, 100,000 people that live in Orem. As executive staff, you each have staffs that you're over and you lead, and your leadership determines how good that staff is. And so I just ask the question, what can I personally do to help And inspire the people that I lead to make Orem the best and build a better Orem. So, as I was thinking about it, those are my goals for us as a group over the next, next day and a half. And with that, I'll go into the agenda and how we plan on getting there. So, we'll start out with a review of Team Orm's major accomplishments then and now, facilitated by executive staff. And that's always a really fun activity. And then we'll go into a city council roundtable.

Yeah.

Where every council member may share thoughts and ideas. And, some of the things we're going to be talking about are, what our re-emphasis— have a re-emphasis on the benefits of unified council, our Orem visioning and general plan update, the heart of downtown study update, the West Union Canal trial update, and short-term rentals update. Those are just a few of the projects we've got going on that we'll talk a little bit about. And, and then I've got some other things I'll go into when we start that part of the session that I want to, uh, ask the city council specifically. And then we'll take a break. Are we going to attempt to follow this pretty close?

We've got a little bit of catching up to do time-wise, so we can be flexible as well.

Okay, maybe we'll see where we're at going into that, and then we'll set a time for the break. And then we'll have a presentation of the General Fund Sustainability by Laura Lewis and Brandon Nelson. And then we'll have— we'll discuss the takeaways from Voice and the Vote. It'll be facilitated by Chris Shirkey. And then we'll have our boards and commission assignments. Which we'll just go through and have a conversation about that.

What's that?

Okay, and then tomorrow we'll start at 9, and assuming we can make it from the other side over here, we'll have A presentation on business leadership, Brent Spolsky. I wrote a book and I'm going to go from that. And I don't know if any of you have had a chance to read any of it or look at it, but if you have time, that would be useful. We're going to review and refine our 2025 areas of focus. 10:30, we'll take a break. 10:35, we'll have a presentation of departmental 2025 goals, major projects by executive staff. 12:30, we'll have lunch. 1 o'clock, we'll finalize our citywide goals associated with areas of focus, the council roundtable, and that council roundtable will go through More of the same. The idea is on the initial roundtable is we'll kind of be more brainstorming, talking about where we're at, and then hopefully on the next roundtable, the final roundtable, we'll be able to get some finality on where we want to go. And then we'll start to wrap up the meeting around 2:30, and we'll just see how long it goes or what we need. We won't pick past 3, but if we get done sooner, or we'll leave early. But anyway, that's where we're at. And so with that, I'm not sure who's leading this. Is Pete leading this?

I'm going to kind of facilitate it and keep the conversation going. But if I can maybe just preface a little bit on this, maybe the why behind starting out with Going over our major accomplishments. Yes, there is an aspect of this that is returning and reporting. There is an aspect of this that I guess you know that we should feel, I guess, some satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. But the the real why I think is is to show you that we don't do nothing. You know, it's not like we come and have just a fun. happy conversation and then set it all on a shelf and forget about it for a year. We take this information and we do things with it. We communicate it and publicize it again and again and again. We reemphasize it. We build our budget around it. We build our tasks around it. We actually use this to— To make a difference. Drive the city forward and truly, genuinely to build and be a part of building a better borough. So just want to, I guess, emphasize that, that this, this process shows that we do more, that we give the public more for, for the taxes and the trust that they offer to us.

Thank you.

So with that, I guess emphasis of the why. Pete, you want to start on this?

Let me just say one thing, Pete. And to what Brent's saying with all of this, because this has been a really bigger, newer push that we've put out there, but the essence of this is to build community. I mean, we're proud of what's happening in Orem. We want our residents to understand what's happening in Orem. That they live in a great place. And unless we put the word out there of these different things, a lot of people would never have any idea.

Yeah.

I mean, they might pick up on 1 or 2 or 3, but to see the whole package is what we're trying to put together now. So, and Pete does a phenomenal job at that. And I forgot to say one thing, which is, uh, Jan Gale's not gonna be able to make it today. Uh, I spoke with her last night. I don't know if you already said that.

She's on Zoom.

She's on Zoom. I spoke with her last night. She felt really bad that she couldn't come, but she's sick and got that flu that's going around. We just thought we would all rather have her at home.

So anyway, well, I appreciate you starting with that, Mayor, because we put together the 2024 Citizen Report and it got sent out about a week ago, and one of the best things that happened from this was a lady who has, you know, been a little bit critical of the city in the past texted me and she said, I need a digital copy of this because I have to send it to my kids letting them know why I won't be moving to New Jersey to join them. She's like, why would I move to New Jersey when Orem's got it going on like it does? And so she— that was, that was a really fun exchange. But this year for the accomplishments, awards, and wins in Family City USA, We're taking it from the areas of focus. In the past, we've reported department by department on the things that we've achieved, including the City Council, but in the spirit of Team Orem, we're just putting it all together under the areas of focus. So as we go through, if anybody around the table wants to emphasize something or chime in or give further context or clarification, please don't hesitate to do so. I did, I guess. And if you want another one of these to hand out or to look There's a big stack over there. I chose the Orient Express as our kind of our title image this year because I feel like, you know, as I'm putting this together each year, day to day it's hard to know exactly, you know, what we've done, where we've been, what we've accomplished. But when you look back over the entire year, it's incredible. Mayor and I were chatting a couple weeks ago. It was hard to believe that we could do any more than we did in 2023. Like, that list of accomplishments 2023 was extensive. I was like, oh, this is the peak. It's only, you know, going to be less than this. But in 2024, we went even further. It was a banner year for the city, and some huge, huge things got accomplished. As we go through it, you know, any one of these things that's on this kind of first page could have been the number one biggest thing in any other year, you know. But we had, you know, maybe 5 or 6 things that were just ginormous. So we want to get started and One of the pushes that we do in our publicity and reaching out to the community is this idea of Orem gives you more. One of the cool things that fate has blessed us with is that you can rearrange the letters in Orem and it spells more. And so this idea that Orem gives you more is kind of just built into who we are as employees and as council, and that just kind of helps drive our efforts. I was thinking about it, and there's just no shortage of inspiration here at the City of Orem. We've got Building a Better Orem, Establishing a Place Where Families Can Thrive, Families in the USA, Orem Gives You More. If you're lacking inspiration to do a good job, there's, you know, you probably need to get that checked out. Peter, what are our plans with this? I love this. Yeah, so we use this anytime we do something that's kind of your tax dollars at use. It falls under the Orem Gives You More.

campaign.

And it uses that logo? Yeah, so like if we did a video, this would be the closing credit.

That's cool.

But yeah, we'll find lots of different ways to do it. It's cool to see it in animation, but we're trying to find a better way to do it when it's static and just like in print. But yeah, we love this. And I have to give credit to Kirk in our Development Services department. He's the one that put this all together. We could change our name to Morum.

Morum, yes.

More on it. So we'll get started. The first area of focus is community focus and effective government. And if you open up your packet, there's about 3 or 4 pages here of achievements that fall under this category. And the one that I put as number 1 this year is getting the AAA credit rating because it's just such That's such a rare achievement for cities. There's only like 250-ish in the entire United States that reach this achievement. And so, Brandon, did you want to say anything about what it took to get there? Uh, credit rating?

Yeah.

A trip to San Francisco. Nice! Doesn't sound like hard work at all. You had to apply, you had to go there in person.

As part of our—

when we did our bond, Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we went there, a sales tax bond that we recently did, and as part of that, not only were we trying to do our rating related to the bond itself, but obviously we try to sell those rating agencies on the city as a whole. And so as part of that, Laura, we were not only asking you them to give us a good rating for that specific bond. But as part of that, they looked at all of the other bonds that they rate us on, and they reviewed that and agreed that they needed to change all of those ratings to AAA as well. We already had AAA on our— yeah, utility, not on the enterprise. Water and sewer, all those are general fund, general obligation bonds, and these sales tax bonds. The general obligation bonds are AA+. So this is the next step.

AA+?

There's not a triple-A area in between?

That's as high as you can go.

So now there's not a call of the market. Every bond in the city is rated AAA.

Well, I think general obligation is a lot more tenuous as far as to get that rating, just because when you've got, you know, utility bonds and different things, they've got a guaranteed source of revenue.

Correct.

Whereas general obligation is coming from a lot of different sources, and so to get that rating is a lot harder.

Right.

But that is the higher— Our struggle with the general obligation bonds have been, obviously, we don't— haven't done a lot of property tax increases, so that's the reason, part of the big reason why Why we got a AA+ was because they weren't sure what the response might be from citizens if we were— in a general obligation bond, they can force the issue of forcing property tax increase in order to make the payment on those bonds. So there was this small little piece in there where we're not sure how people would react if if it came to that, right? So our financial position was such a strong point that it overcame that small little bit of potential, eh, maybe, right? And they were willing to raise it based on that history. Brandon, is it helpful though to Everybody turn off your phones.

I'll wait until you're done.

Is it helpful in the rating for them to know that we have the best financial director in the nation? We obviously do sell our staff to them as part of that bond rating. When we go there, they look at— we have to list how long people have been in there, they do get indications of their backgrounds, and that's—

so that does—

a lot of that plays into what they go into considering when they consider a rating.

Do you know how many— I mean, you said, you know, 1 to 2% of cities nationwide have AAA bond rating. Do you know— does anyone know throughout the county or the state? the numbers are.

At least the list that I had access to, Sandy is the only other one in our area that has it.

Sandy's the only other one.

A lot, a lot of counties have AAA ratings. You see the state has a AAA rating.

Right, the state.

So, can I just throw some things out there? Because when this happened back in August, I met with Brandon and kind of put together a social media post on my Facebook page. I really learned a lot from Brandon. There were a couple of things that really struck me that are often spun differently, right? And one of the key things he said that helps you attain a AAA bond rating is that you have a steady demographic level. You know, too many times right now it's— there have been this messaging that Orem is in decline, and, you know, unfortunately for political reasons that was sent out there. But we know that Orem is strong, Orem is a great place to live, and this steady demographic level, meaning our 1% growth, is actually a huge factor here in giving— portraying— correct me if I'm wrong— but this, this sense of stability for this type of— to achieve this type of rating. So, you know, he said low long-term liability. I'm just reading the things that Brandon helped me with and told me about, meaning low outstanding debt. So yeah, we're great. We're along those lines. When we look at other governments right now, and wow, they're just suffering, right? Steady demographics, strong fiscal management. There's the shout-out to Brandon, right? Consistently strong financial policies and reserves. Hats off to all y'all for doing that. And an ample level of Budgetary flexibility. Those were kind of the key takeaways, I guess, Brandon, that you gave me at that point.

Every one of those is a question to ask.

And I just really appreciate all that you guys do because, you know, Brandon's our financial guy, right? But it's every department here, all of you, that contribute to making that happen. And of course our residents too for being who they are. Anyway, that struck me. When I heard about this, and I appreciate your taking the time to go over that with me.

It really is a big deal too, as far as just on all levels. It shows, you know, a city that's not in decline, a city that's just excelling, and doing phenomenal. And that's how you get those top ratings.

Yeah, so that was an awesome achievement. Next one on the list is the NPT study. The biggest study operationally that we've done across all departments. Did you want to say anything about that, Carrie, how that turned out?

No, I think that we've covered it in a lot of our work sessions. We brought them in multiple times and discussed some of the changes. I would say the biggest takeaway from the MGT study is that we are a lean organization, and that's the way we want to run, is To be as fiscally responsible as we can for the residents. And then the other thing that I really liked about the NGD study is that they recommended that we start the Innovation and Strategy Team. And I think that bringing that team on board has really made a lot of these other things possible.

Right.

The thing that I'm impressed with about that study is just that we would dare do it, right? Who knows what it's going to turn up? But because we went through some significant changes in our government structure, we wanted to make sure that we were run the best way possible. And Brent's doing a phenomenal job, but we wanted to make sure he had the information to continue to do a phenomenal job. And you can do everything anecdotally, or you can do it data-driven. And so that's another thing that I don't think there's— I don't know what the numbers are, but I don't think there's very many cities that do this type of a study to figure out if they're operating effectively and efficiently. And so I think it's a great testimonial that we did the study and it came out as good as it did.

Maybe another thing that's kind of qualitative about that, that Many of you may not have seen, but our staff responded extremely quickly and positively about the suggestions that were made. It was in response to the data that the NJT, you know, provided and analyzed. So it's not like there was like a hesitation or a, I guess, a slow or hesitant attitude from our staff.

We were—

it was like the subjects came up and we were, we were already in the process of implementing by the time we could even come back and report to you as council in work session. So just, I just want to emphasize, we really do have a lot of employees just with really great attitudes. Not to say we didn't kick back on a couple things.

Sure.

We wanted to just trot forward. They were like, that isn't right.

Which is awesome, right? I mean, that's what it's about, is then taking that and using your experience.

I love that.

The next one is record-setting attendance at city events. So this, I think, was one of the biggest leaps forward as far as any team, and the events were just off the charts this year. Just wanted to show— maybe we skipped this, but In the sake of time, but we had just the lights on video.

This is our lights on finish.

Do we get a chance to watch this video? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And this is really going to kick off the holiday season. A few years ago, we decided we couldn't have it over the City Hall because we're building a new city building. We decided to do something really big over at City Center. We talked about it. Our thought was to try and have Orem be just like a Hallmark movie. This is going to be going on for the next month or so. We've got our farmers market here. They can come down every Saturday, see the lights, hang out, get in the holiday spirit. From everybody in Orem, from our City Council, our city employees, our upper city management, from everyone We want to wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

It's true, you killed the spirit. The, um, you know, it's— I always laugh because, you know, I feel like as a city we do amazing things for the community, but it's the Christmas lights that we get the most gratitude on. Yeah, you know, like I walk into church on Sunday, we live right across the street from City Center Park, and so my ward is right there, and it's like standing ovation. And I guess, you heard that like some bishop was like bearing testimony?

Yes.

Of the lights. Yeah, I had a resident tell me that their bishop did their kind of Christmas message and yeah, gave the city a shout out about how we bring light.

Yeah.

So a fun thing about that, and you may have seen the post, but the entity that puts up all these lights Lights. Obviously we've done Lights On for several years, but the entity who currently does it, they started last year, and they've been really great about extending the time that the lights are on the trees. So, so we just announced to the public that they're going to let us keep them on through to Valentine's Day. Oh, fantastic! I noticed they're still on yesterday morning.

Well, the amazing thing about that— well, I mean, you know I'm not a Facebook But Brent keeps me filled in, or Dave Spencer, or different people tell me these things. But usually on a, like on a post, you know, you get 20, 30, 40 likes or whatever. And if it's something really amazing, you get a couple hundred likes, right?

Yeah.

And he did a post on this Lights On as far as extending the date. And with 4 days after, it had over 800 likes.

Yeah.

So I mean, it's It's really a big deal. And what were our numbers, Pete, as far as—

So there were 7,500 people there, which is 3 times what it was last year. So yeah, huge growth. Yeah, people love it.

If you go from 2,500 to 7,500, the 2,500 was a big jump up.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's a game changer. And again, it's about building community.

It does a lot to bring the community together, especially at a dark time of year, you know. We changed the contractor on that too, 2 years ago. Happens to be Reed Price's son-in-law. I'm just saying. Full disclosure. So we were able to lean on him more. I mean, he was a young man who's— he created a new business just like 5 years ago, 4 years ago. And I know him personally. his mother used to work in Orem as a firefighter, Angela Cole. So Kyle Cole. And, uh, he's done a phenomenal job. He's done more and asked for less. And so that's an example of more Orem.

Yeah, 550,000 lights this year.

So there's a question on the drone thing didn't work. Is it GPS or something?

Yes.

So when are we—

what are we going to do with that? What's the latest? Uh, we met with We worked with the contractor and essentially secured a free show at a future event for our troubles. So we'll be working with them and identifying the right event. We mentioned we don't— and I think Lights On probably qualifies for this now— we don't like to test features like that on major events like ORM Fest.

Yes.

And now Lights On being a, you know, 7,500. With the add-on the other 3 days, we're over 15,000 people. people for the lights on in the holiday market. So we'll find another event, make sure it goes well. This was the most reputable company. This is the company that does BYU football games and several other large municipalities. It was just an unfortunate day for them. So we feel very good about moving forward with them and their business, that they're going to make it right for us and we'll get a good value on an upcoming show before we decide if we want to proceed again. Awesome. Uh, the next one, you know, it's crazy because like, you know, Hillcrest Park is opening, should be like number one, right? But just because so many awesome things happened in here. You want to say anything about Hillcrest, Chris or Bryce? I think my biggest thought is I— Carrie did a great job visually back at what, a Babble in May or something, of pulling every single person that helped make Hillcrest happen. And I think that's something very cool That's cool about the community-focused government that y'all set up for us. That could have been just a parks project and then rec afterwards comes in and does it and other parts of the city are generally aware of it, maybe. And instead I think it was a full tilt city effort. We ended up getting a really cool product and project out of it. And it's something that I think parks maintenance and rec use and, you know, all of these different departments are sort of in on at the beginning. So it's been very well received. I don't know if we'll go over the full parks numbers and attendance numbers as part of this retreat or not, but this one is up obviously astronomically over the old Hillcrest use. The reservable pickleball courts, the adult basketball leagues that are happening because of it are incredible. And I think it is also— I would go as far as saying it is a delight to maintain because it was designed in a really a really maintenance-friendly way by the park staff. So it's been great and the community loves it. And yeah, have we had any responses? I know it's still early in the game with the library drop-off pickup, the April Crest. Oh yeah, yeah, that's, that's well used. I think we're looking at treating that as a pilot. I think the fitness center is So you'll be able to go and work out at the fitness center and have your book waiting for you there. The technology has hiccups, and so we've had to do some computer stuff, so we might go with a different vendor. But I think the resident response is one of— they really enjoy the convenience of having their book waiting for them wherever they are. Mayor and Council, also, I think at the beginning we were asked— Public Works and others were asked to participate and put as much sweat equity in this. as possible. And we saved a few hundred thousand dollars by doing all of the demolition work and a lot of the grading work and so forth. So, and we even had one of our, uh, who was it, Kathleen Spear? I think she's the one who knocked down the, um, the bathroom facility over there. So I mean, she's never done that before, and I don't know if anyone else in this room has, but I mean, that's the kind of people we have in the city. She wanted to do it, and she paid money to do it, and she did it. So We have video of this happening. It's fun. It was fun. The, uh, the next one is improve city relationships with our community partners. Randy, do you want to talk to that? Yeah, uh, of course people matter and the city's relationships with a lot of other governmental agencies matter. And so we really went out of our way to make sure that, that we were proactively meeting with and working with Everyone from CIRA to the state, MnDOT, the school district, and UVU, and Community Action, and Sleepy Ridge. And sometimes some of these relationships, you know, require agreements and documentation, and sometimes that can be sensitive. But I think we've been tackling it, you know, one step at a time and in constructive, positive ways. Where both sides of the partnership feels like it's a win-win rather than I win and you lose.

Yeah, and we're really trying to define the relationships. I mean, they need to be defined, but the benefit of that is, I mean, obviously having things work well now, but then going into the future, the next 5 years, 10 years, what are— how do those relationships work? And so it's not just this flexible Well, ever-changing thing is an applied relationship.

So a couple of little examples on that. So whether it's trying to make sure that we can legally and fully use the Family City USA logo, and that's, you know, required good, productive, positive conversations with Adam and the Sierra board, or with UDOT continually following up on a number of road projects and, you know, participating in the ways that we need to, but also, you know, hopefully getting as much financial help from them as well. So anyway, so yeah, just that will continue to be important. And again, like with all these things, the effort is genuine. We're in the people business.

Thank you.

You hear me say, you know, we're trying to get a social return on our investment often, and so continuing to build those relationships proactively will, I think, continue to yield those positive social returns. I think I give kudos to Bren and the relationship with Sarah because I think in the past there was no relationship, and it's just ballooned. I mean, it's just amazing. So excellent job, and we just need to keep it moving because that's, that's our jewel of the barn, really, is the Sarah's home.

And that wall is beautiful.

Yeah, it's a great project.

Oh, we're all right there at night.

Yeah, the wall and the lighting has been a great team effort.

Just elegant.

Is the new sign on yet?

It looks like it.

I saw this. They were both under construction. It's installed now. I don't know if it's powered, but— Yeah, it's underway. They're both underway on 4th West, East, and State Street.

And even that crossing that you put in there, that was cute.

That's perfect.

Well, we're not done with it either, so it's going to be even better. So let's come this way.

Good.

Yeah, that's great. And I appreciate the kudos, but truly, like, the sum is greater than its parts, you know? Like, it's not like it's just take by the Sierra or just take by— there's a good give and take, and that has a multiplicating factor, not just an addition result. I think too another point would be, you know, the American Legion and how the city helped the car show, you know, with Bryce's help and everybody's help. And that, I mean, they pulled it off in 8 weeks and it was amazing. So that's the kind of support and the kind of relationships I think we're building and it's good business. Absolutely. So, Brent, if I could maybe just give you, give everyone here an update. This week Adam Robertson and I finalized an agreement between the two of us for the Family City USA trademark. Adam's going to be taking that to the CIRA board for approval next week. week, and then hopefully we can get signatures and start moving forward with protections federally to protect the Family City USA trademark. What CIRA is giving us is exclusive permission and license to use the Family City USA mark in all of our branding. What we're giving to them is we're assisting them to get that federal protection as our legal department.

Okay, awesome.

The next item on the list is our grants. Uh, $4.2 million received in 2024 with another $3.1 pending. The mayor has been huge on grants, and because every dollar we get in grants is a dollar of the general fund, or, you know, tax money we don't have to spend. So that's been huge. And compare that to prior years. What was the difference? I know it's much bigger. I just don't know what the delta is. I want to say— what was the number last year?

Last year we actually We did get in 2023, we did get more, but we had the big water reuse project and there was ARPA money.

Okay, go back 3 or 4 years. What were we getting?

I don't have the exact number, but it is—

You have to go back before. 2019 and earlier, we were in the million, million 5. That's what I thought. $3 million or something. So even at our maximum We were doing maybe $2.5 million in a given year.

Yeah, great. Thank you.

We did 7—

applied for 17 last year.

We applied for 24 this year.

So we're just waiting on an extra $3 million to see if we get that.

Yeah, because the money's out there.

Yeah.

It's just proactively going out.

Exactly.

To get it.

Right.

We have a mechanism to do it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So also we're going in February to D.C. To ask for more.

Yeah.

And this is— there's a little bit of a personal aspect of this that I probably just have to again give credit where it's due. Congressman John Curtis, well now Senator John Curtis, has been really helpful to the city. And he's responded really well as we've tried to, you know, build that relationship. And to the point where he even He called me directly and personally when he found out about my son's cancer prognosis. So he's just been just a real person that's been genuinely interested in helping the city. So, so yeah, we'll continue to build that relationship, but it's paying just wonderful dividends, and he's just been just super kind.

That's great.

We made a real effort to make sure we're directly involved with all of our legislators.

The next one is the reorganized school district process and agreement. And to me, I was super proud of the city and city council for that 4-city meeting. I thought that was one of the coolest things. That was kind of a historic moment, getting all those cities together to talk through it. And, you know, you know, the outcome was the outcome, but just the fact that, you know, Orem led out on that, I thought was really, really cool.

Thank you.

The Arts Ambassador Program— Well, can I say something about that?

Oh yes, please do.

I am very excited about this. You know, I, having been involved in the schools for 20 years, 25 years, I've seen issues, you know, that were just sincerely trying, you know, tried to be solved, but just too spread too thin. difficult for that to happen. So I think our words of renewal, our words of unity, our words of, you know, these— this transformation— I am so excited for this to happen to our 4 cities that are involved in this reorganized district, and frankly for the other cities too. As I've met with city council members from these other cities, I think everyone understood that it was time and that there were different needs and there was gratitude for the past but just such an excitement and exuberance for the future. And that's kind of the vibe that I'm really feeling. You know, we're protecting our taxpayers, we're going to be able to have this renewal in our own community and to really— if you can, I've just always been so connected with education, and if that's the foundation of a strong community, is the education of the people, the residents and the children, you know. So can I just, you know, shout out to everyone who positively is moving forward with this, and, and, um, you know, let's do it. Let's create the best school district ever. Not us, because it's not under our thing, but our community, our communities. So anyway, I'm just very excited about seeing this happen.

That's a great opportunity there. The next one is Arts Ambassador Program, increase CARE tax awareness. We've never been— to go back to this improved city relationships— we've never been as tied in with the arts groups as we are now. And the Arts Council is kind of leading the way on that, as well as the CARE Commission. And it's been great. We've made a lot of great relationships. And I think when the CARE tax goes up in 10 years, It's going to pass even more than it did this time around, just because there's— the awareness is going to be there. Um, the last one on this page is the first historical survey in over 10 years. Do you want to just say briefly what that is? Yeah, we go out and we hire a consultant, and they go and look at different properties and areas of the city in a defined area, and they research and acknowledge For us with the detail of the historic nature of certain structures and properties in the city. Now, once we have that history, we can really do a lot of fun things with that and really lead out in helping the community understand where we've been, where we're going. So there's just— with that historical aspect of it is— Something that personally I get really excited about. I love the history and understanding the history that we have.

So we haven't done one in a long time.

When this gets done, I think we'll be able to come back and then work with our different commissions and boards and how do we integrate that into the community so that people have an appreciation for for where Orem's been and where we are today. Do you have a specific, like, a specific example of something? That's part of our commission that I'm on right now, and, and they have different parts of the city they've mapped over time, and, and one of the needed areas that we haven't mapped in quite a while was the one selected. So what it does is it evaluates every property in that geographical location, how long it's been there, those that qualify for historic preservation, and then they can, they can qualify for historic preservation grants. The grant, those that are giving the money away came and provided a presentation from the state and county, and they basically said, I was going to just fill out a piece of paper to say what you want to do, they approve it, and it's automatic $2,000. Almost any employee, any resident in that area. So it's some really wonderful, powerful influences for not only preservation but regeneration in these neighborhoods. So it's a great project, and those heading it up under, you know, that part of the team has been really helpful.

I appreciate your representation on that because I think you just have that.

Well, I've lived here my whole life.

I didn't say that, he did. I just love that passion. I think that it's going to direct it in the right way. Yeah, thank you.

Well, Chris, today I need to get with you because I have to show you something I'm pretty proud of with the former employment we have. An actual— we created an app that you can download from the Apple Store that's a historic tour from a In different things. And so, it's those kind of creative things that you can do with history that people love, you know, to keep that burning. It just connects you to your community. It really does.

You can hear those stories.

Well, it builds community pride in those areas.

Right.

Instead of living in an area that might be a little downtrodden, all of a sudden you get a little historical background information, and there's, it brings light.

Character.

Yeah, it's like, wow, that looked like a pretty cool place. I didn't even know that. So I'm thinking we could tie this to the historical markers like you suggested.

Yes.

But things like the site of 16th North with the children that were buried at that location. And with our Heritage Park that we're going to be building in the next year. We could combine it with that too.

Exactly.

A lot of great things that we can do, truly. The next one is a new record for Orono Fest fundraising, $80,000 this year. Thanks to Heather Cox, she really worked hard this year for that. Boards and commissions were streamlined and reorganized. We just finished up that process and we're starting to see those new combined commissions come together. Youth Council was reimagined this last year with record participation. Being on the Youth Council is actually pretty damn cool now. I don't know if it was before like a cool thing, like cool kids were doing it, but now it's amazing. Those kids are having a great time. People used to think lawyers were stuffy and boring, so maybe with the younger group, that's why it's so creative now. Was that just a rumor?

Because we know what you are.

It's going to take more than 3 branches. Balanced budget with no new taxes. I mean, we have to do that every year by law, but some years are easier than others, right, Brandon?

For sure.

To get there.

So that's always good. This one's from the communications.

We hit—

well, just Just put that in perspective. Yeah, balanced budget with no new taxes. Yeah, um, there's some big taxes coming into our county, right? You know, 47% at the county level, Alpine School District last couple years at 20% and 16%. And everyone says we have to raise taxes because of inflation, blah blah blah blah. So it's taxes have been going up all around us. So to hold the line on that No new taxes is a huge, huge deal in this environment.

Yeah.

And yet to feel like we're increasing services. I mean, I feel we are. So that's just—

More, more, another word.

More.

Yeah, we're more. No, we've literally got $100 million in capital projects. Yeah, I mean, if you include that West Park that have happened and are happening over this whole couple-year period with no new taxes.

It's a big deal. It's a big deal. The, uh, just from our team, that we're super proud that this year we hit 2.1 million video views on all the videos we did in 2024. The year before we were at 900,000. We're like, we've achieved— wow! But this year is 2.1 million, and, uh, you know, most of those were like from Lights On.

But, uh, well, in your post about the Lights On, the one last week, seriously, my My husband comes to me and says, let's take a mug of hot chocolate and dress up in our warm clothes and go walk around the lights.

There's so many people that need the park. I drive by often and there's always a dozen people walking in the park. With or without hot chocolate. The one thing I haven't heard is happen, but it's on my checklist of things I want to accomplish, is a proposal. I want someone to get engaged under the lights. But maybe it's happened, maybe it hasn't. TikTok reel that was, but it went awry. So, and it was, they didn't say it was our park, but it was 100% our park. Oh yeah. We'll wait for a successful proposal.

Yes. So we just have to come up with the backdrop next year.

Exactly. We gotta do something so we can essentially set the trap.

But this skate rink. So, so PD's just kind of skipping past this $900,000 to what'd you say?

$2.1 million.

$2.1 million.

Yeah.

Okay, but Pete was given a mandate a couple years ago to take our PR to the next level, and it's completely to the next level right now as far as— because that in my mind is the core of building community. Because the more our messaging gets out, the more people are involved, the more it builds our community. And I mean, I'll text Pete at all hours of the day and he's always responding. So Pete's on it, and he's definitely one that takes building a better Warren, being an exceptional employee to the next level.

Thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate that.

Well, and even your emphasis on our businesses, I mean, that's a financial win for our city, for budgets, everything, right? I mean, I found out about businesses I didn't know that were in Warren through your videos that you guys do. It's amazing.

Yeah, it's been really fun. But I have a new mandate. Before you beat that goal you have of a proposal at the Lights On Park. Do not say that to my daughter. Okay, we'll find somebody else. We had a chance. Cindy from our events team got engaged this season.

And I told her, she totally screwed up.

It should have happened in the park. Yeah, hopefully you produce music. We're going to film this explanation and provide it to the homework channels. Absolutely. This is the first year we did a citizens budget. So this is taking, you know, the 200-page-plus document of the budget and taking it down to maybe 15 pages. Really just digestible. Makes it easy for, you know, someone who's just kind of casually interested to get the right information. We did our first city communication strategic plan. That's been really helpful in kind of aiming our communication efforts throughout the city. The Orem Community Foundation took another leap forward this year. The Gold Star Memorial fundraising is up to $54,000. We're starting to get momentum. Businesses, restaurants are getting involved with it. Chubby's did their thing. Texas Roadhouse helped us out a bunch.

So—

Well, Kathy Lewis said at our Orem Business— or somebody, you know, Heather, I think— You know, if we have over 3,000 businesses in Orem, if every business gave $100, yeah, we would be there. You know, so break it down that simply.

Yeah, every little bit helps for sure. And we've had some good help from the businesses, and we'll just keep going. I think as, you know, the new city center gets built and they can kind of see the plaza come together, I think it'll pick up. This is what happened with the All Together Playground, is until like they could really visualize it, they didn't give. But once they could visualize it, it was no problem. So that's kind of what I'm thinking. One of the things you said to us in this room last year was you wanted more service opportunities, and I feel like we've made good progress on that. Tons of stuff through my hometown, the 9/11 National Day of Service, Kindness Week, Orem's birthday. That was a really fun project that we did last year. And then we've increased our community drives, food drives, clothing drives.

Yes, Tom?

Can I talk about my hometown? My wife teaches piano on Thursday nights in my hometown with kids. And we went to a recital for these kids. They made a big deal there that you had signed all their certificates.

Nice.

And I watched these kids, and for many of them, it was the first time anyone had ever applauded for them. And they got applause at the end of their recitals that were— you've all been to children's recitals. This is not a Broadway hall. But they got their applause. And these kids were as proud as a peacock. My wife taught 3 kids. One kid was scared to death to come. And he came late. And everyone had broken off to get treats or whatever. And the crowd came back together. And he played his piece. And Kay told him, you know, all the other kids had a mistake. So if you make a mistake, it's no big deal. problem, and he didn't make a mistake. She said, you're the only one. She probably lied. I didn't make a mistake. And he was just beaming. I mean, and there— these are little 10, 12-year-old kids who fall in love with their piano teacher, and I wasn't incredibly jealous. And their mothers came over. It was a delightful experience. Kay's brother is Bart Mangum, was in charge, somewhat of the, in charge of this group. And I, Renee, his wife, was saying it was so great that the mayor signed all the things. I said, yeah, I'm sure he was thrilled to do it. And you had a member of the City Council here. She goes, really?

Ooh!

It was a great event. And I can't wait for the next one. I'll wear a badge or something so my sister won't recognize me. I'll wear an orange shirt.

I'll do something to do better.

But this— and I understand they're going to be in a second location. Is it another church or is it the school maybe that's going to be able to be—

They're working on that, right? And they reported on that last night.

Okay, sorry, I'm dated by 24 hours.

No, so they're— yeah, we're still working on that.

Anyway.

It's just such a sweet event. And Kay now has recruited other volunteers to help with this section, kind of a semester. I think it's semesters now. I'm sorry, but kind of in this semester. Just a sweet event. And I'm grateful for so many volunteers, and the LDS Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' support for this effort. And how the community has fallen around it. It's wonderful. They teach computer classes. You were taking Spanish classes, right? My wife volunteered me to take some pictures. So, and he can already say uno and dos. I can say qué pasa nada. Nothing happened. Anyway, I just think this is a great event.

I didn't understand what you said. Qué pasa nada. Oh, qué pasa nada.

Anyway, it's a great event for our community and the mix and mingle between people. And again, I think the biggest thing is some of these little kids are never in a place where they get applauded. So one of the kids who couldn't come came Thursday. That was just last night. Thursday night. And they had them do their recital. And 25 local volunteers came to hear this kid.

Wow.

Kay thought maybe 2 or 3 people would come into the room, because they had a family thing and couldn't do it that night. She said 25 adults came in and applauded this little 10-year-old effort. A lot of great people in our community who give of their time and energy and support to someone who needs that help. So just thought that insight of support of this might be interesting.

So thanks for that. And that's— I mean, it really does say a lot for our community. I mean, I've talked to my hometown people several times, and they're saying what our community is doing is like taking my hometown to a new level just because of the level of volunteerism and excitement and people want to help and get involved.

So this doesn't have to go on. Exactly. And just so you know, we're down to dotting the last i's and crossing the last t's in regards to an agreement with the school district for the use of the gym.

Fantastic.

That's great. Excited. And then the last one on this page, all parks now have free public Wi-Fi. That's a project we've been working on for a couple years, so that's done. Wait a second, all public parks? Yes, there's like a few that don't have it. Skate park, Springwater, maybe one other, but all the major ones. How do they know that? How do they know that it has it? Yeah, when I go, is there a sign, free Wi-Fi? In some parks, but we can—

that's probably—

let me write that down.

That's because that was—

If it's our secret, that's a problem. Yeah, I didn't keep it.

The mayor himself, City Council Member A.

It's even for non-citizens?

Yeah, anyone.

Anyone can get it? Good question. 36 consecutive years of excellence in financial reporting. I feel like at this point, Brandon, it's more pressure than— It is.

Celebration.

Yeah.

Across the street. I almost dread getting the letter from them now. so many years.

You don't want to be year 37.

Yeah, what did I do wrong? And that's making credit ratings, Dean. Shout out to AA+. Um, great stats from the library. Uh, 3,600 participants in the summer reading program, and over 800 got— completed it, you know, which is a record. 71% completed it. 800 people in the adult forum reached Challenge.

Okay, cool.

I'm really proud of the staff there, going back to concept. They are doing more with less. 25% more foot traffic, much larger programs, and they're doing it all for about 10% less personnel. They've been really empowered by the MDT study, and I feel in a lot of ways they control their destiny, you know, maybe compared to other libraries that are very dependent on a specific library tax or having— being mandated to make cuts because they have not been proactive. So staff at the library have been incredible to build these programs, take them to new heights, and to do it with less staff dollars than they have historically.

Awesome. I kind of take credit to you, Bryce. You're reinventing the library. You know, it is an experience place. It's not just a place you go read a book. It is a place that builds the individual in so many different ways. So, thank you.

There are some very fun stories. Wednesday night we had American Legion, they're meeting over there. We have a concert going on in the hall. We have, you know, 5 other things going on at the same time. So to have it just be a community hub and to maintain the core collections and do those other things that a library does. But the community has been very responsive to this idea of experiential spaces and sort of third spaces to be at afterwards. So yeah, very, very exciting.

Which is huge for me because I hate digital books. I love a book, you know. So you're just doing well in all of it. And then, Mayor, to your point of the capital project in the library that's going to be happening in the library too.

Well, I think Bryce probably ballooned when we took his title of leisure off.

He has to work.

He's motivated because it's not a leisure day. But the culture too, just no more coasting. Just being in all the library meetings that are, that I have the privilege of sitting in on, watching the amount of, just it's cultural shift. They take pride in what they do, but not only that, they're excited about the new Trendy and fun. So it's really empowering them to truly, in their own craft, be the best and think outside the box. And you've created an atmosphere for them to really do what they may not have seen themselves doing, but you've expanded their vision and they're doing it. So powerful.

Which I spoke to someone whose daughter works at the library yesterday, and he was like, Like, my daughter hates change. She hates change. But she is praising the changes that are happening.

I love hearing that. That's great news. If I could add to that, Layton Construction currently is bidding out the library renovations, and the goal is to have that done at the end of summer with the entire project so that we're not tearing up campus again. Fantastic.

That sounds right.

What's really awesome about all this is it's nice to make plans, to strategize, to say let's consider this, let's consider that, let's try this, let's do that, and then do it. But to have our foot traffic up 25% shows it's working. So it's no longer theoretical. It's like Bryce and his team have made changes that have increased foot traffic 25%. So it's working. Yeah, that's awesome.

And just one more plug for the innovation team. We don't have that specific of data without Jenica and without the solutions. And so it's, it's, it is this like big cycle thing of we can do our jobs better, we can reinforce it, communicate it better because of the MDT study and some of these types of things. I have very good tools to use within the city, which is very neat for me. That's awesome. The one that we wanted to make sure got emphasized was the First Volunteer Appreciation Dinner since 2017. You want to say anything about that, Brian? Yeah, I mean, that concept of doing that was kind of re-emphasized at our last retreat. And Ryan, you know, shares a book that's all about the power of gratitude and the difference that can make. And so I think we saw that, proof of that in action at that dinner. And again, another one of your your goals for us was have more service going on. Well, in order to again make sure that that's a multiplying thing and has a further reach, well, we need the help of our volunteers to get more service done. So yeah, and then it was just really nice to hear the positive feedback from all of our volunteers. And they become more of our influencers and communicators and advocates out into the public as well. And then that, that's all part of building the relationships in the community and the momentum for continuing to move forward.

And, Brian, a very good example of that is—

I'm going to embarrass Gary, but the good work Gary and planning staff has been doing with the Planning Commission. Planning Commission showed their gratitude and gave planning staff Christmas gifts. the last Planning Commission meeting. And I don't think I've ever seen that happen with any board or commission. And so just very scared. Everybody's done a fantastic job, you know, with those relationships.

Which, that's so awesome because that's one of our goals, right, is to align the residents with the staff, with the City Council. I just love hearing that.

It was a great year for the parks team. We estimate 1.9 million park visits in 2024, as well as some cool stuff down at Lakeside. Either of you want to talk about what's happening in the parks? Well, I mean, this coming year, obviously we have Hillcrest that's on board now, and then we're going to have some major improvements at Northridge. We're having— we're going to be building 4 pickleball courts. We already have the new playground in place up there. We do have some bidding challenges with some dollars, but we're going to make some pivots and changes in our budgeting process to still make those to be built on time and on budget. Windsor Park, we're going to have the sports court where we received a contribution from the Utah Jazz, albeit it wasn't, you know, half a million dollars or anything like that. a nice contribution there that went towards— going towards that sport court over there. And then in subsequent years, we're also going to be expanding and then putting in pickleball at Windsor as well, at Linnea's request. So there you go, ad hoc in a council meeting, I'm making things happen. What about Canobie? Yeah, your request didn't mean as much as Linnea's. Well, they have 3 tennis courts. courts are already painted, but the other 3 aren't. So why can't we turn those into pickleball courts?

They do use those for tennis lessons though, a lot.

Yeah, it's a combination school district.

Yeah.

How about the ones by Palisade Park? You have 2 in the school and 2 over in the park itself. They're both— they're all for tennis courts, aren't they? Yeah, they have pickleball lines painted on them. the other Cascade Park has either or, it has both.

Pickleball, tennis. It does.

And you know, the pure pickleball players won't like that. Won't touch that.

Yeah.

They'll go to the other place to do it. We accommodate both at those locations where we can. And if there's a need to take over tennis with pickleball, we'll do that. I don't see tennis lessons on the ones that were painted. 6 specifically are on the school district's portion. We control the lower half, but I mean, as we learn the new, new, new community partnerships, new school district, I think that seems low-hanging fruit. That'd be good for pickleball courts. When I said that cooperation in the coming years, seems like we need a tag team type approach to determine where the pickleball courts should be put in. If I could just make one more note on the lakeside, that bottom one, 50,000 non-ORM, that is much larger than non-ORM. That is the threshold for travel tourism. So it's 50+ miles away. We doubled our out of— not out of state, but more than 50 miles away, we went from 25,000 to 50,000 visitors last year, meaning they're likely staying in a hotel and eating our food. When the mayor and I met with the Tourism Tax Advisory Board 2 years ago, we sort of got guffawed by a commission member saying there's no way that this type of facility would support travel tourism. And so to double our numbers— and those are very real tax dollars— I think when we go to make our next request and go get more grant funding, I think we will be able to show very Very real data that says this is an economic driver for our city and for our hotels, in addition to another 400,000 local visits as well. So 8 to 1, this is still a local park, but we have quantifiable data that this is a tourism destination that supports our local economy as well.

What was that number again that you mentioned?

400,000 for local visits, 50,000 visits for those whose home is more than 50 miles away from the park. And that's up from 24,000. That's the tournaments. Yeah, right.

Which I've seen the travel trailers in the parking lot.

I already see— look at the city center builds when we get it. And then Hillcrest, aren't we also looking at making that more of a regional draw too for tournaments? Specifically for pickleball, we were approached by a national organization to start to use that. They love the proximity to the the hotel property there at University Place, the restaurants, and then the way we're able to really seclude the park for just their event. So it hasn't been booked yet, but awesome.

A couple of—

Charge them $100,000 at a time. Nice and easy.

Give them a free logo somewhere.

Lots of great, uh, data. You don't charge for the court, you just charge for the logo. $100,000 I'll just have them call you. It sounds like that. Pickleball business developer. You know, if I might also add, I mean, in the last 5 years we spent more money on parks and invested more in parks than we have probably in the previous 30 years.

And I'm not kidding.

It's noticeable. The level of commitment that we have to these parks is real.

That ties into Family City USA.

Yeah, totally. The budget-grade stats from Rec this year: highest Sarah passes, day passes, 40+ facility and field rentals, which is a new record, over 19,000 fitness center members. This one's super cool— the adult basketball program went from 36 teams last year to 56. Tons of new programs at Hillcrest that people are loving.

Okay, I want to jump back.

Oh yeah, BERC.

I don't know if any of you guys have ever used BERC.

I use that. It's amazing. And there were times that I had heard a few years ago it was going to be discontinued because they couldn't find volunteers. It was run independently. So to have the city embrace that and to actually put it where it can be seen and used and recognized, that's your in-home opportunities for parents to teach children, to bring families together playing games. There's so many educational objects in there. I just love that we have supported that in our collections.

