City Council · 2025-02-11

If we don't pass this bill, that's how we live.

Love it. That's celebrity.

Hey, welcome back. Uh, what we've got on our work session today is, uh, there was a lot of discussion in City Council a few weeks ago about Planning Commission and how it works. And so we've asked Gary to put together a presentation on how it works and have a conversation about the process.

Great, thank you, Mayor. Um, so Madeline is our Planning Commission chair, and I've asked her if she would come in and just kind of give a state of the Planning Commission address, just kind of tell what we've been doing and some of the things that have been going on. While she's doing that, I'm going to bring up a few slides to go through and end up talking about the process and how we can make it better and more transparent.

Yeah.

So just this introduction, I'm Madeline Cohen. As you obviously know, I got reappointed to Planning Commission. There's actually only one commissioner who's been on longer than I have, and that's Haysom. So far, I've been the—

I'm sorry, only one commissioner who's been what?

Been on longer than I have. Haysom.

Yeah, Haysom, of course. Yeah, he's second term.

Yes. And so I've been the chair for the last year and a half. Just by way of explanation, the chair is an internal election. We do it amongst ourselves. We serve for about a year at a time, and I was reappointed by my fellow commissioners right after, just a few weeks ago. And so I will be the chair again this year, and the vice chair is Mike Carpenter. And I really appreciate the confidence and support of my commissioners because they have supported me through a lot of what I'm about to discuss about the Planning Commission.

Samantha, can you also— maybe it's in your presentation, but can you just tell a little bit about your background?

Yeah, so I have a law degree. I went to law school. Wow, it's getting to be a long time ago. And we moved out here to Utah and I had children and I stayed home with my kids. But while I was in law school, I did some community development and planning stuff and really fell in love with it and enjoyed it. And I worked for— I spent a summer externing in the city of Cleveland. in their law office. And it was— I loved it. I love municipal law. I love all of that. And it was a real interesting experience to see how a city that was very much decimated in the '80s and '90s was trying to revitalize itself, and what individual citizens were doing in their neighborhoods to try and revitalize their city. And so just from that, I've always had this desire Excuse me, desire to be on a planning commission and to work and to help with the process of planning because it affects every citizen. It has the potential to do good and it has the potential to do harm. And we have to balance those. We have to make tough decisions. We have to look at everything around what's happening. And from that, from those experiences, I— And in addition to that, I've also worked on some nonprofit boards. I've been president of an HOA. If you want an experience that teaches you, be an HOA president. But that also informed a lot of thoughts and feelings and things. And, you know, just—

I've been in—

we've lived in Orem for about 9 years and raised our family here. They've gone to Orem schools. We just love the community. We love where we live. We love our house. Love the amenities. I mean, like, Orem is awesome because you can get to anything. within a few minutes. There's just so much to love about it. There really is.

So.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So I want to just really briefly talk about the role of the Planning Commission. And I don't know how much Gary's going to talk about this. But our role is to be recommending— a recommendation body to the City Council on legislative matters. But we also take care of a certain amount of administrative matters where we're the final authority on those items, some things like plat amendments, Lot divisions, lot— putting lots together. So there's— we kind of have 2 hats, and they have 2 very different roles, and they have 2 different set of rules within them. And so we've had to learn. That's one of the many things that we've had to really focus on is learning what our different roles are and how those apply and what the rules are. Another thing is when we do our legislative stuff, part of our role is to help y'all make policy decisions on land use and zoning. And sorry, like, I don't know why I'm feeling nervous right this second, but, you know, we focus on those things. We really dive into them, whereas you guys have like 10 other different things. You guys deal with finance, you deal with Orem Fest, you deal with all of these things. Our focus is solely on planning. And the other aspect is that we are citizens, that we live here. We are not elected. We don't have constituents. We don't— We don't have to face some of the pressures that you all face, and that gives us kind of a step back to kind of look at some of the issues That, that we're dealing with. And we also often are a check. We see ourselves as a check on planning services. Did you change your name to Community? I don't remember. Is it Development Services?

I have changed my legal name to Community.

I know that's been some debate. I know this has been some debate, but like, Really, we are a check. They go— the planners get their heads down in planning and doing all the ins and outs of helping people get their applications through. And we are kind of the first step to say, well, wait, have you thought about that? Or why are you doing this this way? Or that doesn't seem to make any sense. I understand you really want a road there. And it looks really pretty on your map, but does it make sense for this neighborhood? Or does it make sense for this? And I think that that is a really important role that we have. And one other thing is that I think it's okay that the Planning Commission and the City Council don't always agree on what the outcomes are. And but there has to be a level of trust between y'all and us. And I hope that you guys can help, like, grow to understand that we Take seriously what we are doing. We work really hard to be informed. We try and ask lots of questions. We really ask lots of questions and dive down into a lot because we really take what we do seriously. All 7 of us put a lot of time and effort going to meetings, going to neighborhood meetings, researching things, going and visiting places that we're Talking about if we're not familiar with the neighborhood, talking to people sometimes, depending on what the circumstances are. So along that lines, everything I'm about to talk about, we kind of weren't doing before about a year and a half ago. And I went to Gary, and we have done a lot. Gary has done a lot to support us and help us in making a number of changes. And I'm gonna go through these like Really fast.

Yeah, just to headline this. Yeah, I mean, you're saying you weren't doing this a year and a half ago, now you're doing it. So there's been some substantive changes in the plan.

There has been, just in the last year and a half. So one of the big things is training. We've worked really, really hard on training, providing lots of training. Every issue that's coming before us will be like, oh hey, we're dealing with You know, what goes in a C2 versus a C3. So we sit there and we talk about everything that's in there. And, or we'll dive deep into, you know, as I said before, we really did start from the bottom up. We started with our legislative and our administrative roles and what those mean and what we can do and can't do. We've covered PRDs versus PDs, traffic studies. We went a whole deep dive into traffic studies to understand those and when they're important and when they're not and how they're done and, and how they can be helpful in making decisions. We've also talked about kind of some boring things like ethics and ex parte communication, which, well, not the most exciting, thrilling things are really important because a lot of the same laws that apply to you apply to us. as commissioners on those things. And when I say, like, we're not allowed to talk to people if we're doing something administrative, but we are, we can in certain circumstances if it's legislative, right? It's— there is a lot of that rule, a lot of things about being ethical and law-based that we have to follow and need to understand. But it's an ongoing thing. We'll continue to keep doing it as things come before us. Another one of the big things we've worked on is our meetings, our actual meetings, how we structure them, what happens. We formalize the process. We've talked a lot about motions, both making them and what motions we can make. There was actually— for a long time, we weren't making certain motions because we didn't know we were allowed to. And so working to understand what we can and can't do. We've changed the formats of our meeting. We've added consent agenda items for administrative items. When I first was on, we were having public hearings for items that we literally had to vote yes to if they met city code. And it was taking a lot of time, and it was confusing the public because they would come to our meetings. They would say, I don't agree with this lot division. And we would be like, I, you know, we have to vote for this. This is, this is what it is. We've worked with staff to change how presentations are done. We moving presentations from the pre-meeting. We were doing a lot in the pre-meeting that was supposed to be in the main meeting. We changed that. We also changed how much the staff tells us, because pretty much before, the staff was presenting the entire argument for something. And now we've pulled that back because it's really on the developer. Developers should be telling us and making the argument for why or why not we should make a zoning change for them, or why or why not we should do something. And along those lines, we also changed— staff reports have changed. I think there's still a few more tweaks to them, but they've come a long way from what they were. We're getting more information. We've also worked on etiquette and decorum during our meetings and how to interact with the public. Planning Commission is kind of unique in that we actually have open— I mean, just like y'all do, we have people come and they voice their opinion on the matter before us and In that process, we are often the first city organization that they interact with. And so how we reach out to them, how we talk to them, how we present to them makes a difference. And along those lines, we've also done a lot of trying to educate during our meetings because just like we're a recommending body, they need to understand that it's not a final decision because a lot of people come in thinking that this is And I'm like, no, you— we've got to go on. You've got to go, go talk to City Council. It's going to be on this date. We're just a step in the process. In process stuff, we've talked a lot about noticing. We've talked about those yellow cards. We've tried to make changes to those yellow cards. I'm sure you all want changes to those yellow cards. We've talked about neighborhood meetings, which we'll be doing more of soon. And we've also talked about the distances for noticing. I think those are all things, still ongoing discussions, things that we need to talk about. Just a couple more quick things. Bylaws. Last year we worked really hard to adopt bylaws. As far as we could find, the Planning Commission has not had bylaws. And so we worked to codify both the city code, state law that we needed to have it. We put in processes. We talked about what you do, like how meetings run. So now that anyone who joins the Planning Commission can have something to look at. And see how we run. I mean, we didn't even have a— I mean, resignations didn't even have a formal process. Like, there were things that we've talked through in regards to that. One of the more interesting things that we added to the bylaws was the idea of subcommittees, that we can form subcommittees as a planning commission to take deeper dives into certain topics. And those, we can invite a city council member to work with us, or we can invite Citizens in a certain neighborhood to come. And so, as we have issues come before us, we might use those to dive into, hey, what does Southwest Orem want in this area, or whatever? And along those lines, and this is definitely a tribute to Gary and the staff, they created binders for us, which I know it sounds really exciting, but it has the bylaws, it has our statutes, it has our code for what we have as training material. As we've had, as they've made documents and flyers for us, we've been able to add things about processes. And, you know, we have great cheat sheets in here now. Like, I had to make my own cheat sheet when I first came on to know what the difference between an R5 and an R8 and R12 was, and how many houses an acre that meant. And so, but every one of these topics we've dug down, we've done a ton. So That's kind of— now somebody can come onto the Planning Commission and actually learn. When I first came on, I asked about training, and I was told, wait 6 months, you'll get a hang of it. And it was—