And the way they were creatively, the librarians showed us some of the things they've done to creatively make it available and help that ongoing because they've had to cannibalize like 3 or 4 or 5 to create 2 or 3 new exhibits. And it's just, they're just really working hard to make that continuing.

Because that's the education of our community.

No, that'll be cool to track this year to see how the community responds. And then just last one on this page, the $5 senior meal program has really taken off at the senior center, and Gina's reporting the highest senior center attendance in 20 years. So thank you. They like the food. They like the food. They didn't like the food from the prison, so— but they have 44 paying annual members. 4,400 annual members. Wow. Pay $20 to be a member of senior meal.

That's right.

So, now, all 4,400 tried to show up for lunch, we were in big trouble. But they, they paid to be able to come and do the events there.

Yeah.

As you know, they've had some weddings there. Anyway, some funerals, not on the same day typically. It didn't make the list, so June would be mad at me. But they, the Orem Senior Friendship Center beat all the other senior centers in the area In sitting volleyball, so they got the title. Santa Queen and Salem are on note. That's right. We're defending the crown. And just just a note for Paul. Everybody knows Paul at the city.

Yeah.

Yes.

You know Paul?

Oh yeah.

So I I told him we got to talk to Gina, and Gina is taking care of him. He's getting meals, and he's oh yeah. Oh nice. So he at least he's trying to get some some friendship. So I just talked to him today, and he just I think hopefully he'll open up and be good for him.

So that's awesome.

He said he sat in the corner by the light.

Right.

Yeah. So we're at time there. Do you want to go on? Just we can we can speed this up. But what do you want to do from this point as far as the agenda? Because I guess we're supposed to be. Doing the roundtable now.

So have you got— you want to go through the rest of them?

If you want.

I mean, you guys can read through this. I don't want to take away—

we haven't gotten to any of our public safety wins for the year.

You know, we've spent all the time talking about this other stuff. But maybe you can just do like a speed version.

Okay, Ryan, can you give us the speed version on this page? On businesses? Yeah. Uh, business is doing awesome.

The malls Kicking trash, and, uh, there you go.

Okay. How many of you have signed up to do that? What if that kind of walk through places called the DreamWalk? So one highlight, there was an article this week by a website up in Idaho that said go travel to Orem and go to DreamWalk.

It's worth the drive, it's worth the overnight stay for the 2-hour experience.

You saw that? You do Google Views, Google View their reviews, their reviews are really high. It's passed the test of my son's girlfriend. Last night said I could go spend another 3 hours there. So everything I hear, it's doing really well. Yeah, it's a cool thing to ask. So I heard it was a $10 million investment into the mall there. So I mean, it was a really And there's another phase of it too that is not open yet that will come at some point. And if I can just say, like, these numbers are real, like $2.4 million. As I get to meet with you one-on-one, I'll share some more specifics, but we've been getting this data on how different retailers are doing in the city. Based on how many people visit.

So what does that mean, 2.4 million unique visitors? Is that people from outside of the world? 2.4 million visitors?

It means it's the amount of people that went into the store.

So there might have been more than might have been from outside?

Yes, but we tried to take out any double counting because it's taking cell phone data. It's the number one is visiting the most visited shopping center in the state of Utah according to the Placer AI.

Wait, so what's that? So there's 2.4 million people up there?

University Place boundary in Placer AI includes Costco, everything basically east of State Street.

So 2.4 million people went into the University Place area?

Went into that footprint, that geofenced footprint.

Wow.

Yeah.

And it's— I mean, part of it, there's a Costco on site, so you get a lot of Costco traffic with that as well. But it had, according to the data they just ran, Jenica's team, it was number 1 out of shopping centers.

And unique visitors means that's different people every time?

Yeah.

So if I go 5 times to Costco, it counts as once. They can tell that by the geodata?

Or something like that.

We know where you're wrong.

Just like I'm— I will start concluding. Sorry, this is Orem City, 2.4 million. These are the most popular places below us. Sorry, I misread that number.

So that's—

In these popular places then?

2.4 million unique visitors came to Orem City in 2020.

Oh, okay.

Orem City. Yeah, but what I, what I said about University Place is correct.

Can I just comment on one thing that I don't see on here? Because someone— I've had a number of people say this to me, and that is the renewal on State Street. The businesses are doing the remodeling efforts. I think for a while we were stagnant for COVID, or because of the State Street master plan, or for whatever reason. But if you drive up and down, you're seeing, you know, some of these Boyer and these people investing in remodeling their storefronts, their shopping mall fronts. You know, it looks beautiful. The old Albertsons area with Big Blue.

Yeah, Winger's, Colacci, Brusca's. Is that how you say it, Gary? Brusca's?

Colacci?

Yeah.

If you haven't been there, their storefront's beautiful. Really kind of run down looking.

Yeah.

And I believe the reason is because we've given stability to what State Street is and the businesses like it. Because from an investment standpoint, if you're certain that this is what you have to work with, then you're willing to put money into it. If you're uncertain, well, that's why I think that's what we're saying.

We'll have to do some research and see if we can figure out the numbers. Then just one final thing on this. The farmers market this year averaged 5,500 people a week, which is a huge leap forward.

Exactly.

I mean, I know you're tired. Yeah, I'll just quickly talk about the skills and talented workforce.

As you all know, we employ the best of the best here in Orem, and we train them up. We put a lot of time and effort into upskilling our employees, and with the hybrid STEP program that we put into place, all employees below division manager are now in the hybrid STEP program, which means they have to to complete extra certifications and trainings to be able to advance and get pay increases. So I, I personally believe that we probably have the most skilled workforce in all cities, and we, we, uh, do a lot to make sure that our employees feel appreciated as well. Our peer-to-peer battle buck program has been really popular.

Hey, Carrie, just to piggyback on that, we have firefighters who wouldn't have paid certain certifications. They just wouldn't have put forth the effort if we didn't include it in their career ladder to obtain raises. So Carrie's point of highly educated, including their degrees, associate's and bachelor's degrees, it's amazing. We have a new Master of Public Administration recipient as well in public works as a result of this. Future leaders.

Yeah, we have the Battle Ambassador Scholarship program. We gave scholarships to 9 employees, and Chelsea Lindsay was a recipient of that in years past, and she just received her master's.

Tyler started this week.

Oh, did he?

In his master's.

Yeah, that's right.

He's scared to death, but he'll be sure. I just have to say again, I've been so impressed with our employees continuing to be motivated to progress and improve. And again, the fear is you get distracted because you've got personal events in your family going on. Is that going to mean that people are going to go in a different direction? And I truly have seen the opposite of that. I mean, going back to Pete's sort of symbology or analogy with the train. You know, you get the— you get like a train, you get the wheels turning and it builds momentum and gets up to speed. And so it really is satisfying to see that momentum continuing to push forward all across the organization. I might just add, as an employee, being recognized, giving an opportunity for for expanding my horizons, enjoying my work, and having opportunities to grow, for powerful self-improvement empowerments that I'm not just coming for a paycheck. And so that's the difference, that synergy being created, it's building upon itself. The best employees, the best opportunities for growth, for improvement, and then also increases in pay as I am better. It's just a positive, wonderful environment to be involved in.

It's great to see what you're doing.

Thank you.

And the synergy with the executive team, we aren't siloed into separate departments. We integrate and work hand in hand in many things that we do across the board. And that's something that's really unique with us as well. And it starts from the top down, right?

If we are synergized, Okay, we'll flip over to Safe and Livable Neighborhoods. We talked about My Hometown. That's been an amazing, amazing program for the city. We received the Healthy Utah Community designation this last year, which was a huge win for the city, and there's a lot more that comes with that, and you'll hear about that on Tuesday. Heather's got a presentation for you. Heard about Hillcrest Park. Next one, full staff of certified building How big a deal is that? It's huge.

That's, that's really huge as they go out and do inspections, be fully certified. Legally, we can't send somebody to do a certification for which they are not certified.

It gives us more flexibility.

And the unique thing about our people is they actually provide such value to, you know, the weekend warrior. They come in, They have experience. They give them free advice on how to do things and how to do it right and to do it more cheaply.

And so to have that level of competency and ability in the city makes it safer and makes it more convenient and friendly for the residents.

Awesome.

Planted 300 new trees this year, which is a lot. Josh, school resource officers were awarded the National NASRO award.

Correct.

Anything you want to add to that? I think there's 3 departments a year that get that award, and ours were. And of significance for that for us is they're actually— we don't have— most, most communities will have a detective in every school. We do not have the staffing for that, and so ours are hop, skipping, and jumping all the time. And they're still setting the culture.

So, Josh, could you explain?

I don't understand what that is. NRSO? National Association of School Resource Officers.

Okay, and you got an award that only 3 police departments got in the country?

Yeah.

And what would be the criteria? What would— why did you guys win that?

Uh, they were actually nominated by all high school districts, um, throughout the high school district for, uh, warm as always been the trendsetter district-wide as far as standards, implementing programs, creativity, testing systems, communication systems, computer systems, everything like that. We've always been at the forefront with them, and just, it's always gone really, really well. We have great interaction with, you know, some of our secondary schools even qualify as Title I schools, and we have We implement our school resource program into those Title I programs that are there as well, and education and stuff like that. It's just everything, and our guys love it. I mean, we've got, we've got 2 people that have no other reason to still be on the job other than they like being school resource officers. They're eligible to retire, they've been retired a few times over, they're hooked on what they do.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's great.

Part of this is a human factor. It's not like it's just interaction with school administration or principals or teachers. This is our officers interacting and being part of the education process with the kids. Correct. They actually teach. They teach classes, intervene in a lot of family-type stuff. They're able to discover ways where, you know, some of our other resources with mental health and community Community-oriented policing can help provide resources to some families. If they've been— they have the kind of relationship of trust with their student bodies where there's been a lot of kids that have come in and made disclosures to them about abuse that's been going on for years, sexual abuse also, stuff like that, where they've gone into them. It's not us trying to hunt something down some other way. It's that level of Conference Association where you are, and I look at it very warmly. It's something I couldn't do, just the thought of it. I don't mind the kids, but their parents would be one to check out. And so yeah, they work with the faculty, they work with the kids, and then they work with the parents.

That's awesome. That should be out there.

Yeah, yeah, it was a big deal. Should we do something in the city council? I mean, that's a big deal. I mean, a national— I don't know, only 3 departments in the entire nation. Yeah, that's a big deal.

Bring them in.

Uh, the next one is the Tiger Traffic Team, which I think has been one of the biggest successes of 2024 and '23, but this year they, they just crushed it. We've had 70+ projects completed, and it's an amazing cross-departmental interdisciplinary team from all departments that work together to solve these kind of sticky, tricky pedestrian and traffic issues. So way to go, entire team. Yeah, so police and fire and engineering and public works have all been involved. We meet every 2 weeks, and we take every call, and everyone, even though we may not feel like they're significant, really substantial or warranted for some issues or concerns, we address every one. And we always communicate back. And, you know, it's an educational process that we've done as well. But we spent last year almost $500,000 on improvements for pedestrian and traffic safety.

That goes back to what Terry's saying, which is by different departments working together like that. That doesn't happen in a lot of governments.

So that's impressive. We have a great You know, group of people that are involved. They're very dedicated. Very responsive too. I received an email from a citizen down in Southwest Portland by UVU that the cul-de-sac that they lived on was a deep cul-de-sac and people were parking right up to the corner. So people going this way as far as they could go and people going this way. So they couldn't get out of their cul-de-sac in the morning because there was They, they, it just wasn't safe. Both ways they couldn't see as they pulled out into the street. And so they got a hold of it and they went down and took a look at it. Nice. And said, what can we do? They red-curved it. And everywhere I go, whenever I run into this person, he just is so grateful because now he can get out of his cul-de-sac without going, okay, well, here we go, hope things work out okay. But anyway, just A super responsive, quick action. And see, you can't beat the name either.

Tiger Team.

Just fun to say.

Tiger by the tail. They resolved 70 different issues. And I don't think we've ever put that many pedestrian crossings in, in a year, ever. Not as many as we've done in the last 10 years, probably. Is one of the problems that we fixed By those people who made the passionate comments to us who lost sister, friend.

Yeah, she texted me and said you'd done something on the road.

What's that?

What did we do?

12 South.

12 South. 12 South.

You put in a sign.

Like Ken Garfield. Like Ken Garfield.

Yeah. Okay. I'm not sure what we did there.

Well, thank you for doing it.

We texted a thank you to This is it.

I think, I think we replaced the streetlight. Oh, we got another streetlight? We repainted the crosswalk that goes by the light.

Yes.

Yeah, there was just some major improvement. There's just, yeah, relatively minor improvements. But anyway, I think the Tiger Team in part is created because of the—

Because of me?

You.

Because I bug you all the time?

Yes.

Could the minutes please show that? And Dave. And Dave.

Sorry, I don't want to just, you know, not acknowledge Dave.

Advocate. Advocate.

Advocate.

That's much nicer.

12 West, for example, as you know, took a while, but we got it done. And it was a big $750,000 project, and it wasn't on our radar. And I don't know how many children are using it.

12 West?

Pardon?

12 West.

Yeah, 12 West.

From Montevideo.

So yeah, that's the poster child of Tiger Team, I think, right there.

Yeah, that one was huge. Yes, just, it just, yeah, thank you.

Just so you know, also on 2000 North, as you go across the Merritt Canal Trail at night, boom, it lights up bright. If a pedestrian's there and they push the button, it lights up bright. You can see, you can't not miss it, right? So it's, it's, we have some newer technology, solar-powered, battery-operated. with technologies that are just better than we've ever had before. So we put in 6 West, we put in 12 West, we put on 4 East and 2 North for the whole Sarah common, you know, combining Cascade with Sharon as a result of Sharon going away.

The Ballard's there, everything you guys put up there to help.

And on 8 East, and we're putting a new signal in this spring.

Gary, you do not?

Not as I do now.

Well, that's 1010 East or 1000— the bike, um, Dave helped with that one too, the little mini stop signs on the trail, the door where the— 8th North and 11th East.

11th East, we made some significant improvements there. Yeah, so 1400 East And then 11th East. That's right. We've had pedestrian conflicts and people get hit. And so, yeah, I mean, we're just doing the best we can to make it as safe as possible. I'm going to stick on the sidewalk for one more thing. We also have an interdisciplinary team looking at our City Center campus right now to see safety improvements that need to be— can be made for all of our events, where we can have temporary crossings implemented. Maybe a permanent crossing on Center Street, additional sidewalk connections. So good. So we've got planning, engineering, I mean rec, fire, police, everybody's involved in this and it's one big group. I think we've got rec involved. Well, actually we've involved somebody's planning.

Oh, we did, we did.

It was our finance person. So yeah, they're going to fund that.

Yeah, that will help greatly.

So So look for some outcomes to come from that as well. What's the team name going to be? It's Tiger. It's a Tiger Cub. Tiger Cub. It's not full Paw Patrol.

But this is a great example of. citizens' needs being aligned with city management. I mean, just this many projects in this short of time that are— the needs of the community are being addressed.

So it's awesome.

I think the day will come they'll be able to do a documentary about the Tabor team.

Netflix.

Netflix, yeah. The Justice Court, they're super efficient. You can see the numbers there that they did in 2024. Fire Prevention, they launched a bunch of new programs this year. Yeah, this is all really Truly because of the support financially and from a personnel perspective. Warren's never had an emphasis on fire prevention. 2 inspectors that just barely scraped by. So by doubling staff and then securing some funds, they've really been able to implement several programs that are allowing us to get into the community, make contact with the kids, family, provide it to the seniors, and it's— they're doing And then just this bottom note, we passed our IRMA safety inspection this year with a perfect score, which is huge for safety both for employees and for the public. So that was huge. Second page, safe and livable neighborhoods. New domestic violence detective to help with those issues. The new fire cadet program, they just graduated, right? Yeah, the first semester, it's the first time. It's been a really collaborative effort with Alpine School District. This gets us all 3 high schools, juniors and seniors, that actually learn about what we do, actually do the training. We invested about $30,000 in turnout gear that the 10 to 12 students each semester are actually wearing. They're riding on calls with us semester-long, they're obtaining credit, and it's actually getting us to know kids and giving them a taste of the fire service. So they want to go in. So actually a recruiting tool for us early as they graduate from high school, get an idea what they want to do. And first semester was super successful, and we're just this week starting our second semester. So it's an awesome program. Looks like you had some multi-generational cadets. Yeah, like Chief Williams' daughter. Yeah, she was one of the first ones that attended, and we'll see where it's all been modeled 3 high schools, so it's really good. Can't wait until one of them joins the team.

That'd be amazing.

There was a couple kids that really expressed some interest, so we'll watch them over the next year. Yeah, that's so cool. Um, new ambulances that you guys all checked out, a new fire training facility— you're gonna hear more about that tomorrow. Um, the expanded COP program, Josh, what are some of their efforts this year? We were just asked to expand our impact the community.

We've—

one of the things we've done is, gosh, every week I track their calendar very closely. I mean, we're just in the next week, we're going to a Spanish evangelical or Pentecostal church tomorrow. There's a Coffee with the cops, cookies with the kids at schools. We've been doing that like twice a week. School resource fairs, just a ton of stuff with the schools.

Reading, we've—

our reading program has exploded. We've got a lot of help with CDBG funding to help support that. The schools love that, where we're in all of our charter schools every week at least twice reading to kids. And I think that's a great thing. Kids. And, you know, just having— being able to have a bigger presence at events. You know, we got a bunch of community donations to turn one of our trucks into a goofy-looking monster truck. That people love. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, the guy that drives it, he's super cool. Yeah, I mean, he's only 5'6. Once he can get in— no, it's been, it's been, it's been fun. We've expanded our people and they're busy.

Yeah, they're doing a great job.

We got a big report yesterday from Sergeant Giles on what they're doing for my hometown and the neighborhood commission. It's fantastic. Uh, we want to talk about this Sergeant-led crew debriefs, critical incidents, and then also the mental health. So one of the things that, you know, we've been focusing on the last several years— this is actually year 4 of the program where we're really trying to focus on making our best selves so that we're serving the community as our best selves. Part of, you know, ourselves in the fire service is, you know, we typically get called to things that we have to go to. It's not people call us because they want to. And say hello. Sometimes those things can be somewhat graphic, disturbing, things that human beings aren't designed to see. And one of the things that— there's been a lot of really good work done, academic work, psychological work done in the last several years showing that for a group of people that are involved in what we consider a critical incident, And you know, these can be anything from a suicide to a homicide to a bad traffic accident to significant child abuse, things like that that are that could best be described as disturbing. That they take time afterwards and just circle the wagons for a minute and talk about it, and that there's a lot of really cool and critical. and stuff showing that the ability to kind of hot wash right after the fact, it's almost like taking a shower if you're dirty instead of just sitting there being dirty all day. As far as the long-term impacts of being exposed to traumatic incidents, it brings down the severity of that impact significantly. And pairing that with the— this is the 4th year that we've had a mandatory clinical assistance program. Each one of our officers sees a clinician twice a year, mandatory, and it's made a huge difference on interventions. In fact, I can highlight 4 or 5 people who are still with us, and frankly, one of them is still alive because of this program.

Wow.

And it's been, it's been very significant for us, for me personally, and it's one of the things that with our— when we're bringing in particular lateral recruits and stuff like that, they've been very impressed with the way that we're taking care of our people and that emphasis. Unfortunately, the funding we had, we're going to— that's going to be a conversation 2 years from now. It was all ARPA money, so we're going to need to have a conversation. But it's been well worth it. I mean, but for us and fire both, I think we're paying about $125,000 a year, okay, year for full ability for them and their spouses, which has also been a big piece, to be able to talk to industry-informed clinicians, not just a traditional EAP one that's not really familiar with public safety. And the fact that our first responders are using it is an indicator of their courage and willingness to Not just sweep it under the rug, but address it in order to improve beyond it and overcome it. Yeah, and honestly, so we have 100% compliance with the mandatory 2 a year, but we also have about, I think it's 62 or 64, I can't remember, percent are opting in to use it voluntarily as well beyond that. So ongoing care. And we really track that and push it. I CC'd you all on an email. When we were notified by the company how we still were missing their annual or their biannual report. And so they're on top of that and we get our guys through that because they need it.

And I can appreciate how, you know, let's prepare for that 2-year mark in our budgeting because it's something like this where our police and our fire just is, is, yeah, critical. crucial that we plan for that and continue that.

Do you find other grant funds that might replace that?

Yeah.

The next one is we completed the lead and copper service line inventory. You want to just give a quick—

Sure, yeah.

So the US EPA is— this is a mandate for water quality. There are adverse health conditions that can result from exposed to lead in the water. And none of our lines have lead, but some of the service lines to the homes or in the homes themselves can and do have lead. And so part of this is to educate people on helping them to recognize what kind of lines they have in their homes and to encourage them to replace them. So most of this goes It goes above and beyond what we do in the field, in the form of in the street, installing lines up to the meter, but it includes what goes on between the meter and their last point of drop, marks of any costs and so forth that may have led to the plumbing. So, we have completed the survey. We're continuing to work with individuals who are willing to come forward. And to work with them on identifying them and to come up with resources to replace any lines that may have that as well. Awesome. And then just a quick note on the drill this year, we had 45,000 residents check in, which is a record. So Keith is doing a great job managing that year over year. It's really starting to get some momentum. You guys will see Keith is prepared. He'll be addressing you guys in our next council meeting just with an update with the emergency management. Very important. resources that him and his expertise in this field. When we switch over to N4 infrastructure, these are some of the major capital projects that were done last year. The cybersecurity is becoming a bigger thing in government. We're getting much more serious about that, but OREM is— I mean, what would you say, Carrie? OREM's kind of leading the way with Steve Cannon.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

This asset management system, I understand—

Repeat just a second. On the cybersecurity, and I do want to turn it over to the rest of this, but on the cybersecurity side, I've seen a lot just in my industry, and everything is going to the next level. And the data that's out there as far as, I mean, some of the stuff I saw was that you took all the ransom and all the money behind the table that goes across, you know, from cybersecurity attacks currently, It's off the charts.

Yeah.

And so cities are huge, have a huge vulnerable situation. It's really good to be leading the way because that's where private's going to. And they're— I mean, my, my, uh, I shouldn't say this because I don't want to affect budget, but as far as our computer costs and IT costs have gone up, you know, 150% in the last couple years just because we have to prevent against all this out here.

That's crazy, the world that we're slipping into with all this. Asset management system is going to be huge for preventing and maintaining our facilities and utilities. You know, we talked about the park improvements, finished the AMI project this year. That was a multi-year project. That was awesome, the water meter readers. 1600 is moving along, new boiler, children's wing. The federal railroad thing with the blaring of the horns, Orem, I feel like they jumped right on our portion. That was the strangest, weirdest thing. I'm still shaking my head. I think the Federal Railroad Administration has been frustrated with some local municipalities who have snubbed them and not responded to safety concerns, one of which was the one that held us up here was in the Salt Lake area where Salt Lake City approved a site plan for an industrial site with an access that was clearly too close to the railroad, to the rail line. They did it and they didn't fix it and they haven't done it for years and the Pines said, okay, we're doing this now.

So let's just punish everybody because the engineers don't know where they are when they're driving.

So—

Okay, yeah, so yeah, good point. Touché. So our quiet zone area stretched from Salt Lake to Provo. Can we reduce it? Maybe go from Lehi to Provo? That makes it more manageable. Every city was asked, do you want to do your own quiet zone? None of the cities stepped forward back when the front-runner went in. No one wanted to do it.

Really?

No.

And so it ended up landing on where it is today.

Can we adjust it?

We can.

Has it gone away?

It hasn't.

Has. Could it come back if we don't comply? Yes, it can. So we're going to comply, and we have. I think, you know, I'm just proud to see you just jump right on it. You know, as soon as we knew we needed to do something, we did it.

Um, fire training—

the 10 million water gallon tank is finished, that portion of that project. But a lot of progress we made this year. Uh, fire training facility, which we'll hear more about. When you say finished, is it filled?

Yeah.

It's been filled and leak tested and so forth. It's being backfilled right now as we speak. And then the park aspect of it will continue as we then move to the next phase of the booster station and the well, which are under contract— will be under contract later this month. When you say backfilled, so it was filled, emptied, and then now it's being refilled? Is that what you mean by backfilled? Water is in the tank. Yeah, we're backfilling Soil. Gotcha.

Thank you.

Yeah, that filling.

Yeah, sorry, 2 different fills.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. The major utility master plans, impact fee studies, those are ongoing.

They're working on those.

We're wrapping those up right now. We launched Citizen Connect late last year. This was in response to some of the things that we talked about as a group. As far as being more responsive to citizens and their needs and requests. So that's going, and that's working very well. And then the public safety building remodel, which you'll hear more about tomorrow. This next page, the accolades, you know, this is just cool things, cool lists and awards we've been given over 2024. Uh, the one I love most of all, because it's purely an Orem award, is number 1 livability score in all of Utah. This website, AreaVibes, looks at your parks and your safety and all of your Your entire quality of life. And then they rank all the cities in Utah, and we're right at the top. So I love, I love that one. And you can read through this list. There's some really, really cool things. Some of them involve, you know, Provo and a few other cities in the area. Some are strictly just Orem awards, like number 2 fastest internet, number 1 place for seniors. Some of these are, you know, just purely ours, but there's also kind of a regional effect with what's happening in the valley. One that I really loved from this last year was on the second page, number 6 best cultural experience for mid-sized cities. I don't think Orem gets enough credit for what we do in the arts and recreation, and so the fact that we're ranked number 6 nationally of cities of our size for that, that kind of thing is awesome. And then we were the number 12 most educated city this year and top 5 most beautiful pickleball course in And then you can just peruse. These are the top 25 social media posts from the city, the general city page. You can see what was number 1, a Hallmark movie, Lights On. That post went crazy, one of the biggest ones we ever had. And then you can see what people— I really like number 24. Yes, I gotta give a shout out to number 24. Dave put aside his hard feelings towards I hate cats.

But he presented the award.

We had this big March Madness-style tournament. He thought it was funny, so I said sure. The cat was so scared she couldn't even pick it up. It was a waste. So we appreciate Dave being a good sport on that one. A wonderful, wonderful year overall. And it all comes back to this idea that, you know, Gives you more, and we will continue to do so. We did it in '24, we plan to do it again in '25 as a team working together. So yeah, thank you for everyone's contributions to this. I hope it's okay that we've, you know, kind of gone into our— eaten into our roundtable time. I think, I think that we have, because we have so much that we've accomplished and we're sharing with you in our Actually, I think that's a bit of an indicator that I think we're listening and talking and communicating all throughout the year, not just waiting for the retreat to have a roundtable to then get some direction. So, so we will want to continue to keep that up.

Right.

No, I appreciate that, Pete. That was a pretty extensive list of what's going on.

Maybe we should—

Let's take a break. Wait a second.

We'll take a break, but truly a 5-minute break because we're—

I don't linger.

Yeah, right.

So we'll be back.

Yeah, 5 minutes.

My watch is around 5:03.

It's a good time because then we do have more food if you're not—

3 o'clock?

We have more food over there, so you can always grab some and come back to your table.

We got a timer on the clock. Okay, here we go.

Oh, with the mini corn dogs too? Even better. I should know, I helped pick the food.

Okay, as you, as you all know, we're running a bit behind, but I think it was time well spent, uh, because it kind of tied into our City Council roundtable. It would just be, uh, the city educating everyone on all the great things that are happening in Norman, and I think that sets a great foundation for for where we need to go. And also, it's just always good to have an accounting of what's happening. So I'm fine taking that time from City Council Roundtable. With that in mind, I think what we'll do, because we're— we are behind and we want to kind of try and get back on schedule, um, it's 3:08. I think we'll shoot for, uh, A half hour for this conversation? So probably put us roughly at—

Do you want to take a minute, Brandon?

3:40? Yeah, just real quick.

Okay.

Yeah, maybe just to put a little exclamation point on the accomplishments. As you know, sometimes change and moving things forward, sometimes something that people people really enjoy or that people are really emotionally connected to is changed in ways that— where you might be otherwise concerned. And true to form, we try to make lemonade out of those things. And so we were able to get enough wood from the Freedom Tree that was taken down to provide not only a large wooden flag that'll go in our new city center, but also a smaller version of it for each, each one of you. So before you go back to your room today, make sure and grab your wooden flag. And we also made sure— I know plenty of you have a copy of the mayor's book, but have that here as well. Thanks, Fred.

Wow, that's so nice.

That's awesome. And that's from the Freedom Tree, right?

From the Freedom Tree.

That is from the official Freedom Tree.

Does it have a little plaque that says that on the back? They ought to have a little sticker you can put on the back, if you don't mind. We'll make one. Yeah, we didn't do that, but we can add—

get something.

So that way my kids are tempted to throw it away when I'm dead.

That would be a good idea. That is almost like putting a signature on a card.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Well, as far as our roundtable discussion, we had a number of different things we were going to go over, but we'll I think we'll just focus on one. As I was thinking about this last night, trying to get some of these different things together, it dawned on me that this is my 4th one of these meetings. And that's kind of amazing. And so I was thinking back on the different meetings that we had, and I remember the very very first meeting that I had. It was right after, I mean, it was within days after I was elected. I kind of felt like that was strategic to like throw me right into the pot. But anyway, we had, we, that election was pretty monumental in that there seemed to be a big disconnect between between the citizens of Orem and what they wanted and the city management itself. And some of the big controversies were in the State Street Master Plan. And we had, in Orem, there had been literally thousands, thousands of apartments and rentals built in the previous few years before that.

And the citizens were We're kind of rising up against that.

And anyway, so a lot of what I felt I ran on was to align the city council with the citizens, make sure they're aligned, and then align those 2 entities with the city employees. And so that first meeting that we had was pretty over the top in terms of we had to do a lot of things really fast. We had a State Street master plan that was— needed to be reversed, and we only had a matter of weeks to make it happen. And there were just all these different pressures on us. And so anyway, it was an interesting meeting, even down to just what I thought was a simple thing at the time, which was we voted 7-0 to approve a school district study just to see if it was feasible. Just a feasibility study, just to answer the question. But there were, you know, going back, there was a number of things that were a big deal. And so that was the first year. And then the second year when we had this meeting, meeting, we came into it with some major changes happening in Orem. And at that time, Brent wasn't the city manager. He was the interim city manager, and he was just trying to hold things together while we figured out what the next steps were. And so that was the context of the second meeting. And then last year, we had, we had We just had a fairly contentious election, and so we were trying to come together as a city council and figure things out and figure out where people stood and that sort of thing. And I felt like last year we really did come together in this meeting, and I felt like we learned to ask the hard questions, we learned to trust each other, we learned how we're going to succeed together.

Thank you.

And so that takes me to this year. And so I just, I just jotted down kind of 3 simple questions that I'd like each city council member to give their take on, if they'd be willing to. The first one is, is where was your mindset last year in terms of the city council and your part in it and just how it functioned? What was your mindset last year? Then the second question is, is where is your mindset today as we were now coming into this meeting?

And for me, it's my fourth one.

For some of you, it's your second one. And then the third question— I can repeat this if you can't get it all— but the third question is, what do you think we can do to take the performance of the city, and specifically the city council, to the next level in this coming year. So what, you know, what progress have we made, where are we at, and what can we do to take us to the next level over the next year? So anyway, I just think a conversation kind of centered around those things. would be, would be really useful. And, um, I mean, to try and help the cause, I'm just thinking— I wrote the questions down, I haven't thought of any answers, but if you want me to, I can kind of answer these questions first to kind of help the cause.

Get the conversation going.

That is, so nobody feels like they're on the spot.

Yes. Is Jen still with us? Okay, thank you.

Okay. I mean, she's at least on there.

I can still hear her. Okay.

All right, so, uh, where was my mindset last year? Um, like I said, we had just come through a pretty contentious election, and any kind of contentious election I think negatively affects trust. And so my goal last year was to try and rebuild that trust. I felt pretty good about— I felt really, really good about where we were as a city. I thought the city had been making outstanding progress over the previous couple years. And then my hope was that we could, as a city council, come together and basically be that city council that could make this happen. And so where is my mindset today? I think we've made a ton of progress from where we were last year as a city council. I think our trust has improved significantly. It's not perfect, but it's definitely very, very improved. I think, you know, Curtis, Curtis from the chamber, he told me that he's been involved with a lot of city councils, a lot of— he just works with different groups, and he said he feels like our city council is one of the best in the entire County that they work with in terms of just really quality people all working together for almost free. And as far as what I think we can we can do to take the performance of the city council, the city, what can you do?

What do you?

think we can do to take the performance of the City Council and the city to the next level? I would say my 2 takeaways on that would be probably the number one thing we can do better— I think we do a good job already, but I think we can always do better— would be communication to our I work really hard that if we have any concerns, if we have any questions, if we have any reasons to, you know, be upset, that we communicate directly with those people that we have a concern with. And the goal of that communication, I really believe that communication is solid and it's honest communication, that that will build trust. And I think building trust amongst ourselves is also a key thing.

So that's my take.

And I just threw that out just to make it easy. So somebody else go next.

Guess what? Whoever would like to—

Let me go.

I'm sure. So my mindset last year, I think my whole thing, having been the recipient of some of the views of the election that you're talking about, my whole mindset was hoping that we could come together and move forward.

And we established relationships.

relationships and trust, just as you said. My mindset today, I feel like we've done a good job of that. Just as you said, we're not perfect, but I feel like we work really well together. I was reminded as you were talking about this, and maybe Chris is going to jump into this a little bit in his book presentation, The Boys in the Boat, but— You know, one of the things that I pulled out of that was the concern and love of the other members in the boat. And so the fact that they're— what they were trying to accomplish was not only motivated by their goals and aspirations or whatever, but it was also the concern of the entire council. And so I think that might be— I agree, the communication, I think we can improve in that regard. And I think, you know, I think, uh, general concern, um, It's always something that we can work on. You know, we've all been through hard times, and you know, we may encounter just in the middle of a gut-wrenching situation, we're in, you know, and I think those are opportunities to connect. And so maybe more opportunities to connect one-on-one or two-on-two or as a whole council, but just to continue to do what we can to build and strengthen those relationships to enforce whatever— I guess the strength of those connections.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jeff. I guess I Where was my mindset? I guess in the past, that was. Yeah. I thought the election was not a mandate by the citizens. It was very close, and. The trust factor— I mean, uh, Jeffrey, you and I had a conversation and you said you don't trust me. I mean, you're not my friend anymore. It's me— Well, I don't know that I said you weren't my friend. I just said I have a hard time trusting you because of what we did at the time. So I, I still consider you a friend. And so my thing is, you know, hearsay You know, if you don't hear from me directly, it's not true. Because I never said that you were for high density or for BRT. But Stronger Together 100% was, and that's what I was telling people. That group is 100% for high density because Sissy Rask was in there, and Kathy Ambrose came to those meetings and said, don't do that, you know, don't change the master plan, all that crap. So that's where I was coming from on my— idea of that. So, um, I just think that, you know, you take social media out of the equation, it's stronger together than nothing, right? But they sure caused a ruckus. And I think they lied, they're dishonest, the signs are wrong. 56% tax increase was garbage about the school district, right? We voted 7-0 to do a feasibility study. Came back in July, we already had people on the council not for it. I'm like, we didn't even see the numbers. Because to me, that was amazing that we voted 7-0 and all of a sudden we're already going down a path. And it just, to me, was bad. And that was very divisive all in all. And I think that— not to say that we were 2 years ahead of our time, but I think if we were, right? Look at now, today. Other cities saw what we were talking about. You know, we want to keep our money in our cities, right? I'm not saying Alpine School District was bad, but it was huge. We needed to bring it down and bring it back to Orem. Let's spend our money on our children in Orem and Vineyard, Linden, and Peachtree. Where's my mindset today? I think we've made huge steps, leaps and bounds, um, from where we were in the Jamie era, right? Jamie was an excellent city manager, but he had issues, right? And I think he was the major cause of those issues because of his management style, in my opinion. Jamie gone, When you run in, the city is, it's a breath of fresh air in my opinion. People will say hi to you. People will talk to you. People are allowed to talk to you, right? It's freaking amazing.

Yeah. That's what it is.

It is. To me, the transformation is, it's night and day. You flip the switch on, you know. And look at Teresa. She had an opportunity. opportunity and a career path to go a different direction. I doubt that would have happened. I doubt it would have happened, in my opinion. I mean, I've been on the council for— this is my 12th year with Tom. And the way it was then, the way it is now, it is— I'd run forever because it's a great opportunity to serve the citizens. And it's a great city. And I work with great people. So, um, our core business is police, fire, water, roads, and sewer. Those are 5 things we have to give our citizens. It's not anything else, but we give tons more, right? If times get tough, we need to concentrate on those 5, and I think times are going to get tough down the road, right? I mean, international shipping, it's The economy's not good, so hopefully we don't have a fall off a cliff, but we might, so we'll see. I think what we can do next level in the future, I think communication is key. And I think we need to trust in the citizens and those citizens that serve on boards and committees. You might disagree with some of the people that are on the committees, but they're citizens and they have an opinion and they need to be heard. I heard from a person that some on the council, they don't care about the Planning Commission and their opinion because it's stacked. That is BS. Absolutely BS. They're citizens of Warren. They deal with it, right? They've been put on there for a reason, to keep warm Family City, USA, and not freaking high density. So I think that's about my 2 cents. Thank you, Dan.

Thank you.

Who'd like to go next?

Are you there?

I can go.

Thanks. Those are helpful past, present, and future thoughts. And so as you asked the questions, my mind We went off to the elephant in the room discussion we had last year. And so, going into that meeting last year, my desire was to strive to figure out a way to build unity, because we had had that, as you described, a challenge in the process, in the way of just the trust level just probably wasn't as high as it could be. And, And my desire for, as was mentioned last year, increase of decorum in public meetings was a key personal thing that I was looking to last year, my perspective from my own view of watching historically. And then awareness of those in the city who are underserved or less represented. So, so describing, that's where I was last year. This year, I think I'm— I've come to a point where, as we've gone through this cycle now, I'm striving to listen with a desire to understand and work collaboratively together for common growth and build for a stronger department. So I think that's where I am today, and I'm hoping that that's where we'll continue to go.

Thank you.

with that listening mindset. A continuation of last year of kindness and polite respect for all points of view. Even I may have a differing point of view, but I respect and value someone else's point of view. So I think that's important for us to all continue to be aware of. And then finally, what can we do to Performance of where we are to the next level and into this next future. And I think it will be to continue the collaboration, continue the opportunities to grow, understanding that there are differences of opinion. You know, Dave just brought up a few. But not holding those against any one individual, but just saying, hey, well, that's— you're entitled to your opinion and others are entitled to theirs. But be respectful and kind and reliable. And then continuing forward to build a better Orem, because Orem is representative of 100,000 views. And I just want to make sure that we're, we're there to move the city forward. So I'm grateful for the executive staff and all of the employees, as well as us as elected officials and what we're striving to do. And I just say thank you for each of you.

Thank Thank you.

you.

Thank you for the privilege of me being able to get to know each of you better. Knowing that we've had difficult times personally within our own homes and families, and that has provided an opportunity for us to grow and have more empathy for those who go through hard things and try and help. So my desire to be more kind in the future would just be someone who helps, who's willing To try to make this a better place. And, uh, that's all I have to say. Thank you, Chris.

Tom and you, would you like to say something?

I'll go after Tom. I'm not letting you go after me.

Okay, I guess we're done. Does Jen have anything she'd like to add? Oh, thanks, Jen. She's nice and direct. I just don't know.

Can you do a check?

I just texted her. She took it off. There she is.

Sorry, again, I can't talk very well, but I'll try and talk. Um, and I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing, so forgive me if I say stuff that was repeated, but, um, I think from where I was last year.

I think last year coming into it, like it has been said, it was a pretty contentious election and I didn't know what to expect.

But I came committed to assume the best intent and to learning as much as I could from everyone there. And I think I've been able to do that throughout the year and I've appreciated that opportunity.

I think I have developed better relationships with members of the council and I've learned a lot from everyone.

And I think we are in a more trusting place now than we were.

Going forward, I think it's funny when the mayor asked the question, I actually wrote down better communication.

So I think we all must be on the same wavelength there. I think certainly better communication would be awesome, and that includes even little things like, hey, you know, we had this meeting, this is what happened, or certain other things like if we have an issue we can talk to someone. And then Also, I think just having it be okay to have different opinions, because I think we're all— we all come to this from different perspectives, and there's tons of validity to the way we get to where we are and what we think. So, um, I have a little bit of concerns going forward into an election year. I'm hoping that that doesn't turn nasty like it did last time around, but I don't know.

And I'm just Hopeful that we can maintain positive communication throughout the year. So that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Jen.

I will resign immediately if I don't win the second. I'll follow your counsel.

Okay, why don't you go ahead, Tom?

First of all, I think that almost all elections are somewhat contentious. The winning side often feels it was a mandate, and the losing side often feels it wasn't. And one side always feels that the other side has lied, and the other side feels the other side has lied. So I will discount some of that wherever it David still seems to have pretty strong feelings on some of those. My mindset at the end of the election, following 2 years of feeling disenfranchised by the council, was, okay, maybe now I'll be on the majority. And I was grateful as we went into the meeting that there wasn't a feeling to say, okay, we're just going to flip the disenfranchised other people. Having felt disenfranchised, I didn't want to disenfranchise other elected officials. Real or imagined, I felt disenfranchised. You can discount that. But I think moving forward, I think a lot of good things have happened. And one thing I liked about our first 2 hours of talk is I didn't hear a lot of people saying, this is what I did. That is pretty significant. There isn't an I in team, but there is a me. And sometimes people— you could do the little fancy more Orem kind of thing. And sometimes we're guilty of saying, look what I did, or instead of what we did.

And when we—

it's more than just the staff, it's more than just the elected officials, it's the citizens of Orem, it's the people who serve on our commissions.

So I'm grateful for that.

So my mindset— first of all, my mindset last year was really messed up given the fact that I had a grandchild born with special needs. So I really emotionally got disconnected here pretty darn quick last year. Fortunately, to my knowledge, no one's pregnant in our family. No one's driving recklessly. I hope I don't have any of those kind of things. My guess is there'll be people who feel this next election is a mandate for some and not a mandate for others. It's close to some and a faraway win on another. Just, I mean, look at our national politics, right? There's a couple million people, which is a lot of people, but there's still 70-plus million who don't agree with whoever the winner is, right? And, and there's, and the vast majority of them doesn't even vote. So they don't care what we're doing.

They don't care.

They don't care what's going on up here in any way.

They might care, but they don't. The future does not belong to the citizens. It belongs to citizens who vote. And that 28% or so that vote for city council members and mayor, I'm thankful for them. So what do we do now to improve performance? Is continue to take a little sharpness out of our discussions. And to try to— first of all, city council has been much more— what was the word you were using? More civil in the— we see less public display in the audience. I'm grateful for that. And with rare exception, Mayor, you haven't let us go till midnight too often. Recent memory being somewhat different. So I think we can, when we do disagree, we need to disagree better still. That's still my concern, is that we disagree with a little less of an edge, a little less sharpness, and we move forward with just a true desire to say that next year, say, look what happened, what we did. And we is, I mean, Brent quickly diverted attention away from him and put it to everyone else. And I think we ought to continue to do that. I think it's hard to read this article on humility that you gave us, Chris, and then spend 2 hours saying what a great job we did, but it was truly what we did and not— so I thought we passed the humility test. I think you'll remember, Brent, that we read a book, The Ideal Team Leader, some years ago. It talks about hungry, humble, and smart. And I know you interview along that line of hungry, humble, and smart, these soft skills. So I look for a continued ability to disagree with a little less age. Okay, thank you, Tom.

So I'm just in a mood where I'm just cutting to the chase, you know. Had a hell of a year, last 2 years, and I feel this is This is so important to our citizens that we just really need to figure this out. Coming into the meeting, what was your mindset last year? I think I made that clear. I didn't run in the election, and yet I was targeted by people who did. Why?

Inexcusable.