Nice.

Yeah, it was kind of like, I mean, in all fairness, State Street Master Plan was my first— that was my first meeting, and it was, it was just very much fire hose. Like, you'll just pick it up, learn it. But I've been really grateful for the, the support of city staff, the opportunities we've had to attend American Planning Association conferences in the fall. Those have been really good for expanding our understanding and our knowledge and getting ideas of what other cities are doing and what other tools we have in our toolbox. We actually have a lot of things we could do and, and to look for. And that's We are— that's kind of basically a lot of what we've done in a very fast nutshell. And I think that this is a good place to start a good opening dialogue, and that we need to have more discussion between us. And I think that that's one thing we've talked about a little bit a few times, is that I think it would be nice to have a more formal opportunity for the Planning Commission and the City Council to meet together maybe once or twice a year to discuss some of these high-level issues in OREM. I think we see things. I think you see things. I think there's some areas where I think we really could come together and kind of start planning for OREM as opposed to just reacting to every application that comes before us. So, I don't know.

That's wonderful.

I just said a lot in a really short period of time. Well, thank you for coming to share these perspectives with us. It's really helpful to just see, you know, what you're working on. We see that this great training is happening and Spencer, thanks.

Yeah, I stand by my you're amazing. Great job.

Thank you. So I would love you to pass me those cheat sheets. Yes, because trying to figure out how many, you know, how many archives, how many lots of that, that would be very helpful for me. That would be awesome. And Madeline, I thoroughly enjoyed our visit together. Thank you. And thank you for kind of expounding and sharing your perspectives and what you all do. And, and so it is. Thanks. Yeah.

I want a cheat sheet. Yeah.

2, 3.

Yeah, I think everyone wants the cheat sheets. You can actually access everything in our binder.

I don't want one.

Our binder has been posted to the website too. So if you dig down enough, you can find it. Maybe Gary could play the coin next.

Yeah, we will get you cheat sheets.

That would be very helpful.

They're gold.

But a digital binder, we're gonna go with that. Yeah, this is—

And if you would like, we can recreate the binder for you if you would like one, so you can see what to do. Digital binder would be amazing.

Yeah, but this laminated has been so useful because this is like, this is all the law for PD.

I don't know which one's which upside down.

versus PRD. This is all of our ours and kind of roughly what the acreage is and what it is. All the commercial zones, all of the manufacturing zones.

So I'm more likely to read 2 or 3 pages than a binder. Just a cheat sheet. Yeah, just make that little—

just spread it out.

I'll take the printed binder.

Okay, I'll take it. I don't need one.