In my opinion, to put forth narratives that weren't true. Some of them were— oh well, I won't go there. But I just feel like we want to give personal dignity, we want to have a unified community, we want to create this community of kindness. I really think that we just need to recognize what happened in the past and and not do it. But it was really tough coming into that, then with some other things that were going on. Where's the mindset today? I'm going to disagree wholeheartedly with the, we're there, we're collaborating. We're not. In private— in public, it looks like it, but I was just in a meeting a month ago where it was mentioned that I have 4 votes and if I want to kick the mayor off the committee, I will. To me, that's not collaboration. Where is the mindset today? Have people been reaching out to other members? Members of council. No. Your feeling, Tom, of being disenfranchised, I have felt this past year. I have not— I mean, I find, oh, there's 4 votes to move forward on this when I've called staff members. Well, I've been told there are 4 votes, and I'm like, oh, no one's talked to me about that. So to me, that's— I mean, I guess it feels when you're on that side, right? You're finally— What did you say?

You're finally—

Please let me talk. It's not really asking a question. When, when you say, you know, I feel much better about it now that I'm in the majority. And quite honestly, when I came into this, you know, I was new. There were 2 big issues that were dividing the council, but we were pretty united on other things. Unfortunately, those 2 big issues had a number of steps where we were continuing to be in our opinionated areas, which is fine. You know, that's kind of how it goes sometimes, and those issues were prolonged over that year. So when it looked like that, it was, it was, in my opinion, it was kind of, that's kind of where we were. But I agree with Dave, I was pretty flabbergasted, you know, coming into our very first, my very first experience with the retreat, where we voted 7 to 0 on 3 issues that ended up being continually voted 4-3 into the future. And I was just kind of like, wow, is this how this is supposed to work? People just flip based on political pressure, you know, or do you just stick by your ideals and your morals of being open-minded. So I guess, you know, where's the mindset today? I don't feel like it's better. I'm feeling very disenfranchised. Like, if I could pull out the emails that show that there is that behind-the-scenes lack of collaboration, you know, maybe we want to look good for the public, but I'm just not that kind of a person. I like to feel genuine in what's happening and feel like that's something we really need to work on, in my opinion. I agree with Dave on some of the things that he's saying. Well, and maybe I'll go into that in our next roundtable. There's some issues I want to talk about, about some things happening in the city today that I think are fantastic, that have been continuations of things that started off and In a contentious way, but I think have demonstrated themselves as being a great decision. At the time there was pushback, but now that, you know, we see that there's a great decision. And I'll just make a little note and I'll probably identify some of those tomorrow when we have our roundtable. I have a problem when the last person speaking corrects someone before. If I I can be specific. I think that doesn't have a place in our council meetings. I think if you want to make your comments before your vote for reasons that you're voting, to correct someone and to say, um, you know, I mean, it's obvious, you can see, right? I think we all know. I, I just don't feel like that builds unity. Um, state your opinion, state what you think, and let's Agree to disagree on things. You know, it's okay. We don't we don't have to correct someone and tell them that they're because you have the last word. Your comments are you know sticking a knife in to somebody, telling them they're wrong. I feel like that we have so many wonderful things happening.

In our city right now.

And if everyone can just move forward and step away from the past feelings, um, I mean, I've reached out a couple times to just say I'd love to actually have us get together as a council and maybe work through some of these issues. And kind of to Dave Spencer's point, there's a lot of misconception out there. There's a lot of things that weren't accurate And I feel sometimes that maybe some of the newer council members don't know that. I would love to talk about those things, show this is what actually happened, what you read in the newspaper was not correct, you know, or what you saw on social media was not correct. So to me, if I'm sensing from comments that were even made that those films are still there, obviously, right? So if we don't, if we just try to keep moving forward without addressing those, I don't think we're going to have the unity that we want. You know, when I was looking, reading the books and looking at kind of the agenda, there were these 2 thoughts that came to my mind. You know, we talk about unity, we have our buzzwords, and to me it was, let's team up, you know. If you want to act as a team, if you want to be able to really move forward with your unique abilities and unique contributions, that's where you find strength. And as we understand that and listen to each other and learn from each other, we will have the strength to do that. But what Jen said about working Communication to me that's severely lacking, and I would appreciate more. And it's would be a lot more respectful too because I've all put in a lot of work, and really I think we all have good hearts and want to do what's best. So let's not go to our corners, you know. And if there's something that you think you have to go to your corner for, you know, let's talk about it. Let's say, this is what I'm thinking of doing, you know, what do you have, and this is why. And then allow someone an opportunity to then talk. It felt like that actually happened my first year on the council a lot more than it has this last year.

Let's see.

I don't like putting the staff in a difficult position, and I feel like these behind-the-scenes communications— and I mean, when I've called some members of the staff and they're like, uh, I don't know what to do, you know, the council's having issues here, you know— to me, that's another reason for us as a council to team up and to you know, work together in this fashion. I really am so amazed as being a resident advocate for 10 years before I ran for City Council, community, you know, advocate serving on commissions in the city, and seeing what's— where we are now compared to then. It's amazing. It is transformational. And this little sideshow is just sad to me that it's happening. You know, we don't need it. We are such great individuals, all 7 of us, that to pool our ideas and to team up together, we can do even more, you know.

Thank you.

I just feel like the pure motives need to be what moves forward on this situation, and I think we would all be living happier lives and feeling much more comfortable and grateful for what we can do to contribute to this great city, because I love it. I love everything that's happened and the feedback I get from the community. I have even had, just so you know, I think this is possible because I, this last, back in October, I actually had people who vehemently opposed some of the things I did, my decisions on the council, just come up to me and say, you know what, I get it now. I see where you were. I appreciate what you've done. done, I apologize for not talking to you about it more. And to me, that's what we need to do, right? I've had great conversations with some council members that I walk away thinking, ah, I needed to think about that. But so, you know, maybe I'm— maybe I'm the outlier here. Maybe y'all are having conversations and I'm the only one not. But I feel like those aren't happening, and I would— I would really look forward to those happening more. So what do I think we can do to take the performance of the city to the next level? Communication. But I'm not just saying that as a word. I'm saying that as let's do it. Let's team up. Let's communicate better. Let's understand our, our unified purpose. And if there's a way to try our best to, you know, set aside some of the past and move forward. I've made mistakes and I apologize for those. So hopefully we can all, you know, do what's best for each other and for our community. So that's what I have.

Thank you, Lynnae.

Well, thank you, all of you, you know, for being vulnerable, And saying what you really think. And to me, that's real communication. If I could paint a picture of where I'd like to see us go from now to next year, I'd like to see— I mean, each one of us, of the 7 of us, independently represent 100,000 people in our community, and they're relying on us to do the best job for them that we can. And so I think that's where our allegiance should be too, is our citizens and our residents. And we might have a particular take on things, but I think we should always try and understand and figure out what's best for our community. I think for the most part we do that. I really feel like, I feel like we're in a good place. I feel like if we can address, you know, it sounds like there's still, there's still some trust issues, and I really believe that can be solved through better communication. So I think we proactively try to improve our communication. Communication and how we work together. That will just be good for the council, be good for the city, make staff's life easier. So I appreciate all of you. I think, I think everyone on the city council are really good people. I think sometimes we look at things differently, which is fine, but I think we're all good people. I think we all have the same vision, which is to make Orange the best it can be. So take that wherever you would like, but hopefully we can work on that and keep moving forward.

Mayor, quick question. Was there not some new legislation last year about us being together and it not having to be a public meeting? There is some new changes to the open public meetings We will be doing an updated training on the Open and Public Meetings Act in a few weeks.

It would be a game changer.

Yeah, it's a big deal. Truly. Yeah, we wanted to come with that training, Jeff, as soon as possible. We're pushing that to February so that we have Steve with us because we want to address what He's not here today. Is he having treatment of some sort? Yeah, he's started a new round of cancer treatment.

Thank you.

And then I would just like to, if you don't mind, maybe I could share perhaps from Steph's perspective, or at least from my perspective on those 3 questions.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Last year, I I think I and Steph came into the meeting with the idea that, with the feeling that there's way more that unifies us than separates us. Understanding that there was, you know, a lot of strong emotions and, you know, difficult conversations that were happening out in the public. My mind still went back to major Brent Taylor, and he was a big fan of saying that and said it honestly right before he passed. And that was, again, that was, there's no matter how much there's disagreement, there's still a lot more that unifies us than separates us. This last year and into this meeting and coming into this, I started I started to say this a little bit with the Freedom Tree flags, but truly, if I've learned anything going through, you know, a difficult personal situation with my son and family, it's that a ton of lemonade, a ton of good things can come out of really bad or difficult things. I heard a Christmas message that Talked about the difference between being cured and being healed. And, you know, cured, you're just taken back to what you were before, and sometimes we think that's what we want. But being healed is more, is coming through it and being better and transformed and improving through the difficulties. So I, I, that's kind of the, my main theme or thought I have for our meeting today.

Thank you.

And then in terms of moving forward, I'll just reiterate that I think the things that we can do— and the mayor started to talk about this— in terms of moving forward is see the good, the tremendous good in each other, because genuinely you each give me much brighter hope and optimism for the future.

Thank you.

And that we can engage in even better and more thorough and comprehensive communication, and that will lead to that transformation or that improvement that we're taking place in those settings.

Thank you, Brent. That's excellent.

All right.

But like I said, I really appreciate all of you being open, honest, vulnerable, and willing to share. So that's great. Let's move on to the next segment.

This is—

General Fund.

Yeah, this is a presentation on the General Fund sustainability. This is Laura Lewis and Brandon Nelson.

You have Laura's presentation, I think, already with you, right, Theresa?

Yeah.

And this is a subject I thought would be important to share because several years ago we did a kind of a full general fund sustainability study, and LRB helped us out with that. And it's been several years since we've done that. And as we've been trying to project into the future in terms of both revenue and expenses, we wanted to have, you know, a completely independent and experienced group kind of help us do that so that we're doing it accurately. And it's given us both, you know, positive causes for hope and that we can feel confident in, and those things that may be of concern that we want to try and dive into and figure out how to pivot or improve if there are items of concern. So that's sort of the why behind this next presentation. Brandon, anything else you'd add? Sure.

Some of the—

so there was, I think somebody made the comment, we'll need to address those things in a year or two. Let's say an hour or two. Because it's fiscal '26 is going to be challenging. So that said, not all things are cured by money. So obviously a lot of the good things that we do don't necessarily involve But, to the point of, we've talked about the stuff that Josh mentioned, those grants, the money available that we've been using for that will be gone. We have several grants, those will be gone. Do we, can we potentially find other sources?

Sure.

There's a possibility. Outside of those possibilities come to fruition, we need to figure out how do we approach those. Are they still important? Do they need to be funded? How do we do that? All of this, a large portion of the discussion is based around the idea of sales taxes historically have paid for a huge amount of all of the things that we do. And here recently, those sales taxes are pretty much relatively plateaued. So again, the setting, setting the picture for our upcoming budget season, for instance.

So that's—

keep that in mind as we approach this conversation. It's really a forward-looking thing. Are there things that we will be doing in fiscal '26?

Yes.

But even beyond fiscal '26, we need to be prepared for what the possibilities may be. That's kind of the premise of where this comes from. Yeah, because I think that when we've found solutions, it's because it's been multi-pronged. So in other words, all sorts of different efforts, you know, not just looking at one source of revenue, for example, or just looking at expensive as we can post-size management, and also multi-phased or over multiple years as well. We're so good at everything, I think money fixes everything. Just saying.

My kids think that.

I could be your kid. Get them to move down to Oracle. Thanks, Laura. Can we turn the time over to you?

Absolutely.

So just to make sure we're all on the same page, this is not a presentation of the financial sustainability plan, period. This is a presentation as to why it's important for you to consider whether you want to, you know, really do the hard work. I would certainly recommend you do it. Because otherwise you're going to be caught a little bit flat-footed, I'm afraid, in a year or two, and no one wants to be in that situation. So I have to say, I love your new City Hall.

Just saying.

Now, listen, I come down, I have to tromp through wherever to, you know, get from parking to your building, but I love what's going on down there. So, all right, next slide.

Or you can hand me a controller if you want.

No, I won't need those. Thank you. Okay, so, you know, these are the reasons you'd want to consider doing a financial sustainability plan.

And so that you know, we've done them for several cities.

This would be a financial sustainability plan specific to your general fund. Your utilities, water, sewer, electric, so your utilities, we deal with a— when we talk about a rate study, we're thinking of that rate study in terms of financial sustainability of those enterprise funds. We need to have the same kind of thoughts relative to your general fund. So I The first thing is to recognize that your 1-year balanced budget, which you've probably done, woohoo, right? Yay for that. It's not designed to provide future sustainability.

It's how we're going to get through this next year, right?

And that's its mission. The purpose of a longer-range sustainability plan is to take a model, and we'll do different scenarios, we'll have different solubles that we can move, and we can do that with you in real time if you want. You know, you can do the, well, what if we whatever, right?

And I can give you some examples of that.

But we want to look out over 5 or 10 years. We know that they're estimates, it will not be perfect, but at least it's going to arm you with some, ooh, I got to think about that, or oh, I need to educate my constituents about this, or because there's— there are tough decisions that are going to have to be made. It provides you a high level to look at, you know, implications of various budget decisions. In the scenario analysis, what if we raise taxes?

That's something everyone loves to discuss and you'll all be on board with that.

What if we don't raise taxes, what happens? What if we then have to cut services?

What if services, we don't raise taxes, what happens?

what services are we going to cut? There are some tough decisions that will have to be made, but through this modeling we can, you know, do some of that what-if.

It provides you a forward-looking roadmap to prepare to meet those ongoing constituent needs and expectations. The goal of the study is to align your financial capacity with your level of service objectives, because I've seen it A laundry list of cities. Citizens want a lot of stuff, they don't want to pay for it, right?

And the money does not grow on trees.

So this is like, okay, I mean, when Dave was talking earlier, he said something about the core services you have to worry about—

fire, fire—

There's fire water.

Right.

So, you know, it may be that through this process you You have to hone in on those, and maybe you have to decide to let the level of service on your parks or whatever else that aren't in those 5, you know, be something different than they have been historically. This is a critical one to be— helps to avoid future financial distress. And as Brandon was mentioning, you know, looking a little bit forward to 2026, it looks a little tight.

We want to address those kind of things before it gets to be critical.

And last and certainly not least, I think it provides data to help inform and educate your constituents, which is very, very critical.

You know, if the masses don't know, they say no, and you need a reasonable way to educate them and let them see what you're seeing, so to speak.

All right, next slide.

And thank you, by the way, for being my driver. So as we look at this, we, you know, want to make sure that you're thinking about it in terms of, well, what do you control versus what don't you control, right? And like it or not, you have pretty much 3 levers.

You have property tax that you can control, your service charges—

someone comes in to get a business license, You can charge what you can decide what you charge them for that, make sure you're recovering your costs. And you can control future expenses, but those are going to be tied to level of service. You can't wake up one day and say we are going to cut our parts department in half and you still expect the lawns to get mowed every week, right? So those are the things that you as a council can undoubtedly control.

No ability to control, it greatly impacts your budget, but you have no ability to control it, are sales tax, franchise fees, and future revenues and expenses. Okay, you don't control inflation. I wish you did.

You know, sales taxes make up a gigantic part of your general fund revenue.

It's almost I'll have some slides about that in a minute.

You can't put a gun to people's head and make them stop. Again, you wouldn't need to if you had my kids. It's like, why are you guys taking Ms. Torres's DoorDash? We just had that discussion the other day.

Like, if you're hungry enough for McDonald's, you both drive.

We haven't had that discussion. Anyway, so, you know, those are things that you don't control, and yet they make up a large part of your budget.

So that needs to, you know, you need to have a little bit of a reality check, so to speak, about that.

Okay, next slide. I have presented to you and others before. I think most of you understand this, but maybe you've forgotten. You have a lot of things on your plate. Plate. And if nothing else, it's a reminder that your constituents have probably either don't know, or if they've been told, they have forgotten. I, you know, if I had the spare time, I would love to do a— what do they call those little survey engines that people do? I would love to do this broad survey of Utah citizens of who thinks that when When property values go up, your property taxes go up in Utah. Because I would bet you that it's like 80%. I mean, I've bet some meaningful money that it's a high number of constituents that really in their heart of hearts believe that if my property values are going up, my property taxes are going up. And that is not how the Utah It is how the tax system in Nevada is designed. They would be right if they lived in Nevada, but not if they lived here.

Hmm.

The system is designed to maintain static— bold, underline, can I say it loud— static revenues. So property values go up, the tax rate goes down, so So that it's designed so that you have the exact same dollar if you didn't have one stick of new growth in Orem.

So think about this as you have, you know, different changing in your growth dynamic.

It was not lost on me that some people may not love high density, right? If you don't love high density, I'm not advocating for it, but if you don't love high density and you live in Orem, You're not going to see a lot of growth in the future. You're fairly built out.

I don't know what percentage— 95%.

Okay, there we go, 95%. So if you look at the fact that you do get to benefit from new growth and you're not going to have as much growth, that static number is going to stay very, very static. So if I said, okay, Okay, I gave you $10 10 years ago, you could go out and buy your 2 gallons of milk. If I give you $10 today, you can buy, you know, a half a milk or whatever it is, right? I mean, it's— if you have that static revenue and your costs are going up, you know, you can visualize what's going to happen, right?

Here goes your expenses. And it's going to exceed your revenues.

I always toss this in because Howard Stevenson, I don't think he's with the Utah Taxpayers Association now. I think his predecessor's son maybe is.

But when he has always been like the anti-raise property tax advocate, that's how most of us view him.

Him in the past. And so when I ran across this quote, I'm like, you know, because the whole idea was that Howard just hates new taxes, right? Well, what they really wanted was to put cities in a position, or any tax-raising entity, county, whoever, that you had to educate your constituents before you raise taxes. You couldn't just, you know, do it and surprise them. So what he said, they do not oppose every proposed increase over the certified tax rate.

I would argue they oppose a lot of them, but they don't oppose every one.

In many cases, local governments are recouping inflationary losses. Keep that in your head. Without acting to To increase your tax rate or to hold your rate steady, your rate drops and you do not recoup inflationary losses.

So think of where you've been in inflation in the past 10 years and think of where your tax rate has been in the past 10 years.

I've got a few little things to show you here in a minute.

So your tax rate in 2024, and this is just the general operations tax rate, so this would include general obligations, belongs.

In 2024, it was 0.000641 compared to what it was in 2019, so 5 years ago, 0.000983. Why has it dropped?

Because it just drops. As property values go up, the rate drops so that you get the same same property tax dollar to try to operate today as you did in 2019.

That's it. So I said, well, I wonder what would happen, what would have happened if you had maintained the rate. So yes, you would have to go through Truth in Taxation.

Let me be very clear about that.

You have to go through Truth in Taxation because that rate's going to fall. But if you had done that, And just maintained the rate, you would have 3.5, almost 3.5 million more dollars today in your general fund budget than you do.

We can mow the grass.

You can mow that grass, right?

You wouldn't have to cut that park staff.

If you had kept it, not my language, you, you, you, if the councils that preceded you had kept the tax rate, what it was in 1999 compared to what it is today, you would have $9.6 million more dollars in your budget today.

Wow.

Now don't think, oh my gosh, we— what were those people thinking? They were thinking that it's hard to go through Truth in Taxation because city after city after city that I work with has let that rate fall Fall, fall. And then what do they have to do suddenly?

It's like, oh yes, the proverbial crap is going to hit the fan, and now we have to have a big increase. And the citizens don't really understand because all I know are my property taxes went up, but that could have been from Utah County that you mentioned there, from the Alpine School District, the other half dozen taxing entities. That is exactly right. It awards what, 13, 14% of my total tax bill?

12.

Just show us. Oh, stay tuned.

Thank you.

Drum roll.

All right, next slide.

So just one point on that last point. Can you go back to that? Yes.

So we would have had the 9 whatever million if we would have maintained the tax rate the same. But apparently we didn't need to because of what we were doing in sales tax.

Yes, because very, very strong sales tax historically. And I've got a graph to show that as well.

Okay, thanks.

So this is just a— which is, hats off to the councils before us who invested in commercial infrastructure and all that.

Agreed.

Our University Parkway, our State Street, protecting those corridors. And even though sales tax is going down because of the inflationary environment, people don't have money, right? I mean, eggs were $6 a dozen last week, right, when Costco didn't have eggs.

Yes.

Um, um, yeah, I mean, I didn't buy any eggs for a week. My husband has 2 eggs every morning and he went without it last week. Because I wasn't paying $6 a dozen for eggs, so Costco got their eggs back. But, you know, hats off to those people who had the foresight of that. Too many times we don't think of commercial investment as huge for us and the sales tax corridor that we have. So I guess— Yeah, so when you think of the— and again, I'm going to probably go off here a little bit, but We'll show you about the— so think about legs of a stool of your revenues, right? In an ideal world, I'm putting my— pretend I'm a rating agency analyst. The rating agencies in an ideal world would like you to have sort of this quote-unquote perfectly balanced 3 or 4-legged stool. Property taxes, sales taxes, other.

We can cram franchise fees in there.

And other things in the other for that third leg. When you see your pie chart, I'm going to put it in the stool, but you'll, you'll note that you have one leg that's really long, some legs that are really short, right? So just kind of again keep that in mind.

You've been able to rely on that long leg for a long time, but that those times may be changing.

Okay.

So this is a line graph of your Historic property tax revenues.

Now remember, during this time, things were growing, right? Building was occurring, you were getting new growth.

So, but your revenues are falling because that rate is falling. And when new growth comes, yeah, you get a benefit in that in your tax rate, but does new growth come with no need to provide new services?

No.

You have 100 new homes, you gotta have— We had to invest in more fire and police. Yes, Mayor.

I don't understand, um, because what you were explaining a minute ago was theoretically our property tax revenue should always stay the same.

Yes.

Because it's being adjusted.

Yes.

Based on—

this shows the property, so things that can hit that are centrally assessed. There are things that you have no control over. I haven't done this analysis as to why the total revenues dropped, and I haven't talked to you about it, so I doubt you know it off the top of your head either. But this is just property tax revenues, right? This is just property tax revenues, yes.

So yeah, so I don't understand why it dropped because there should have been a 12%—

I will— I can look at that and get back to you.

I will send you all an email, so you can give me a couple of days.

When we see this sometimes, because you You are right, Mayor. What I would have expected to see is something, you know, I mean, you can see where it's starting in 2014 and it's about the same in 2023, right?

Yeah.

At that point, you know, if you get over that gulf, it kind of shows what we're expecting is that you have pretty flat total property tax revenues.

This kind of trough may have been because of an adjustment in the centrally assessed value that you have no—

it's like the state goes, oh, surprise, We—

and you don't get to go up there and argue why it should be adjusted differently, but the state can adjust that centrally assessed and really whack you. Laura, that was during the downturn. Is there a possibility that personal property tax dropped because businesses were closing or manufacturing companies downsizing so they had less equipment?

Very well.

Do you know for sure the RDA I do not know if that's possible. That's around the time the RDA, most of the bodies, we started getting a share of those. So if it happened to be—

yeah, that could very well happen. So it's a good observation there.

I will find that for you.

So as you can see, from 2020 1980-ish to today, those revenues are pretty flat, right?

So even if you've had new growth, that rate's falling, your revenues are staying quite constant in property tax. All right, next slide.

I guess I could do that. So this is— we've taken that graph from before, that data up here, and shrunk it down. So we could say what if those property tax revenues were to grow? So if they were to grow at a 2.5% rate, which is the lowest growth rate in the last 10 years, then you'd be on that red dashed line upward as opposed to the very flat, you know, last several years we've had. The high growth is what the— The modified growth rate over the last 10 years. We took out—

the reason it says modified as opposed to just a 10-year average is we took out like the really high peak year in inflation. So this would be if you said, oh look, we know inflation is going up, like if we think it's going to go up like this, you know, rocket ship here, like the above gray line, that's how you thought your expenses were going to grow.

You'd have to figure out how to raise your property taxes that much. I'm not advocating or saying that's what we need to do. I'm just sort of showing you, you know, the impact that inflation could have on your expenses relative to the tax revenues compared to flat where they are today. Let's see if I can do this good. So at what point do you— are we— I know since I've been on the council there have been just, you know, not— I've been told not necessarily significant But businesses that have transitioned or been rezoned as nonprofits, so we're losing that tax revenue. We've seen some of that in Orem. At what point do we say we can't do that anymore, or does that factor into this? Do we need to have that on our radar?

I mean, it has an impact. I don't know that it's significant.

Because I've always heard, well, we don't get that much from property tax, our engine is the sales tax. But at some point, from what she's saying, we've got to start paying attention to that.

And at the moment, you don't get as much from property tax as you do from sales tax.

That is still accurate. But your point is we need to start looking at that because if we see these trends—

Yes. So maybe if I can respond a little bit. I don't know how much— I have to talk more I guess Steve and Gary and Jake about if there's a land use decision aspect that we could consider. I don't have a good answer for that. However, you may have heard that there's been talks of cities about doing a utility transportation fee. Provo was kind of the poster child. They came out and did it first, and it was because of All of the not-for-profit or non-property tax-paying property in their city. And yet all of those properties were having an impact on all the roads and causing traffic. And so then they added that fee. And just, Chris, 2 years ago, 1 year ago, it was— charging that fee was supported by the Supreme Court. That I know of.

Yes.

And there's been kind of ongoing discussions amongst the state legislature about then how cities can do that appropriately and go into an in-depth study with the right kind of robust methodology. And that is something that we've been looking at and want to start to study and then bring back to you, I guess, the potential impacts of doing that. kind of fee, what that might mean.

So anyway. So okay, this is a stupid question, but so these nonprofits, I mean nonprofits are just exploding, right? And I talked to a guy who runs a nonprofit and he was like, nonprofits make money, you know. We, our board, $200,000 a year salary, you know.

Healthcare.

Right. So, but this would be a The citywide fee you're talking about, it's not targeted to the— are there fees that are targeted to these nonprofits so they are contributing? I know they get the break because we want their service, right? But the pressure coming is on affordable housing, on, you know, homeless housing, on all of these things that would qualify as nonprofit entities. As we transition to those, it's going to affect us. So, and this is not in our realm, right? This would be a legislature thing, but we need to start having those conversations or we're going to be stuck if out of our benevolent heart we're creating all these nonprofit entities and yet though, and their salaries and whatever, you know, their missions are great, but they're doing well.

Has that impacted our property tax money?

We haven't studied it.

I don't have a— Do I?

No, and that's the conversation that I said when we first started this. We've been told this doesn't really affect us.

Well, I haven't heard of that many going from profit to nonprofit entities.

We've got—

So one example might be the women's shelter that's coming, for instance. That property is currently taxed.

That Bailey's or Haley's Place or whatever that we transitioned. The autism school on 4th the— was it 4th? I can't remember where that one is. They just had their 1-year anniversary. I can think the Utah Housing one that we did. I can think of at least 3 or 4 small properties, right? Probably not a huge income property tax income entity. But as we allow our city to, you know, to do this, where's our recoup?

Where's our ability to run off That kind of goes to that fee that Brent's talking about. That's an effort to recoup some of that from the nonprofits.

Do they pay it?

Well, they pay the fee.

They do pay it. Okay, that was my question. They do pay it. Well, because they don't have to pay a lot.

That would be the intent because it's based off of use. So what's the, what's the use that they require on our transportation system, our transportation materials? And then we will charge everyone, including not-for-profits, for that.

And that's why Provo gets a Transportation Utility Fund.

If you look at their map, the new zoning map, they have in blue all of the public facilities, which would include churches, nonprofit schools. It's a vast sea of blue. And so Those funds to pay for roads and things like that through property taxes. All of that blue does not pay any money, even though they are the number one employer in the county and the largest traffic generator in the county. So the traffic utility fund, they pay to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

So if we decide to do that, there's some— there's a heavy educational lift that we need to present.

We're going to start it. And we will get— because we will get some—

It sounds like we should.

Because we will get some kickback too, right? All these nonprofits, including governmental agencies, will express their concerns. So yeah, we'll have to help them understand the full methodology of showing the use, the impact they have on that search. And last year in the legislature, it was there until the 11th hour when it was killed.

Really?

Yes.

I mean, it's a tough one, but yeah.

Meaning, meaning it's legal to do it today, but there was a framework that was being established to make it palatable across the board, more so statewide. And there was one little niche, which was the LDS Church, that came forward at the 11th hour to say, you know what, maybe we don't want to do this. So, This, this flashlight. We'll give you more feedback.

Thank you.

I'm sorry. We're starting that evaluation now with parametrics.

So, I mean, the whole point of this is to start the engine's thinking about it.

Looking at the slide, is Vineyard— are they the highest Based on this public safety tax plan they just implemented?

No, they're the highest because 75% of their city is in an RDA, and so they only get 25% of their own property taxes from 75% of the city. So the other— they've got to raise their rate enough so that they can collect enough to survive.

Okay.

These are yes.

They're not all of them, but we're ranked twenty-first in the whole county.

So this is last three years of property tax rates and ranking of the cities by those rates, and the percentage is what percent. What percentage are you of the highest tax rate? So I did some quick math late last night. I believe that if you— we'd have to jump back to the slides, but I think if you had maintained the rate from 5 years ago, rather than the rate from clear back to 2019, you would be— you'd still be in this, you know, 5, 6, 7. area would put you nowhere near the highest. And when you think about like the city that's the most comparable to you, might you think about Provo, right?

You would still be below Provo.

Comparable except for what Gary was saying, that they've got a third of their city in—

Yes, yes, yes. I'd say you have someone.

We will— part of this study will do that assessment. I think we actually do have a surprising amount, not as much as Provo, but we do have a surprising amount. A lot of Provo travels through.

So according to that chart, this is saying that vineyards, properties actually That is correct.

University place.

That's kind of key. The vineyard is four times our property tax rate.

Yes, that's correct.

Wow.

And again, that is trouble's double. Lynae, this last year they just did a public safety tax increase for wages and benefits for. bringing on a full-time fireman and supporting the sheriff's office.

Is that included in this?

I don't—

I, I would have to ask my colleague that pulled this table together.

I don't know, because the tax rate does go up between '23 and '24 quite a bit.

Yeah, it might—

he might have pulled the certified rate, but that would have been true last year. It would be in November. Yeah, what food council approved it? I think it is in November. Is that what you think?

This is just a list of what Alpine School District and Utah County charge, and the blue highlighted cells are the years that their rates have gone up.

They may have gone up again, didn't—

we could get into more detail if we do the full study, but the rates may have gone up because It may have gone up because they had a general obligation election. It may have gone up because they went through Truth in Taxation. I don't know.

So that's just a little bit of information. Okay, so what can we learn from the slides we've just gone over? Your property tax rate is very low.

That puts more reliance on sales tax revenues.

Without acting to hold your tax rate steady, you're likely losing buying power. Not likely you are losing buying power in the general fund.

We've talked about those rates before. The differential between what it was in '23 and what it dropped to in '24, but it's natural decrease to preserve that same dollar amount coming into your coffers.

It decreased by 2.3% or a big whopping $3.92 for primary residential.

Of $475,000. So when you think about that in terms of what if, you know, we do choose to act, and again, I think there are several levers that you can pull, 3 in particular, right?

Expenses, you want to reduce level of service, service fees, and taxes.

If it's a lever that you want to pull and you do have to go through truth in taxation, And you said, look, we're just going to—

okay, everyone, we're putting you all on notice.

We're going to keep our rate at the 6.56 instead of the 6.41.

That's a big whopping $3.92 to you per year.

They will still come and complain, but cities that have done this consistently, kind of year in, year out, or every other year, Or at least they notify the public that they may consider a tax increase. West Valley, August, Fairfield, or some combined. They do this enough, the citizens finally go, oh, it's $3, right? Oh, they've done this several years, they're just maintaining the rate. Eventually the message gets out. I'm not saying this I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I just wanted to give you at least an understanding of the order of magnitude per house is not huge to just maintain that rate.

Is that annual or is that monthly? $392?

I believe it's annual, but I, again, I should have double-checked.

We'll give it to them in a perfected way.

The city's general fund budget cannot keep pace with inflation if you don't act on some of the things that you can act on, right?

This question was mentioned earlier, or statement was mentioned earlier. Your portion of a constituent's— I think it was Tom— that Tom made, your portion of the constituent's total property tax bill is 12%. But again, that's knowledge that you have that they don't, right? If you were to go through this Truth in Taxation and say we're going to— I mean, you would have to follow how you have to list it and blah, blah, blah, and we're going to raise our property taxes by 2.3%.

Your average citizen again is going to whip out their property tax bill or remember what they paid last year. And they're going to multiply 2.3% times $1,700 or whatever the property tax bill was, and that's what they think you are doing.

So you really have to—

I mean, education is absolutely critical if you're going to go through this.

Yeah.

Yes. Let's see. So maybe just as we're trying to We're trying to strategize, right? And we're trying to make sure we can cover core services, public safety, everything we're doing, providing everything to everyone. I just want to kind of reemphasize this point that Laura's making. Even though our tax rate is actually going down, the state makes us say that it's going up. Even if it's just staying the same?

If the rate is staying the same, that is correct.

And they'll make us say that even if it— even if we did anything more than what it would go down. That's correct. However, I think you could— we could still say in our education with the public that the rate is still going down. Maybe it's not going down as much as it would have, but it is still going down. But we're, again, potentially trying to make a multi-pronged approach to having a sustainable revenue and a sustainable general fund. Again, just as an idea as we're trying to consider strategies for moving forward. So I lost my mind a few years ago and I decided to be on my condo board in St. George because they wanted somebody who understood numbers.

And I'm like, I'm not ever there, I, I can only attend meetings by Zoom.

No, we need somebody who understands numbers. I'm like, all right.

So, um, when I looked at their numbers, I was sort of aghast.

I'm like, oh, good thing I got involved, right? Mm-hmm. I saw, I mean, the then board members were, we haven't had to raise your homeowner dues. Okay, well, what was happening? The reserves, like if we ever needed to repaint or re-roof or whatever, right, keeping my dues the same, but their reserves are—

And I got on there and went, oh, this isn't gonna work, people. You know, the good news for me is I have a much smaller group of people to educate than you do as a city, right? But I was pleasantly surprised that in educating them, I mean, I showed 0% raise, 0% raise, 0% raise.

Next to it, what has inflation been? 5, 3, 2, 7, 9, right?

10.

The most basic of mathematicians can figure that out, right? This is not going to work.

So with the education, they crazily voted me in again for the next 3 years, although I didn't get as high votes as other people, so I'm sure it was a little bit of, that's the woman that made that paper. I'm sure there was that stuff. But with the education, again, that's going to be hard.

I mean, you're going to really have to engage a public information officer to figure out how to do that.

But I believe you can educate people.

If they really understand, they will get it. And again, if I can offer some hope, because I know that this is always touchy and sensitive and difficult. However, when we went through the general obligation bond process for our fitness center and library hall, we went through this process and showed how the rate was still, you know, coming down a little bit, but we were going to be able to cover this new debt because other debt was falling off. And ultimately, we did get a surprising amount of support for it. So, so yeah. I think that's a great point. If we're willing to, like, dive in and do the education process, and LRB's willing to, you know, help us with that. We have had some evidence in the past where that's been effective, and people aren't stupid either.

Some are. I mean, don't you think that we—

I think we have the political capital for Josh and I to spearhead any kind of put out in front of this public Safety driver. I mean, so that if this is the direction you go, it's not a matter of council raising taxes, it's a police and a fire chief really driving this from maintaining levels of service and sustainability within our own departments. I mean, just as an idea.

Oh, it definitely— I mean, that's a great idea, but it's definitely, uh, not something No, it is not. I look at my property tax bill, I've lived in Norm 35 years. When we first moved in, it's like $600 a year. Now it's like $3,200 a year.

Yes, but I'll bet that the city is getting a lesser portion than it did.

But my point is, probably by far, but my point is, is I don't know that. Most people don't know that. I get my property tax and it's Orms City. And what's been happening the whole time is Orms revenue is staying the same over all these years. Well, I mean, Alpine School District has been 80% of that bill.

Right.

Yeah. So that move from—

it went up, up, up, up in the last 10 years.

So that move from $600 to $3,000 is mostly the school district with a little bit of those other 6 taxing entities. That's not a simple thing to I agree with that. So, I agree with one.

Well, I think too, Brent, on the library hall and the rec center, you were saying, hey, no new taxes, they're going to stay the same. So that was an easy sell, even though I didn't agree with putting both together on the ballot. But so it's a little different animal. You are raising taxes. So that's the variable you have to—

Well, Dave, technically you raised the rate and you didn't If you hadn't done that, that old debt would have fallen off.

Yeah, that's on the bond debt, not the— it just stayed the same.

Yes, stayed the same.

It wouldn't have got—

yeah.

Revenue neutral, that's what Alpine School District calls it, right?

Yes, smoke and mirrors. Well, rate neutral. Rate neutral.

Yeah, they call it revenue neutral.

Hey, Wayne, you need to figure out how to smoke some mirrors.

Okay.

3 shells and a hoodie. But again, and I'm not trying to say this because I want to be deceiving at all. I guess I'm just saying we may gain people willing to support this if our rate is staying the same or even just coming down a little. But just at least not going down as much as a public wants. Well, I mean, ultimately it's you put on the ballot and hopefully people will vote, right? I mean, that's, that's what we'd be required to do.

You don't have to put the property tax rate increase on the ballot. You have to hold a public hearing. You don't have to modify it.

We could do the truth in taxation bit.

That's what she's saying.

If you put it on the ballot, that means everybody gets to vote on it. Yes, that is correct.

So that's—

you would not have to put it on the ballot. That's what I'm, what I'm saying, Dave, is you don't have to, to go through the truth and taxation process.

The power to raise those rates are in your hands.

Okay, but we're the ones who vote on them.

Right. And I really think this simple way, everybody understands inflation.

Yes.

Which is what you were explaining. Yes. So I think you can explain it with pictures. It does not mean everyone— when you talk about taxes and all that, that's all confusing. But inflation, everybody gets it.

Yeah, that's true.

This is a very simple slide. You know, service charges is again something else that you can control. A lot of cities, you know, put fees in place and then rarely go along and don't bother to update those either.

You know, it does take your staff time.

My simple Simon example is it does, you know, I don't know how many people, clerks or whatever, have to touch a business license application and there's a fee for that business license application. Are you even recovering enough to, you know, pay for your staff's time?

That was my simple example.

They should be reviewed and updated periodically to make sure that you're, you know, recovering those costs because if you're If your employment costs have gone up by, you know, 20% over 5 years and your fee has stayed flat, you're probably not recovering those costs.

Obviously, they have practical limits to what you— you know, you can't say, oh, we're going to now charge $1,000 for every business license fee with no justification.

All right, sales tax. So now we're getting into the—

what you cannot control in regards revenues, you're imposing the maximum rate that is allowed. If you're only imposing half of it, then that bit would be in your control.

So you're already imposing the maximum rate that's allowed.

The current sharing formula is that the city gets to keep 50% at the point of sale and 50% of it's distributed based on population. So the sales tax all goes to the state, they do their magic with what is your population Compared to, you know, entire state, and you get a pro rata portion of that back.

My guess is, I have not asked Brandon this, my guess is that you are a net negative, right, in terms of—

It's just parity. Okay, it's just parity. So you theoretically retain most of your 50% point of sale.

Okay, but that's good to know though, because as again, so back to the, if you're 95% percent built out, and I would be making up numbers, if Lehigh is 65% built out and Eagle Mountain's 40% built out, right, they're all going to have this huge explosive population growth while yours stays relatively static.

You're going to get less over time based on that sharing formula as it's currently structured, and that is outside of your control.

You can go up and try to argue with the It's too late to change it, but I wouldn't hold my breath on your success. Sales tax revenues fluctuate with the economy.

It's part of why you've seen a lot of growth, because when goods cost more, you get more sales tax.

So during the, woo-hoo, inflation, or, oh, everyone's stuck at home during COVID and trying to figure out what to do with their time, and so everyone's buying, you know, wood at Home Depot and redoing their kitchen. Sales taxes have gone up a lot the past several years, but now they're flattening out. It's always possible that the state may adjust the formula. Certainly cities, the legal cities and towns, watch for that and go up and fight adamantly when they try to do that.

But, you know, they—

I think they dipped their toe in the water with let's charge sales tax on services a while ago, right? And that was a sort of a hot mess. But they—it's within their purview to decide if they want to change that sales tax formula.

Your historical sales tax growth is unlikely, in my opinion, to be sustainable.

You may have a different opinion of that. You may know something I don't know.

The growth in the last few years has been caused by, you know, COVID and more people buying and having stuff delivered to you.

Get the sales tax.

tax on point of delivery. So instead of delivering it to their office, they're delivering it to their front door, and that benefited cities. You know what, how COVID caused the inflation thing, that made things, you know, goods cost more, and you're getting more sales tax on that.

You have historically seen this phenomenal expansion at University Place, but that's not going to be replicable.

You don't have another— I mean, even if you did, have more land. You're probably not going to get another University Place landing in the city.

We've already talked a little bit about your population percentage is likely to decrease over time, and the sales tax did decline ever so slightly in 2024 compared to '23. So there's a graphic representation of your historical sales tax going up very nicely.

Ooh, spiked in 2020. Welcome COVID.

And low inflation, and now that has flatlined. So this is a graph that shows, okay, what if, you know, sales taxes were to increase at the modest, you know, 2.5% rate, 1% growth, excuse me, and what if it were to do the almost 6% high growth rate, which is the average that you've had in the last 6 years. So, you know, when we think about the reliance you've had historically on sales tax, you've been able to do that, to Renee's point, because you've been experiencing that 5.9% growth. If that— if you were going to keep having that, we could—

We wouldn't be having this discussion. We could tap out on the discussion about— We may still have the discussion if the legislators change how sales tax is allocated.

Yes.

Which has been talked about many sessions.

Yes, it's talked about frequently. But I think we need to start doing that as legacy communities. Now that we have legacy communities in Utah, now that we have these East Bench communities, I think the legislature is starting to tune in to our unique needs. We're not growth anymore. They have— there are RDAs now that never used to exist 50 years ago. ago. So that needs to be changed. You've got to stop the— you've got to stop penalizing the stable communities because they have things that add value. And if we're providing, we've already invested in this, and we're getting— stop taking our money away from us. Let us now be able to maintain our communities. How about that? Put me in front of the camera.

I mean, I think we've been finding that we have had influence in the narrative, but one of the recent little carve-outs from our sales tax was the gravel pits. Yeah, so because Orem doesn't have a gravel pit within our city boundaries, the state takes some of our sales tax to help those cities where they do have a gravel pit in their cities. And the justification was because of the impact on their city services. Well, there's a gravel pit just outside of Orem up in Provo Canyon, and they drive on our roads to get it to Geneva Rock or to get it to where the construction is happening. We tried to have those conversations with our local legislative individuals. I don't know, just sometimes things happen quickly and in the 11th hour during the legislative session. And I think legislators sometimes do things that they otherwise wouldn't if they, you know, took the time to really listen and think it through. Is 8 North a state road or a city road? I can't remember. It's a state road. That's right. So they would argue most of it's being driven on 8 North, probably. But, tied to Brett's point, we got Geneva Rock and Oreum that dispatches asphalt and concrete throughout the entire county on city roads. Yeah.

Let's do a special tax on them.

So we actually did say we should be exempted because it's being processed within our city. They said they would do that, but it was still, I think it was like $150,000, couple hundred thousand dollars still in net Negative for the city. It's like 253. I'll make you gravel with the county.

Yeah, I like it.

I like the way you're thinking, Dave. I have no idea, but I like it.

We can make it.

I want to get out your shovels. I can make gravel with it. Can we put one down in our public works facility? He's coming back when he comes back in town, that's what he's doing. Here's your shovel. Right there at the beginning of the road.

All right, franchise fees charged on electric, gas, telecom, and cable.

Telecom and cable have really dropped off as people switch to their cable cutting. It is not charged on fiber.

Maximum, you've already done the maximum, the that the state allows you to put in place, so there's nothing more you can do there.

With the exception of '23, which really spiked up, I called and asked Brandon about that because it spiked up so much. But generally, it's pretty, pretty static source of revenues, and they fluctuate with things that are entirely out of your control.

Hot, hot summer, people use lots of power.

Yay, electric franchise. Warm winter, they don't use as much natural gas.

Boo on the franchise tax, right? So completely out of your control.

And Laura, you said it's not charged on fiber, fiber, and so in order for it to be a possibility, that would be another state legislative conversation?

Absolutely. So there's a graphic of What your franchise taxes have looked like.

And you can see that I was like, holy moly, what happened in '22 to '23?

And Brandon told me, and I'm 60-something and forgot because I didn't write it down.

That was that natural gas supply shortage.

Oh, so the rates went up at the time. Yeah, that's right.

Okay. So even though we don't pay paid more, at least we got a little more out of it. And the interesting part is that it's actually stayed there for a second year, but we are experiencing now it's actually coming down. We're 20% lower so far through November this year.

Warm winter.

Warm winter, Chris? In that regard, I'm looking ahead as well. I love the courts.

I got one.

It's— we're going to empty it in the city center and put it in the hole over there. But we need that renewed because we need that tax break. Okay, replace it with Geneva Rock. That's your task. All right, from a general fund revenues perspective, here are— again, we thought of this in terms of, uh, leggedness of stools. I can cover those up and you will now know that this is Right. So your property tax is down here.

It's— well, this is back in 2014, so I think I'm going to hop over here. So your property tax has stayed— and Meredith, this gets to your point— this isn't showing the dip in revenues that we had, so we may have an error in our other data.

But, um, so property tax is staying pretty flat.

Oh look, there's sales tax.

Sales tax has grown a ton.

That leg of the stool has gotten longer.

These other 2 are, you know, fairly consistent.

This is that jump in. So when did they put the mail orders, the online sales tax? It was before COVID

Oh, okay.

So isn't that bump 2018?

2021.

See the 2018? The increase here I think was due largely to COVID because the sales tax was already in place for online orders. Okay, but it went prior to that. I mean, I, you know, again, Marty was like, woohoo, yay, she's working from home!

Because before that I order online, where did I have it delivered? My office. So I was like, yay, yay, Laura, keep shopping!

COVID comes, I have it now delivered to my house and Mernie's. You've been impacted by now all the home deliveries as opposed to the downtown Salt Lake City.

So again, this is the, you know, the picture here is you're a little bit out of balance.

Do you have any idea? I mean, that top one, this other, is that what's going on?

I believe this other is ARPA money.

ARPA, all those grants that we've been talking about.

So this is another, another look at that same thing, but it's comparing 2019 revenue mix to today. You can see that again, your sales tax is still the big thing that you rely on from revenues, not an entity. And the piece of pie that was your property taxes is getting smaller. Now that again, you know, is due to some of those other revenues that fluctuate, like CARES money or whatnot. But the leg of the that property tax isn't as big as many would argue it should be. If you look at more detail and—

oh, that's—

so that is a more minute detail relative to intergovernmental revenues is that gray box.

I can see that in the finals.

I can show you what those others are.

Once again.

Are there any cities whose property tax covers 100% of the essential services? That is what Ogden tries to do.

I'm recently very familiar with them and their property tax increase, and that's—

Wouldn't that be the standard that way regardless of—

Yes.

Essential services or funding?

Yes.

I wonder what that number is for us.

So here's historic inflation from 2014 to today. You can see the COVID impact, and thankfully inflation's coming down. But again, inflationary pressures are going to persist.

I don't know if any of you paid attention to the jobs report that came out today.

The stock market hated it. The bond market didn't love it either. Reason, well, the jobs report's still saying, oh, economy's still good, people. Economy's fine. They've added 200 and whatever thousand number of jobs it was. And so the bond market had been telegraphed to, there's likely to be, you know, the ability to lower rates a little bit more this year. The Fed's not raise, and so the bond market's like, yay, we love that. Well, now we know they're going to lower rates, and so municipal markets, rates went up, Treasuries went up, stock market took a big hit today as well. This was not the table I saw the last time I saw it. So I apologize. We can skip it. Oh, I'm going to do that.

Yeah.

But now I want—

I'm going to send you that slide because it's an important slide.

The points of that slide is that your general fund expenditures are climbing faster than your revenues.

So this is a pie chart of your salaries and benefits compared to your operational expenses.

So again, one of the levers you can pull on is to reduce expenses, right?

We—

when we did this exercise with the then mayor and council about 10 years ago or whatever, the kind of discussions that we got into as we were doing the actual study let's, you know, how does it look if we do X, Y, and Z in the modeling, the kind of discussion, well, let's close the library 2 hours earlier every day.

Let's close the senior citizen center 1 day a week. I mean, those are the kind of things, like getting down to the minutiae of how do we reduce those services with all of the things that you think you You've got to keep in mind your salaries and benefits, and this is not uncommon. Most cities, I would say, hover between 65-ish percent to 75% of their budgets are salaries and wages.

Mm-hmm. So if you want to make a really meaningful impact to your budget, cuts have to come in salaries and benefits.

And that is hard because when we did the what if, what if before, oh, let's close the library.

Okay, well, we reduce those salaries and wages a little bit.

Part-time too.

We shut off the lights a little earlier, but it, it, they aren't needle-moving. So if you're going to get like super serious about, you know, one of our levers that we can pull on, it's going to have to be in salaries and wages. I'm just a real party to have up here. I would just say that we just did the efficiency study, and if we hadn't, we could think about something like that, like maybe we're overstaffed or something, but we just went through that.

They say we're understaffed in certain areas.

Yeah, yeah.

Lori, your previous chart was messed up.

Yes.

I think it converted from PowerPoint to Sheets.

Oh, okay.

But the right side looks right, the left side doesn't.

Okay, that's because I—

That's why your ledger is messed up.

Okay, I was like, what is going on?

That's the public safety one. That big broad one is public safety. It's simple math, Laura.

It's real math.

There's your first salary amendment. You said, I mean, library, you, you cut here or whatever, it doesn't— it's not going to move the needle. I think I disagree because the library budget is $4 million.

Well, that—

she's just saying if you were to just not shutter it. No, I mean, you wouldn't shut it, but if you adjust the hours and that, I think that would move the needle.

Just because of your part-time staff, we There's a lot of architects out there, so you might see from your— to your point, salary reductions versus— that would be the cost of life. Is it needle-moving or is it not?

Well, I guess that's the point. But I mean, I think our core value is police, fire, water, roads, and sewer. That's it. I mean, if things get tight, you got to look elsewhere.

Yes, it would have to be on a larger scale.

And that's—

I mean, that's the way it is. Yeah, no ifs, ands, or buts, right?

Agreed. I do think you charge a library No, no. Okay, some cities do.

No, we didn't.

Don't you think we—

no, we don't.

Raising the taxes though, or taxes, property tax increase, if the threat was to close those non-essential services, people would vote for it. Well, I think they'd vote for the police and fire if it's a $5— even if they knew they would be— if it's $5, if it's $5 a year and that's what we need for police and fire, I'm pretty sure it would pass.

Oh, but they don't vote for it, the council does.

Yeah, it's just—

no, I'm saying if they went to a referendum, but it doesn't happen. They could force it to a referendum. Yeah, they could. Orms, how many referendums have we had? We've had one. Don't say the R word, we don't want any more. No, I mean, it's inevitable.

It all comes down to education.

Correct.

It comes down to education, but it's a very—

if it's $3, it's 25 cents a month, right? I think that's actually—

is that monthly?

Is it monthly? Okay, so it's $3 a month. That's quick math.

That's your, uh, where do you find your sweet soda?

Minus the cookie. So we've got tough choices.

I mean, the education Education is tough, but it would basically make other entities look bad and make us look good if you did the real education.

I would agree with that.

Right?

Absolutely. But there's a point at which you have to say, look, they're getting a bigger share of the pie.

I mean, if we did that, a pie analysis of, okay, Alpine School District keeps growing and look, our piece keeps getting smaller and smaller.

That is a great time to—

Hey, Mark. fire stations in Nevada.

I feel like a loser dancing.

I've already been through it once. I'll quit again before that. Yeah, that's PG.

True.

23 years on the line, but I finally did it.

All right, so if you want to move ahead with the financial sustainability plan sort of full tilt, it will allow you to look at what What impact your policy decisions will make, i.e., we want to, you know, cut the library back to— I'm not— I'm just using it as an example.

Yeah.

That's all.

You look just at core value, there's other things other than libraries.

Yes, I agree.

The timing and magnitude, you'll still have capital projects you'll want to fund and how you're going to prioritize those resources. We would stress test, you know, some of those assumptions, allow you to ask questions in sort of a you know, kind of a live meeting per se, plan the city's future. So if you want to proceed, the first thing we need to know is sort of how deep of a dive you desire, because that will impact the timing and the cost and all of that. So I'm not here with the scope of work or anything like that.

So some cities— West Valley did a super kind of high-level It was basically take what we've been doing in the past and project it forward and apply inflation and see what we have to raise property taxes.

That's one way of doing an analysis. Ogden is the polar opposite of that.

It was— not making this up— meet with every department head and managing director and see where we're not meeting what they need to meet the needs of our citizens. And we go in and say, okay, this is— I need your needs list, not your wants list. And what do we end up getting?

The wants list.

And then we have to work with, you know, their leadership to say, okay, pare this needs list or this wants list back to a needs list. You think you want 3 new personnel in your Department, well, you're getting one, and what does that look like? So there's kind of a, you know, a level of depth we can go to based on what you, what you want. We would obviously meet with your council and staff, review the results, and when you throw up on them, then we adjust the assumptions with you.

They're saying, okay, we won't cut that service, or we won't raise that property tax, or whatever.

And then we finalize it and then deliver the plan to the city. We can also deliver our model to the city if that's something you want.

And with that, I'm open for questions or more discussion, and you probably like really want to get out of here, so—

I hate being the last on Friday. Oh, you're not last. Oh, okay, yay!

You don't have that jumpy assault bike schedule. So are we going to go forward with the district general fund? That is the question. And then what's that cost?

It depends on how deep we dive. That's why I kind of made sure—

that's not a good answer.

Well, what's— I mean, one thing she said, we just did that MGT study that addressed a lot of those So we're kind of beyond the beginning parts of it.

Yeah, yeah. So if I may, I would recommend— I would look at doing a general fund sustainability study, but just purely based off of impact of inflation, and then trying to pull multiple levers in on revenue and, you know, compare our expenses. And that will tell us exactly what we need. And then moving forward in the future? I mean, I think it— the assumption would be we're already providing what we need and what people want. But we need X factor, $3.92 or whatever, to sustain until— Yes, yes, given X assumptions. Like if sales tax doesn't keep moving up at a bigger percentage, then I think it's going to be flat.

So it will.

I think it's cyclical. So maybe— I think we need to move forward and do something. Is there a general consensus on how to recognize that the police have continued to explore this? Oh, yes.

We have.

We need to share with you.

No, because Pete went in. So I just have to keep it accurate.

So as long as we don't, like, stop this from being—

we can put it in here.

Okay.

Oh, voice of the book. Okay. Voice. Oh, got to get my book. Okay. All right.

Welcome back, everybody. Where'd you go? We're going to have Chris.

Chris is up every leaves.

Chris is going to do his presentation.

Voice of the book.

Okay, Chris.

And then we're not going to keep you all here all night, but we're going to give Chris the time to.

I'll do a condensed version. So mine is supposed to be over at 10, or excuse me, 5 o'clock. Sorry, that was a faux pas, really was. But anyway, so I've had a great deal of pleasure reading this book. I'm going to start with, with the, with the bones and the story, and I want you to add flesh. Okay? There were some boys and there was a boat. Marco. They actually had to row.

They rowed.

It was against the Germans. They wanted to win. It's against Germans.

Cheese?

Cheese?

What?

I was reading something.

Pass?

Yeah. Olympics, which ones?

Berlin.

You can't just read this. You gotta read some more of the names.

So the Depression played a big part in the character of these people.

Ooh, Depression. All right, we're going to talk more in detail on that.

Yeah, these guys had to figure out how to build a team and beat everyone else in the world.

They were, they were young college age. They were, you know, the junior varsity. So they were, they were especially young, even by Olympic standards.

Very good.

Look, they were a finely tuned machine.

Finely tuned machine?

Finely tuned machine.

Going together.

Right, right. Thank you.

Laura, have you read this?

In the movie.

You've seen the movie?

You should read it. That's all I've seen. In the movie.

Sometimes they do. I'll say this. The movie pales in comparison to the book.

Okay, dramatically.

But, what'd you learn from the movie? They had a photo finish. Okay, photo finish. And it was inspirational. Do you know, do you know how many minutes it took to get from the beginning to the end? I don't know. Just over 6. 6 minutes. And as we kind of expand eventually on the depression issue, It was some that had used this as their only way of being able to stay in school, or have a place to sleep and eat. It was, it was critical to their survival. Survival. They weren't signing up to go to the Olympics in 1936. They just needed a good meal and a place to sleep. I don't think probably any of them even wanted to row. Most of them, they wanted food on the table. Yeah. Right? Blue-collar labor. Blue-collar labor. Very good. Fishermen.

Loggers.

Loggers. Northwest. Okay, Bobo's a hardship. I'll mention 3 quickly. The one father who kind of kicked him out of the house. And ground rules changing on, they needed to raise money at the last minute. And the ground rules changing in the Olympics when the winner did not get the most favorable treatment. They got screwed. That's a, yes, another way you can say it.

That's a polite way to put it, right?

I don't eat the red part. Well, they got lane 6, and lane 1 is the preferred lane, and they gave that to the Italians and the Germans who finished last in the prelims. You're forgetting too.

What?

When they started the race, they couldn't even see the view of the flag. No, they looked at Italy and Germany and they said, go. Everyone else was like, what? And they got off to a really bad start, didn't they? We're going to see that. So these were, these were boys that were, they should not have been able to win. The competition and the people that they were going against had all of the skill sets, the genetics, all the stuff, the money, that they shouldn't have been able to win. But they didn't let that stop them from winning. All right. Ken, have you read the book? Have you seen the movie? Seen the movie, yeah.

You like it?

What stands out? I like one common goal.

Jake?

Yes.

Just kind of working out— Any flash you want to throw on this before we go. What I thought was really What I found really particularly interesting about this book was how each one of them came with their own adversities and came together as a team to train and then ultimately overcome adversity in the moment.

Right.

Thank you.

I don't think they had one common goal at the beginning.

No.

Someone, they wanted, they wanted to be on the, to get money. They didn't need the 15 cents to take their date to the movie.

No. They weren't thinking of the Olympics, right?

They wanted food. They wanted to live. They wanted to be able to pay for an education. Scary. Yeah, I really liked how, as they came in, they had different perspectives and approaches.

But as they worked together, not initially, but eventually, the Olympics were on the horizon.

And without starting with With that in mind, it's just amazing what they were able to accomplish by the fundamentals of just initially working together and cooperating and doing those things. And it took them farther than they could have possibly dreamt at that time. They had no idea.

Yeah, right?

Well, and I think the stepmother, that was quite interesting to me because that was the— there were complete Opposites of how you had to be in the boat. How you had to, selflessness versus her selfishness in her life for her own benefit. You know, right down to her natural-born children.

Joe Rance, he was the stepson. She discounted him because he was the product of—

And then they'd go on their little jaunts and leave the natural-born children home.

Right.

You know, Joe would go take care of them.

So with that background, I want to teach you a little bit, or share a little bit about what Olympians have said about rowing and crew.

OK?

Because I think the concepts that are taught here are timeless. So I mean, it's a little quirky. Let's get past some of that. Sorry about that. We're at the facility in Princeton, New Jersey, and we're about to meet the newly named U.S. Olympic rowing team. Rowing really fascinates us because it's an excellent full-body exercise, but it's pretty unfamiliar to a lot of people in the sense that you need a boat and a large body of water to get going. But with ergometers popping up in gyms across the country, it's growing increasingly accessible. So we wanted to learn from some of the best in the country, try to learn some of their techniques, and see if there are any tips we can apply to our own workouts. As an expert both on water and on erg, I was hoping you could walk us through how to work this machine without hurting ourselves.

Yeah, of course.

First thing you want to do when you sit down is adjust the foot height. You want the shaft to be over the balls of your feet, kind of where your lace is, and slip your toes through the top and your heel sort of back into the heel cup, and then you can tighten this down. Should it feel pretty snug? Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't feel uncomfortable at all. Who can do that? Maybe I should have done this before.

I see a lot of people in the gym come in and they like to crank it right up to 10, and that just makes me a little uncomfortable.

And so what I usually do, I mean, it's going to be close to around 4 or 5. 5 is a pretty good representation of water, so that's what we use generally, somewhere between 3 and 5. So go ahead and take the handle. Yep. And then just go ahead and what we call it is finish, so the hands will be all the way back. Good. And with the rowing motion, the first thing you want to do is hands away, and then from there you rock over from your hips.

Good.

And you don't want to collapse too much.

Okay. Because otherwise when you get up to the catch, you're going to be like this, and that's really, and that's really not a strong and stable position.

And then what you do is you just release your legs fully.

Good. And so this This position is called the catch, and from here, this is where you take a stroke.

Getting your legs to start the stroke is the most powerful part and the most important part of the stroke. So I'm going to keep my shoulders a little bit in front of my hips like they are here, and I'm just going to put my knees down like that. And I keep my body forward because that's going to be the second component, and we'll do that next. Yeah, but you just get used to this. And with really loose arms, as if you're hanging off of a banister. You definitely don't want to be clenching the handles, right?

No, no, no.

I get in trouble for this, but I like to keep it more in my fingertips because then I feel like I can engage it up in my shoulders a little bit more and in my lats.

You're going to drive the legs and then this part, and you're not really swinging very far. It's about—

you start at about 5 degrees forward And you're going to swing about 5 degrees back.

So it's not—

I mean, you'll see some people, they really lay back, back here. You don't need to do that, and you're sort of losing efficiency back there.

And then what people think about when they think of rowing is the arms.

We call it like the arm draw. And so that's what you add on at the end. So it's like those 3 separate phases? Yes. And so eventually they become blended as one, but it can be useful when you're learning to row to think about them separately.

So it's legs, body, arms.

Arms, body, legs. So the arms are only the finish at the very end.

Yeah, if you think about it, your muscles in your arms are so much smaller and weaker than your legs.

Definitely lower. Yeah, exactly, your legs and your glutes.

A lot of times what I'll see is here, and then people start the bend from the legs and then come over.

No good.

I've seen people try and do curls like this.

This is not good.

What do you think are some of the, like, benefits specific to rowing? Well, it's a great low-impact workout, so I mean, if you're having problems running on a treadmill or running outside, yeah. What kind of, like, simple regimen would you recommend to someone who's kind of sitting down in the erg for the first time? I would recommend something like 10 minutes or 2 by 10 minutes. And I would also recommend that if it's available, like once you've gotten used to the erg, is to actually try and get out in the water. Yeah, I mean, there's something about actually being on the water with a bunch of other people that is the best part. And feeling yourself move through space.

Exactly.

What do you feel like as soon as you're done with the race?

Oh, I mean, it's, it's crazy bad.

People are unable to sit up sometimes. For some reason, I usually Usually I'm just either dry heaving out the ocean or feeling like I want to pass out. Right, so that all sounds terrifying, but I feel like it's good evidence that this is a great full-body workout.

Absolutely.

None of your muscles feel okay after working hard. We had a great day today out in Princeton watching the boats out on the water and also getting to sit down and talk to Matt and Adrian. They showed us how rowing is a low-impact Basketball is back. Watch the action live on Variety. All right. So things to learn. You know, legs, body, back, right? Is that what he said?

Legs, body, back.

Legs, body, arms. Legs, body, arms. Okay, I forgot. All right, things to remember. Okay, there's a stroke, legs, posture, rhythm, timing, all of these things. Okay, so what I want to ask now is, who wants to have fun?

Does any—

who wants to? Carrie, come on up.

Oh no, I didn't mean that.

Carrie, come on up. Who wants to have fun? I need 7 more. I need you to bring your chairs.

No, no, I need 8.

No, 8.

OK.

I need a chair.

I need one that says stroke.

I need it. I need this. From the back wall. I need sufficient space. All right?

You're going to stay here for a minute.

Jake's our leader.

Unfortunately.

You guys are all sunk. Okay, get reasonably close to make this effective. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. How many you charging at? I need, I need one more. There's already 2.

You got it.

You guys are juggling. Just your body.

Oh, no.

Yeah. OK. We're not rowing in water here, but we're going to just demonstrate the need to work together as a team. Now, when I saw the water— No kidding, Tom. Teamwork. Here we go, Jeff. We're going down fast. All right, so who, who is in the number 1 spot on our 8-man row? What's he called?

Coxswain.

For those who read the book.

Coxswain.

Okay, Coxswain. When you read it, it looks like Coxswain, but it's Coxswain. That's how they say it, at least on the audiobook. I think it's right though, because I've heard other professionals say Coxswain. Who wrote it? Anybody? Not professional, just for kids. On water, not in the gym, right?

It looks beautiful.

So who's, who's the guy sitting up here in the front? There's actually 9 men in an 8-man boat, by the way.

The bosun?

Huh?

Bosun?

What am I called? Coxswain.

I'm the coxswain.

I'm sorry, I'm the coxswain. Okay, and then number 1 in the— this number 1 position is Number 1. The stroke. He's the stroke. What he does, everyone has to do at the same time.

All right?

I got TPA for your stroke. So, and then during the Olympics and in other competitions, you have different levels of strokes. You got a stroke of 24. What does that mean, Bryson? 24 a minute? 24 strokes per minute.

Yeah.

Okay, 24 per minute. 36, 44. Well, they're up to 44 strokes a minute in the Olympics on a 2,000-meter race. Okay?

All right.

So when I, when I say as the Coxswain to the strokes, he does immediately. And all the way down to Pete, immediately the same.

At the same time.

Same time.

Okay?

I'm going to say stand, sit, rest. Stand, sit. That's going to simulate the stroke. Like we're doing the wave.

No, you know, keep your arms to yourself.

Just stand, sit. Okay, we're just going to demonstrate how easy this is, so I'm going to talk to you, and then it's going to— by your example, everyone's going to do the same thing. Stand, sit, rest. Stand, sit, rest. Stand, sit, rest. Rest. Let's say that's about 24 strokes a minute. Okay, we're going to ramp it up. We're going to do 36 strokes a minute.

Ready?

Stand, sit, rest. Stand, sit, rest. Stand, sit, rest.

Stand, sit, rest.

Okay, good.

All right, give it up. That was pretty good. But it wasn't perfect. It was good for your first try.

Right?

Now imagine this. You're on the waters and Hitler's over there looking at you. And there's people screaming and everything. And the coxswain has his, his little speaker going on. He can't even hear what's going on. He can't even hear the starter. And then he's yelling. And the first person, the stroke hears it.

Then maybe the last one doesn't.

Okay, and then so I'm going to represent it by lowering my voice a little bit, so you may not hear what's happening to represent that effect. Ready?

Okay.

All right. These are pretty.

We have the wrong people in the right—

wrong seat.

There you go.

It's kind of like the weight. All right, thank you all. Round of applause. So the rowing stroke, they've broken it down into 4 basic components. The first is the catch, when the oar catches the water, okay? And then the drive, when you pull. And then you release it out of the water, and then you recover. And you catch, and then you drive, and then you release. And it relieves and can recover. So thank you so much for doing that.

So we were on different strokes.

We did different strokes for different folks, right? 24, maybe we did 36 or whatever. In the Olympics, they were upwards of 40, 44 or so for them to catch up. It suggests that the motion is so fluid and smooth and so seemingly effortless, and the agony on the athletes' faces near the end seems out of place. place, because they're beat. We're going to talk a little bit about the stroke and how it relates to teamwork and rhythm. Vince Lombardi said, individual commitment to a group effort or goal, that is what makes a team great, a company work, a society work, and a civilization work. This is a quote from 2 minutes. They're going to talk a little bit about the teamwork and leadership benefits of rowing. There's some language written on here that I don't understand, so whatever. It's mostly English. What languages does anybody know? I know, like Cambodian or Thai or something.

Is this what they looked out when they were up here when they were rowing?

Was it kind of like this? Yes, pretty much, right?

Unified.

Engaged.

That looks Looks pretty synchronized to me.

Looks like they have to stay within the lanes. All right, so lessons learned. What do you take away from this? Teamwork, rhythm, all of these items here. What does it take a team of, I would say, maybe even misfit boys ages 17, 18, 19 to be transformed into a Olympic champions. I want you to just think about that. Here's a, here's a picture of the Shell House where the boys learned about, learned a little bit about rowing. Historical background, we've talked and touched on that a little bit. World War I, 1914 to 1918. Joe Rantz was born, I think, well, we'll get into that in a minute. The Great Depression was on the heels of that, 1929, 1939. You have the Olympics, which the U.S. was contemplating boycotting, and, and some other nations were as well. Then on top of that, you have, you have the heels of World War II, which I think many people went into the Olympics thinking that probably would never happen. And all the while, Hitler and his regime were contemplating, and they were setting the stage for that, as you look at the book. And how he, he, it was a propaganda machine that they manufactured goodwill, and they eliminated the thought that they were anti-Semitic, and that they were welcoming of all people. And that, and yet at the same time, Hitler wanted to be the dominant race. He wanted the Germans to be the dominant race. And so, any other historical background setting on that? We touched a little bit on all that. This I'd like to share because it's important.

And—

The 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler's Olympics. Germany's showcase. Where the Nazis would demonstrate Aryan superiority. Most people remember how Jesse Owens exploded that myth. But many have forgotten how 9 young men from the northwestern corner of the United States overcame tremendous difficulties to win a gold medal in the establishment sport of crew. The crew, the sport was called crew, and rowing. I saw us. And I remember the excitement about their winning. And Germany ended up winning the Olympics, and it was very exciting for Seattle. Rowing is an enormously hard thing to do at that level, and they endured the pain and the cold and the harsh realities of rowing and persevered through it. It's different than other sports. You are really uniquely together. It's that bonding that takes place, and it lasts for the rest of your life. My teammates in college are my closest friends today. There's a bond that gets made, you know, at 6 o'clock in the morning when it's pitch black out and it's pouring down rain and it's 35 degrees. So after you've been here for 4 years, they really become your brothers. I think it's really hard actually to learn about these 9 young men from 1936. And, and not be inspired by their raw spirit. I think a lot of us and our families can understand what America was like, what the United States was like in those, in that era. Lots of our families went through the Depression and the buildup to the Second World War. We understand that. 1936's story is an extraordinary story, and that's what's happening here. It touches on kind of the intangibles of life, pushing through pain for this small chance at victory. It's a real story about real things that we as humans value very highly. Trust, believing in yourself, beating the odds. All of those things that we really love as people. Just being this group of guys that just kind of came out of nowhere. Out of Seattle, out of the Seattle area, out of the Washington area. At a time when we still were seen as like, you know, being from the frontier. The story of the boys that kind of everything that they were and how humble they were compared to what the Nazis had in the '30s. And being able to have a victory on such a huge international level, I think it resonates with a lot of people because it gives us hope and it gives us kind of this foundation to essentially believe that anything is possible if we're able to set our minds to it. I think this story resonates with so many people because it reminds us that we're capable of overcoming great adversity. And most of all, it reminds us that our greatest power is when we pull together. In some ways, it's sort of a metaphor for the American people. This story resonates because it takes people back to a time when people were able to pull together and get great things done. Okay. Thoughts, ideas? It's quite an experience to be able to just at least pretend for the moment to be back in time, back in the 1930s, to experience what it was like.

So something that really caught me is on page 178 where it really talks about the traits of the oarsmen in depth. And it, you know, some of the highlights, they have no stars, it's a team effort, the perfectly synchronized flow of muscle, not the individual, not the self, unique capabilities. Crew races are not run by clones, they are run carefully balanced blends of both physical abilities and personality types. And to me, that's what hit me, right, that's what we need, we need a perfectly balanced blend of our intellectual abilities or whatever you want to call it, and personalities.

Talents.

Talents, yeah, in this, in a government entity, in a community. So that's, I really like that, that little, what's that called, those comparisons there, those analogies, but those comparisons of that, you know, is that these guys were all different and Carrie talked about switching people out to different spots and finding them lucky.

We talked about that.

You mentioned that right there, huh?

Yeah, you mentioned earlier, so the horsemen. So Joe Rantz was a key, well, he was probably not the main focus in the story by the author. And his history, we talked a little bit about that. At age 15, he came home. And he saw his dad and his mom, well, his stepmom, and they were all loaded up in a car. And he said, what are we doing?

Where are we going?

And he says, well, we're leaving, but you're staying here. That would have been incredibly hard to overcome. Others had similar stories, but I think Joe's is the one that was really compelling. And, you know, we learn a lot from some of these, these other players in the book.

Joe Rance.

Joe Rance. Don Hume was the stroke. He struggled with, with illness. He was the, he was the one, he was Jake over here, where everyone else needed to do what he was doing. Bobby Moke was a, was a coxswain, and he learned on his way to Germany. That he was a Jew? He didn't know that. George Pocock was a shipbuilder, and Al Ubertsen was a We were the coach. The thing that Ramsey had to overcome more than anything was trust. And he didn't have that trust in his own father, and his stepmom for sure. He loved his family, but he was left to fend for himself. And he survived. He went, I think he went to the He went to school at the encouragement of his brother. I can't remember his name, but he encouraged him to go into engineering. And he decided to do that. He didn't have enough money to pay the second semester. And he decided, well, I've got to get another job. So they decided to try out. His intent then was, at that time, was not to win the Olympics. It was to succeed. There are some pretty amazing quotes. I wanted to share some of them with you. Maybe we can take a minute and just read a couple about rowing and leadership principles. Maybe, Mayor, could you read this one?

Rowing a race is an art, not a frantic scramble. It must be rowed with head power as well as hand power. From the first stroke, all thoughts of the must be blocked out. Your thoughts must be directed to you and your own boat. Always positive, never negative.

One thing Bobby Moch would say was, mind in boat, mind in boat, mind in boat. Keeping everyone in charge of their mind. Not thinking about other things, but what they were doing in the boat. George Pocock furthermore said, just as a skilled rider is said to become part of his horse, A skilled oarsman must become part of the boat. Therein lies the secret of successful crews, their swing, that 4th dimension of rowing which can only be appreciated by an oarsman who has rowed in a swinging crew, where the run is uncanny, the work in propelling the shell a delight.

What—

who knows what the swing is? Who understands it? Who's experienced that in their life? Is it possible for a group of 8 to row at 24 and pass somebody going at 30?

Why?

Because they were all in sequence together to swim. Yeah? They could at least maintain. In the book, there were many examples where the coxswain Bobby would say, just keep— we're going to keep pace with them, we're going to stay at 24. They're at 30, but they're more frantic. They're flailing. They're not as efficient, as effective. Bryce, can you read that top? This page, please. Where is the spiritual value of rowing? The losing of self entirely to the cooperative effort of the crew as a whole. Harmony, balance, and rhythm. They're the 3 things that stay with you your whole life. Without them, civilization is out of whack. And that's why an oarsman, when he goes out, goes out in life He can fight it. He can handle life. That's what he gets from rowing. I think of George Pocock. He was the, he was the shell builder. The boat builder. They call it a shell. 66 feet long, 24 inches wide. Very shallow. Just enough where that's not gonna sink, right? You can't stand in it. He was also a mental health counselor.

Really?

No, the guy who built these boats. He did counseling all the time.

He did.

And he was very inspired. Well, he was open to new ideas. When the cedar, the possibility of a new wood came along, and how that changed everything.

Yeah.

And when he was accused by his friend of making the shells, holding them hostage for them. Wasn't he right?

The best ones he kept for Washington. Yeah, and they think they're the best ones.

And their integrity is what mattered to him, and to have this person that he loves accuse him of not being objective and stuff. And then it showed his— what type of a person he was by how he just tried to smooth it out instead of becoming defensive or attacking or behind-the-scenes manipulative. Or, um, yeah, he was a good man.

He even went to the, to the University of California team and helped to support them and encourage them in a one-on-one with them as well. So he was, he was very, very genuine, I believe. Chris, could you read that? That the very enemy is your friend.

It's hard to make that boat go as fast as you want.

The enemy, of course, is the resistance of the water. But that very water is what supports you, and that very enemy is your friend. So is life. The very problems you must overcome also support and make you stronger in overcoming them. How is that possible? Has that been your experience? Have you experienced that? Resistance has actually helped you to grow, or to excel, or become better? I think the 1936 Olympics are interesting in that you have the story of Jesse Owens.

Yeah.

You have the story of the boys in the boat. But you also have the story of like Louis Zamperini, who ran the 5,000-meter race that year. He's the subject of Unbreakable. So you have a lot of people who went through really trying times, really put their own mettle to the test, and then went on and did great things in their lives through adversity. Right. Thank you. This is the last Next slide, I want to end on this, and it's called The Swing. Who would like to read it? Brent? Sure. To be of championship caliber, a crew must have total confidence in each other. Able to drive with abandon, confident that no man will get the full weight of the pull. When you get the full rhythm, it's innate. It's pure pleasure to be in it. It's not hard work when the rhythm comes. That swing as they call it. I've heard men shriek out in delight when the swing came into an 8. It's a thing they'll never forget as long as they live. Who can describe that? Who has experienced that? In what, in what ways have you experienced that? As a father? As a daughter? As a mother? In your family individually?

Playing sports?

in music, being on the City Council, as a team, individually? Would anyone like to share? It's personal, but please. And I, I'll preface with, I apologize if I share too much about my experience with my boy, with my family this year. Um, this actually quickly relates to, uh, our Our paramedics. Ultimately, to me, that's what it means. It's kind of like Zen. It's kind of like being in the moment, a oneness. And, you know, there was— so there was this early one Monday morning, my son, you know, is getting up and I'm going over to give the morning, you know, leg rub and back rub and stuff because He kind of still feels that muscle soreness or whatever. And true to form, he just isn't— he's not expressing the pain he's going through. And he gets up to get his drink and his medicine, and he just passes out. And on the one hand, that was scary and worrisome. But I remember just immediately thinking 2 things. One, that I was just so grateful that I was there to catch them, that that was its own little miracle or a little mercy. And then the next thought was, okay, I need to call Mark and ask him, is this— am I being, you know, I don't know, overly scared or paranoid about, you know, wanting to call an ambulance? to get my wife to the hospital or not. And it was— Mark immediately picks up his phone, even though it's early Monday morning, and I explain it, and he immediately says, we are sending someone there right now. And then they come, and they're, you know, they not only had the physical response, but the emotional. You know, they immediately went over to my wife and explained things and helped understand and kind of talked us through through everything, and there was just— it was more than physical, it was emotional in terms of the connection and the feeling, I guess, the feeling united. And to see that and have that, you know, Bryce sometimes talks about the merging of your worlds, you know, professional and personal. And again, that can be worrisome, that can feel vulnerable. It was horrible, but it ended up happening in a beautiful way that we'll never forget and that we'll always be just completely grateful for. Because we found out he had pancreatitis and he was able to get it addressed quick enough so that it didn't have long-term negative effects for him.

Thank you.

I hate to follow that up because I'm scared. Give us the best you got. I used to love to golf. And there are just some days— my brothers used to make fun of me because they'd say, you just lined up at the water and you hit the ball.

I played hook.

And it just—

And you—

No, I didn't even think about the water. Because that whole round, I just felt in total control of my swing. So it didn't even come to my mind. It was just like, yeah, step up, hit the ball. So with that idea of the swing where it's just automatic, it's just there, it just feels. You're not thinking, you're just, it's just there. In my personal life with my family, with my family, some other things that I've done, it's as Brent touched on, it's kind of that unity.

And we have a saying in our family that it's better to be unified than to be right. Whenever you Everybody's on the same page moving forward.

It's amazing, that flow that happens. Thank you. Anyone else?

If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, I recommend it.

We're going to leave with one last remark. Could you read that quote?

Yes.

This is what Joe Rantz had to learn. You know, I don't know how old he was when he won the Olympics, but he finally came to this realization. Immediately after the race, even as he sat gasping for air in the husky clipper while it drifted down the line of sea beyond the finish line, an expansive sense of calm enveloped him. In the last In the deathly few hundred meters of the race, in the searing pain and bewildering noise of that final furious sprint, there had come a singular moment when Joe realized with startling clarity that there was nothing more he could do to win the race beyond what he was already doing. Except for one thing. He could finally abandon all doubt, trust absolutely without reservation that he He and the boy in front of him and the boys behind him would all do precisely what they needed to do at precisely the instant they needed to do it. He had known in that instant there, that there could be no hesitation, no shred of indecision. He had had no choice but to throw himself into each stroke as if he were throwing himself off of a cliff into a void with unquestioned faith That the others would be there to save him from catching the whole weight of the shell on his blade.

And he had done it.

Over and over, 44 times per minute, he had hurled himself blindly into his future, not just believing, but knowing that the other boys would be there for him, all of them, moment by precious moment.

Wow.

Thank you.

This to me is evidence of trust that we have in this group here. There may be personal differences and other things that need to be worked out, but overall, this has been the best of 2 years of my work. We haven't got City Hall.

Sorry.

But I felt the swing. I felt the organization lift in the last 2 years.

And it's because of everyone here.

So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. We really appreciate that. I think you know what schedule is for going forward for dinner.

So 6:30, 6:35, and then 40 minutes right here next door. So that's a restaurant. Oh, is it?

And Davos.

Davos, you're right.

Is that how you say it? Yeah, they do In the big room.

All the rest of them are here. So again, to confirm, this building upstairs, 6:30.

6:30.

At 6:30. That's what we're going to want for you. All right, welcome back.

I'll just run through the agenda real quick for day 2. We're going to start out with the presentation of business leadership principles, and I was going to do that. I was going to do that based on the book. And then we're going to— we need to figure out when we want to do that. I think we're going to do that at the end of the day. Boards and commissions, because we didn't do boards and commissions yesterday because we ran out of time. I've been being bugged by some city council members that are really curious how they turned out.

Um, you want to do that after I go through the book? Remember that? 10, and then just get back down with everything else.

And then we— well, we're already— we're at our 20 minutes. And then we've got— we have a break scheduled, and then we'll have a presentation of departmental goals and major projects, and exec staff will take that. Leave that conversation. We'll have lunch at 12:30. Come back after lunch, and we'll finalize our citywide goals associated with our area of focus. And then we'll kind of have a roundtable with the council like we did before, but incorporating the citywide goals and areas of focus. And then we'll just say a couple words and. We'll adjourn. So any questions? Ready for another fun-filled day? Okay. So Brenna and I were talking back when we were putting this together, and we were just talking about different business leadership principles. And that led to talking about the book that I wrote a year ago.

And it's—

let me just tell you a little bit about the book. So over the course of my life, I've hunted a ton. I've spent a lot of time out in the outdoors. And When I've gone through and tried to figure out how much, it's over 1,000 nights that I've been out in the backcountry and just in extreme hunting situations. And it's not like the typical driving down the road with 2 guys with a 6-pack of beer in the middle and shooting whatever runs across.

It's a 12-pack.

This is serious.

And sometimes we actually call it SWAT team hunting because we're going into an area, we're going way past where any roads go. We have 3 or 4 of us that have spotting scopes, high-powered binoculars. We're getting on different peaks. We're covering an area of 3 or 4 miles. And then we're just watching it for several days to try and pick up a monster animal. And the monster animals live where no people live. That's how they get to be monsters. Anyway. So you just have to focus on them for several days. You find them, you locate them, and then you have to figure out how to essentially get on them and kill them. And because like a big buck will have multiple escape routes, so if you come over the top, they've got 3 ways out the bottom. If you come in from the bottom, they got several ways out the side. And so you have to watch them and you have to figure out where they're feeding, where they're sleeping, how they're moving throughout the day. And then once you've got a pattern, then you can try and move in on them and get close enough to get a shot at them. So it's much more than the driving down the road program. Anyway, so like I said, I have 100 for years. I've had a lot of crazy experiences. And so my, my, one of my assistants at my work, her name's Camille, she's been bugging me for years to write a book. And, and then I've also got a client, a gal that does writing, and she's been bugging me to write a book for like the previous 10 years. And I would always tell her I didn't have time, because I never did have time. But she goes, but you've got such good information, such good stories. If you don't do this, you know, it'll be gone forever. So anyway, that was that. And then I ran for mayor. And she didn't know. She lives in Jackson, so she didn't know I'd even run for mayor or anything. And she came to my office, and we were talking, and I told her that I'd run for mayor. And I was And I won, so I was doing that on top of my investment practice. And she got really ticked off at me, and she said, are you kidding me? You're such an idiot. Now your book's never going to get written, and it's just not going to happen because now you're busier than you were before, and that was always your excuse. And anyway, so I thought about it, and so then I called her up and I said, okay, let's figure out how to do this. And so the plan became She came. I would talk to her for about an hour to an hour and a half once a week on a set day. And we did that for a year. And so that way it just chipped, chipped, chipped. Anyway, so that's how we finally got the book done. So, and the book is essentially, it came from my experience My questions are all based around hunting, but one thing I noticed about hunting was, is there's so many analogies to life. And then when you spill it over into investing, a lot of the same characteristics that it takes to invest well tie over to hunting. For example, patience. With investing, you have to be extremely patient because things take time to play out and to work out. With hunting, it's the same deal. You have to really be extremely patient. You have to be okay coming back empty-handed and going to extreme places and coming back empty-handed. So anyway, there's the hunting. And then I looked at Paragon and what we do there. And what we do there is we run investment accounts. We've done that for almost 40 years. And we use a lot of techniques and strategies that are not mainstream. They're different than most other investment advisors do it. We follow completely different strategies than your typical investment advisors. And so that led me to, okay, let's do this book about hunting as a core of it, but then let's talk about investing. And the essence of how we do what we've done and why our track record is what it is. And so that became— and so then as we started into it, I started thinking about, well, we're talking about how to build wealth with a hunting context, but then I've got lots of clients who, because they've been clients, I've seen go through their whole life. I've had clients come in late, you know, in their 50s and, you know, eventually pass on. I've seen a lot of the challenges that people have when they're dealing with wealth and dealing with money, and in a lot of ways it just complicates their life. And so that took me to, well, the essence— I mean, making money investing is just It's just a piece of the puzzle, but the real essence of the puzzle is finding out what is true wealth. Not financial wealth, but true wealth. And we'll talk about that in a minute, just how I define true wealth. But, so anyway, that's where we came up with Hunting for True Wealth.

Mm-hmm.

So it incorporates all 3. It's hunting, it's building financial wealth, to wealth and is trying to identify how do we— what's the essence of true wealth. I'm going to try and make sure we stay on schedule here. And so as I go through this, feel free just to jump in to ask some questions because what I thought I'd do is we did this with the executive shortly after the book came out, I think, about a year ago. And there's a story in the book that takes place in Zimbabwe, and it's a pretty crazy story. It's about a leopard hunt. And anyway, yeah, it's pretty crazy. And so I thought today I'm not going to go through that because We've talked about that already. And so I'm just gonna share a couple other stories with you. But I'll just start into this, and I'm just gonna pull— a lot of this is from the book, but I'm just gonna pull some of this. So when I was younger, I thought money was freedom and happiness. The assumption that more money will make us happier is etched into our collective consciousness. Is so basic that most people never stop to question it. Happiness is something we all want. It's the holy grail of Western civilization. Our culture champions it, promotes it with billions of dollars of advertising each year, and institutionalizes it in our public policy. Happiness is also the primary promise that most good investment advisors focus on. Everything we do, consciously or unconsciously, we do because we we believe and hope it'll make us happy. In many ways we do this, we do have a lot to be happy about. The average American now lives much better than most kings and queens have throughout history. American purchasing power, it's higher than it ever has been. Homes, cars, technology, entertainment are everywhere. So is the assumption true? Are we happier than we used to be? And the research shows that the answer is no. The spectacular increase in American wealth and consumerism has had almost no net positive effect on our society's overall happiness. Plenty of studies now show that believing money is more important than other values, like relationships and loved ones, spirituality, service to others, is actually detrimental to happiness. Clearly, there's more to happiness than wealth, luxury, and material comforts.