I do have a cheat sheet. I also love the idea of meeting together, the 2 commissions, the City Council and the Planning Commission, for lots of reasons. But I like the proactive approach of where we're going, work together and have a vision.

Yeah, sorry. Sometimes when we're making decisions, it does feel like we're in a black box. But it's like, here's this little— that, like, this little piece of something, and we don't always know more about what's around it, more context. And I think sometimes knowing what y'all's visions are, what our— what we're seeing, can help with making the decisions stronger, more in line with what we need and want.

When I first realized the Planning Commission was Taking things to a new level was on the transportation master plan. Yeah, because I think the normal process is just, it gets recommended by the staff, it's thrown out there, and it just gets approved and it just goes through. But I was really impressed by the Planning Commission actually dug down and asked the question, does this make more or less Family City, USA? And what are the implications of all these changes in transportation? I think by going through that. Process that you guys drove, it really helped us come to a good end result.

Thank you.

And that is the power of what we can do to help y'all, is, is by taking some of that on and really going into it.

Forgive me for stepping out. I reread How Will You Measure Your Life, and I take calls from my kids now when they call because I'm not putting enough time in that bucket. Somewhere around the world, somewhere around our community, and I don't think it generates from the Planning Commission. It seems like anything smaller than an R-8 is called high density. And I, I don't know that you're generating those discussions. I live in an R-12, so anything smaller than an R-12 to me is high density. What— how do you define high density, medium density, and low density? Or is there a cheat sheet for that?

There isn't. Well, the state has certain requirements that make that, but they're still arguing about what some of those are. And are you asking me personally, or are you asking in general?

Is there a cheat sheet on what— because we— I hear high density a lot of times when I would not call it high density. And I don't— maybe I don't have the right definition. I'm wondering if there is a definition.

There probably technically is a definition. There's also Mid-density, like the planning community and some of the stuff, there's mid-density, which is duplexes, triplexes, and quads, as opposed to the higher density, which would be the high-rises.

Yeah, when they're stacked on top of themselves, I think we quickly agree that's high density, right?

And, but what's really interesting, and I've noticed this a lot, that our R-8 designation in Orem seems to be somewhat retroactive to a lot of neighborhoods because the density in a lot of our neighborhoods is actually closer to R-6. 2.5. And so as we look at— but it really depends on where you are in the neighborhood, like in the city, and when that neighborhood was built.

Yeah.

So, but it is a really hard, slippery definition of what's— because what's high density to me might not be high density to you.

Well, Da Vinci, which is across the street from an item that's being considered, when that was approved, 17, 18 years ago. I don't think 20 years ago— someone could help me with that math— I don't think anyone called it high density, but they were closer together in some kind of PD zone that was attracting the over 55 who don't want to care for a home a lot, etc., etc. But I don't know what we called that. Maybe, Brian, you might know. Did we call that medium density, a PD? I don't know what that's called.

It's a PRD.

It's a PRD.

I don't know that they necessarily even use the term density. I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years, right, with issues in my neighborhood, and it's only since the high-rise apartments, the multi, uh, apartments, you know, have I heard the high density, you know. So I don't know that there's— I'm just saying from my experience, you know, I don't know that there's definitions. I think they kind of ebb and flow with the planners and the conventions they go to, you know. Right now it's increased density. And quite frankly, 20 years ago, I went to a city council meeting where the city council said no more R-6.

That was too small.

That was too small. The direction they wanted the city to go was 7.5 and above. So it does just kind of ebb and flow as far as that definition of density and what's too dense and what— I think that's the answer is What's too dense according to the objective of your community?

Yeah, that's a really good point. We, after one meeting with the Planning Commission, became very apparent to me that we were kind of— everybody in the room was talking past each other because we were using terms and there was no real definition around the terms. And so we came in and talked about units per acre. Was it gross units per acre?

Yeah.

Or is it net units per acre? And how do you calculate it to get everybody on the same page? Now, some communities have done things like low density is 6 or 7 units per acre or fewer.

And then what would 6 or 7 be?

6 or 7 would be more like an R-6. Okay, so different communities can define things differently. And so in some communities, thinking where Fearless— my fearless leader may live, it's probably 2 units per acre is low density. Anything above 2 units per acre is, I think, in their code listed as medium density and/or high density. And those are some of the things because we get in a meeting and we start throwing around terms and we're not all on the same page.