Thanks.

So, Hunting for True Wealth is not only about making money. You'll learn how to build financial wealth. Along the way, you'll discover something more important. You'll discover what it means to be truly wealthy. True wealth is the lifelong experience of deep happiness, fulfillment, and learning. True wealth is True wealth is focusing on your overall quality of your life. True wealth is becoming an empathetic, caring person. True wealth is owning your life and taking back control of your life when it's gone sideways. True wealth isn't an achievement or a prize you win once you reach a certain age or once your bank account gets big enough. It's the sum total of all the experiences, good and bad, at any point in your life. Getting that sum total right is the very essence of true wealth. We all experience trials, stumbles, and losses in life. You can learn and grow from them, or you can let them diminish and trap you in a state of being that you don't deserve or want. Because we all have different experiences, everyone's version of true wealth will differ slightly. My job is to show you the values and principles of true wealth that you can use as lessons, signposts, and goals. My ultimate goal for me and for you is to experience true wealth, not just monetary wealth. Achieving financial security is best sought— or best thought of as one important part of figuring it out over the course of all your life experiences, what true wealth is for you, why it matters more than money, and how you can shift your focus and efforts to building it. So I challenge you in And this is in my book. I challenge you right here, right now to ask yourself 2 questions. What do I want my life to look like? And does my life look like that right now? If it doesn't, you can pivot and change. You can invest in yourself. You can take your life back. I've had to do this multiple times throughout my own life. It's what I'm working on again right now, getting my own life back. Ask these questions of yourself. You don't need to have a lot of money. All you need is the willingness to step back and think intentionally about where you want to go. The alternative is just letting the wind blow you wherever life takes you. Letting yourself be carried along is easier than imagining the life you want, setting goals, and planning on the steps that will create that life for you. Easy is boring. Easy is a trap. Easy makes you weak. Hunting for true wealth isn't easy, but living a full, adventurous life with intention will always be better than just letting life happen to you. True wealth is for everyone, no matter what your age, career, or life experience. That means this book is for you. As far as just a story from the book, there's a couple. And I think these— I've thought about this over the course of my life several times. This one is about panic. And essentially, when we get in difficult situations, the worst thing we can do is panic. do is panic. And both of you chiefs know absolutely panic is the worst thing that can happen. But anyway, this was just a story from when I was younger. In my 30s, I went whitetail deer hunting with a buddy of mine up in Idaho by the Clearwater River in Idaho. And ironically, Actually, 2 years prior, a guy from Orem had drowned on a bear hunt in this area we were going to. So when we were going to go hunting up there, we always referred to it as the guy where— the place where the guy from Orem died. It was November in Idaho, really cold. And I made my way up to the top of this mountain plateau where we were hunting that overlooked this river. And I was All of a sudden, I spotted this buck, and the buck spotted me at the same time. And, uh, like I said, it's whitetail hunting, and we call whitetail hunting hunting ghosts because they're just there and they're gone, and they just kind of like vaporize into the trees. But he was only 25 yards away from me and to my right. Instinctively, I swung my gun around, aimed in the general direction, and took a straight-on shot, which you don't really want a straight-on shot. The only reason I did it was because this deer was just right, right at me. At 25 yards, I can't get the buck in my scope properly, and so I didn't get a good hit on this deer. But he did something I've never had to do deer do, which is— he was a big mature buck, but he lowered his head and he came charging at me.

Panic! Yeah, well, panic and run.

This was the easy part.

So he came running at me.

So I had to— I literally had to jump to the side in the brush to avoid getting impaled by him. And like I said, I've never had that happen before. I've had other weird things happen. But that was bizarre to have this deer just lower his head and just come charging.

Mm-hmm.

I watched as the deer kept running, and then he dropped off the side of the mountain. So I was on this plateau overlooking the Clearwater River, and then it dropped off. What was it? It was around— it was about 1,400, 1,500 feet down. And I knew the deer was hit. And I was kind of a little bit ticked because he was trying to take me out. And so I went after him. And he drops off the side and he goes down, down, down. And so I'm going down, down, down. And the side of this mountain was ridiculously thick. On top it wasn't as bad, but on the sides it was like a Vietnamese jungle. And so the blood had— I found had a bright red hue, which meant it was a lung shot. And I knew he wasn't going to last, and so I needed to find him. So I just kept going down, down, down after him. And I kept picking up the blood, disappearing, picking up the blood, disappearing, picking up blood, disappearing. Finally, 3 hours later, I'm at the bottom of that 1,400-foot cliff. 3,000-foot mountain. And I only had about 30 minutes of daylight left. And so the Clearwater River is about 150 feet across, and on the other side I could see this dirt road that pickups and stuff were using. And so I thought that might be my best shot. But I was kind of faced with this situation, and I I did make a bad decision. But I could either try and cross the river, but it is middle of November and there's ice on both sides, or I could frickin' hike back up this 1,400 straight up mountain and get on the top of that. That's where my four-wheeler was, was on the backside of that mountain. So I thought, okay, I'm just gonna try and cross this thing. It looked like it wasn't that bad, and it looked like it was kind of slow-moving.

And it did look—

Chief is shaking his head.

I'm still panicking. How many beers have you had? Exactly.

Anyway, it just didn't look that bad compared to the option of climbing. And it was a half hour before dark, and so I knew I'd be climbing that mountain in the dark. So I took my rifle, and I had my backpack, and then I strapped my rifle across my back so now everything— I wouldn't lose it. And so I started walking across this river, and it was freezing cold. How did you get across? And it was, you know, I got about, I don't know, a quarter of the way across. It was only up to my, the tops of my thighs. I thought, this is fine. And so I kept going across, and pretty soon I'm right almost the middle, but the current is a whole lot stronger than it looks, and it's just pushing, pushing me hard. But I'm in the middle. So I might as well go to the other side, right? And so I'm going across. Now the water's up to the top of my chest. And then I— there was no signs, but I stepped in a big hole. I just went under. So now all of a sudden I'm free-floating in this freezing river. And this is where the panic part comes.

Not until then, huh?

So anyway, so I'm floating down this river and I can feel life getting sucked out of me because it's so cold. And I, you know, I fully know about hypothermia and I just feel like this is hypothermia coming on and I've got to get out of this river. But I'm stuck in the middle and I'm floating. And the first thing I said in my— I mean, I was literally saying it out loud— was, don't panic, don't panic. So I was trying to get my bearings together and I just kept saying, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic. And that was the only thing I really thought about at the time was don't panic. So I knew if I panicked, I was screwed.

Hmm.

I would just flail around and I would be, you know, dead. And so, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic. And I floated about 200 feet down that river, and then it started to get to a turn, and then I went like another 100 feet. And there was a, there was a tree that was extending out where the river turned. And I knew if I could get to that tree, then I could try and pull myself across. But anyway, I was able to grab it and I slowly got across and, uh, and then I pulled myself up off the bank and I just literally passed out. And about that same time, there's a truck coming down that road that I didn't even see, but they saw me and they came running over and grabbed me. But I, I don't remember any of that because I was out of it. And they carried me back and, uh, They put me in their truck and I came to and I was underneath all this stuff and these people were all excited. But what they did is they turned their heater on their truck way up and then they just covered me with everything they had in the truck. And anyway, gave me a ride back to my camp. But the point of that is just from a business leadership perspective is don't panic. And no matter how bad it gets, the essence of making a bad decision is based on panic. And it's that way— I mean, when you're out in the middle of nowhere and you're lost, if you panic, you're done. If you're Up on top of the mountain and you're trying to come down and you get clipped out and you have to spend the night out. If you panic, you're done. So anyway, as far as business leadership, that's just a story that kind of sticks in my head, is to not panic. Another quick story is— this is about focus. And I went up to— actually, in the book I talk about it. I was looking for a— I wanted a top 10 in the world mountain goat. And so I literally went 3 different times into— twice to Alaska and once to British Columbia in search of a record book goat that would go top 10 in the world. And that meant 2 of the times I came back, I had to come back empty-handed. Just because I, I mean, I sell lots and lots of goats, but I was looking for a specific world record goat. Let me just, to get, like I said, to get that record book trophy, you can't go where everyone else goes. You can't just follow the well-worn trails. You have to make your way back in the backcountry. The country where nobody goes. That's where these animals live. And it's like that in life a lot of times too. In the mountains of Alaska this time of year, the temperature goes— was down to -20 below at night, and during the day it would rise 15 degrees to 15 degrees above zero. So we'd start every morning going after these goats, and we'd wade across the middle of a river with silver salmon. The water along the banks had iced over. And this, this, this time I didn't actually get the go. I made it till later, another trip. But this was the process we were going through. Once we got out of the river, so, so every morning we crossed this river. It was freezing cold. We were doing it with waders, at least. And— Then we'd get across the river. We'd take off our waders. We'd hang them up. They'd be frozen. You had to hang them up so the bears wouldn't take them. So they'd be there when you got back. But then we started climbing the mountain. And the mountain was so steep, and there was so much brush. There's a lot of— what's it called? The wild rose and the devil's club. These bushes with all kinds of stickers on them. So you had to get across the river. You had to cut your way through the wild rose.

Continue.

And then you had to find somewhere on the mountain where a river was coming down. Or not a river, but just a little stream. And then that's where you'd go up. And you'd use your climbing gear. And you'd work your way up back and forth up this stream. And so— The part where— I want to make the point on focus because there's a lot of critical things in this. But you get up the mountain and you're about a third of the way up the mountain and you're going to the top. But to get to the next level, you have to cross about 150 feet of sheer cliffs. And so you're on this side and the cliffs go across here and you've gone up this whole And then you come across, and then you're going to keep going up. But these cliffs are pretty much— if you look at them, they seem impassable, just because it's like the face of temp. It's like those cliffs. And anyway, so you look at that and you say, I can't do that. I can't get across this. There's no way to get— we want to go to the top of this mountain. And so, but There is a way to get across those cliffs, and it's basically with extreme focus and just taking one step at a time. And so what you'd have to do is you'd have— we had crampon boots on, we had climbing axes and stuff, but you would basically go sideways across them, and you always had 3 points of contact. And then you'd take one. You'd have 3 points of contact? 3 points of contact, and then you move, say, your leg, get it firm, and then you move your other 3 points of contact across. So you've always got 3 points of contact. You can never, like, do something quick, like just give up 2, because it's too risky. You'll lose your balance potentially and fall. And in these cliffs, it's, it's, uh, it's several hundred feet down. So you've got no room for mistakes. But the way you do it is just, you're just focused. If you look to the left where you're going, it kind of gets in your head. You think, I can't do it. Or if you look down, you think, that's a really bad outcome. And so you have to just focus on what's right in front of you. 3 points of contact, 150 feet across, super slow, super focused. And you're not afraid of the fall? And I just use that analogy as when you have things in business, when we have things in the city, when we have things that we really want to try and accomplish, it comes down to extreme focus. And with extreme focus, you can do almost anything that you think you can't do. So that's that lesson.

Mayor, can I ask you a question?

Yeah.

How the hell do you get it?

Throw it.

Yeah, no, what you have to do is— and that's a real pain— because you're up on the mountain, you've got your gun, and you've got about a 50-pound pack. And your 50-pound pack that you keep with you because you're going up there and staying overnight and stuff. It's your lifeline. So you can't just— you have to keep it with you at all times. Anyway, so you get up there, you kill a goat, and then essentially you cape it out. But you have to bring the meat back. It's part of the deal. And so you just have to cape it out. And you wind up with the hide.

The hide.

And the head and the horns. And that's going to—

I don't know.

That probably weighs like 60 pounds or something. It's about a 300-pound animal. Mm-hmm.

And you basically—

and then you take the meat and cut it up and debone it and put it in different pouches. And now you've got— all in all, you've got about probably 125 pounds of usable meat. And then the height. So you would basically— you're just coming all the way down, and then you're going back up and getting up, and then you're coming down again.

So now you're carrying all that additional weight as you cross the face each time.

Yeah, exactly.

You know you can buy me at Costco, right?

I've heard about that. But yeah, that's the classic thing, is when you pull the trigger, then the work begins. You know, the fun kind of ends, and now you've got to deal with it.

So yeah, it's crazy.

Okay, we've got just a little bit of time, so I'm going to try and get through this. So those are just a couple stories to give you some context of what this is about. And I think one of the best stories is the leopard story. So what would you say, Chris?

It's a good story. It's the hip shot that saved your life. Kept my teenage boys from getting into some trouble. We have the same story.

Okay, as far as business principles, so I've got in the book, there's 5 principles, and these principles make up different chapters. One is go big or go home, and we've incorporated that a lot in the city.

I put the lights on.

Um, there are just a lot of different cool things that we're doing in the city. You'll be ready to go home. Another one, the second principle is build solid relationships. Value your family, friends, and community. And those are all the essence of what we're doing in our city. Uh, number 3 is don't panic if things go wrong. And number 4 is expect bear markets. In other words, expect bad things to happen, but then constantly be positioning for when the good things happen. So expect bear markets, but be positioned for bull markets. And that's the essence of investing a lot of times. You're just like making sure you don't, you don't get blown up, making sure that you, you know, you're able to to keep your capital intact so that you can take advantage of when the good times come and you can be positioned for that. So expect bear markets to be positioned for bull markets. And then the 5th one is live your legacy now. And I think that's a really key one. People always talk about, you know, they're going to get old and then they want to leave a legacy and all that. And while I've seen this with life is It's kind of backwards. I've seen this with a lot of clients. They would go along and, you know, they work and work and work and work and work and work, and then finally now they're old, and now finally their money starts to pile up, but now they're too old to do a lot with it. And so my theory's always been, after watching that with some of my clients, my theory's always been live your legacy now. Think about not your legacy when you're, you know, old. old and you're going to retire. But think about your legacy, what you want it to be when you're young, and just live it now while you can, even if you have to stretch to make it happen. So those are the 5 principles. The 13 values— and some of you that know me know that 13 is this bizarre number that I have. I used to— at first when I started, I've gotten 13s like endlessly in my life. And they just always show up. And it's really bizarre. And I used to think that sucks because that's bad luck. But then it kept happening so frequently that I decided it must be like good luck because it kept happening before good things were happening. Anyway, so it's a number that I'm branded with. My wife will tell you, she's here. Kathy will tell you that just, it's unbelievable. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of times when 13 just shows up. So not surprisingly—

I have not 13 children. It must not be Kathy.

No, she's grateful for that. Anyway, 'Cause I was coming up with these values I wanted for the 3rd chain. And I think these all apply to everything we do in the city. First value is adventure. These are what I— for me personally, these are what I prioritize in my life. So adventure is not only for the adrenaline junkies of Adventure at its core is change, is stress, is growth, is doing new things, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and taking things to a new level. Sometimes trying to get things no one has done before. Going on adventures crystallizes the unique things that you bring into the world. So from a city perspective, adventure I define as change. And I remember different things we've had in this city, but we get a lot of pushback when we change things. But a lot of times things can be a whole lot better after you get on that path. So, so I always encourage adventure. Living in alignment is a principle. I believe that to be truly happy, Your life must be aligned. Essential for alignment is incorporating the experiences and lessons you learned in each of your previous life stages— childhood, youth, early adulthood, and onward— that became the fabric of who you are as a unique individual. Living in alignment means recognizing, accepting, and leaning into the foundational principles of who you are as a person. It means being true to yourself. When you're out of alignment, You lie in bed at night believing in your heart and soul that this is who I am. Day by day, however, a different version of you is walking around. Your behaviors and actions aren't in alignment with your identity. Your beliefs and values don't match how you're living your life, often because of external pressures from other people, circumstances, and conditions. And from my experience, I firmly believe that A lot of addiction and substance abuse problems stem from that kind of misalignment. In other words, you're not aligned with who you truly are. So it's really important. Family is one of my core values. And I put that's not easy. The people you're closest to don't always make good decisions. They struggle, and that in turn affects you. But they're still at your core, and they inform your life from beginning to end. It's impossible to achieve true wealth by denying the truth of your family, whatever that truth might be for you. We've got fitness and health as a value. Society's moved so far away from the natural food chain, yet perhaps as a result, fitness Fitness and health have only become more closely tied to happiness. Life expectancy is longer than ever before, which means that poor health will affect you longer than ever too. Without fitness and health, you only become a passive observer of adventure rather than an active participant. Freedom is a core value. Freedom is living your life the way you want to, not how anyone else thinks you should. It's finding purpose and having time and financial security for recreational activities that make you happy. Freedom is earned through hard work. It should be fought for and never taken for granted. Gratitude is another value. Without gratitude, you'll never be truly wealthy. And I really believe that. I know a lot of people that have a lot of money and kind of have an entitlement about them. And at their essence, the reason I believe that they're not happy is because they don't know how to be grateful. So I would agree. Without gratitude, you'll never be truly wealthy. It doesn't matter how much money you accumulate. If you aren't grateful for what you have, then you will never have enough. And it will never have the Gratitude colors both your view of the world and your own life. It's very difficult to be angry, bitter, or negative when your mindset is focused on appreciating what you have and who you get to share it with. Those are opposing forces. They are oil and water, and gratitude is stronger. It has the power to push out the negativity and bad parts of life. Gratitude is a choice. Uh, honesty is another value because I really believe without having foundational honesty in all that you do, you're living a lie. Until you dig down to that foundation of honesty, you can't have true conversations with yourself, with people around you. True wealth will remain out of reach because you won't truly know yourself, the reality of your life, and the potential of your life. Possibility that your life holds. Listening and learning to listen, I think, is a really valuable part of leadership. Every single person in this world wants to be heard, and that is kind of a universal thing. Everyone has a story to tell, and so often many of us don't get heard. Society has been built on barriers. Selfishness and the absence of foundational honesty. Listening and learning to listen allows you to be involved in other people's lives, to overcome the barriers that separate us, and to expand your impact beyond yourself. Uh, 9th value is love. Love encompasses all the facets of your life that give you meaning and make you feel happy. Love for people, for animals, for relationships that I value in life, rather than take away from it. Love is the connection and goodness that you and everyone else deserves. Number 10, optimism. And those of you that know me know I'm just naturally optimistic, sometimes to my detriment. But Pessimism. I always hated it when you'd be in a meeting, you'd be in a group, and 5 people are telling you, that won't work, that won't work, that won't work. It's just like, shut up, it will work. Anyway, pessimism is the true enemy of progress, success, and happiness. Many people today say it won't work, it can't happen, it isn't possible. It is possible. Just make it happen. True wealth is rooted in optimism. Right here sitting beside me, we have one of the most optimistic guys I know. Spirituality. Spirituality is belief in a higher power. Whatever that higher power is for you, from With spirituality comes recognition that there's more to your life than just the person who exists in the here and now. If you can embrace the spiritual side of life, then you have access to the essence of true wealth. Number 12, born ready. My wife always gets annoyed with me because she thinks I'm always running behind, and she'll always say, are you ready? And I'll say, I was born ready.

She's shaking her head.

So Born Ready is about welcoming whatever the world has to throw at you. Don't shrink from that. Don't diminish yourself or anything that makes up part of your life. Live every day like you were born ready, and you'll find the empowerment you need to chase true wealth. One little quick tidbit I threw in here was back when I was, I was probably 25, and I had this guy from this investment company that was trying to recruit me to work for their company. And he was a bigwig. And I went back to New York to meet with him. And I had just met him. We talked on the phone and I just met him that morning. And he said, well, come with me. And so I walked over to this other office building. As we're getting out of the elevator, he says to me— I said, where are we going? And he says, you're going to do a presentation for this board about becoming an investment client of ours. And I was kind of shocked because I had just met him. just talked to this guy a few times. I knew their basic investment strategies, but I was no expert on it. I didn't know hardly anything. Anyway, so he says to me as we're getting on the elevator, he says, you're going to do this presentation. And I said, are you kidding me? Because this was for a board. It was for an executive board. So we were on the elevator and We're going up. I said, what am I supposed to say? And he said, you know more about this than I do, so figure it out. And so we get up there. It's a boardroom. It's a room like this with all these people. And I had to do the presentation. And anyway, that was a born-ready moment.

Don't panic too. Don't panic.

Don't panic, yes.

All of those. Yes, stay focused.

Finally, we've got vision. And this is what a lot of you in this room have, is a vision. This is what Brent has, is vision. You need to have a proactive picture of where you're going with your life. And in our case, with our city. Without vision, life just happens to you. You will end up wherever the wind blows you instead of where you than want to go. where you want to be. True wealth comes from envisioning it and then going out and getting it. So anyway, those are the core principles, the 13 principles. And I believe that they all apply to us in our lives, but they also apply to us as leadership in the city. Tom?

To click the questions, Did this book serve as an inspiration to you, or a model at all? His book, How Would You Measure Your Life?

Do you know?

No? Obviously it didn't if you don't know the book. Okay. Similar ideas being taught for those of you who've read that book.

Oh really?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Possession is a small part of total happiness, right? It's the relationships we have, the things we've done, etc., etc. So, yeah, he certainly didn't You know who he is, right? The Harvard professor, Clayton Christensen. LDS Harvard professor, right? Yeah, passed away a couple years ago. Quoted, one of the few non-General Authorities quoted in General Conference occasionally.

Oh, okay.

And you will be soon too.

Oh yeah, I'm sure.

With the release of this book, it's more widespread. Shoot from the hip, I'm sure they'll say that in April. Record it just in case, okay?

I was born ready, my hair.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a good one. Anyway, I appreciate you guys taking the time to listen and hope we can incorporate these things and hopefully this will add some value to your lives.

So, thank you.

Can all other authors in the room have a moment then to discuss their book?

Yes.

Good, we're done.

Thanks. May I have your respect?

Thanks.

Well done.

Thanks. All right, next up on the agenda we've got— well, so we've got boards and commissions. I think we can speed through boards and commissions. You guys good with that? I can't see. All right, so what we're doing with these boards and commissions is, um, I worked on this the other night, just trying to— well, in the big picture, initially when we started on the boards and commissions, after talking with Brent, I felt like we had too many boards and commissions. And I felt like we weren't necessarily using the boards and commissions the way that we should be. In other words, I think the boards and commissions are kind of— I mean, you've got, you know, 7 elected officials here. These elected officials represent 100,000 people. And to me, the boards and commissions are a direct path into the community to help build community and to help get the things that these government officials want to be out there. So I think there's a lot of value in boards and commissions. But that being said, I felt like the boards and commissions had gotten a little bit stale, and in some ways we were just going through the motions and not getting the full benefit from those boards and commissions. And so that led us to take a step back and say, okay, well, let's try to draw this down. And I think you went From what, 21 to 16?

That sounds about right.

Carrie, does that sound right?

That sounds about right.

Okay. So anyway, so we've kind of made our first stab at this. And the goal here is to make the boards and commissions really meaningful for the people involved and to have these boards and commissions really make an impact in the community. That's the goal. And so, I've got this spreadsheet, and what I was trying to do with the city council members was balance out the boards.

So, they're—

okay, these are purely commissions right now. And so, every city council member is on some of these commissions. But then there's also— Appointed things like being on the Sleepy Ridge Committee for the golf. That's not a commission, but that's just an assignment. And so I try to balance out the commission and just these other assignments so everybody's doing something similar in terms of— and then I kind of adjust them because some are less— some are more difficult and take more time than others, and so I try to balance that out too.

Thank you.

So anyway, this is what I came up with. And what I think— unless you like absolutely don't like this, you know, you want to talk about it now, we can. Otherwise, I say we'll go with it and maybe talk more later.

I think it's great.

if, if, uh, if it's an issue, because I think what we're gonna do is just run through these, and this is where they're at with— I'm open for feedback. Okay.

By the way, man, if you say them, I'll put them in.

Okay.

Oh, I thought—

oh, that's a—

I just wanted to thank you for rethinking. Some of these boards were not as effective as others. Some of them we didn't need to do. And I don't think we took a— I mean, you've sat in this job for 3 years, I've sat in my job 11 years, and we hadn't really rethought what we were doing. I appreciate you taking that initiative. You were maybe in credit, and others who ever did that. And I think I complimented Brent, but I think it also goes to the chief and to Peter. This is the best gift I've ever gotten, this pledge on wood. I mean, I've got plaques for being places, and framed and whatever. That thing lives on forever.

Thank you.

Best gift ever. Thank you. Anyway, but Mayor, thank you for rethinking the whole process.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Tom. I appreciate that. Okay, so this is where we wound up. Well, and where this went was, I mean, I thought about it for a while, and as I talked with Brent, he thought it was a good idea. But then really Carrie and her group are the ones who did the heavy lifting as far as to take it through strategies and innovation team, right?

Yeah, Jen's team.

Yeah, and just really trying to boil it down. So our hope is that we wind up with commissions that are really impactful and will really make a difference. But my expectation is that we're going to take things up to the next level with this. So here we go. So Care Advisory Commission, it was Jeff Lampson, it's still Jeff Lampson, spot number 1. Care Advisory Commission number 2 was Dave Spencer, still Dave Spencer. CDBG Advisory Commission, it was Jen Gale. I was going to move it to Tom McDonald. Cultural Arts Advisory Commission, it was Lenee Miller, still Lenee Miller. Do you want all those things as far as— okay, so Economic Development—

If you want to do them now, that's fine.

Yeah, that's, that's me. Envision Utah Board of Directors, That's me. And that is really interesting because I've never been contacted by them, and I did not know that until I saw it on this list.

They canceled our meeting that was scheduled for them too. So anyway, for the regional housing plan. Now we know.

Um, yes, got Envision Utah Executive Board.

So you're both of those?

Yes.

Some of those you can't get rid of, right, Mayor? Right, right.

And no, of the ones that are assigned to me, uh, it's 13.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you're 13 in my district.

You've got to keep them all.

Um, yeah, no, I didn't sign up for these. A lot of them I'm just assigned.

Okay then.

And we've got the Events Advisory Commission. That was Chris Kilpack, that's still Chris Kilpack. And Events Advisory Commission Number 2, that was Jen Gale, that's still Jen Gale. And the events, as you know, has been wrapped— a number of things have been wrapped into that. So that's going to be a pretty exciting commission. Historic Preservation Advisory Commission. That was Chris Kilpack, that's still Chris Kilpack. Chris Kilpack. IHC Outreach, that's an assignment. That was Tom McDonald, that's still Tom.

Thank you.

Library Advisory Commission was Chris Kilpack, is still Chris Kilpack. That is me. is me, which is interesting. Let's see, Natural Resource Advisory Commission, that was Jen Gale, that's still Jen Gale. Neighborhood Advisory Commission, that's Lenay Miller. And initially what I'm going to do with the Neighborhood Advisory Commission, because that's kind of like, it's kind of like a bent sense a much bigger thing, but the neighborhood advisory commission is something we really want to take to the next level. And so I'm going to have Lynnae essentially spearhead that. And then I'm going to be available not to be directly involved, but to be a resource to try and get that built out the way that we want to build it out. So you can put me for— But it's more like an advisor than a— than what you guys are doing. Warm Community Foundation Board. So I don't know how much you know about this, but we kind of looked on our shelf and found a foundation board that was there. It was pretty much inactive. Hadn't really done much with it. And so we decided we needed to make it into something.

meaningful.

And so we're going to be overhauling that board and putting together a new board, a new advisory board. It's going to be a much bigger deal. And we're going— the idea is that there are people that love Orem, that have lived there their whole life, that want to help. You get people of means, people, you know, that just have— want to make a gift to their community. Anyway, we're going to start pushing that a lot more and making a bigger deal of it. And so, on that foundation board, the mayor's going to kind of have an automatic spot on that board. And then there'll be one council member. And that council member will be Lenee Millett. I haven't actually mentioned that to her, but— I think she'd do a great job. And then the Youth Council. So that's where I switched Tom and Jen. So Tom was on the Youth Council. Jen, I moved her to the Youth Council. She's got a real interest in that. And Anyway, that's another one that— well, I mean, that was not terribly active, but it's— I mean, you've got 3 or 4 times the number of kids involved with that now, right?

We have 23.

That's a spare lawyers. We're a boring bunch, we get it. No, it's been revitalized. And get some— kind of like some of our youngest people on staff are now leading the way on that. And so there's like a great connection between the kids and the staff, and it's going great.

Okay, we're excited about that. Um, the second person— I haven't talked to you about this either, but I was gonna put Jeff on that youth council. So it'd be you and Jen, Hillary. Plan Commission, it was Dave Spencer, it's still Dave Spencer. That's a really time-intensive job, so give it to Dave.

Thanks.

And then Public Works Advisory Commission, that was Tom, that's still Tom. He does a great job with that.

Chris does a great job and his members do a great job.

Yeah. They're phenomenal.

Please pass that on.

And then Dave Spencer on the REC Advisory Commission. Have changed him. No, I'm not going to change them or he will have a breakdown.

Let's see.

Try it.

Don't panic.

I'm not going to change them. I just looked at him like, you kidding me?

Ready for the hip shot, right?

Okay, then we've got Sleepy Ridge Committee. Okay, that's interesting. I did this late. I've got Jeff Lampson on the Sleepy Bridge Committee. I've moved Dave Spencer to take that position.

Okay.

And that's just an assignment, that's not a commission. And then another assignment, our station area plan, um, that's involved with the MAG offices, and Lenee's been doing that.

She'll keep going.

I think I'm done with that. When are we done in January?

Gary, when are we done with the stationary plant? As far as—

I mean, the next year, look forward to that rolling off next year is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, it's almost ready to go to council, right? Yeah, we, we've just got a little bit of fine-tuning. It has to be done by the end of this year.

By the end of 2025.

Yeah, so we're almost done.

We got Transportation Advisory Commission. That is Jeff Lampson. It's still Jeff Lampson. Um, we've got UCC board member. That was Lenee Miller, and I moved that to Dave Spencer. I haven't told you about that either.

You're a little busier, Dave. I'm always busy.

And then we've got the ULCT, the CHA assignment.

That's—

yeah, that's Lenee. It's still Lenee.

And then it's also Tom.

It's still Tom. And then we've got ULCT legislative policy committee.

Committee, uh, that was Chris and it's still Chris.

And that's a busy one too. We're going to be getting in the thick of that again.

We've already had some meetings.

We've got the Utah County COG, that's me. Um, we've got the Utah Lake Commission, and that's, uh, been Linné, it's still Linné.

So it changed Teresa, it's actually called Utah Lake Authority now.

Oh yeah, staying the same.

Yeah, that's—

yeah, perfect.

Thank you. What's that?

That's not appointed by the city. We get invited to do that by the powers that be. Yeah, the state, or is it— yeah, it was US— both the state and the governor approved my Sitting on that. So I got some letter from the governor asking me to do it. So we can put people on them, but they're not official until the governor invites them to do it.

So which one is that?

Is that— I think— is that the Utah League of CHAW? Maybe the CHAW is different from the— and Steve's not here to ask— the Governor's Commission on Housing.

Yeah, the CHAW, or it's a subcommittee of the thing that you're on. Okay, so there's one on water, there's one on housing.

Gotcha, gotcha. So you're on parking. I'm on something in addition to this.

Right.

Okay. But, Bill and A, you often come to it, right? Or you participate in that?

Well, because that's the housing one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that.

So you're— there's housing, parking, water.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you're on this one. I don't know, do you go to all of those or just the—

No, just the one on— probably more on basic So Tom, should that—

the one that you're on from the state?

You don't need to list it on this.

Okay.

I'll still continue to do that.

So maybe Steve is the one who's on a CHAW.

Tom's not.

I don't know that yours is called a CHAW.

I think I'm on that committee as well. I go to all the meetings they invite me to. I don't know what they're all called. Yes. I know that Steve is on. ULCT, Cameron Deal was the one who came to Steve Burke and asked for it. Okay.

Yes.

And so Steve isn't officially on it, but he'll text— he'll text Lynnae and I, hey guys, please sound intelligent this time. And Lynnae always does. I try.

Well, and I loved it. They were talking about maybe if we take away the requirement for garages, that will create more affordable housing. And Steve's texting us and says, We have no requirement for garage. The builders just build them because it's in demand.

Yeah, so we can quickly agree and say, see, we said yes.

Yeah.

Anyway, sorry. Sorry, Mayor.

You're fine. So the only benefit to putting your state assignment on here, uh, because is the state calling you because you're a city council member?

Yes, but they don't— they call— there's like 3 members of the of all the League of Cities and Towns. They have— there's Mayor Silberstein or something like that. So there's 3 of us who are on— who are city people who are on this commission. And Orem hasn't had a representative on that for years and years and years. So, and again, there's only 3 and there's how many, 50, 60 cities or something?

Yeah.

When I get bumped off, it isn't likely they would replace me with an Orem guy. They would select a Spanish Fork or some other city to have that exposure. I just—

would it make sense though to put that job on here?

Because, well, it's more whites' honors and privileges. Well, it just— it just—

I'm always trying to balance everything out.

And so if this is something you're doing, I'm doing either We can put it on there if you'd like.

I think we should add it on.

But you and I serve on other civic and community things that aren't on our list. What are you calling it?

ULCT?

Bigwig.

Governor's Commission. I don't know what it's exactly called. I'll find it. Text me and I'll get you the exact title, or email me if you would.

Okay.

Let's see.

Utopia.

Okay, Utopia. Okay, and in an effort to balance these things out, so Jeff has been Utopia. I'm moving Tom to Utopia.

Okay.

I'm thrilled.

I was lobbying for The reason I put you is because you've been around since the beginning. You have the best idea of how it all works.

There's a feature coming. I think that's coming also. Experience. You go back to utopia because most of the meetings can you join in Zoom? Yes. Okay. You just have to go to Salt Lake all the time. Yeah, which is why you were originally on it because you were because I worked there.

Yeah.

Okay, we've got the Utah Valley Chamber Board of Governors, that's me. Utah Valley Chamber Public Policy Committee, that's me.

It's, it's a small thing, but I think, Brandon, you officially report— you officially assign Utopia and the other one, what's it called? But so you have to officially assign me Utopia because it comes from the CEO of the city, not from the mayor. So if you're saying yes, Mayor, I'm happy to do it, but I want to make sure that the CEO of the city has assigned it. So if you're assigning it, Brent, and Mayor, if you're willing, I'm happy to do it. I just want to make sure we've dotted both i's.

Yeah, I was trying to get everything.

Yeah, so okay, thank you. I'll take the assignment from both.

Thank you. Okay, we've got the UVU Business Resource Center. That's got my name on it.

What is that?

So, that's another thing. So, and you guys might know about this too, but what, 12, 13, 14 years ago or something, Warren was involved in giving UVU this Business Resource Center.

Yeah.

And it's kind of just not been doing a whole lot the last several years.

Is that the one down at UVU? Yeah, I think it's—

Have you met the guy?

I think Kathy's getting more—

Yeah, so we've been having— I know who you're talking about. Anyway, so about a year and a half ago, we started talking with them about revitalizing that and having it do something meaningful. And so that translates into— we've got Kathy, we have Ryan, Steve Anderson down there, and trying to put together a plan to how we get that revitalized and how we get it to do what it should be doing.

You know, Steve Anderson is going to be kind of off the grid for 2 months because he goes up to He's in the legislature all the time, starting next— a week from Tuesday, whatever. He'll be gone for 45 days. But that's a big concern of his and Val Peterson's.

Okay, so that's what we're trying to work with them to figure out.

If I can help with my UVU hat on, let me know to try to get information or whatever.

Okay, we might do that because it's got my name on it right now. I was kind of spearheading. It's funny, I got some Some phone calls from some people who were all concerned about it, and so I started digging into it. That's how we figured out it's making a ton of progress, but we might tap you on that too because— what, 13 things?

I'd be happy to be an advisor to you on that if that helps. Mayor, if I could add, basically it's supposed to have a board of directors guiding it, and that hasn't been in place for a number of years, so we're getting that going again. so that the board can direct the— With community members? With community members? We can add community members if you'd like. We have 3 seats we have to fill from New Arm's side, so we're proposing Kathy Lewis, and then the other 2 would come from your recommendations. So it can be 2 council members, or the mayor and council member, or whomever you'd like. Hopefully someone that's business savvy and has a vision. I don't mind. I don't mind. Because I hear all the business, Kathy loses business.

Your business lunches and stuff. Okay, well, we can talk about that because that is a work in process right now.

Yeah.

So, but yeah, if you're interested, Dave, Tom.

Because we've got the great facility up at Canyon Park for incubator businesses. So if you can kind of, you know, to help build Orem and Orem's businesses. You know, it's our business resource center. Is it beginning businesses in Orem? Is it growing? To me, that's kind of what we should be using it for.

It is.

It actually has a business incubator in it. I think there's 10 or 15 businesses right now. They also have the Small Business Development Center and they have other agencies as well. But it's kind of tired. We're looking at going after We're looking for an AER grant or an earmark to revitalize it and remodel it in conjunction with UVU. So that's in progress right now. We're meeting next week with our lobbyist, and Vern may talk about it.

I mean, that gentleman who is doing DreamWalk at the mall, he was at the Kathy's Slime Store. Yeah, he would be great for something like that.

Yeah, I wouldn't tell you what it means.

So we're, we're welcome to—

we need He would be really good for that work. Yeah, John Pope would be fantastic. He was in Salem though, just so you're aware. But his business is in Worcester.

He was preaching in Oregon that whole one time.

He was.

He loved Oregon.

Yeah, so anyway, yeah, so anyway, that's— but that is something that's in play, uh, that we're gonna want to make it, uh, Over there.

Are we holding off on assigning that right now?

Well, you can stick my name on it for now, but yeah, we'll hold off. I want to have some more conversations as far as how this all winds up, but I'm open to— I mean, my goal as far as council would be, uh, council members with business experience that might be interested in being involved in doing And do you want me on the audit committee again next year, Mayor? Yeah, so we don't—

maybe I could just know ahead of time. I mean, you called me the day of, but just maybe put that on that list so I get on it.

That would be good. Can you add that? No, this is for the city.

We're using the city's audit. So the mayor and I spent a couple hours before it came to the city council Yeah, they normally rotate that up through the years, but that's fine. Yeah, Thomas. Okay, UVU Community Outreach. You must scroll down a little bit. Oh.

Yeah, UVU Community Outreach 1 is me, and then UVU Community Outreach 2 is Jeff. And we've been working more and more on building those relationships. And you're on that side?

I didn't hear you, but yes, of course I did. What did I say? UVU Community Outreach.

Outreach.

So, Jeff and I are on that board. We appreciate your input.

Oh, thank you.

Unpaid advisor.

Yes.

Happy to do that. And as a side note, my term on the Tippinogos Hospital Board has expired. It's 3 3-year terms, and I've been on it 9 years. So, I used to be on the Tippinogos Hospital Board, but not vis-à-vis my city hat, just community hat.

Okay. Okay.

All right.

And then there's that America's 250 Committee.

What is that?

Oh, I want to be on that! That's our 250th anniversary for our country. They're doing celebrations all over the place, right, Pete?

That's right. Yeah, so it's from— it's a federal thing that's come down to the state, and then the state wants the cities to do different things. And one of the first things we have to do to participate is form a committee, and it has to have at least one city council person on it. Okay, so will it be leisure or work? I'm trying to see if you qualify. The man next to you, who is leisure? Drinking drinks by the poolside?

I just am excited about that event. If you want to put someone else on there, I just— that's really—

I—

okay guys, Freedom Train in 1976. Okay, I did that. I mean, I remember the 200th anniversary, so that's why This is so exciting.

Put Lynne Ann. She's excited.

She's excited.

Go for it.

Do you guys remember— anybody else remember the Freedom Train for the bicentennial?

Okay, so put Lynne Ann on that. Is there anyone else who wants to be on that?

I'll be on it. You want to be on it? I'll let Lynne Ann take the lead though. So is that different than other events, one-time, different than the other city events like Christmas?

So do you want to— is Jenna on the phone call?

She's not. Um, well, she wants to be on the change.

Yeah, if somebody's asked her if she's interested in that.

I think she probably didn't.

Did Jen know about it too?

I thought so. Jack, if we brought it up— Have you had any conversations with Jen? I know it came to us through a library event as well already, and so Jen might have, with her work on the events initiative, that might have already come that way.

And I'd like it. Yes, I do, Jen.

No, we can have 2. Can we have 2?

You seem very excited. So when you put your other— she's excited about her today.

She knows the drill.

Okay, so I might have a Polaroid from the bicentennial celebration.

Okay, so we'll put Lynette and we'll put Jen, and then we'll have— we'll ask Jen if that's something she'd like to say.

So, Mayor, on the committees that we don't have, like say the senior commission, or it's not— I think that they're still going to meet.

So do I—

can I still participate with them?

So yeah, so it'll just be an unofficial group meeting.

So yes, absolutely, anybody can go. Yeah, because I mean, Gina talked to me and I just let me know I'll be there. Yeah, and like likewise, the heritage Our Veterans is kind of in that same boat. So will we continue to meet, or will they be lumped in with another commission as part of an Events Commission? Yep, pending Tuesday's council meeting, we have an appointment to the Events Commission that would sort of represent the interests of the Heritage Commission. And so if there are opportunities for subcommittee or something like that, I think that would be— Under the events then? Under events, that would be a possibility. But I don't— well, for you, I don't think there would be any additional required city meetings.

No, so Bryce did let the— one of you guys talked to him.

Rodney wanted to go forward with the events commission, so he's an official member of that committee.

Pending Tuesday.

Pending Tuesday.

Yes, he'll be voting on Tuesday.

Okay, so on the second page it sorts it.

So those are the 4 that Chris has, um, those are Dave's, then all of Mayor's, and then Jeff's and Jen's and Dave's and Tom's.

Okay, Tom.

Well, we're going to create a couple more that are just pretend and make it look like I'm doing something.

So there you go. Can you add a column pretend and become? Yeah.

Regular swear words.

Regular swear words.

Yeah, there you go. Put Brent on there because he's Board of Adjustment, right? Aren't you? Should we have city manager positions on there too?

Well, I— I'm the one that The guy that appoints him recommends someone to be on the council.

Oh, okay, okay. I'm just wondering, there's so much you do, you know, and I think it's, you know, if we're— if this is for the community to know, I think they need to meet Brent. They need to understand the great things he does too.

I think the intent of this is an internal document for the council.

Oh, okay.

They know what their assignments are. But I mean, that's a great idea of putting all the outreach that the brand leaders and staff have.

Carrie, do we have a summary of all the boards and commissions that have been dissolved or absorbed?

We did when we met and discussed it in the work session.

How many was that, like 10? There's 5.

That's why I'm saying 5, right?

That'd be a wise idea.

To yours?

Yeah, you take a picture. You're going to send this out though, right?

Um, I can share it with you.

Fine.

And I texted Brent on one of them. If we knew who the city person was we work with, maybe put that on that. That would be helpful. We'll put some staff names next to it.

I don't need to be on the 250 Commission. It makes sense that it goes with Jen with the Events Commission. I'll just reach out and, I mean, you know, I bring your full name. I would love to just know what's going on.

Well, then we have 2. I mean, that's fine. I mean, you can put your name on it. Why not just keep her on? Because we should fix that too.

Yeah.

And Brad, there's been a couple, at least one commission that's going to change. To work with another department altogether. Do we have a summary or want to mention that?

Sure.

I think we had it in our presentation, but the Natural Resources Stewardship Committee, the staff support is going to come out of Title Pay or Public Works because a lot of the efforts, if not all of the efforts we do that are environmentally friendly or environmentally conscious and conservation-minded are under our public works committee. Water and sewer and stormwater and energy use and open space. And those committees that have— or the commissions that have been put in different areas, have we notified those citizens that it's either no longer or What have we done there? Because like beautification, where does that go? It's in the works. And there's still— it's in the works, but it's— beautification is going to be under something, right? That's under a neighborhood commission. So those people are just gonna not have anything to do, or are they gonna come over?

They can be a subcommittee under the neighborhood commission.

Yeah, that was awkward. I mean, I'm saying we need to let them know. because they put in and they—

So right now, in my opinion, that commission is dissolved. And however, but we do— that is an important part of the neighborhood commission that as we are forming this neighborhood commission, there's some of these, you know, the bike forum, we talk about them all the time in that meeting and having them come to our neighborhood parties. And the beautification, I think we're going to find that we'll have a number of sub-commissions. committees when we get it. I hesitate to say let's just pull them out.

No, no, I just need to make sure that we let them know, hey, we're in transition, we will call on you or something. Because like, just Bob who wanted to be the community garden, right, that was his thing. Do we have that somewhere in the neighborhood? He wants to push it.

And so that's good to know because like we have talked about community gardens.

Because that's how I got him on the beautification. I said, community gardens is up your alley, do it. And he put it in.

Yeah, so I think, I think if we should, as we— let's look at those different things that they've done. I'd love to chat with them and have these, because, you know, maybe he— it sounds like he's not necessarily beautification awards.

He's community garden. Yeah, he was.

Which we want to have emphasis in these different areas.

Right.

Yeah, that's a pretty— but I hate— I guess I just am trying to say, um, let's make sure that they understand that we're— this is in transition right now.

And maybe they're still just aware of holding on.

And we want to pull them in, but we need to figure out how we're going to do that with our— getting feedback from our neighborhood, um, members, our neighborhood chairs. I'm just thinking off the cuff right now. I was wondering if it it would be a good idea if we bring— invite those, those previous commission members to come to the next neighborhood commission meeting and discuss how that kind of— what they do and how we could fold that in. Yeah, so does that make sense, Dave? Is that okay?

Yeah, I just want to make sure that they're not just left out in the cold. Yeah, and then we're transitioning. It's like we could use Bob and we could use Kirsten and all of them. It just depends on what they're—

And I would love to hear what, because we don't know what they've done necessarily. That's a great idea.

And maybe somebody can, they can maybe, maybe they meet and they say, what are your, what do you like to do, or what do you— but I know Bob is community garden. That's all, that's how I got him. Well, and they, they will still have opportunities to volunteer and serve, right? Or there may be Even for commissions, Bob may end up being a good candidate in the future for Natural Resources.

Yeah.

And maybe it's an appreciation, like, if these— the seniors really is going away, maybe it's an appreciation. We get all the 5 things we dissolved and give them a lunch or something. And then we can talk about how we're transitioning.

I don't know.

Yeah. Okay. I think we're good with boards and commissions. Okay, so yeah, I'll work on putting the names in then.

Okay. And like I said, if any, any council members have any concerns or want anything different, or just let me know, we can talk about it.

Do you want to put like when, when they meet, or no, just put the contact?

Well, each of the boards will get— I will contact them and let them know who their new ones are, that they'll reach out to you. A lot of them have already started asking, and I'm like, well, we'll know after the retreat. So I'll reach out to the staff, or they're actually— they're clerical, and then they'll reach out to you. Um, I know some of them were kind of maybe waiting on setting dates so they knew who was on their commission so they could accommodate schedules.

All right, let's—

we're behind schedule. Let's go ahead and take a break. Let's take just a fast break, 5-minute break, 10-minute break.

We do have snacks for the next break.

There's nuts and— All right, everybody, welcome back. We're going to go with that.

So, next up on the agenda, we've got a presentation of department 2025 goals and major projects. Actually, that's not true. We've got refined 2025 areas of focus, and we're going to do that relatively quickly. This is our areas of focus that we set last year, and what I'd like from the council and any other input from anyone is just if there's—we kind of have these; they worked great last year. There's not a reason to really make huge changes unless someone thinks we should make huge changes, and it can even be. So I'm going to have Brent just go through these, and then you guys give feedback.

This is—

or you like this, carrying this forward for another year, or you have some changes you'd like to make.

So, Brent. And maybe even just taking back a few more years, we did some research on what, what are the kind of major topics or subjects that cities tend to do goals or envisioning around. And so we came up with a handful of those. And then over the years, there's just kind of been little tweaks or points of emphasis that you've made. And so this review can go as quickly or not as you want. The idea being that, you know, we start off here with bigger vision or a bigger strategy, and then we get down to more specific goals, tasks, or tactics. So right at the top there is just aligning the interests of the City Council, city employees, and the community. And then later on as we go forward here, we'll talk— we can put in again new goals or tasks or projects.

So I would like— what is our Oh, I've just forgotten the name, the website that people can—

Transparency? OrmConnect.

OrmConnect, is that what it's called? Yeah, so what I would like to see is a couple of things with that. I would like to— so, you know, we've done those other things. To me, we need new goals in this area. So to me, it would be, you know, really lean in on the OrmConnect and Lindy, I'm happy that you even know what that is. Oh, it's awesome.

I know, we just launched it last week. So if we—

no, let's just lean in on it and get it out there. And here's the other thing, and this is—

oh yeah, I need Pete.

So my second thing kind of involves Pete, and I don't know what to do about this one, but I would like to see— we've made some great strides on our website, but I'm still hearing, you know, I can't find something. And I don't know what the solution is to that, how to make things more easily searchable on our website. So that would be a goal that I would like to kind of— because to me that aligns the interests. Just, you know, if you can find the— that does our transparency, our, you know, all of those informational things. I don't know, that's, to me, that's a big goal.

Do you know the kind of things people are looking for?

How to call NIT, you know, occupancy. They don't know what NIT is. They don't know what to search. It's kind of like they don't know what to search for. What we'd really like to What we'd like to do is combine those 2, and I don't want to speak for UP, but we'd really like to push people to the Citizen Connect.

Okay.

You know, rather than calling them, they'll get a—

it'll go into the ticketing system.

So if they just need education— That way they don't have to go search the website as much. They can go into Citizen Connect, put their MIT concerns, and it would get into the official ticketing system.

And to build on that, we have an awesome texting program. Where if they have questions of any nature, they can just text us at the main city number and it gets to the right person. We send up links, we can help maybe do some of the work. But I mean, I agree, you know, anything we can do to improve the website cuts down on a call or text or—

One of the concerns that we are doing on the security privacy side of things is that we don't want to put phone numbers and people's contact information because they'll use that to weaponize Yes. In security attacks. So I can agree with that on that. Yeah, so I don't know. That's kind of—

The key is marketing and education relating to Citizen Connect and citizen, like, direct communication. And so let's make a note of that. And so, and Lynnae, we're going to come back to the goals underneath the areas of focus here in a little bit. So, but does that goal— does that make you want to change what is bolded and underlined there?

Align the interests of that one? No, that's the perfect— I guess I'm putting that underneath there.

I'm like, it's a sub-goal. So we're just doing the heading.

Because I feel like those were our little mini goals for last year, and so now we've done those.

Now let's kind of target something, and we're going to get to Before we get to that, the subgoals here in a bit, I just want to make sure— I want to make sure that you guys are still in support of, or if you want to change. Yes, the part that's bolded and underlined.

Thank you.

Everybody likes the alignment?

I like that one.

Okay, next, safe, livable, connected, and engaged neighborhoods. Okay. Thriving and balanced business environment. I think keep it going. Kathy's done a great job.

Dependable infrastructure.

Yeah, this would have been neat to finish the road on 950 North. You hear that, Chris?

I heard about it.

He's not laughing. He's nice.

I've heard about this.

It's not—

it's all run out of water in the fire hydrant. Okay. Yeah, that's all.

It's happened.

No, I think that the overall basis, I think it's, it's spot on. Is there anything we've been missing though in terms of the areas of focus? Here's a couple more. Oh, there's a couple more. Okay. Community focus and effective government. Yeah, they like that. That's awesome. And I think skilled and talented workforce is a big thing. I mean, we're becoming a destination. If you look at the police and the fire and public works, I mean, everyone wants to work in Oregon, right?

And the other departments too, Dave.

Right?

We're a destination for finance.

We can remove the third one though, right?

What's that?

We can remove that third one though, right? Oh, we're not getting to those yet. Yeah, we'll go— Just the bulletin and the guide. We'll jump ahead.

That's what I did this morning. I'm just excited to do this.

Okay, so again, glad to— want to make sure that we're all on the same page with broader vision. There's a focus. Now we want to go in and at least suggest, propose, recommend kind of major projects and goals that we've identified by department. And then from that, that'll give you kind of context to then bring it back for citywide goals so that you can express, are there things that— are there issues that you've recognized in interacting with the city, or that you've heard from constituents or spouses, or that you've seen other cities These are government agencies too. So that'll be kind of our process moving forward. Okay. Um, so Teresa, if you'll pull off the 2024, there are titles used to put things in.

There you go.

Now we'll adjust it. What?

Oh, right there.

So I made a copy so we can Like, you know, mess around with this. Perfect.

Thank you.

Thanks, Theresa.

Oh, I'll make a thing again.

Yeah, thank you. So if we can go to— I just turned 45, so my eye muscles are— that's what they get.

Welcome to the club.

Is that a— see if that goes on. No, it does do health. Okay, so from here, Theresa, if you could pull up the presentation on departmental goals.

Did you send it to me?

No, I can do it. It's in the handbook. Oh, never mind. Sorry. Keith, if you'll hold that.

Oh, that was the wrong one. Sorry, Jim.

Is she on?

Yeah.

Excuse me, this one, right? Okay.

You need sound?

Uh, no, no videos on this.

Thanks, Pete.

So, you know, we call it a retreat, but really the title here is a nod that really, you know, pushing things forward and moving, moving onwards. So To start off with, I think you already know a big item for me is just to see the Gold Star Family Monument continue through and continue to ramp up the communications on that. And I showed you some messaging that we want to do direct out to businesses and citizen groups. Next one on there is part of downtown That's a fun project, and this is a big project that will be part of our new community development departments. And Gary will— can give additional details on that. But we have everything ready to go to now actually engage in the study. We've got the consultant figured out, we've got different opinion leaders figured out. So this group We'll actually start meeting, but also we'll want to keep involving all of you on the council in the process. So there will be direct interactions with consultants where they'll be reaching out to you, each of you as well. Obviously, we've got a lot of big capital projects that will be completed during this next fiscal year. We want to continue to keep those on time and under budget. We started to talk about this next item of strengthening city revenues, and of course taxes is a part of that, but we want to continue to put emphasis on grant writing and also on contractual agreements where there's a Where there's a financial component to it. And then finally, improving our state lobbying efforts. That's a— that just takes a lot of time, a lot of communication and building relationships. But hoping that that will continue to yield results in terms of financial benefits and policy Those are the main items on my— So, Brent, I think that on the improve the state lobbying, I think, you know, we've had meetings with our legislature, and maybe we should do that since the legislative session starts again, and maybe we should have done something maybe in November or December, I don't know, as a Zoom call or something to say these are our concerns. moving forward, because we have a lot of representatives and like, you know, like Val Peterson or whatever, we don't— we really haven't met with. I mean, Nelson Abbott and Kevin Stratton. And I think we just need to have that maybe. And maybe it's after the session, I don't know, or during the session. I don't know. I know it gets busy, but I think they need to hear from us, you know. Um, Totally happy to try to set those up. When I have tried to set up a group one, it's been really difficult. That being said, they always respond with they would love to have essentially one-on-one interactions or call or text or email. So I have been meeting with with different state reps on an individual basis because that's Because I can just let them decide when it works for them. But I will— I did write to them, and I promise to do it when I can and try to see if we can get more of those opportunities to meet them with our— I mean, it looked like Kevin was the— Because I met with Nelson Abbott just a few weeks ago, and he mentioned Steve White from Spanish Fork or something?

Yeah.

His bills are pro-high density. He goes, you need to give us heads up on, you know, go look at the bills that he's presenting because they are all high density. We need to be able to, you know, voice our opinion and say, hey, we don't want this. But yeah, I guess he's the main guy that's just bringing it. I heard on his He's on the radio bringing up something else, and we're thinking, oh my gosh, the dude's clueless. So, you know, it doesn't fit for Warren, but it might fit for Cox and Fairview, but it doesn't fit Warren, right? So I don't know. So we need to watch him.

The key to that, possibly, as I'm— as I've been to some of these meetings, when we had that joint meeting with Waldrip, Steve Waldrip, with his other municipalities, Ryan, you guys put together a great presentation of where is Orem, you know, where are we on housing. And I, I believe if we can— well, if we can't do group things, but if we can get some one-on-one communications out there, and not just the ones in Orem, but it sounds like Spanish Fork and other areas—

Yeah.

To help. I mean, the League does a lot for us, right? But, um, I think our individual outreach with data will strengthen our position. So we do get those carve-outs, so we don't have this blanket.

So could we set up maybe a one-on-one, meaning the council and one representative or something?

No?

Sure. I mean, that would be powerful.

I'm just like, what— I, I think they're so busy. Maybe if we can just get the data to them and then follow up with phone calls. as council members or a meeting like you're talking about is they can—

And Chris, you're up there, right? So maybe we say, hey, can you check this bill out or whatever? I don't know. Because who's, who's checking the bills? Because I know Jesse was up last year, gave us some updates on bills. So I'm assuming that's going to be— who is Steve? Steve's going to be—

Okay.

And Chris. So we just need to watch the bills from that dude, that guy. And just see whether or not—

because hopefully the USCT is identifying those bills.

Yeah, we talk about them when they're new and their thoughts, but I mean, you tell me City Council represents a lot of cities, right? So hopefully they are worth speaking will to them. So a couple of things. So Renee is exactly right. The reason why we created that brochure was to provide a way for you and us to share with our state legislators and then follow up. And then the other thing that we have tried to do is we asked ULC to make their surveys and polls more available to all city councils.

Yeah.

And so you've noticed that they've been doing that in their Friday Facts, or, you know, and forwarded one or two emails in the past saying, hey, USC Keys asking for additional feedback. And in that way, we make sure that we're— that our voice is heard. And we have seen some of the narrative change through our efforts. I think I've shared with some of you a KSL article where Steve Waldrop was talking, and he He changed the narrative in his quote even on the news of rather than thinking about and trying to define regional housing, instead focus on regional infrastructure.

Yeah.

Which is really—

And that's you. Who did that? You pointed that out to them, you know? So I think, again, we're making progress, Well, and can I just say one thing that's helped? And Tom, I don't know if you were on that Zoom call or not where a representative— I think his name was Ward— for one of our CHAWs, he came on and he's like, here's this bill that I want to put forth. And it had blanket increased density, blanket external ADUs, you know, all state-forced on us. And everybody on there from, you know, Ogden down to Santaquin, we're like, you can't do that, you can't do that, you know. And just having him listen to our different situations, he backed off a lot of what he was doing. And it was a very positive— I don't know if you were on that one or not.

I can't remember. I thought it sounds familiar.

It's a very positive conversation. But once again, I'm going to come back to this data-driven. And I think that report that Ryan put together, if we can all get that as a council and learn that ourselves, so then when we're with these people, we can— and even with our communities, we can say, this is Orem, this is where we are, we're doing our part, you know, that's why we're saying what we're saying. Look, you know, we're not just being the NIMBYs, you know, the rude name they give people who they don't like. You know, we are here and we are contributing.

Thank you.

So anyway, I really like that report that you put together.

Yeah, thank you, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

Gary and Matt Taylor were involved in that and Brian as well, so it was a group effort.

Awesome.

And Brian gave us some good editorial oversight on it and direction as well.

Well, and even seeing to me, interestingly enough, in that meeting to see what Saratoga had brought forth—

was it—

and was Santaquin the other one? Who was there at that?

Yeah, Saratoga was there and Santaquin.

And to see some of the things they brought forth in their arguments, yeah, I have bolstered.

Yeah.

Another thing on improved state lobbying efforts is I mean what I'd like to see on that because I talk to different legislators all the time, right? Just as in the course of what we're doing, and so if we If we could have something we can control, if we could have a priority list of these are the top 5 things, or if there aren't 5, these are the top 2 things, so we always know as a city council these are the issues of legislature that they're trying to push through, these are the ones that affect us, and so we should be reaching out to these people. Because, I mean, for us just to meet with our state legislators, that's great, but I think we need specific specific things that were always in our focus, right? So, I mean, when I'm talking to different people, I can always talk about those. So I think that'd be—

Yeah, like Dave's saying too, Dave Spencer, you know, if you happen to talk to him, let us know.

Yeah.

Hit him up on that.

So if we all know what that is, and we just have a higher level of awareness, or even once we've got that list and we're on it, we can call a meeting with 5 legislators and do a recall. vision.

So whenever the legislature or anybody hears, we're always on point with those. So we all have one, one voice.

Exactly.

So it's not just a conversation about whatever, it's a focused conversation.

Well, and to that point, Chris, as I've been in the stationary plan meetings, there are— I think we as a city need to reach out to other cities and bring our own South County input. Because I know, you know, Payson, they have an opinion about Envision Utah and their stuff they're pushing down our city's throats. You know, these non-government organizations, you know, these guys, they need to understand that we're the elected officials. Please talk to us and help us work with us. So I would actually like to see some partnerships not only with our representatives but also with the cities around us too.

Especially legacy cities that have a similar situation as us as far as growth.

Right. I mean, that's what we should be—

I mean, 3 years ago we go to ULCT and we start talking about owner-occupied housing and they're laughing me out the door, right? They're like, yeah, sorry, never happened, never happened. What's the narrative now? We're talking about the importance of owner-occupied housing and not just throwing housing out there.

And we've got our— that presentation that you guys put together, which is— I mean, that's great. That's really valuable. But then just the simple— I think the reason it's swinging more is try and go anywhere on the freeway between 4 and 7. Plan something up in Salt Lake that you're going to go to between 4 and 7. Good luck. driving on working roads right now.

So this conversation about the cram down of more high density is kind of hitting the wall. Well, I think Governor Cox just came out. His first statement was, you know, we want to make it easier for density to be built and they don't have to go through all the different steps. I'm like, that's garbage. We need to bring it back.

Right.

You got to put the infrastructure in.

You know, they can put it down in Fairview where he lives.

Springs, that big mountain. That was one of their things is, here you're telling us we need to build all this density. We have planned— and Crystal will appreciate this, you know— we have our public works, we have our water sewer planned out based on our master plan, and now you're telling us we need to outzone our master plan. We've got a 20 or 15, 20— I can't remember how far out— plan for their water center plan. Is that 10?

Yeah.

And he's like, so you're gonna upset that apple cart by just plopping down housing everywhere. So let's work together. Let's be smart and future-looking, you know.

I love it.

Uh, a representative from ULCT is going to be presenting remotely at the council meeting on Tuesday, right? So they'll share at least some of the legislative priorities that they're hearing and talking about. Um, but You know, just in listening to you and thinking about it, you know, I could quickly come up with 5 priorities that I think I kind of heard from our perspective and/or that we've been kind of talking about over the last few months.

Sure.

So like short-term rentals, uh, we have— we've been doing a lot of work on West Union Canal Trail, and that's something that we've actually worked with Representative Nelson on. We'd like to look at the Lakeview corridor, pursuing a jurisdictional transfer and make that a state-owned facility. All the work we've done now with growth management and giving a bonus perspective. And then we talked about a little bit yesterday, and you've heard us talk about in the past, this transportation utility fee and making sure we're getting the framework and/or limits from the state in regards to that. So I will— we can end up putting that on, on like our goals, for example, but please know I'm open to shifting those priorities in terms of what talking points to get to you and what we want to pursue as we meet with ULCT and stakeholders. And I think that conversation will continue to evolve after we have ULCT present on Tuesday. Does that sound good?

Yeah, that sounds good.

Yeah.

And I really like what Chris said as far as what you guys are doing, the 3 of you, is getting these bills on our radar when they're in the thought stage, right, when we can still make a difference.

And we've called even some of the legislators in that mode and told them, are you aware of how that would impact a city like most of them? Oh, I have my view on it.

So it's helpful.

Yeah.

find is most of them, I mean, most of them have a fairly open mind. They're just trying to pass a bill for whatever reason they have. But when you bring it up to them, they're pretty good people.

That's a good time for listening. Eventually they won't listen as much.

Right.

Is anyone going to the legislative day up at the Utah Legal Student Center? That's on the 22nd. Lori?

Yes.

Yeah. Is anyone from the No, that's normally like one-on-one. Yeah, it's— you're going, I'm assuming, but yeah, it's, it's pure networking, and our youth council goes. In fact, I think, I think in the past sometimes we've heard, we've had some, we've heard some representations from some state legislators at that meeting, and then felt like it changed swiftly after that. So it's not the place to have a real meaningful discussion that's going to be recorded. Okay, thank you. Okay, Pete.

Okay.

All right, so for community development, uh, one goal that's not up there is change the name everywhere in our code and everything like that. We need to work on that and name it community development. I think the reason we want to do that is, is to project the idea and help people understand we're here build a whole community, and we're here to build everything. And Development Services, while it's done a fantastic job of doing what it's doing, it's more than just that.

It's about a whole community.

So I think that sends a great message. So that's kind of something that we'll just be working on in the background through this, and you may see massive text Amendment come that's just really a search and replace for development services to be community development, things like that.

And working on our website.

Complete the station area plans. We're just about there. We have to the end of this year. I think we're headed in a really good direction with it, uh, so we'll be doing that. The general plan update— we need to do a general plan update. What we're proposing Yes. The first thing to do is, uh, I know some money has been set aside to hire a consultant and things like that. I don't want to do that. I want to have community development that we will come in and do a first draft of a general plan. We want to strip it down a little bit, make it a much more readable document, attach other information to it as an appendix, but make it something that's concise, readable, and really hits the important things that the council's concerned about, that we get our general plan, uh, in alignment with the council and the community, and, and go along that route. So rather than do that, I think we have the bandwidth We are fully staffed now. Uh, we have, uh, all the planners that we need. I believe we can do this. And so we would propose to be going forward on that, come back with a draft. I don't have the exact how we would go about that, but we would work with the Planning Commission and the council. Uh, you need to take it to Planning Commission. they'll need to make a recommendation to the council. But we want to, you know, come in and make sure we've got, uh, what the community and council needs as far as a general plan document. Any questions about that? It might be a little different than what has traditionally been done, but I feel really good about this approach. Uh, streamline, improve business licensing process. Business licensing is now in community development. We're going through a process right now and looking at how can we make our business licensing in conjunction with economic development as smooth of a process as possible, make it more online, streamlined in their application, in their help. With that, one of the things that we're glad about having business licensing here is one of our new hires, and you've all met Jared. Jared speaks Spanish very well, so we have another Spanish speaker in the office that's right there to be able to help people dealing with their business licenses. Right, Jared?

Yeah.

I opened a business in Orem just last year, and the process of going through it, moving it to community development, I think, is going to be key because at 311 or whoever on the other side, people didn't know what they were doing. And I was frustrated. And when I was on the city council, I'm like, guys, a normal citizen, you know, would be very frustrated. I think this is a good move to move that over, and I think that would help maybe more businesses in Orem. Because once you get frustrated, like, screw this, I'm going to go to another city or whatever. Yeah. One of the problems that are traps that I fall into is I'm kind of an insider, and I know what I mean, and I might use jargon, and I forget there are people who don't know all of that. And so we're trying to cross-train everybody so that they can be able to help with all of these questions. So when you come to our front counter, you know, hopefully you won't be getting, oh, we don't know the answer to that, and the person who does is on vacation for 2 weeks. And that's what happened to me. But so what I did is I went over and they took care of me in Development Services, right? So I knew where to go. Then it was Development Services. Oh, that's right. So I went there and they took care of me. So, but I knew where to go. But I mean, as a citizen, it'd be like— I've been frustrated. I came down here and I'm sitting here for a couple hours and nobody answered because this person's here, this person's here. It was very frustrating. I'm like, that's what we have to fix. I think that's going to be a good thing. Yeah, but hopefully And any feedback that you get working with the community, I need to hear that because I may think something's working well and it's not, and I'm not hearing that feedback.

So that's—

I just want you to know the business license was very expensive in my opinion, but that's okay. The city fees have to pay for that expensive city council salary. Expensive for sure. The City Center project, we have a lot of staff working on that. You know, our building inspectors spend a lot of time dealing with it.

We have a lot of things.

And for me, the part of the City Center project is we're heading up that interdisciplinary group to try and figure out for Summerfest, how to make some things in this—

Orbfest.

Oh, did I say Summerfest? Oh my gosh, we said in St. Lehi Fest.

Yeah, Orbfest, to, you know, make that a safer area.

So we, we want to, uh, by August get all of these types of projects wrapped up. And then a really big one that I know is a big priority for us, for, uh, the council, is the heart of downtown. Now, that project, I have every couple of weeks, uh, I have a Zoom meeting with the consultant that we've selected.

Uh, I've been helping them go through our code and our documents to see what we have on the books.

We are arranging a site visit for the consultant to come out here at the end of February. They're not going to necessarily do a lot of outreach meetings, but I would like them while they're here to be able to meet with council members and, and get some input. And then, and then they need to do a site visit.

They need to do a lot of prep work.

We have a steering committee. Uh, which some of you are on, that we're working through, and they'll come back with a draft of a plan. So this is in the works, it's moving along, and with— Lori's been helping me coordinate some of these things, and so we'll try and coordinate when they're out here to see if we can, uh, have a, have a lunch or or a dinner with some of you and just meet and talk and give them your view of things. We've talked a lot about this area and how the— I've tried to convey as best I can the vision that I think the community has of what this area can be.

We've got the Sierra, we've got it centrally located, located.

And some of the things that we're talking about, the potential in this area, really could be the dynamic kickoff for what can be possible on Center— or Center Street, State Street. And so with that, some of the things I've been stressing with them is it's— it can't be a pie-in-the-sky plan that we take and we put on a shelf and it has pretty pictures and you will win an award somewhere, but it's unrealistic and can't be done. It has to, at the end of the day, be a plan that actually can be executable and have an approach to make something like this work.

And how—

not just a plan, but how do we implement this plan and make sure it's realistic? So if you ever have any questions about Heart of Downtown, Feel free to call me. I'm heading it up. Jared's now on board. He's working closely with me on this too. And so those are our big—

those—

do you have another—

was there another slide? No, that's it. Yeah, that was it. Hey, do you mind going back to— I just wanted to add on this city center really quick, or city hall. Um, there's a lot of work to be done in the next month, and it's not just by the contractors. Our IT team has to build the server system out, our whole IT infrastructure. They're literally moving the brains of our entire network over, and they've got to build that out so they can disconnect the other.

Our building maintenance team is getting all the supplies ready to go on that building.

They're learning all the equipment, getting it documented. Public Works has helped us with relocating utilities.

We have a move We have a moving committee made up of people from across every department that's moving into the building.

There's a lot going on that's taking a lot of staff time, so just be aware there's a lot in the works.

That's right.

If we have delays in time, I'm not calling them delays, they're just when we are able to get things done, we'll be moving in. But that IT infrastructure is critical. They've done a fantastic job. When will the contractor hand the building to us? Hopefully, their schedule right now is showing middle of February. And when do you expect to be operational in it? A month later? In a perfect world, IT will be ready at that time, but I'm counting probably around the 1st of March. IT is in the building right now, but there's a lot they can't do because The subcontractors don't have their part done. So furniture hasn't been moved in? We have furniture going in right now. Okay, so part of the turnover is furniture as well then? Uh, first, so furniture has 4 deliveries this month. The first one happened last week. Brandon's area already has furniture being installed. Some of it is not correct, we're finding out, so we've got to get those fixed.

But, um, Yeah, they've got carpet down, paint down. I mean, 3 of the areas are ready for furniture right now.

To give you an idea of the detail that we have to go through, Byron and I sat down and had a long meeting about how do you clean all the bathrooms we have in this new building, and how do we clean the glass. Do we need new equipment? Do we need another part-time person to be able to handle handle things. And just, just the detail that staff is going to get this project ready is a huge task.

I've had lots of comments on the clock.

Yeah, they like the clock.

That's so fun.

What is that up there? There's numbers. They don't like the color of the building.

They're just concerned the younger generation won't be able to— it's not digital readout.

For those of us who are visually minded, it's perfect.

And just remember, a broken clock is right twice a day. Correct.

It did look about 4 minutes slow, but it's a clock. I loved it.

It was 4 minutes off the other night. Was it?

When I drove up here, it was right on time. Perfect. We got it.

Your time's 4— According to my phone.

What? This year we just decided as more and more things are moving to the cloud, our budgeting software, and we continue to identify with our programmers core software that they develop, that our budgeting software was something that doesn't necessarily need to be part of that core group. And we found an entity we had been using for our capital broad— capital requests and tracking. And that same company then, we— they have a separate budgeting suite. So we contracted with them to buy and bought their software, at least their software. And we will be using that in this upcoming year. Thank you. Besides the advantages of being able to have that on the web from an access standpoint, but also potentially as we develop it already has capabilities to then be able to develop a web page so that that information is instantaneous onto that web page and we can update that with quarterly updates. Potentially monthly, but more than likely quarterly updates, so that if anybody has any questions about that, they can go directly there. And it's interactive, so you can look at all these different— cut and slice it all kinds of different ways. That's down the road a little bit, but obviously we wanted that capability from the start. So we will be doing that this year. That'll be an interesting process. As we all get used to trying to learn something new. Number 2, blah, blah, blah. Number 3. Come on. We will try again. N6D. What is that award, Brandon? So the Government Finance Officers Association has a program by which certain parameters, when you create your annual financial report, that you have to have certain things within that. So GASB, the Government Accounting Standards Board, sets the standards. Those are minimum requirements. And GFOA says, okay, besides those, these things would be very— are very helpful. Very helpful and informational about your report. So if you include those, then they go through and you submit your annual financial report, and they have a whole checklist that they go through to review if all of those elements are in the document. And then they provide an award for $610 to have them review that. And provide feedback. And then they also provide feedback, which that part of it, besides getting the award, which we all, you know, are able to put up there, the feedback part of it is the one that's the most helpful for me, to be honest with you, because they find those things in there that could be improved or done better. And so I appreciate that.

So the awards for going above and beyond, what's required by the normal government standards.

Correct.

And there's very few that have received that award, especially for that length of time. Yeah, not for that length of time. We've been there since almost since the beginning of when they created that program. So kudos to my predecessors who started that. Some of that information we use even in like our citizens budget or even in the numbers report We just did for 2024. So those are some of the extra things that they want you to show. So if you were to look at that, it's referred to as the ACFR. The entire statistics section in the back, none of that is required. That is all government finance officers' requirements as part of this award. As long as there's some other stuff in there as well.

Well done.

37. Here we go. Here it comes. It gets harder and harder. I will extend it. It does get harder and harder to meet the requirements over time. Number 3, uh, court obviously deals at a high level of Spanish items, unfortunately, whichever way you want to look at it. But we continue We're going to try to get, as we do with all departments in the city, trying to get more and more and more things into Spanish capabilities. Number 4, to Dave's point, business licensing move, that will help us enormously improve help center operations. Now, business licensing is not really It wasn't really the— what would you call it? I don't know if compatible is the right word, but it wasn't really something that was something we do, right? Right, a core competency. A core competency, that's the best way to say it, yes. So we continue to try to find ways to make our staff better at what they do. Within a group environment. And so there's some kind of a splitting that's happening where we have our customer service group that handles fingerprints, passports, phone calls, utility regular payment questions, or things like that. But then we also have—

we'll have—

we're having our utility billing group. So if there are things that are more complicated or they need to, you know, pass along, well, let me get you to somebody who is the, you know, really knows the ins and outs of the building. They can then send them to that group and you can get some better answers to your questions in that specific regard. So we're trying to make those kind of improvements, as well as there's little minor things that happen all the time. What about the working on. Then the last theme, talking about cybersecurity. Obviously, with my department being over all of the Treasury and all of the money, we are constantly aware of the things that we have to face and fight off, and constantly trying to make sure that we mitigate any of those risks. Part of that, as you may hear in many of the organizations you might work in, fraud and scams start with your lowest-level employees. If those individuals are trained, you have a significantly better opportunity to be able to thwart those kinds of things from occurring. And so part of what we will be hopefully trying to develop are some trainings so that our employees are aware of what some of these things, you know, common things that they need to be on the lookout for so that they can help us in that regard.

Can I just say, I had a friend who was scammed and they used LinkedIn as she had listed a new occupation, so they got Her email for her job and then did the gift card scam where, you know, the CEO sent her an email to her, you know, work email from a fake email from the company that looked like from the company, asked her to go buy all those gift cards, you know. Well, scratch off the number on the back and tell us so we know who we're giving to what, you know.

She did it?

She did it, yeah.

I did these requests.

Yeah, halfway through she figured out. She was like, wait a minute, what are you— so just, I think, even educating on those common scams for new employees, because she was new, she didn't want to go question the guy. Anyway, hey Tom, if you—

when you get the scams, if you would either forward them to me or there's— Oh, I always fund them because it's from the mayor. And I run them through for an expense. You haven't paid me yet, Fred.

But there is a little fish hook in your Gmail account that you can click on and it forwards it to me.

They're normally a text, but if I get it, I'll send it out.

Is it from the mayor or from Mayor Young?

Yeah, it says— no, from Mayor Young. I used to get it from Mayor Brunson too.

Wow.

I didn't fund his like I do yours.

He just had your email though.

I just said sucker on it. Text scams are becoming Something that's being more and more often now.

Right.

Obviously before, uh, it was, you know, email type, type things, but, uh, we are getting more texts, which, to be honest, what, you know, when the mayor texts my accounts payable clerk, to your point, that should have been— that's a red flag right from the beginning, right? Because like, that shouldn't happen, right?

You shouldn't do that.

Yeah. So anyway, just Any other questions or comments?

When you said, did she do it?

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, we all think, oh, surely someone's going to see that.

Yeah.

Not the first time.

But no, yeah, sometimes you're just in that new job position.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Getting things done. Can you give me her number because I want to say hi to her.

Not anymore.

Forward.

Forward now.

Yeah, just to give you maybe one example. So Eagle Mountain, you guys were all aware of what happened out at Eagle Mountain with an ACH payment? Yes or no?

I don't know.

Okay, so we pay a lot of our accounts payable vendors by ACH. You know, they automatically send them basically a wire transfer. Well, Eagle Mountain had someone, one of They're big contracts. Someone got into an email stream of this dealing with the contractor. And then they submitted— sent an email about changing their bank information.

Oh dear.

And the accounts payable clerk, to your point, someone knew they had an accounts payable clerk who had not been there very long. And they asked them, and they made the change. He sent them over $1 million. She didn't receive it. So, to that point, that happened. That was then we found— we found it. To their credit, they let everybody know what happened so that it wouldn't happen to you, right? That kind of concept. So that was awesome from their point of view. We took that in. Well, and then we spread that throughout at our organization. And strangely enough, about, I don't know, 6 months later, guess what we got? Someone inserted themselves into that stream. And my accounts payable clerk noticed the change in the email. And all because of this idea of learning and sending out information. And then we also had someone in our engineering department who noticed something on a different one. And same thing, because they were aware of that kind of a scam, they were able to question. And this— and it's just a very small— Yeah, like they had an S in the name in the email or something.

Exactly.

So, so it's that kind— those kind of concepts that we're trying to point out to people. Be vigilant in that regard. If it doesn't sound right or doesn't look right, make sure we don't— and don't do anything, you know, we've talked about don't do anything in a rush, right? There's sometimes government gets a bad name for not doing things quickly. Sometimes there's a reason why, right? So anyway, let's just give you one example.

You use that no B, it's called, whatever something—

Know Before.

Know Before.

Yeah, we said that's required. That's a great—

and we put that on Know Before. That's how it got recognized.

And we basically have to verify everything with a voice approval now. Anything we get, any requests for money movement, we have to verify it with a voice. We used to be able to do it by email, but we have to verify it by voice.

And that's what our accounts payable crew Their requirement is to call a known number of that organization, not whatever they received, and then contact those individuals to make sure that that request did come from them.

We get in the finance business, we get hit up all the time.

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Those are our goals here. They've gotten way better than they used to be.

Thanks, Brandon. Did you ever receive money from like the Prince of Sudan or anything? We get those a lot too, yeah.

Any money?

Is that a grant source we could tap into?

Oh yeah.

Those are our grant writers.

Grant writers?

Are they online?

Yeah.

I've got $14 million coming my way. Mark, thank you. Yeah, these are, these are the goals that we've come up with. I mean, obviously complete and open the fire training facility. I mean, there's already pictures that are circulating. We've come out of the ground with steel. Everybody's super excited about it. Anticipate that July, August, doing that big grand opening of Goledia Fire Council. Opportunity because it's like one of a kind in the state, Western Region, so it'll be amazing. And then it's not up here, but the completion of the Vineyard Station is set that same time frame, which will really enhance our services and strengthen that relationship and partnership with Vineyard. Number 2 is really to jump on the next major project for us is the rebuild of Station 1 and then dive into the In this Station 6 study, which we're considering the East Center Street, we're— I mean, we're talking actively on different locations that would best serve that east and then north and south or center section. Have you decided on a place? I know in a confidential meeting we're not moving forward with that. We purchased the property for rebuild of Station 1. Yeah, now they should be 7. I'm talking 6. There is property that we've looked at and they're not interested in selling right now, but they know we're very interested and it may just take some time.

Thank you.

We're also— we've already dove into the insurance component of reducing everybody's homeowner's insurance by reducing our ISO rating for the city Improving our ASO rating, which is just fire insurance rating. It's all over the board from different insurance companies, from tens to $20 to several hundred dollars, and it really is dependent on the insurance company and how many different components play into their makeup. But that's, that's one of our ideas that could help support— if we can get some additional ideas that would help support offsetting of property tax increases. By establishing Station 6, the reduction in someone's homeowner's insurance, shuffle that money, just moving the money to then provide a higher level of service to our community. But Chief, that Station 6 would probably be a smaller station than normal, or? That's kind of— that's been the talk. I mean, there's lots of ideas that we've come up with just internally that we haven't talked to exec staff place, just as we move into City Hall and some of the restrictions we're seeing. So there's some options that we're going to discuss in the coming months. I'm really excited about number 3. We'll be the first fire department that's going to integrate ultrasound to our pre-hospital setting. Scott Ash does ultrasound for the hospital, so he's championed this cost for us. We've purchased the equipment, and the biggest thing behind Yeah. And this is— we can finally see inside the patient's body. And I think back of all of the cardiac arrests that I did over the course of my career where I'm having to determine we're going to cease our efforts here, this person's going to die, and then walking away thinking, hmm, what if? And is there something we missed? Well, now we can actually look at the patient's heart and we can see there is no heart wall movement. So we can assure that that person's dead, and we, from a mental health perspective, we don't have to take that on our own shoulders as making that determination. We'll have some science backing it. It will help us. Also with our trauma patients, internal bleeding is something you can't always see, and so we can fast scan the patient's belly, abdomen, where normally we dump a lot of our blood and get a head start with that, as well as looking at carrying cold blood. We'd be one of the first agencies to ever carry whole blood as part of a resuscitation treatment. So it just goes to show what our critical care team is doing. It's amazing.

Fantastic.

And then we dive right into our fire prevention and this new program that we have already— we're already in the community with several different programs, but this is targeting and focusing preschool children, and they're currently working on all the structure and backbone And then from an emergency management perspective, Heath has taken on the challenge to, once the EOC's— the City Hall's complete, then developing this citywide training for elected officials, key staff members, and just making sure that we're ready as a team when we have that citywide emergency. Something as simple as a major accident that shuts traffic down. downtown or the weather, North Orem, Lyndon, I mean all these type of events that happen regularly, we can actually utilize as practice for who knows what's coming. And so having the facility and then the leadership structure in place, we're going to do some really good things this next year.

Remind me what the EOC is.

Emergency Operations Center.

Emergency Operations Center. Operations Center. Okay, I just want to make sure I'm using the right terms there.

That'll be in the new City Center. That'll be where fire—

That's the one that has the higher seismic rating.

Yeah, and it's on that second floor west side, just above the Council Chambers.

Yeah, having been through the north, uh, the San Francisco earthquake, I'm excited to This year.

They've always, they've always talked about the earthquake. It's just a matter of when. Yeah. So hopefully this will help us be more prepared. We also have a backup EOC at the Public Works building as well.

Oh really?

Yeah.

Okay.

With a generator and power we invented.

Yeah.

I don't know if there's any questions about these projects, but is there? Like every department, there's a page full of all the additional little— Whose Harley got on there? That's what our critical care paramedics want us to purchase so they can start off their own motorcycle.

Side bags.

Moving on.

Jake.

So our first goal is basically to continue providing periodic updates to the mayor, city council about critical legal matters that are coming. That's not just things that are currently happening. We're wanting to be a little bit more proactive, not just always reactive. So as we're seeing emerging trends or we're there's risk, being able to have that line of communication open and start that dialogue early so we can best strategize how to address that. Second is to recruit the next generation of city attorneys. Our office has traditionally had individuals in our office for 20 and 30 years. We now have— I think Steve has been in our office for 27 years, thereabouts. And then I'm the second longest in the city at 15 years. And so we're looking at how do we recruit, how do we train and retain good quality attorneys in our office so we have a continuity of service for the city as we move forward into the following years. Third is to create a digital system for our civil files. About 10 years ago, our entire prosecution team Our office, we went paperless, and we've been operating paper— I'm going to use paperless in quotations, but everything has been on a cloud service within our office for about 10 years on the criminal side, and now we're looking to expand that to the civil side. So we, when we move into the new City Hall, we're not bringing, you know, 15 bookshelves of boxes of papers. We will still bring that many boxes of papers, Are these civil files?

So are these lawsuits that get dealt with in the Justice Court?

They're lawsuits, they're agreements, notes about contract negotiations, prior agreements, so we're not recreating the wheel when we are looking at an agreement. For example, when we engage in a negotiation with CIRA, we have the notes that date back to 1985 when we were discussing that agreement. So we have the contextual history for those agreements. The fourth would be to continue to facilitate quarterly trainings with the city record offices. Theresa has been amazing since she's come in as the city recorder. I've had the wonderful chance of working with her when she started and Both her and I, we've started growing a training process where police records—they have a records office. Fire has a records office, and then each different department have records liaisons. And so we started a quarterly training where we're teaching all of the record liaisons and the record officers what the law is as it pertains to record retention, and then when grammar records, grammar requests come in. How to process those, when there are questions, who to go to, so we make sure that we are protecting the right type of information so confidential information isn't getting out there, but then also providing the public with the right information to those requests. And then the last is to transition prosecution of criminal cases within the Fourth District Court. Now, in August, the Fourth District Court made an announcement for our office where we would be moving from the Spanish 4th District Court into the Provo District Court.

Mm-hmm.

And that has kind of disrupted some of our services, and we're working through that transition to make sure that both the criminal— the Justice Court cases, when they are appealed, that they get appealed and processed smoothly into the new 4th District Court. system, and that we have the proper coverages within the courts to make sure that we are still prosecuting those cases appropriately. Any questions or comments for Jake? Thanks. Let's go right to the slide. All right, so our goals, um, for this upcoming year is to sort of complete our current wave of library remodel projects. Ryan's done a great job of working with Lake Construction to get us a timeline that hopefully corresponds with the completion of the City Center.

Yeah.

Like Gary mentioned, we, we have stuff to do on this block, and so our goal is to get out of the construction for both the City Center Park plus the library plus the City Center all at the same time. And so work there could be beginning in as few as the next 4 to 6 weeks, and we'll be hopefully wrapping up the interiors, you know, maybe prior to summer, and then the exterior projects on the outside. As a reminder, those projects, specifically the internal ones, really focus on a new efficiency model of operation for our back-of-house staff. As we circulate— this year we'll probably circulate about 1.8 million items— this moves those items to a much shorter life of the book in the library. It'll take fewer hands to do the same amount of quality work. We'll be able to get it back on shelves quicker for less staff dollars. And so sort of the one-time capital costs are really going to help us maintain an efficient and lean organization for years to come. There will also be some patron-facing improvements, specifically in the courtyard and hopefully with some more customer service-friendly desks and locations so we're not so spread out throughout the building waiting for people to come to us. In terms of Library Hall offerings and programs, we have seen such an incredible demand and it's a really exciting time. Pete mentioned it yesterday for arts in the community. And so we've talked to and met with the Sarah several times. This works for them. This is something that really benefits the Sarah and then it also allows us to take even better care of our care groups. Again, Pete and the communications team has done a really cool series of interviews with our care groups as they're able to, through the care tax program, use Library Hall once for free each year, provide those performances. Really formalizes how we can not just get the money to the groups so that they can function, but how we can get the groups to our residents. And so the art exists both for those participating in the groups. And then for our residents, you have the chance to come and see more shows. Specifically, I hope some of y'all were able to make at least one of our holiday Christmas concert series that we had basically the entire month. Through the Community and Excellence Partnership, we have— we're able to bring in some really high-end talent, and we have had several very full houses as we complete the lobby— excuse me, the plaza project.

And project I think that's a great segue.

with the City Center this year, I think we'll get even more additional traffic coming through where the Gold Star is, coming in between the 2, you know, new buildings or remodeled buildings and coming to a really neat performance hall. So we've done a lot of prep work this year through some construction and through some weird paths to get back there, but very excited about that. Next is formalizing our community partners program. The library has traditionally had a lot of of different types of agreements with different types of groups, nonprofit groups or service groups. Luckily, Debbie D'Amico?

D'Amico.

D'Amico and the community supervisor position in that team has taken on a lot of that with United Way and My Hometown Initiative, the Society of the Deaf and the Blind. And so we've been able to transition most of those relationships there and we We can function mostly as a venue so that when American Legion needs a place to meet, the relationship is there in the city and we can simply provide the space, the venue for them to come and be and be a little bit more self-sustainable. That has helped us stay much more consistent with our outside groups so it doesn't look like, well, if you ask recreation, they tell you you've got to pay for space, and the library charges you for space, and you go to police training. You know, it's a little bit confusing for our residents. And so And this formalizes that. Number 4 is our interactive art and collections. And interactive or participatory, hopefully we can use interchangeably here. We want people to come and experience at the library. We don't want them to just come and transact, get a book and leave. We want them to come and be here. And so our staff have done some tours to some of the local children's museums, some of our local art houses, and we wanted to learn from them. When you come to come the library, here, what can you do and see, and what do you bring your family to come and do. And so that's been really fun. As y'all know, we brought the Perk, your Perk collection out of its own nonprofit into, on long-term loan, the collection of the library. We moved that from the basement up to the main floor, and it made my heart happy to see the completely empty shelves over Christmas break because everyone had checked out basically everything we had. And so we—

It was way cool.

And then we've been able to transition that to use tables and their volunteer groups to have a number of the elements out on the tables. So when a family comes for story time, they're able to use the collection and see it and feel it and then choose if they want to, you know, check something out. And so again, the more our staff and our volunteers are interacting with the residents and being a librarian rather than waiting to be asked questions, questions or waiting to be approached with reference questions, I think the more they can focus on the relationships. And then number 5 is continuing to improve the patron experience. Some of this is back of house. We have and feel a charge to continue to align our budget and our staffing with the things that matter the most to our residents. And so that's been a sort of a gradual process the last couple of years and we'll continue to push forward that, but where we want to have staff where it matters to our residents and maybe not to a traditional or, you know, maybe an older library model that was more dependent on reference librarians spread throughout waiting for you to come and approach them. And so as we're able to introduce some new technology like an automatic book sorter that will do some of the old manual labor of the books, we can take those staff dollars or positions and move them to patron-facing positions. We can transition those where the cost of collection has gone up and other libraries across the county or state have had to make collection cuts or they've had to, you know, request more money. We're able to transition some of those dollars into maintaining or improving the size of the collection while not negatively impacting our budget. The MGT study that we completed last year showed that the percentage of our library's budget that was going to the collection, the physical books, was not in line with best practices historically. And so we've been able to, the last 2 years, move that needle to bring in more materials for more residents, and we'll continue to do that as well. So some of that is the in-person patron experience. When you come to the library, what do you experience? Some of that— many of our residents, thousands of our residents, only interact with us on a phone, and so we want to improve both of those in a way that focuses on our sustainability, you know, our patron experience now and our patron experience in 5 and 10 and 20 years. Thank you, Bryce. Any questions or clarifications? A couple of photos here, maybe one photo here, but this is the library remodel project. That door in front of you is the entrance to the North Building, the new staff This is the new staff workspace where our collection services team will be behind that wall and that glass. You'll be able to see and interact with them. This is the new children's/circulation desk. We used to have a higher minimum staffing model because they were 2 separate desks. By having them close, we can have new, more efficient minimum staffing levels, and I think still provide the same incredible service to our residents. Specifically during peak times, we can have more staff out with the patrons.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chris. Timing on the remodel, guys? Starting in as soon as 6 weeks, wrapping up by Memorial Day.

Will the library keep operating through that?

In some form or function, yeah.

Well, we might—

there might be a closure of a wing or a closure of an entrance. There might even be a day where we are closed if it's a major something, but the goal is to stay mostly open.

Okay, so Management Services, we like to consider ourselves the Clark Kent side of the superhero film. So we're the back end. So just as a reminder, we're Communications, Risk Management, City Recorder, IT, Data Security and Privacy, and Human Resources. So a lot of the things that we do We work and interact with the other departments really heavily. Like this first one, the, the Heritage Park cabin restoration project, just about every department in the city will have a hand in this. So we're excited to get that finished in the spring. We're hoping to have some QR code placeholders on the outside of the building so that people can interact with the cabin and learn about it. history as a homestead and then also as a blacksmith shop as they come and visit the park.

Where's that at?

At Heritage Park.

That's the new one at Heritage Park.

Yeah.

Next one is enhancing the employee onboarding process. As you know, we've put a lot of effort into our employee culture over the past few years, and this is something that came out of the employee survey is that This is one area that we could enhance. So we're planning to get an IT team or an innovation team together with different department stakeholders and figure out ways that we can make employees feel more connected from day one. And so hopefully we'll, we'll be able to move that process this year. The next one is facility access and the phone system revamp. This is a big deal. So when we moved into the new city center, we had to make a decision on whether or not we wanted to keep our old landlines or if we wanted to move to a cloud-based system for our phones. And that decision will push us towards going to a cloud-based system, and that will change all of our hardline phones in every— every employee will get a cloud-based system phone. So that's really exciting.

Thank you.

So now you can just use your computer to answer your phones. You don't have to have a separate setup. So that's really exciting.

So basically cloud is up, voice over IP?

Yeah.

That's what we're going to?

Yeah.

And then also we're updating our facility access. So right now you have an employee badge and then you have a key fob. And moving into the new building, we will upgrade those to a better security system and it will just your badge and the fob together.

That will, that will help improve the security of the building.

Then My Hometown, we've talked about that a lot, which I'm repurposing Sharon Elementary. We're really excited about that, getting really close to an agreement with them, but that's going to be a real big game changer for the community, not only for the services we can provide for the community. We're also looking at about some Storage space for the PD there, and then potentially in the long term an employee daycare center for employees.

And then finally, we'll be launching the Healthy Orem initiative in February.

I won't go into too much detail on this because Heather Cox and Debbie Domenico will be doing a presentation Tuesday night in the work session. We'll need some direction from you on Quick question.

There was an email back to the key fobs. There was an email that came out last week about getting pictures submitted for cards and things.

Yeah, so we will be updating everybody's badge with the new key fob system, so we're just asking every employee to upload your own photo. But if you, you probably have council photos, so we're probably good with you guys.

Maybe I can open my basket, open the door to manage or something.

No, we're going to make sure.

But you'll be able to see us because it's all glass.

You can wave to us.

Oh, sorry, I want to add one other thing. Lenny, I appreciate Thank you for bringing up that point. So, we will also do more marketing and education on this.

That Healthy Warm Initiative, is that a takeoff of that award we won?

Yes, our designation. So, now after that, we, we have to set markers and benchmarks on things that we'll improve on. One of them is we want to give more resources and information out to domestic violence. victims, and the police department's working really closely with my team to put together some marketing materials on that.

Thank you, Carrie. Next one is Josh. I'm going to mix it up. I'm going to go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So with, uh, the police department, uh, as we grow and and try to shift in the job market and the people that come into the job market in theory.

We—

one of the things we set up as a goal was to establish 100% contact at all police academies within the state. Lieutenant Jeremy Jameson headed that project. The result has been we've been able to land some very high-quality recruits. As we continue to go through, one of the challenges statewide though is there are more openings, there are significantly more openings statewide than there are people that are even trying to get into the line of work. So it's, it's hypercompetitive even getting people sight unseen. We've even had to tweak some of our— we have not, I promise, in any way lowered any of our hiring standards, but we've had to be more nimble in the way that we hire.

people.

And I'm confident that that's going to play out to our favor over time. One of the challenges that we do have is once we've got them and have them established is keeping them. We had a somewhat surprising amount of people that left our department this year for other opportunities, and for the most part, we wish them well. So maybe But all in all, Chief, you're able to retain the people you want? No, no. So, but that's not just— I would, I would want to post up— that's not just how much lands in their checking account every 2 weeks. That's not the only problem. Okay. The problem is that the, the workforce recruiting inside of a workforce where, um, frankly, even got a population who's entering the workforce very later in life than normal, than has been for generations. And you'll have been somewhat piloted towards your job is to— your goal in life should be finding the easiest thing you can do to make a buck.

Mm-hmm.

And so having a job where we're going to tell you where to be, when to be, and what to wear, Doesn't really appeal to the, I'd rather sit in my boxer shorts and type shit all day crowd.

Sure.

So, yeah.

One of the shifts that we've done though is, like I said, I'm very confident in the people that we're bringing on and their character and qualifications and stuff. And as a department, our philosophy is we would rather work short-staffed, more nimble, more We need more competent people than just lower standards, just to bring in bodies. That's never paid off well. That was an experiment that was conducted several years ago in our department and did not work. And I'm very adamantly opposed to lowering our standards in any way. So we are doing okay. But we are preserving our experience?

Huh?

We're keeping our experience? Yeah. Those are the people we like. We didn't dismiss anybody who was intermodal. On number 4, expanding our COP, we talked about that in detail yesterday. Again, with my hometown, our high school district, neighborhood committees, and so forth, we've really got good momentum. We're integrated very much into a lot of places, and we're able to field a lot of requests for a lot of stuff and have some fun along the way.

Well, one of the things they didn't mention is your officers, you know, Giles was talking about, they go and prepare the meals for the kids, the take-alongs.

Yeah.

And that is huge, right, to have that presence with that demographic, with that—

yeah, um, beautiful—

those beautiful young kids.

No, I mean, it's actually really fun. The food bank— there's a couple of our Title I schools where the food bank comes with a big truck, and then we basically basically bag, subdivide the stuff that they have available into things for the kids to take home. And I've been able to do it probably a dozen times over the last year or so. And, uh, I'm telling you, it's kind of highlighted when it's like, hey, they're paying me what they're paying me to bag groceries.

And we did kind of chat, I don't know, maybe, you know, see what you can do, but there are a couple other schools that aren't getting that. I don't know if we can get to That's completely reliant on the CDBG and the— Is it just— okay, so is it targeted neighborhoods?

Is that— CDBG is tied to financial stability of the neighborhood.

So we would maybe need to reach out to a nonprofit that would want to join in for a different reason.

Yeah, and we had— and at one of the— some more this Christmas time to feed off of that. So we— that is one of the ones that we work with the food bank and CDBG funding. But there was a grassroots, what are these kids going to do over the holidays? And by the time it was over, we were filling crates, banana crates, for each kid to take home. I think there was actually a media release on it and stuff like that. But yeah, just— and that was, that was where private donations— Costco came in huge, um, and a lot of the other grocers and stuff like that donated a lot of nice food.

Windsor and Sharon communities, and even though Sharon was closed and, you know, to Cascade now, which is that community, was a more well-off community, those children are there, correct? And they're just not getting the spotlight that they got before because they're Yeah, there. So maybe if we can chat, I'd love to figure out a way to understand the CBD target communities, but, you know, to get his needs fulfilled.

I think too, Chief, if you need help in that area, I think as City Council, we'd like to be— if we could help in any way, we'd love to do it. Well, and really the biggest help would be helping to secure whatever kind of donation systems and stuff like that. What we're donating is the manpower to put it together.

Yeah.

And our neighborhood commission is actually going to come.

Okay, good.

So, you know, that's, that's where we—

and we—

our benefit too is being able to interact with kids and so forth. But our, our piece in that is, hey, we'll donate people to help out.

Thanks.

Um, number 3, strengthening and mentoring or coaching across the departments, uh, trying to be servant leader-centric. In a lot of our corrective actions, coaching reviews, anything like that, what we've done is we've required that each supervisor kind of summarize it in a document form. Hey, this is what we talked about. And all corrective actions have 2 goals. So here's what somebody needs to do to improve themselves, and here's what their supervisor is going to do to help make sure that happens. So it doesn't feel like it's always one-sided. Our young people buy into that too because it makes them feel less guilty, I guess, and they respond well. So it's all about how you pet the dog sometimes. And, but yeah, it's really been good to have that happen. The 2-hour weekly fitness— this is one we keep running into the wall against as far as the fire department, police department, the only 2 divisions in the city where we actually have the facility. Physical fitness requirements by IRMAA to maintain our IRMAA status. The fire department, as they can, are able to work out in their shifts. We are allocated— we allocate up to 2 hours a week of their on-duty time to work out. However, having that time available with staffing shortages, workload, and so forth has been almost impossible. We are in our remodel. We're going to be having a better gym facility. The one we have is very small and inadequate. We're hoping that that helps, but the biggest issue we have is, again, the balance of their on-duty time providing service to the community. And in respect to my people, one thing I will commend them for is our culture is so go, go, go that they're not going to get sick for stuff. And so it's trying to help shift that culture. And that's been— that's been Orem. I mean, Orem has allowed their officers to work extra hours on duty since I started 25 years ago, and I can count probably on one hand how many times I have. So, um, it's just that we have a culture where we don't spend that time on ourselves. But, um, with mental health problems, injuries, all that kind of stuff, there's tons and tons of people who've been hurt with that. Come out over the last 10 years showing what a huge impact that actually makes. And then also the reduction on their life expectancy. There's been some rather alarming reports come out about the reduction in police and fire both from the average life expectancy of the human being versus people that are in the first responder community significantly lower post-retirement. And so we're trying to try and turn the corner on that and make people live and live well, um, in their lives as they serve the community and their impact. Number one is a seamless passing of the torch. My anticipation of— I was leaving the police department in May.

2034?

What?

2034?

2025.

It says Olympics, though, or Olympic torch.

Is that—

that's not the Olympic torch? I don't know what Olympic torch you're looking at.

Wow.

So nice try.

I tried.

Yeah. For the past 2 years, we've been working very closely with Carrie in her position especially to have the grant program placed. In the last— in my 25 years in corporate world, most of the time there's been— I'm actually the 3rd person in this position. The 2 people, my 2 predecessors, left under tumult and disorganization. And problems, and it causes a lot of problems internally in the department. I was discussing with Carrie last— just yesterday, reviewing some of those instances and stuff where, I mean, when I came in in 2020, I felt like it was nearly a year before everything kind of stabilized. And that was, you know, when Chief Jaws left, there was a— there was 10 months of kind of an interim situation that was handled very well by, by Carl Hurst. But for when he was When you have a building full of 100-something type A personalities, um, it's not easy. And, um, so it has been my opinion since, since I started in November of 2020 was to begin with— I began with the end in mind. I knew this was coming. I know— I believe very firmly that there should be a sunset in executive leadership, and, um, that I bet with that, I believe that Orem Police Department's best days are well ahead of it. Thank you. I was never the highlight. It was never mine. And our hope is, and what we've been working for, is to have that so that there won't be this March to November changing of the guard, so to speak, that it's literally a Friday and Monday. And we feel like the pieces of the department are in place for that. We feel like we're ready to go and that that can happen. That could happen today. My deputy chief is currently running the department almost entirely with my overwatch and doing a fantastic job. And my captains are doing a fantastic job, and there are people that are up and coming in leadership in Norm that are going to, that are going to do a fantastic job over the next 20, 25 years. I'm really excited for the trajectory we're going on, and so I feel like it's my turn to get out of the way. So that's that. Jen just texted and said, I'm not hearing real well. Is Josh saying he's leaving the police department in May?

Yes.

And I said, no, you heard wrong. And all of us are hearing wrong. It's never been a secret. We wish you well, of course, my friend. Thank you for all you've done. Thank you so much. Brad, I think you were going to take this part.

Yeah.

Chief, please chime in as needed. So, police station remodel, plans are ready to go. We're working with engineering. They're going to help us bid it out here in about a week, and we're hoping to start in March once we have a contractor on board. The estimate— estimated cost for this is between $1 and $1.2 million. I won't go through all the bullet points, but Chief alluded to a larger fitness center It's just going to make the main floor of the building a lot better to use, a lot more open, a lot brighter, maybe? Brighter, open. Yeah. Adequate uses for the bleachers. The next slide, I think, shows the main demo plan. The areas that are— you can see a lot of leaders and dashed lines. Those are the areas that will be impacted. And the next sheet kind of shows the The final walls. But up in the top right corner is where the evidence area— I'll just stand up, maybe that'll be easier, because I know this project way too well and nobody else does. So I'm like, hey, where the front door is, right here. And this is the side door where all the officers come in and out. But this is the current jail up in here, so all the cells are going to come out. It's going to be gutted, turned into the Into the fitness room. And then the evidence room that's up in here will be expanded to take up hall space that's underutilized, closet space, more room for the technicians over there, bigger break room, or bigger break room here, new conference room. And then all of these walls are taken out to open this up to a kind of co-working space for all the sergeants. Is that right, Mitch?

Uh, all the actual patrol.

Patrol.

Um, any other thing to add to that, Chief?

Uh, new, uh, the break room. Our break room's a disaster. I won't even go in there. So yeah, and somebody can have our soap machine. Do you have to— somebody that's keeping doing the chemical testing? here or just primarily down in the county? We will maintain that one here. We will have one part— there's one partition piece instead of— so just coming in off of the Sally Court, we'll have one.

Okay, very cool.

Yeah, Brian, anything you gotta—

you want to add?

I mean, you can just kind of tell that some of the principles that we've applied for our city center, we want to apply here. And then And just, just to reemphasize, when— I know this is a newer building that was only built 24 years ago or whatever.

1998.

27 years ago. But at that time, we had about 60 or so sworn officers. Today we have 103. So with moving our fire over into the new city center. It just— this is very well justified in terms of the expense and improving, you know, workflow and efficiencies and just being a more enjoyable environment for our police officers. And honestly, because I was here when this opened, moving in, I mean, it was filled up 1998.

It was—

we outgrew it the day we moved in. So this is really needed. And it doesn't have a basement, which has been our greatest regret ever. Or a third story. Thank you for the basement of the new City Hall. That was a great addition.

What's the timeframe on this, Ryan?

Uh, start construction March. It's probably about a 3-month build, I would guess. I'll know more when we have contractors booked.

So we're gonna have all kinds of things coming together June, July.

Yeah, it's a disaster. September. September's warm. Luckily, all of this is inside the building, so we're not tearing anything up on the outside. This might be a jumpstart.

Our first meeting is Tuesday.

What—

when do you expect to drop the existing city bills?

Uh, sometime in March.

We can get moved in.

We're moving this gentleman's group first so we can do some work on the ceiling in the basement that's above all their offices. And then as soon as we're moved out, we turn it over to them. They've given us about 30 days to move out, but I don't know that we'll need all that time. Then there's a huge hole.

You make an announcement that you're going to interrupt the building, you probably get everybody out pretty quick.

I think we're ready to move right now even without that neighborhood. We've got staff happy to be out of there.

Staff are ready to move.

I—

infrastructure from the IT side is going to take a little time, like you said.

Yeah, and then Chris's team's helping us fill the hole. They've got a bunch of dirt and soil for us ready to go. We're prepping it.

We've screened everything.

It's all ready to go. Pulled the neighbor a little bit.

I need it.

It's naughty.

Then we'll get more, uh, more parking in place, which we need badly, and, um, creating plazas built. And it's awesome. Um, if I can just say before we move into public works, I just think that Josh has done a phenomenal job. I think it takes a lot of courage to, you know, plan so far ahead, and he epitomizes servant leadership and being a strong protector, and it's just been an absolute joy and honor to work with him.

Josh.

I've never heard that one before. We've had fun, plenty of fun times.

Roy is like all the time.

And if I can just also emphasize that he really has proactively done a great job of building a very impressive committee staff who I do firmly believe have the ability to keep the momentum going smoothly. So I super appreciate his looking ahead and just, again, doing it without his— not leading with his ego, but leading with vision and others and his Yeah, Rich, I think, I mean, those that were maybe on the interview committee for interviewing for police and fire, um, definitely top, top of the rung. So we got, we hit a home run. So thank you. Okay, uh, Chris, you want to go on? Yeah, go for it. I mean, we've got lunch coming up.

Be real fast.

Okay, I'll make it fast. So Public Works has 8 divisions: water, sewer, stormwater, traffic, streets, as well as fleet. And I'm missing something else. GIS, thank you. GIS and fleet, they really— they're divisions that are support divisions for our all the other divisions in our department. But as you know, we have— we're in the process of updating our water, sewer, stormwater, and parks master plan. That's not included on— I should have done that. In conjunction with that, we're going to be updating our impact fee studies to ensure that they're consistent, to ensure sufficient funding is in place as needed. So the impact fees, just so you know, back when Tom was serving on our Public Works Advisory Commission as their advisor there, Bill Cepparoni, who's now— what is his position?

In Provo.

Yeah, Provo. Is he economic or is he development?

Development.

So he's your counterpart in Provo? Yeah, he is. So he insisted that we included impact fees as a part of a combined plan so we don't put all the burden on existing citizens but place it on those that are coming into the community. It's almost contrary to what the legislature is saying to make it more affordable for the newers that are coming in, but in the end they're paying and they're buying into an existing system, as I believe it should. So we are doing that, and those 2 So those 2 studies will be done here in the next 2 weeks or so. And we hope to have then, of course, some funding plans in place with rate studies and so forth. We've mentioned over the last year that we have a $160 million nut to crack at the water reclamation facility. And we're going to be breaking that into probably 4 different bonds over a series of the next 20 years.

20 to 25 years.

So we'll have some interesting discussions on that, I'm sure, as we look forward to doing that. We're also looking at a Transportation Utility Fund study. Brenda mentioned that earlier. We are teaming up with Parametrics and contracting with them to perform that study. This is the same group that performed the original Transportation Utility Fund study. study in Provo. That was, I think it was cutting edge and it was based on not just randomness or dividing the number of costs by the number of properties, but actually doing a scientific study on trips generated on a per land use type of basis.

So I think their model is—

It's a good model. the model that the state legislature, I think, prefers, and that's what we're looking at going for right now.

We'll make it—

we'll be able to make some pivots and adjustments with that as the legislature meets over the next several weeks. We need to continue, as Josh mentioned, also to continue to develop high-quality, well-trained, certified workforce that will continue to provide excellent work, service levels for the citizens of Warren. We just recently had 2 new employees in our water supply and actually water distribution group in our water division that passed their certifications for Great Water Certification. I'd say our average, I'll say average number of years in that element of our workforce Yes. The average age of our workforce is about 2, meaning we have an extremely young workforce in that area, and yet they're getting certified quickly. And so, you know, there's a lot of— I pay tribute to Quinn and to his leaders that are over there and really trying to get them going. We have kind of more of a seasoned leadership force, kind of like what Josh has mentioned as well, and we are striving to continue to develop those up-and-comers that are going to be taking their place soon. So did you want to go through this? I don't know. I don't see 950 North. It's embedded in there.

I see it.

That's in connection with the other projects. Oh, these are a part of our goals. These are our projects. Just drive that road like candy. This is the project goal schedule. Oh, we are—

goals ahead.

Are we on projects here too? Yeah, we should. This is a lot, man. Okay, well, I'll hit some highlights. They were hungry though. We keep mentioning this.

We're okay if you keep it short.

Anything over $40 million, I'll mention. Go back. The water tank. Okay, that project, I mean, the tank is up, it's functional. Is the project done?

No.

We have to do—

we're backfilling around and then it's going to be a dirt— pardon? Backfilling the dirt around the tank. Yeah, not the water. We're doing both. So Tom knows and understands. We're putting the right elements in the right slowly. There you go. And then we have bids out. Right now for the pump station and the well house, they'll be completed next year. So those are going to be starting up in the spring. That's another $14 million. Stormwater, we're looking at roughly about $5 million of a variety of different types of projects.

We can move on to the next one.

Water reclamation. This is the big challenge.

This is what would keep me up at night if I didn't sleep well.

But I do.

So water reuse and nutrient removal, that's been ongoing. That's going to finish by June. This is the water that we're going to be putting on at Lakeside Sports Park, the golf course, Springwater Park, and the water reclamation facility.

$20 million.

It was originally earmarked at about $8 million, and then we had ARPA money that came in. So Anyway, very expensive. Streets projects, about $2.25 million. We have a really good street management program where we look at— Don't see it, man. Were you chuckling? Don't see it.

It's embedded.

No, it's not. It says 980 North on the second one.

980 East.

Oh, it's East. There's a variety of projects here, you know, $2.26 million streets. Okay. Sewer. This is, this is our collection system. So we got to collect all the sewage and bring it to our plant to treat. We have a variety of segments to be replaced, repaired, or lined. $3.4 million.

Parks.

Parks. We're looking at $2 million. Northridge Park is $720,000. Windsor Park, this is only a portion of that project, is $370,000. So constructed light— construction of lighted sports court. This is not the pickleball court, so we're not doing the whole thing there because of a cash flow issue. Timpanogos Park, we're looking at— well, that number's gone up. So it was around $150,000, now we're looking at $565,000 for phase 3. It all depends on if Dave, if you want to have a place to—

I don't know.

do some yoga up there.

I think you were in favor of some of those improvements we talked about, right?

Yeah, yoga.

So we're going to be coming back to you on that. Um, that's it. Yeah, and then there's just some— oh, some pictures. Oh, we got some more. $600,000. So we're going to lean into the signal at the bottom on there. It's $400,000 for 80th and 4th North. That's about $400,000, and then about another $200,000 in projected safety improvements for— mainly for pedestrian safety improvements in the form of hawks or crossings and so forth. That includes all the efforts of our Tiger Team that's pulling up. The fleet budget this year, it was a total of about $3.5 million, and we're trimming that back down, so that's We're going to be— part of our plan is to finance some of our equipment, which we haven't historically done, but we do have a cash flow challenge. So we'll have more details of that as we get into the budget. We'll skip that. Good?

Bring us home, Bryce.

I'm the last one before lunch? We're moving quick. Okay, uh, build on sports tourism success in 2024. We mentioned this yesterday, um, with what we've been able to do. Uh, we went from 25,000 to 50,000 visits to our city from homes further than 50 miles away. That took us from, uh, 6th place in the county, uh, to 1st place in the county. So we have more of those tourism visits than Art Dye, Spanish Fort, Epic, Patriot Park, and even like the Regional Athletic Complex in Salt Lake. And so what's cool is that I feel like we've been able to do that without impacting any of our leagues over there as well. With that has come a number of new funding sources, and so we were able to continue working with Public Works to fund a new sports turf manager position. The money we bring in from field rentals doesn't even begin to scratch the itch of what it takes to maintain parks, but it's nice to offset it. And so, you know, We went from, I think, $65,000 in field rental revenue 3 years ago to this year we'll crest $400,000. But again, all of that we're able to just move to our public works team and the staff that are maintaining those fields. Next is Hillcrest programming. With the center opening in May, we are still working on just helping our residents understand what to do there. Programming across the entire department has skyrocketed. And so whether it's at the Senior Center, Fitness Center, Hillcrest, you know, each of these programs again have grown hand over fist the last couple of years. Our residents want programs to do, they want instructors, they want experiences, they want to stay local, and we offer that. And so Hillcrest focuses a lot on some new demographics that weren't available to us prior to having Hillcrest. For the Senior Center Memorial Garden, that should be completed this spring. It'll be a really nice touch, continue to expand the offering of the Senior Center. They do such a nice job taking care of those residents, those 4,000 member holders, hundreds of them per day. And so creating an outdoor space— they obviously have the entire Arboretum and all of City Center Park there, but to create a more special and secluded space for their Senior Center outside. So we'll have that project completed hopefully this spring, maybe pushing into summer. Next, for Orem Fest Parade improvements, And we said parade, we've talked about this, Gary mentioned it. There is a number of events that we have that have traffic control measures. And so some of these are permanent fixes we want to look at along First North, along Fourth East, helping people get to and from our Lights On, our farmers markets, our city center events and concerts and bluegrass and Come Together Festival and 100 other events that we have over there. Some of them are focused on the parade improvements. A lot of what has gone into Orenfest has been resident-facing improvements. But I would say the bulk of the work that I'm most excited about is the behind-the-scenes work with our legal team to have very real contracts, working with Heather and our fundraising team to collect the money prior to the events with contracts, consistent agreements between each of our vendors so that we can continue to run both great and exciting events but also very safe and very protected and organized and communicated events internally. And then finally, maintenance uptime. This one sort of pushes into what we're doing at the rec center. The rec center had 70,000 more visits last year than the year prior. We continue, we're up 10% on patron visits, 7% up on membership sales. We have, we're pushing 20,000 active members, 4,000 member swipes a day, you know, depending on the day.

It is a busy place.

place, and there's a ton of demand on what we do there. And so we have been able to work closely with Byron, who runs the city's facilities team, as well as Mariah Shirley, our division manager over the fitness center and the fitness center maintenance and custodial teams, to deliver a program and to have the funds they need to be able to immediately respond to down equipment, boiler issues, airflow issues, things that our members— they are collectively spending You know, close to $4 million a year between day passes and programs and memberships to be at the fitness center. So we want to protect their investment and have a really high uptime. So some fun behind-the-scenes things there to make sure that their dollars and their trust in us to deliver this for them feels well spent and feels very boring consistent. Anytime lying for Do you have a timeline for replacing some of the stuff around the pool that's starting to break up? That is on this project list for this fiscal year. Do you know when? No, because they will wait until there is a mandatory pool closure.

Okay.

When they have to shut it, and then they'll just do it then. So it's sort of just teed up, ready to go. So it's standing by, ready to go. So again, as you can see, We want to keep up the momentum. We're not burned out. We're ready to keep going onward and keep building a better Orem. That being said, we'll come back then after lunch and to make sure there's nothing we're missing and what else we need to kind of add to the goals for the coming year.

Okay, sounds good. Okay, welcome back everyone. Hope everyone had a good lunch.

Yeah.

Uh, we're moving on to finalize citywide goals associated with areas of focus. City Council roundtable. Every council member may share thoughts and ideas. And so we're going to go back to those pillars that we showed earlier and essentially just work through each pillar and make sure as a city council we've got what we want under that pillar for the coming year. So that means some of these things we can, you know, decide, well, this should come off, this is done, whatever. And then if we've got different ideas— and I, I'd like this to be more just a group discussion as opposed to everyone doing, you know, individual whatever. And so let's just make it fluid and feel free to jump in and we'll go through And then as far as, uh, I think we're going to wind up being— we may even come in under time because David, don't take your bat.

I'm not good at that.

We'll see where this goal situation goes. Chief Oberon day. As far as we've got a half hour for me too, uh, let's just sum things up and it won't take a half hour, I assure you. So anyway, so we're good to go. So let's go to the goals.

Do you want more pictures of the, uh, that document?

Oh, it was there.

It's there.

Very good.

Good time down. I must have bumped it. Okay, so on there we had, um, can you zoom it up just a little bit more for me?

Oh yeah.

I do.

Oh, I like that. That's good.

Okay.

Unity built on a foundation of truth and honesty.

That's good.

I think there was a lot of conversations about continuing to unify and so on.

So that's— I think that's a good thing to leave on there.

Yeah.

Just because we've been working on it, we can continue to work on it, but I think this makes it A focus, because I think that's where we all want to be. And so we just need to work towards that.

City meeting decorum, review our parameters for the public comments, uh, statement, research rules of decorum. I think the mayor's done a great job, particularly when we've had the place full, of saying, hey, how do we manage it? I mean, We had 2 hot items on the same night. Staff, let's not do that again. But the mayor does manage it pretty well when it's repetitive statements, and I think you do a great job.

Thank you.

Continue on.

Yeah, I think flexibility is the key on that because it's always a little different.

I feel like our public is feeling like they're being heard because of the way we run our meetings, which, yeah, I think that's a great change.

And I was really impressed in that last meeting. I mentioned this to somebody, but when we got to Bokasen Farm and we started to get some hissing and some booing and some carrying on.

Oh yeah, I heard that.

And all I said was, we're not going to do that. We're just going to be kind to each other. And it stopped.

Yeah.

Which was really impressive to me that they were willing to do that.

Well handled.

So, because I've been in other meetings Before I ever got in, where you got everybody going nuts and somebody up there with a gavel, you know, pounding the heck out of it. And it's just like, that's not—

I like that.

I always have to make sure.

Can I have the gavel?

Gavel away from David.

No, but it's true, you know, people act the way they're treated. So you've done well.

So should we just keep it just city meeting decorum?

I think we just take it off because I think we're talking about goals as opposed— and I think we want to focus it on things we're trying to achieve.

I agree.

I'm just trying to focus it in more on where we're trying to go as far as new things. Expand service opportunities. We've done a phenomenal job with that, right, with My Home downtown. But I think that's something that we can keep working on. I think that's a big priority for us, isn't it, as far as building community?

Yes. Well, I think too, on the line with the interests of the community, I think the Planning Commission, you know, we meet the week before, so, you know, maybe— and we get what our agenda is going to be on the Planning Commission. So that would give us an opportunity as a city council to maybe go visit that neighborhood or that zone change or, you know, whatever they're doing instead of— because that was my problem in the very beginning when I got on the council. It was like I didn't have enough time because the agenda comes out on Friday or Monday and we meet on Tuesday. You know, it doesn't give me enough time to really do my research or go talk to the citizens. So, at least At least we can be proactive maybe and look at the Planning Commission meeting minutes or something, or maybe Gary, the priest, if it's a zone change or something, maybe he'd say— I don't know, something that we can at least do our job and be able to be educated so we can, you know, be able to do what the community wants. And that's what I think too is more or Along the lines of what the NAIDS committee group does, it helps all aspects of the city come together through their neighborhood organization. And this last year has been wonderful with the creation of that entity that's now part of our city training. So maybe a goal, maybe we could be proactive as city council, maybe. If, I mean, maybe you guys think you have enough time to research stuff, but maybe I mean, like Canyon Park, we knew that was coming, right? So, and then plus, you know, push back, so we had time. But most of the time, you don't really— if it's a big thing, you don't really have time to really go and help.

So, help me understand what you're proposing exactly.

I don't know.

I mean, my thing is trying to be proactive on to align the interests of council and the community of making zone changes or something. I don't know. This is more of a service opportunity level.

Are you looking for a new bullet point?

No, no, no, I'm talking about aligning the interests.

Oh, sort of the big—

I'm trying to be proactive as a city council to align the interests with the community and what they want. If it's a zone change, if it's a land use or whatever. I don't— I think it would be another— a new bullet point, something to the effect of Improved communication regarding rezones or improved collaboration with Planning Commission? Planning Commission recaps, maybe? Yeah, you know, there are a couple of things jump to my mind with that.

One, we have been—

in the past, we were sending out notices to council members about upcoming Planning Commission things.

But sometimes a lot of those things are—

you get a lot of emails and there's nothing on it that'll be coming to you, right? Maybe we could do an email that when it goes out to Planning Commission, our regular noticing, there's going to be a legislative item, a rezone or a text amendment that will come to you. We'll make a special effort to email you.

So then they—

we can say Then we can be—

we have the information, we can go if it's a neighborhood or whatever, and we can look at it instead of, what do you think on Tuesday, right?

Yeah, to give you a little more notice.

Now we do have a weird situation next week where you have a council meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday we've got our Planning Commission meeting, but normally they're the week before. Yeah, first and third Wednesday and Yeah.

Okay, so public notices, I send those out like 10 days or 2 weeks before, so potentially I could include those for you, you know, like specifically— like I post them in all the regular places, but if you would like me to send you an email. So I would like an email because sometimes that card, I get it the day after. Yeah. I mean, or the other option is if you sign up for the city council on the state website, when I post it there, it will also send you a notification. So it is going out in some form 10 days before, but not specifically to you. And I can include that in my— on my side is making sure that those are sent to you. That would at least give you 2 weeks. I really like Gary's thing Because he— there are administrative and there are legislative, right? So the administrative, yeah, that's nice to know, but these are the ones we have to really—

And what I'm talking about is that process would continue as normal.

Those notices— I'm talking that we would be proactive in community development about, okay, we know this is a legislative item that the council will have to deal with. Let's give the Council as much notice as possible. And so we'll, you know, we'll try and work out a system where we can make sure you're getting an email, like from me or from Jared, that says, oh, be aware this item is coming to Planning Commission, it's a rezone, and give you a thumbnail. Because in those— we're working on the notices with the cards.

Yeah.

I have them sent to my home, and so I get them, and I've gotten them the day of a meeting. And so we're struggling to work through that and make sure it works well.

And can I just say, Adam, I know it's not you, it's the decentralization of the U.S. Postal Service, right?

We had—

we used to have the Orem office that would stamp, and, you know, now they send it to Vegas to get everything stamped. It's not, you know, maybe we need to extend.

And that's what we're looking at, is what do we need to do to make sure the public gets that noticing. The other thing that comes to mind as you talk about this is it might be good—

and think about this—

to once a year or something have a joint meeting of the council and Planning Commission where you could have meeting together and maybe talk about some high-level issues that you would be facing. Not necessarily to talk about individual projects that would be coming up, but to just try to get that alignment in, you know, the direction. Because it's great from this meeting, I've got a lot of things I'm going to take back, and in community development we want to get on the on the same page with the council, and we want to get on the same page with Planning Commission, get everybody into alignment. And I think with— it's, it's so hard to communicate, and I hate to suggest another meeting for everybody's busy lives, but maybe once a year, something like that, you would have a joint meeting. Yeah, at a work session or something to be Invited in and spend, you know, an hour or something like that at a council work session.

So just, just put that in the back of your mind and think about it. Yeah, I think that's a good idea, and especially if we did it in a work session because then we could just work in our normal flow.

And can I just do a shout out? Because the— and I guess of course Unity, that first one, is good to have on there, but I think earlier when I was I would say we've done that. I have heard back from residents that they feel more involved, more engaged, more unified with our staff and with our City Council. I feel like your department, especially because you touch a lot of people, a lot of people come in, and that honesty of this is the direction that the city is going for development, you know, what we've put in place for our residents. I goal, think that's a great point. because of developments from a development standpoint, helps those people who are doing applications or, you know, wanting information about applications in their area. It helps them be informed, helps them feel connected and important.

So—

That's great feedback.

Thank you.

Theresa, I think we'd call it improved communications related to Land use legislation. You can do planning commissions, city councils.

Let me tell you what I think as far as that. Because we've got, I mean, like you said, there's a lot of things that, I mean, we see stuff coming across all the time. And there's a lot of things that it's fine to know, but it's not going to change the world, right? But when you get a Canyon Park type of a rezone, or even a Wilkerson Farm type of rezone, If you as a staff see those kinds of things coming, then we really should be more engaged as a city council prior to—

Yes.

City council night. It's fine that we get all the emails and everything from everyone. That gives us one context. But in reality, we should be going out and looking at Canyon Park, looking at the springs around there.

Yeah.

And some of us did that. But because if you can do that, then you You have more of a context, right?

And you have time.

And you have time, and you can really dissect it down. Because the way I see it is all 7 of us are to represent the entire city, and with that in mind, we need to understand exactly what we're voting on. So, like Wilkerson Farm, in a perfect world, we should be going out there, we should be looking at the train tracks, we should be looking at the situation so we can make a contextual decision as to what's best for that piece of property. So I guess my ask would be, when we have significant things coming up, we can try and do things to get our council better prepared for the meetings that night.

That's the legislative side, that's what you're talking about. Yeah, not the administrative. So I think if we stick to the legislative, I think we'd have the information ahead of time.

Even before Planning Commission, I think you guys have the Yeah, you know.

Yeah, we know, we know it's coming up, and, and I need to take the lead with community development and make sure that, you know, we're— we know the importance. Like a Canyon Park, you know, we knew that's going to be a big issue. We knew that's an important issue that would come to the council. And so we need to somehow come up with a good system to make sure you guys are informed to the greatest extent possible so you can do your due diligence.

Right.

I wonder if part of the solution, Gary, is, you know, Grant is, you know, a great photographer. Maybe, maybe part of what he does is go and takes pictures of the site or takes a little video.

Yeah.

I mean, if we can, maybe there's an opportunity for a site visit, but a picture or a little video may be good.

And I think a picture or video would be great, but still, on significant projects, I really believe in a site visit. As far as if you're ever investing in any real estate anywhere, your number one rule is you go do a site visit because you can't get the full picture just from all the other stuff. Yeah.

And maybe in our study session at City Council, you say, hey, this is on the docket for Planning Commission. In 2 weeks, giving you heads up, this could be a legislative blah blah. And I think it sort of just mentioned it a couple times.

So maybe talk that through and just figure out what would be the right way to make sure.

Just more information, because I'd rather have more information earlier than later, because if I got on Friday or Monday, you got the weekend or Monday, and then you're there Tuesday. So you really don't have that much time.

We wouldn't necessarily have to do it as a group. I mean, we can take it on ourselves that once we're notified and there's a significant deal, we go out with 1 or 2 or 3 council members, or we go out by ourselves, but we just get ourselves up to speed on what's going on. You can go out with us too. Yeah, go out with you guys would be great. Yeah, that would be something we would love to do.

If an important issue comes up, we know about it. Just let us know. Let's go walk a site.

And like Canyon Park, I mean, I did that with Ryan and Brent and Steve. Yeah, we went out there and that— after doing that, it changed my whole concept on that as opposed to if I just look at the map. But I'd like to see the entire council have that opportunity.

I think most of us went out on our own too to those various spots. So because we had time, because it was— yes, but with the open meetings, maybe that's going to change. We'll learn more on Tuesday that, you know, we could gather and whatever if we wanted to.

Right, typically we don't have an issue continued and continued, right? Like Ken Park was, right?

So I think what Nate's trying to say is even before it gets to Planning Commission, I mean, the more informed we are, the better we can make decisions. So let me tell you, there's going to be a rezone on Planning Commission next Wednesday. Application— Ken Garf has made an application to rezone a couple of properties that have about 12 South. So, you know, on the parkway where Ken Garf is? It's just behind it.

Yeah, just the property to the north, and they abut 12 South. And so that's where that fatality was.

Yeah, right by where that fatality was. So, so, you know, I've kind of been thinking about that in our discussion here, if there had been a way that we had routinely— I could have let you know about that. We could have gone out there together as a site, maybe with Public Safety or, you know, Chris, on some of these issues that really see what's going on in the area and what the rezone would really mean, like you were saying, Mayor, as opposed to just looking at a map.

Right.

I know they've been trying to buy that for years. Yeah, so, so consider that my first email to you. No, but this is good information, Gary, and that's— if we can just be proactive, I think that would help us all be able to do our job better.

So yeah, so I can go with that bullet point you've got right there.

Just work— have staff work a little harder to just define what that translates into.

As far as the one using neighborhood groups to build unity, I think that's its own, uh, bullet point.

Yeah, yeah.

And And I think that should fall into what we're doing with this neighborhood commission. Right.

Yeah, and if you guys have ideas, I mean, I've been making lists of things I think that could be encompassed, you know, in that commission. But yeah.

Well, that's a huge commission.

Can I put something else on here? Land use legislation. And other important community issues. I mean, let's just throw out, you know, if there's a tax increase or whatever else, I feel like let's figure out ways to get us in for, you know, understand we want whatever, you know, we want to know, we want a heads up. Yeah, I think you do a good job of that, but I'm just saying.

Yeah, I think overall you do a great job of that. Yeah, it's just I think I think complicated issues like the Canyon Park or Wilkerson Farm, the more information the better.

So relate to land use legislation and other complicated matters, or? Yeah, I don't know.

Is that too broad?

I just feel like, you know, or a set of issues, a group of issues.

Related to improved communications on land use and other important matters.

That sounds great.

So improved communications on takeout related to improved communications on land use.

No, that's okay.

You said improved communication on land use regulations on. Land use regulations and other important matters or matters, significant issues.

Yeah, you probably need to put in there improved communications to the city council.

Oh yeah, to CC.

Hello? We all get to watch you type.

It was around us. It is so much. You just don't have to stay on the typewriter. Good job. Glad you're typing, not me. Anything else we need to do related to making sure we're all aligned?

Can we add something about using neighborhood groups and business partners to build unity? Is this a place to put that?

Yeah, sure.

Neighborhood—

Because I think Kathy is really stepping up.

Use neighborhood groups and business partners.

To build unity.

To build unity.

Yeah, so that 3rd one down, Tristan.

If you can just stick your— Insert using—

After neighborhood groups. You want to add it here, or you want it to be below? Neighborhood groups and business— So after, insert that neighborhood groups and business partners to build unity.

Using neighborhood groups and business partners.

There you go. That's it.

I mean, because we're averaging how many new businesses a year? 800? Have you had 800? Probably 400 or 500. I was one of those.

To that, business partners, I mean, just an example of something simple. Pete and I were talking about, and Brent, we were talking about if we could get our local businesses, like, approximately Denny's where they have Family City USA or Family City on the wall. But we thought if we can figure out a way to get our businesses excited about Family City USA and use that inside somewhere in their location as part of their branding, that we give, you know, we can offer some incentives to make that happen. They're business partners with the city. There's just a lot of different ways. I mean, if you can just envision, you know, we've got 7,000 businesses or whatever, the subpercentage of those you went to and there's a Family City USA something somewhere, I think we just do a lot of building community and that brand.

Right, kind of like Toyota with, or Subaru with the Olympics, official sponsor of, you know, Subaru official sponsor of the 1934 Olympics or whatever, something along those lines. Yeah, change our— what's the official supporter of Orange City?

I like that.

Supporter of Orange City USA. Yeah, so we're trying to work through that. So again, you guys have any ideas on that?

Yeah, talking to us, they often do it with, you know, the local schools and universities. They do it a little bit with cities. So if we put a little more proactive effort into it, we think it'd be part of But think of the impact it would have over time.

You know, if we do it in the past 4 or 5 years and you've got that all through the city, really memorializes Palace City, USA. Okay, any other aligned interests of the City Council, city employees?

Anything from the city employees that you guys think Mayor would Would you and the council be interested in having a biannual litigation update from our department, letting you know what's pending, what's out there? Obviously it would be in a closed-door session. Yeah, I mean, just a routinely scheduled every 6 months we come in and give you an update on the closed-door.

I would characterize it as significant Litigation, litigation, you know, becomes some dollar amount that determines that. Okay, so we wouldn't we wouldn't go in the weeds on everything, but anything that's a significant issue that we need to be aware of, I think would be the way we would do it. I mean, what do you guys think? I think that's right.

And I guess we want to we can always meet with Jake and Steve one to one on one to say what we got.

But yeah, I think that'd be good because we we have talked before. You know, going to closed-door meetings, I wouldn't have known that. So I think it'd be a good thing.

Mayor, one thing, uh, as issues come up, I want you to be able to talk to the employees of Community Development, get the information you need. I also want you to be aware that sometimes, you know, you can say something, a casual thing like, oh, I wonder, you know, what this means or about this. And little do you know, nor did you intend, somebody now spent 40 hours of work trying to get that answer. Does that make sense?

Perfectly.

You know, because they're trying to really be responsive. So just in, just kind of a Something to think about, you know, what kind of questions or asks do you have of the employees of community development? You know, just be careful if it's going to be a big ask. Maybe you and I, we should talk first, you know, just to make sure, because I hopefully I've got a good sense of what kind of work and effort and how much, how many FTE hours I can put in. And if your staff get asked, don't be afraid to push back to us and say, Tom, I know you asked this little thing, but this is going to take that much time. Yeah, yeah, and I need to talk with staff about that too.

Did you really want to know or are you just curious?

Yeah. Do you want to spend, uh—

And ask me that question because that's—

$5,000? But does that mean that should be funneled through you to just— Well, I hate to say yes, funnel everything through me. through me, but just to manage that issue.

Of course it should be.

Well, you know, if you think it's a significant ask, yeah, funnel it through me. Not because, oh, I'm the gatekeeper.

But what if you don't know if it's a significant ask? That's where it seems like it should probably— your communication should go through you.

And then you funnel it back and say, hey, that simple question is going to take X hours. We don't have it.

Or do you really want to know, or do you want just a rough ballpark that takes an hour to figure out versus 2 hours?

Yeah, and this is a really hard one to balance because we want to be as responsive as we possibly can and not be bureaucratic about everything. But we want to be transparent. We want you to feel welcome always, but we also want to be aware.

Yes.

And we don't want to send you off on a lot of issues. So I, I mean, don't you think if we just make those requests, we're good?

Sure.

And then from there it goes where it goes. And I don't think that's a control thing. I think that's just a common sense way to manage that.

Manage yourself. Yeah.

Everybody okay with that?

Absolutely. Okay, just text me. Yeah, just text me, email me, call me, you know.

Well, like Jake, he's always so nice. I would call and say, I hate to bug you, He's like, I'm here to answer your questions.

He never answers mine. Okay, okay.

Anything else on align the interests? Any other things from the city? Any other things from the city on that?

Okay.

Safe, livable, connected, and engaged neighborhoods. Okay, last year we did a lot on that. Where are we at on that? Minority outreach and community engagement.

I think a lot of my hometown hits that. Also with business licensing moving over to development services, I think that helps with the—

But I think too, I think Chris, you brought that up on that minority outreach was, and maybe Jeff too, was the events they have at the park and cultural events. We need to maybe publicize that more.

I don't know if we've—

So that's our arts commission and we're kind of doing that, right? Have you included them? We've included the Mexican band, the mariachi band was super fun at my hometown. So I feel like, you know, we have been doing a great job through other avenues. And I just want to say, so my hometown, yeah, it's its own entity. It came to Orem, thankfully, but the support that we have given them, I have to say, this, you know, this group, you guys have been phenomenal. I mean, I think a lot of their success is because of our staff and the creative way in which we welcomed them and did their kickoff. We can't all do everything, I don't think, to that level into the future for every CRC that's opened up, but I feel like we gave them a great start. And definitely, it may be their program, but our support of that is what has been terrific.

Thank you. Jeff, didn't you want like a cultural event or something with all of them? Yeah, I mean, we've talked about that over the years. We're actually doing it in lots of different ways. It's not one event, it's like multiple events. I kind of gave up on the word event. But I feel like we're touching, we're making those connecting points. Probably as well or better than one event.

Okay.

Well, the one event that we were working towards was the Taste of Oro event that via food would have been multicultural. It just— we just need to figure out the right timing for it. So we put that up here for you one day. Is that still something we want to pursue?

Yeah.

What was the issue with the one Latino group that couldn't get their permits? Couldn't figure it out, got really frustrated.

That was part of the impetus from last year's comments.

For their food truck?

No, no, no, it was for some event. It was like a major event, they tried to do it at the park, they had some issues. Part of it was the insurance. It's just they didn't understand the process, didn't have a good bilingual communication process. So I think we've improved a lot of that. We had a full gap in our event processing. We had the $50 family reunion at a pavilion, and then we had a full-tilt city co-sponsored event and nothing in between. And so what we have this year is a city property use permit, which is more expensive than a pavilion rental, but it allows them to be allowed to run their event on our property, but we will have a full-time staff on site to help regulate some of that.

Yeah.

through the insurance with them. And so some of these wonderful events that are coming in that we don't run or control, we will have a yes now to allow them to be at City Center. We'll have a limited number so we don't overrun the park, right? And I think it'll be specifically to some of these smaller cultural festivals that don't quite rise to the Art Council or other city events but are still worth doing and having as part of our community. We can get them there now. And that was kind of the frustration they had. That's probably the answer. So do we want to put— like, you want to try to taste the warm and see if that works? We're on schedule internally, if y'all would like to, for a September of 2025 Taste of Warm event, sort of a kickoff to fall and summer celebration. Pete and our events team and I got together this last week to start some conversations with some other community events, maybe joining a couple of the existing things to get it off the ground in a big way so it's successful in year 1. So we put that as a taste of warm and then we make sure that we do it.

Yeah.

Sure, yeah.

So minority outreach and community engagement, Neighborhood Commission Subcommittee, we're working on that. It sounds like we've made progress in the translation of the licenses and we're working on that. Those are kind of repetitive, some of those, those 3. Educating on resources in the Orem community. Okay, so that I wanted to say, our Neighborhood Commission is actually in there. They're gonna have— we're gonna have these neighborhood picnics. They have put forth ideas of kind of like our Harvest Festival where we have the different foods. They kind of want to see if we can have that happen at the neighborhood to take it to different neighborhoods instead of just the one that event just as a way to kind of achieve that.

So what do you think as far as to come off of this? I mean, I think minority outreach and community engagement, we can continue to improve that.

In case tomorrow—

so that's going to— I don't know that that's a misheading as What's that? Is Taste of Home under this?

Yeah, because it's a cultural thing.

What would be in case—

Yeah, connected to this.

Yes.

I mean, it might fit under minority outreach, but yeah, that's where we go. So maybe— so do we need to keep that neighborhood commission subcommittee, or is that—

It's in the works, so I think we're done.

So it is in those—

pull those things.

Oh, the subs on.

So pull the subs.

1 through 5 and then put on a taste of warm. Okay, anything else you guys want to add to that?

Just a comment, that has really been noticed and appreciated that we're doing something. I work with people speak Spanish. I don't speak very much Spanish, a little bit more than Dave, but not much. Qué pasa nada, man? That's all I get.

Dave, you know you're asking a question that you can answer. What's going on? Let me just translate.

I don't think it means what you think it means. Qué pasa? What's going on? Anyway, there They're very happy and very appreciative, and it's noticed that we're doing something to build that community and help them feel part of the community.

That's awesome.

Thank you, everyone.

Yes, so, so we leave that on there so we can keep— yeah, that top of mind. Exactly. Okay, finishing research analysis of short-term rental obligate regulation.

So Jake, do you want to maybe give a status update? Yes. So we were able to meet with small groups to discuss possible ideas and get kind of a general feedback for what the appetite is for regulation and what— where are we on on the spectrum of a straight-out ban to kind of free-for-all, right? So we were trying to figure out where, where are we on that. Um, the policy— we do have a draft of an ordinance that we are close to finishing up, and I would like to get it in front of the council at an upcoming work session. The overall overarching policies were really, by and large, is to preserve the residential quality of neighborhoods, is to preserve that neighborhood character. But then also balancing with property owners and what their perceived rights are, is to be able to use that home as a rental, as a way to make an income. But then again, balancing how many do we want in the community to make sure we're Not taking up too much of our inventory of our housing, especially, you know, owner-occupied housing, that we're not making it a rental system. Some of the things that are in the draft ordinance would be a permitting or a licensing system as a way to regulate this short-term rental ordinance.

Geographic spaces.

There'll be kind of an à la carte approach here for the council to discuss what policy they want to adopt, but basically trying to space these short-term rentals out so we don't end up with clusters of short-term rentals. And then also just general maintenance of the property. So there'll be ways that neighbors can, if there are issues with parking, Yeah. Noise complaints, there's a way to regulate that. Again, we also want to make sure there's sufficient off-street parking for each of these, these units so we don't have neighborhoods clogged up with an event. And that's also another thing is banning specific events, that these are going to be tied to stays, not having a bachelor party or a sorority party Or a corporate event retreat at a home.

Ballad bands.

Yeah, but we're trying to keep the neighborhood character that it is a residential use, not a commercial use.

That's the overriding theme, right? Yes, absolutely.

Yep.

So that's where we are, and hopefully, you know, in the next couple of sessions we can get the draft in front of the council for you to start digesting what this ordinance system is. And getting real feedback on, on the à la carte approach. What do we insert? What do we take out?

So should we just say finalized research? Finalized research of short-term rental regulation? Finalized legislation on short-term rental regulation?

Finalized short-term rental regulation. Yeah, we can finalize—

So just finalize legislation.

It sounds like we're almost there. It is really complicated. I mean, I get emails all the time on both sides. My concern is, is if we don't have something that's predefined, people are going to keep buying these homes with the idea they can do this. We need to let them know if you're going to do it, this is how it works, because otherwise they're kind of buying it on a false pretense.

If they have a certain number of units, Violations, can they lose their licensing?

Yes, this is part of the regulation system too, is there will be a way to de-license them if they're in violation.

And this, this licensing thing should be rather neutral too, as far as we're going to do this.

Yep. Teresa, let's put, uh, instead of occupancy, let's put that main goal of preserving neighborhood Character.

Okay. And housing affordability.

That's so out of our control.

I know, I get so tired of that. You got over 3, huh?

Well, we did 3, yeah.

Yeah, we lower inflation, change interest rates.

I'm telling everyone the fires in California are going to drive up material prices.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, huge. We're back there again. So we're all going to pay for it, dude.

Except for they pulled out before.

No, but they just get switched from insurance companies to the federal government.

You're exactly right.

And then taxes. We'll still pay for it.

So I would like to almost see, from our perspective of what we can do as a land use authority, is a— I mean, it's really a master plan. It's like a zoning, a balanced zoning plan. You know, I talked about it at some of our last meetings. You know, as you know, we really have a responsibility to balance land land use in our community, to have a balance and to not just say yes or no to everything. You know, there— if there's a product that we need in our community, a housing product, this is the way that we can, through our land use, is how we can bring it to our community. I mean, up here in Midway, they say if you have to have a certain facade on a building, you know, we want this Swiss. I mean, I feel like I brought that up a few years ago, but I feel like that's, you know, we can't do anything about housing affordability, but maybe through our understanding of our needs in Orem, through a Family City USA, you know, creating an environment for families, you know, that's kind of where we are, what our statement can be, what our plan can be.

Thank you.

I don't think we can affect housing affordability.

I wonder if on here we put something related to what Gary was talking about in terms of in-house general plan update, and then we could put sort of like a subheading there of, you know, assessing, um, assessing the balance of Land use types or something, or zoning types, residential zoning types. Yeah, and as a part of that general plan update, what I had in my mind and talked to planners about is we'd go do a land use analysis of the city and see what exactly—

what do we have out there and where—

and then identify some of those areas. And maybe, you know, honestly, that Canyon Park, if it's to be residential Residential. Uh, one of the recommendations I could see coming back to you would be let's just rezone it to R-8. That's kind of our standard. Let's do it. Let's just proactively tell people in some of these key areas this is what the city wants to do with the property. You want to change it to residential, it's, it's this. And, and we try to as we streamline this general plan, be a little more proactive, especially on these areas where we think there might be, uh, controversy or issues coming up. Then rather than dealing with application after application after application over time, we could just proactively try and tell the community, this is what— as a city, this is what we want to have happen.

So maybe instead of housing affordability, we just have housing.

Yes.

I actually—

these meetings that Dave and Tom and I are in, we are talking about homeownership through development agreements, and we are— and we are getting positive responses from that. And the whole idea is you're not taking away property rights. The developer gets something to offer, to agree to a certain percentage of owner-occupied. Yeah, so maybe that's it, our emphasis on emphasizing owner-occupied housing.

There's also that new house bill that's been proposed that gives us another tool to negotiate that without a development agreement even.

So I mean, is that a good housing plan? I mean, I'm just trying to—

I, I've sent it to the planners for review, but my initial look at it is I think it's a positive So that's another tool in our tool belt where if you give them, I think it was 8 units to the acre, then you can mandate X amount of units are owner-occupied and be restricted for 5 years.

Well, so, and we're extending that. 5 years is nothing, you know. Yeah, I mean, St. George is talking 20 years.

Yeah, but that's just the draft that came out last week. The challenge is some of the state and some building Of course we can do a lot of things for housing costs. You can reduce the— you know, you can have the mini homes come in. You can build on 4,000-square-foot lots. You know, we could do those things.

Mm-hmm.

It's not in the nature of what we want to do. We're trying to do as much as we can so we don't see the state enforce those kind of regulations on us, which is within the realms of possibilities. So I think doing some things that help get housing in, And, you know, you talked about 8 to an acre, which is a whole lot less than an R-8, right? It's about— yeah, that's pretty small. That's an R-5.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

But that's just what's being proposed. I understand. And we're going to see more and more of those kind of proposals, I think.

Yeah. I don't think we have to compromise on that. I don't think we have to say 8 to an acre. No, we set the standard for what our community needs are. We have so much density in our community already. That coming from the state is not the carve-out that we need for our community. So if the developer agrees to it, if we do 4 per acre and they want to build here— I mean, how many times have we seen that, right, where they bring us these high densities, we turn them down, they bring it again, we turn it down, and they come with an R-8, R-12, whatever development, right? So just, I think the known, what Mayor said earlier, I think To have that known in there for people who want to build in Orem is good, you know.

And that goes back to what Gary's saying about a general plan. Yeah, I think if our general plan, we define a lot of that, then we don't have to decide every single city council meeting in this controversy. It's pretty much laid out, it's defined, we can read this is our general plan and this is where we're going.

And each rezone would be judged against the criteria on the general plan.

How do you—

how are you preserving the residential character of our neighborhoods by promoting owner occupancy and long-term residency?

And as far as this issue that you're talking about, Tom, with the state, I mean, they come in and lay over and say, okay, if you put 10 units per acre, it's going to be cheaper. Well, you know, if that were true, if you take a million-dollar piece of property and you If we could charge $100,000 a lot, that'd be great. But what happens is you take a million-dollar piece of property, they lay this over here, and now we're going to charge $250,000. Yeah.

So there's this—

it's, it's not true. It's somebody acting like they're using that to basically—

Yeah, this is straight algebra or algebraic math. It's, you know, Tom, we refer to that as 3 shells and a pea. I think that's the official name.

So our thing would be what Gary said. I mean, I guess I'm talking— let's move on and put it on here, right? General plan, and number— bullet point number 1. Um, what did you call that? Um, general zoning plan.

What did you call that?

I can't remember.

update.

With our churches, they're zoned R-8. I mean, we sort of— we have a little bit of that already, right? Yeah, you're just gonna— No, now they used to be R-8, and the churches, right? So I think we go to that course. Yeah, I think that general plan update, and we articulate it much more clearly. Like the mayor was saying, it's in our general plan, and our general plan When you come in for a rezone, we're going to judge your rezone against this criteria that we've already established.

I actually love this point A being underneath that already because that should be our guiding value.

Yep.

For the general plan.

Yeah.

Well, there's— yeah, are you talking about, okay, reinvesting in neighborhoods?

I mean, we've had very significant discussions about renewing the neighborhoods.

and talking to the state about that rather than taking from the modest digestive money. So I think they're taking that same money but using it to renew our neighborhoods. But didn't you talk to Steve about that?

Steve has a great idea.

So we've got a lot of things we're trying to do. So I think renewing our neighborhoods should be—

Even better.

That A, because we are trying to make that happen, but it should be a focus.

Renewing?

Renewing neighborhoods instead of reinvesting.

And maybe it's exploring ways to renew neighborhoods because we're not there yet. We don't know how we're going to do it.

Renew?

Yeah, that's a good idea.

So I think we used the word revitalize last—

No, renew was the word.

Okay. But, but—

That was the fun word.

So explore ways to renew as opposed to renewing because we don't know how we're going to do it yet.

And then maybe a B could be Encouraging owner occupancy and long-term residency.

That's it.

But put on a— I'm sorry, put explore in front of renew. Because like I said, we don't know how we're going to do that, but we are definitely exploring it.

Explore, explore renewing, renewal of neighborhoods.

And then Gary, what, what did you say again? Maybe a B could be, uh, promoting owner occupancy and long-term— owner occupancy and long-term residency.

You know, it's great to have owner occupants.

It's also great to have renters in your community that want to stay for Long-term residence. I can't remember what I say apparently two minutes later.

So, okay.

So do we still need two?

I mean, that is important.

Sure.

B maybe we.

That's what we do.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think so.

And here we're saying. Whether it's new or old or existing, we want to promote on our advocacy and public relations.

So unless anybody has any other ideas, I think one is fine with them being renewal parks for the Sarah Polanice River and the Homebridge Community Center.

Do we?

I mean, that's where that's still in process, right? Do we want to change that to Heart of Orem, or what do we want to do?

Yeah, I think put Heart of Orem on there.

Yeah, Heart of Orem.

We're working on it.

Just put Heart of Orem project as another or underneath.

Replace.

Replace.

Oh, replace this? Yeah.

Park and Forum Downtown Study. Or study, just add study there.

And then we got team evaluation.

Where are we at on that? We are still working on essentially trying to come up with a decision matrix and a process matrix that then we would bring back to you in the many meetings and show the different efforts that we would take with different entities such as—

So that's in process?

It's in process.

Okay, so we just leave it.

I think so.

Anything else under this?

Well, Jeff, if because of your experiences, you know, you're associated If there's anything else you can think of on that first one.

I think if we just continue doing what we've been doing and maybe increase it a little bit, increase the outreach, and just make sure that people know what's happening in those communities, I think it will be a ripple as more people know about it and they have ways of spreading So I think if we just keep doing what we're doing and with a little bit of increase, I think we'd go a long way. And even finding their mechanisms, what form of communication are they using? Can we tie into one of their communication forms? You know, WhatsApp or what? I don't know what it is. I mean, I just had a thought on the farmers market. You know, you have the pavilion there and you could have different ethnic groups come and do their— because people, there's a stage there. Yeah, maybe we could tie some to— because people, how many people came to the farmers market?

5,500 or whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

So that could be something, maybe you could bring the culture together and maybe they have a place to, to, you know.

Yeah, the farmers market thing.

Yeah, but the farmers market, but then tie that into culture event or the, you know, Latino And whatever.

If it didn't have PR, if you have PR you want to press through there, you could.

We kind of did that with the Come Together Rock Festival, right? Didn't we coordinate with the farmers market on music?

No, that was through like Greg Carlisle and his group.

Or what was his called?

Yeah.

Yeah, the Come Together Festival.

Come Together?

Yeah, that was kind of a standalone thing. On its own. But through farmers market is our—

They had to coordinate with Farmers Market because Farmers Market had their own music going.

Yeah, yeah, for the Arts Council Summer Concert Series.

Yeah, so I guess to do what Dave's saying, is there a way to coordinate with the Farmers Market people to see if we could get them to do more outreach?

Oh sure, let's see if— yeah, I mean, groups, it's— we could utilize it. I mean, people are there, the food trucks are there, and if you had some Music and, you know, I don't know.

Because they schedule that, right?

Yeah, the ones that they do. Yeah.

What I was going to say, Pete, is as far as if we have marketing or press or things we want to do to get messaging out to that community, those markets like the Mexican market, there's half a dozen of those and those get used to death. And so we could work with those. I think they'd be really amenable to letting you put up flyers, whatever you want, to get messaging out.

Since Debbie has come onto the team, she's forging some pretty strong relationships with the Catholic Church.

Awesome.

So we feel like that's going to be a huge thing for us this year. Awesome. That's great.

I was just shocked how many— how heavy those markets get used. There's tons of drivers.

Right outside the parking spot. Yeah.

They've got great stuff over there.

And I think my hometown at Sharon Elementary will open up some opportunities for associations.

Absolutely.

Because it's not at a church.

Do we add a number 2 there to build more partnerships and associations like with other formal groups? Maybe utilizing the former Partnerships.

Oh, and relationships.

Yeah, I think that's broad. That's good.

Somebody told me they had their own little Chamber of Commerce thing going on too. They do, yeah.

The Spanish do?

Yeah.

Latinos?

Yeah, that might be— in fact, West County's already done that.

You got a state and a local Chamber of Commerce for Latinos. That came into the area.

Okay, let's go to thriving and balanced business environment. You could put a UVU Uh, what's it called?

The UVU Business Resource Center.

Yeah, that's going to be a focus this coming year.

And you want that to be involved? So the Spanish translation of business license, have you already done that?

Yeah, that's in the works, right?

To take it up?

Yeah.

Is that— that should be in the works.

We did that.

Let's see, Business Alliance, does she have a minority subcommittee?

So that's—

oh my goodness. That's just, that's just having a focus in the business program of those of the minorities just to make sure that they have a voice into the city through her. Do we have that, Chris?

No.

There's still work under the Chamber of Commerce. We have county chambers. Is that for minority? Minority chamber is what we're looking at, right? Yeah. Increase the minority chamber of commerce instead of county.

Up here?

Yeah. It's just a resource to Kathy. Along with everything else she's doing. Okay. I'd say what's good— suggest you add on there Gary's business license. Yeah, yeah. We're trying to streamline, update, make more efficient our business licensing application and reach out.

Thank you very much.

Except for Dave. He's on under Twice as expensive. Another bullet. Yes. What are we calling it? Business licensing.

Business licensing.

Streamline.

Streamline.

Process.

Okay.

Got an accident.

What's the notice of permit? Do we need that one on there?

That, that just is just a tie-in for the Businesses. There is no minority subcommittee right now. There is no tie-in. I'm just having 20% of the city be represented with something, and there is nothing right now. They feel alienated and not included because they don't speak the language. So you'll deal with Kathy and then— Yeah, so we need to have something happen there.

Okay, so maybe that's, that's where you tie into their local chamber.

Could be. So we'll just have to see between 1 and 2. Or maybe it should be 1 and then 1A or something. Yeah, how about Minority Chamber of Commerce Resource or Minority Subcommittee? Well, you can just do an A or something, do a sub-A.

Push it.

Yeah.

That's it.

Okay.

All right.

Excellent. Okay, next. Dependable.

The infrastructure.

Oh, here's more. There's your harbor downtown.

Okay.

Hey, look, look at 950 North.

We're all ignoring you.

It's been embedded this whole time. So will you take that off? No. No festival fields. Okay.

Okay, so part of downtown we've got above, right? So we take that off the list.

The active transportation master plan is still in the works. They've applied for some grants and looking for funding for that. Okay, so that's on the top of transportation's list right now.

Okay, so I, and I really want to hit number one. I've talked I just talked to Gary and Jake about it yesterday. I would really like to see under State Street renewal, as far as something, you know, this is active transportation, I would almost like to— and I'm not sure where to put this because it's not really— it's beautification of State Street. I think there are some simple things that we can do now.

So not active transportation?

Not under active.

So should we take that off?

Oh, I see.

But it's renewal.

See what I'm saying? So it's not— maybe a new bullet point. point or something, but a beautification of State Street.

Is that under dependable infrastructure?

Yeah.

Well, it's under stations renewal beautification, so—

Do we have stations?

Just do a 1A. Do a 1A.

Well, but it's not under the transportation—

I mean, before Renee's going— I would like to see that be a priority. I mean, it's going to take forever to do a lot of the things we do on State Street. Street, and we will do it. But as far as State Street renewal and beautification just being a priority, that my focus is to push on some specific things we can do to, you know, make it—

I mean, social media posts for businesses that plant trees or that upgrade their signs. Yeah, you know, let's, let's push the monument signs. Let's, let's I mean, we can incentivize with not necessarily money. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Try to think outside the box on ways to incentivize some beautification. You know, spotlighting the ones who have the beautiful landscaping.

And there have been a lot of people, like we were saying, that are just organically— That's one area that we haven't yet seen.

It's a great idea to just give some love to those that are reinvesting in safety.

Yeah, because it's the broken window policy, right? I mean, when people fit— one person fixes their window, that either upgrades their home.

Get some talk going on it and get a spotlight on them and look at how beautiful that is. Yeah, I mean, also, so put that for a number one bullet point.

Can we do that beautification of State Street?

What control do we have over that?

Well, that's what I'm saying, that by incentivizing the things that they do, we, we do that by giving them social media shoutouts and just total love, you know.

So not the cash, not money.

We don't have money, we're not putting money, but we're in, you know, business.

This is back to the business part. The beautification commission, they did give beautification awards, but maybe it wasn't so much. So maybe that's something you can encompass in your neighborhood.

Yeah, I actually want it bigger than that.

As a sub, then you can do that because I think it means a lot I've talked to businesses, they have their sign up front, they're very proud of what they've done, but we need to recognize—

Best of Orem, like best of State, right?

I don't know.

Does that belong in economic development? You come up with a plan of outreach to target businesses along State Street and offer advice, help, Whatever it is about whatever they need to do and encourage and then recognize and celebrate. Maybe at a recognition at the council, on a council meeting, come in and, hey, this business put in this effort. They get some free advertising. They get acknowledgement.

Yeah, and what I'm talking about is It's pretty much the same thing, but just to make— okay, so we've got Heart of Downtown. That's a specific heavy-lift project.

Yeah.

That will be amazing when it's done. And that's to get the heart of State Street going a certain direction, looking a certain way. But what we're talking about now is to say, no, let's take the entire State Street and what are some core principles we can overlay on that in terms of signage, You know, colors. What's a dozen different things we can do that if you just wipe that across State Street right now, it would look 30% better? You know what I mean? So it's basically an upgrade and an overall guiding principle. But it would take some thought. But I think it's something that we have to do.

And I'm just going to throw these out there, right? I mean, okay, you've been to LA. right? You can go down some of their streets and their stores, the advertising in the stores and everything is just graffiti-ish, you know, because it's just crazy. So coming back to the Park City mining town, you know, Midway, Swisstown, why can't we dictate, you know, these are the colors, you know, you don't get to paint your building bright bright yellow. I'm sorry, but we want to have a sophistication to our State Street. We want a look of sophistication and beautification.

So mammoth theme.

I don't know how to make it happen.

It's just cleaning it up and making it— yeah, yeah, Provo's actually done a great job on some of their streets with that.

On Center Street, they've had a really— it's a combination of Some regulation, some incentives, some recognition and encouragement, and kind of a multifaceted approach.

That's what I'm talking about. Like I say, heart of downtown is awesome. We're going to push forward and that'll be amazing. But just on the whole of Station Street, what are some standards, some guidelines, some things we could do that just, just to make it look more unified?

And maybe we have our own bolded underlying section, a new one, that is beautification of Orem, you know.

Love State Street.

Love State Street.

Okay.

I mean, Orem's—

my deal with State Street, and I've said this before, not to bore everyone and go on too long, but I think Orem's got so many amazing things. I mean, it really does. All the parks, all the people. It's just an amazing place to live. And then State Street Street is not up to par with the rest of Orem. It's improving, it's getting better, but imagine an Orem where State Street matched how great the community is all the way around. And that's, that's what I'm talking about.

It may be community development we could take on and come back at a future council work session and think about this idea and come back with— from an economic development standpoint, what can we do from Possibly code changes that might be needed.

Yeah.

You know, with the new development setting a new standard of how it would develop and other programs or investigate grants or something like that that might help businesses.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so we know we can't do a complete fix on it fast, but we can definitely And I think— And then like you said, it's happening organically, which is kind of exciting too, because that just kind of plays into what we're trying to do.

No, I was just going to say that whatever social media Pete can help us with, I really think it will create this natural competition for— to be the pretty business to be there.

And that's what we've seen over the last 2 years with the business highlights that we do. We've got 40-plus people who are trying to get on our list. Nice.

So hopefully it helps.

I mean, I don't think that's the sole reason people redo their home building, but it doesn't hurt. But you could get bumped to the top if you redo your home building. Yeah, there you go.

Let's do what we can, right?

Okay, so I think you guys are on board with that, right?

Yes.

Sounds all good. Okay, so going down this list. So that's in play, right? You know, active transportation master plan.

Yeah.

And so then we can take State Street.

And then if I may, I think we, I think we can make additional trail opportunities or its own bullet point. Yeah, its own bullet point. Something like Define trail system. Gary, help me out here with the wording here. More trails. Honestly, I think that summarizes it. You know, it's kind of like complete streets. Not every street has to have every type of thing on it, but you need to have a system for bikes to get through. You have to have a system for pedestrians and trails, but not every type of thing on every single street. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And it'll result in more trails, but not trails to normal— no, trails to other trails. They could be put in there. Maybe look at the, the Berman Canyon Park from that trail that goes up to Murdock Canal. 4.5 acres, by the way.

Yeah.

I don't think we want to put that on right now. I'd like to see the residents do some things on that.

No, I, I, but I think it might be a partnership or something with them. Yeah.

I think kind of broad is good here.

I think, yeah, I think we can keep having that conversation for sure, but let's sit and define to define it.

But that's okay, I'm moving on. Yeah, I'm not dying on this.

What about the bike— the mountain bike park or mountain bike track up out of Temple Notch Park?

We have that on one of the projects that I think that we put into departmental goals.

Okay.

Phase 3 is going to be under construction this year.

Okay, so what's going on with that? Okay, so the Have we finished transportation utility philanthropy analysis?

Yeah.

Yeah, so I can go away.

Take that off. Yeah, I think Dave needs to talk to Chris about the other one.

No, you need to keep that on because it says, and create the construction schedule. We haven't created it yet, so keep that on. We looked at it and decided to bury that real deep.

We'll bury it. The construction schedule is 2026.

So, what are we doing with that?

Keep it on.

Okay, then pursue capital improvement for wastewater treatment plant.

So, so this was just, um, I think we lost all the commas. Storm drain, fire training facility, public. So there's probably, yeah, comma here. I think you know what I mean.

I think you know what we said. We're done with that.

Okay.

Okay, community-focused and effective governments.

Is there anything to join?

Um, no.

Okay, okay.

Community focus, then federal government, legislator outreach, build strong relationships with legislators and groups, involving in state events. I mean, we could just narrow that down to legislator outreach, I mean, because it still can be improved.

Remove subgroups?

Yeah, get rid of those bullet points 1 and 2, I think.

How about we change?

Um, improve UVU dialogue, we've been working on that.

Do we—

should we just say continue UVU dialogue?

Yeah, continue. Improve, continue improving.

Or just continue.

Continue.

Just continue.

Continue UVU dialogue. Oh, just continue UVU.

Get rid of improve.

Yes, because we've improved it.

Now we're going to continue.

I was like, the improved sounds weird.

So we'll stay good. Joint meetings with school district and surrounding cities. Yeah, we did that.

We're kind of out there now.

Promote Orem Community Foundation.

Maybe.

We've got that in movement, so I would leave it on there.

Leave it on?

Yeah, we have to promote it. We basically resurrected it, now we've got to promote it.

Okay.

Is it ORM has harder, ORM has more now?

Yeah, exactly.

There's a lot of slogans flying around.

Yeah, where do we go with that?

ORM gives you more. I think it was part of the discussion much of the heart of the forum. We're trying to tie those things together. And just that, you know, our parks, our recreation, our arts, our library, they don't compete, but they are synergistic because they all— And how it can be— gives you more. More gives you more heart.

So, so, I mean, because we got a lot of slogans going on. Do we want— I mean, that seems like that would be a slogan for that specific downtown, right? So, so do you want to— what do you want to do with that?

Put that in your back pocket until we do the kickoff for it.

As long as we don't forget. You're not going to forget.

No.

Add mental health programming.

Did we do that?

Yeah, no, did we do that with— I mean, that's what we've done with, uh, public safety. Public safety and fire.

But did we reduce sources of strength program at NOVA?

Well, was this more community-facing, or—

I don't know.

Timpanogos High School. It's an Everyday Strong type, but not the same. So I don't think— unless we get someone to do it on our level, unless we have, you know, a staff who wants to learn about what it is and figure out how to bring it to our community events, that would be how Pull it off and bring it back next year.

Yeah, we probably could add it to the Healthy Initiative if it's— Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, they're going to do that because it is a— it is an amazing program and I don't think it's covered anywhere right now.

So yeah, do it on Healthy York or Healthy Initiative.

Yeah.

Okay, we're almost done. I think that's the last one, right? Skilled and talented workforce.

Complete efficiency study. We jumped a little.

There we go.

Oh my gosh. So we did the efficiency study.

We did the efficiency study. We talked about the medical clinic.

That's still in the works.

So we can still leave it on there, evaluate. Continue to expand the hybrid STEP program. Did we do that?

We've expanded it as far as I believe that we've implementation of employee engagement survey. We did that, right?

You're doing that?

Yeah.

Continued lunches with employee groups. We can leave that on, right? That's a good thing.

Dave brought up, do we want to do another employee survey?

I don't need— I need to spend money on it. I think that we could do another survey but through a different avenue so we don't have to pay a group to do it for us this time because we have a good baseline.

Carrie, do you think we could do that Best Places to Work survey?

Yeah, yeah, they do that every year and we, we just didn't know about it soon enough so we were just shy of getting the information we needed. But yeah, I think we could do that one very easily.

We also kind of get— I mean, we've completely opened the door on feedback with our battle box, and that's new and ongoing. It's perfect. And so it's an avenue, and we address— we review it in our test staff meetings.

Is there anything executive staff wants to add on skilled development workforce that you think we've talked about? Do you, Carrie, or anybody?

Uh, well, we will, um, look at the onboarding process. That's going to be our biggest effort this year.

So evaluate onboarding process.

Anything we can do as a city council to support you in that area? Now, if you have experience with what works well in your special teams, how about that?

You know, one thing that we talked about that kind of comes up with Josh and that some of us were talking about at lunch was just trying to make sure we're creating Internal promotion and growth opportunities for employees. They like to feel like— same with the hybrid step program, they like to feel like there's runway, that there's— they can improve and progress in their careers. Succession planning or facilitate growth opportunities. Maybe an internal leadership course for those looking to move up the chain. Cross-training opportunities for people to see other things that they might want to do. So Teresa, would you go back down to scan the industry line?

Cross-training is always wise.

Especially with the Department of Commerce.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Inside and outside of the department. What did you want to say?

More cross-training and growth opportunities. Maybe career growth opportunities.

And you had said onboarding process, you want on there or no?

I think—

I think that's good. Okay, anything else that we missed?

We cleaned it up quite a bit from last year to this year.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Mayor, I just would like to say how impressed by Teresa I am.

I would never type in front of you all like this. I am a horrible typist and a horrible speller. I could not handle it.

And I would say Teresa and Lori have done fabulous job.

Okay, well, is there anything anyone else would like to add before we go? Are you looking for a motion?

Without any promotion. Well, I thought we still had some stuff. I want to talk about some stuff. We put on 9:50 more. No, that's— I'm talking about our roundtable. Isn't this supposed to be a roundtable? Um, right here. Every council member has to share thoughts.

Yeah, but I kind of redefined that. I said we were going to work and collaborate on this all together.

So, I have a few things I want to bring up. Okay. So, on the, on On the city lights, I'm getting the heat a lot. Gosh, but that's okay. So, on the city lights, we added 150,000 this year?

Yes.

So, is there— what is the opportunity to add more for next year? Meaning, maybe up and down Center Street, where the sidewalk is, there's no lights there. We would just need to inch up our streetlight fee. That's how we— that's how we pay for it. We'd also need to install power infrastructure. Or business license fees. We could recreate— But it's only once a year. And by next Christmas, won't we have some trees and other things in the new plaza area?

Yeah, and every single tree has power run that is good.

So I just think, I mean, You know, the positive feedback on lights was amazing.

Yeah, I mean, we got positive— I mean, that's off the charts as far as positive feedback. But yeah, I think what we did just got like amazing feedback, so I think we're in a pretty good place. And if we go anywhere, it'd be the new city building, right, as far as some new trees.

Do you depend on it? Yeah.

Really?

So I just have a few, a few more questions. So we do, we do the salary, uh, you know, you send it out and get a survey.

Survey.

Um, I've talked to a few people in the city, and are those surveys transparent? Transparent, meaning that the employees get to see those? And then on the Those that aren't on the ladder and step program, are the other employees— can we see who got what increases?

Are you talking about division managers up?

I'm talking about maybe employees that are on step.

Yeah, so that would just be division managers and your executives.

I mean, like, hourly employees.

Are you saying peer-to-peer?

Yes. That's not a good idea. I guess I don't really understand.

Are you talking position to position for each?

I'm just talking about, like, if you take the city manager's office, what was their increase? Was it 10%? Was it 5%? Was it 2%?

Yeah, we do look at it.

On public works, is it from the bottom to the top? What was the increase? Did somebody get 1%? Somebody got no percent? That's what I'm talking about. Is it fair? Because I know in the days past it was not fair in the city manager's office when they got 15 or 20% and everybody else got 3%. So I'm just saying we need to be transparent, make sure it's fair. That's all I'm saying. I'd like to see those numbers. So there is some built-in transparency as well by state statute. Every time we We adopted a budget for basically the deputy and executive positions on up. We actually hold a public hearing now for those increases. We did that this last budget cycle. I'm just saying, if you have an hourly employee and the average is that they get 1%, somebody else is getting 3% of their salary, the salaried employees get a lot more money than the But Dave, we don't do a lot of performance increases anymore. It's division managers and below, it's all hybrid step programs. So everyone knows what the increase will be as long as they get their training. Everybody's in services?

Everybody except for the division managers. So our leadership team in each department and the executive teams.

Everybody else is in They can go get training and get back more money. So the only other way for anyone to get an increase is through looking at market. So if we find that IT has a bunch of competition out there and we do that market analysis and they're leaving us because they're on average getting paid more elsewhere, Then we would we would give an increase to. So your hourly employee has a step program? Yes, yes.

Full time.

It's published. Full time.

Yes.

But not everybody got a market study increase this year.

But we did look at every single position, and then we went to Brandon and Brad. with our suggestions and talked through it all. So there is a committee that looks at it all, and then we go to the departments and show them all that information. So we pull up, like for example, we met with both police and fire and we pulled up all of our sister cities and it showed their minimum and max and compared to ours and what our suggestion was. Yeah. So they, they can see all of the other entities and what their ranges Yes, I know that there was a hiccup on the engineers.

Well, because the engineers were the same market and that's like 3 years in a row without any increase after decreasing them, we took into consideration their parametric certification and we fixed that. Correct. So we went back and reviewed that.

We got an email on that, that you did that, right?

Yeah, because that was a concern.

But that's a perfect example. There was an issue.

And got dealt with really quickly.

Yeah, that was very fast. But it wasn't because we were out of market, though. I just want to be clear on that. We were in market, right?

It was the definition of a STEP program.

Or were the engineers over market? Under market. No, they were in market and they were at the top of their market. But what was happening is they're also paramedics, and so they've got a second thing to do. If they want to continue to do the career advancement education to get into a higher paramedic pay, then they have to do the work and we'll slide it into that pay scale.

So I don't think it was a lack of transparency. I think it was a lack of structural change, right? You were doing a structural change, so I don't think it was—

Because I, I just think that maybe as executive staff drilling down to your employees maybe they don't understand the STEP program and how it's working. So I've just got a feedback.

So better education.

Yes, better education on if they only got a percentage today because of this, they need to know why. Maybe they're not understanding it. And how they can get more if they do want more.

Correct.

Are you getting feedback that suggests that's the case?

Yes.

It says— I mean, there's no question that our engineers, I mean, If it's tied to that though, that's—

It's not.

There's other situations that people have talked to me about. So I just want to make sure that we are educating our employees, that they understand, because I don't fully understand how the different STEP programs— but I'm not in it, right? I'm on the outside business, so we do it differently, right? So just partly to educate our employees. Everybody in the STEP program gets 3% raise every year. It's when they don't get a market adjustment and move the market because they're in the market, that they feel like they're missing a merit. But they still get a 3% raise every single year as long as they do their work. In lieu of merits. In lieu of merits.

So I appreciate that.

We'll try to do better education. I think, yeah, I mean, because a person that's now an employee might not understand, because if they get, I don't know, 2, 3 2%, they get 25 cents an hour, right? So they're like, well, that's sort of a slap in the face. So I think we need to educate them how— that's just the feedback I've received. And I don't know if something like that will help. I'll ask.

No, I appreciate that.

And just so that you're aware too, the STEP program condenses the amount of time it takes for you to get from the bottom of the range to the top of the range.

And so what it moves them through much quicker.

It isn't just a couple cents at a time.

We went from a 30-year to go through the range too.

Yeah, Public Works, it was rare for somebody to be able to get to the top of their pay scale over the course of a 30-year period. Now everybody's getting there in 15 years or less. I just think we need to educate employees a little bit better.

I appreciate that because I think that maybe it's the newer employees that could And maybe, maybe we just need to do it once a year.

Chris, maybe I can come down with you and your staff. Yeah, that might be good, just as an educational. Okay, that's all I have.