Some places require a 5-acre minimum. Right?

Yeah, those are pretty big.

Yeah, and Da Vinci is a good example of that, where the unit per acre there is less than it seems, but they put all of their houses close together on one end, right? And then they have a bunch of green space, so it averages out differently than a more traditional—

And back then, green space was a requirement. Remember, we used to talk about green space all the time. We don't talk about that anymore. Open space, we don't really talk about that anymore.

The trouble with green space is you have to mow it.

Well, that's what they're saying. Yeah, or water. And I guess I'm just saying, once again, you know, that was the planning back then.

And I think R-8 has been the standard. I mean, I think that's kind of— we use R-8 as a standard. I mean, pretty much that seems to be what we come back to on the Planning Commission side, because that is, again, I think what we've heard a lot from City Council, from other places, is kind of what the standard— well, and even in our zoning maps is kind of what the overall standard for Orem is at this time.

If I could add some clarity just to the discussion, in the general plan, it defines low density, medium density, and high density. Low density is defined as R-8, R-12, and R-20. Medium is PRD zones, R-6, R-6.5, and R-7.5. High density is anything above that. And what would that be? Help me identify— So high density would be student housing, PRD zones, older ones that have high density, and PD zones that have residential. So is this high density— forgive me for looking for a number— does that start at 12 per acre? Does that start at— It's 7 or above. 7 or above is high density? Yeah, in the general plan, medium density is defined as 4 to 7 acres gross acres. 4 to 7 per gross acre?

Yeah, that's in the code.

So it's smaller than that by the time you put the roads in and all that kind of stuff. I get that.

And if you have a water retention zone or any of the rest of that, it's And this is something that we could work on getting a cheat sheet for Planning Commission Council. So hopefully these types of terms, we're all on the same page. And this is why I think it would be a good— be good for a council and Planning Commission to get together once a year, twice a year for an hour or something in a work meeting if there's time so that we can talk about these things. To make sure we're on the same page. Often you realize we're really not that far apart. Sometimes in our discussion, we're just using slightly different terms and approaching and thinking about it maybe slightly differently.

I'll just say on the density thing, you know, what is high density? To me, the biggest single issue with whether density matters or not is the parking associated with it. I mean, if you drive around and you see certain areas where you got a lot more density, but they don't have adequate parking, and it just creates this big mess. And that's, that's the problem really is parking. So parking's adequate for whatever the density is, you know, it makes sense.

Which is 1 per bed is what I was told by the Woodbury architect, you know, out of Chicago.

If you're building a household that has mom and dad and 6 kids, you don't need 7 parking spots, right? If you're building a high-rise apartment, you need—

right, for the high— that's what he's saying, for the high-density apartments.

Until they sell the house, they turn it into a rental.

Legal or otherwise.

Correct. Are we going to include the garage as parking spots? Because how many of us use our garage for actual number of parking spots? We do.

Only 2 of my 3-car garage has parking spots.

Storage.

But I mean, I just But these are all things I think need to be hashed out and think about. I think as we look at the general plan, I think as we look at some of our ordinances, one of the things that came out to me when we were looking at the difference between C-2 and C-3 and going through the ordinance, realized that we basically had the same commercial ordinances since the 1970s and have just added and added and added into what's allowed into each of the zones. And in some cases, it doesn't make any difference. Like, there's so much overlap. And then maybe if we want to encourage certain type of growth, maybe we need to look at our commercial zones and say, maybe this zone makes actually better sense, and these are what's allowed there. I mean, there's a lot of this sort of stuff that I think has been going on for years that finally need to be addressed and tackled.

That'd be great to address a lot of those things in a general plan. Except that's another thing is we wound up— I don't know, what do we got, like 50+ PD zones?

Yeah, around.

And that's a lot of those are just free-for-all.

And we keep adding.

And who understands them? I hope someone in your world does.

Steve, we need Steve.

He understands. We put a mask on him so he can't tell us about it. So Mayor, a few years ago, as you explained, you needed some quick decisions made in the Planning Commission.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember years ago BYU was said if they could fix BYU's business school by putting a few Jews in there and have people who will question discussions. It seems like we have a very harmonious group without a lot of, forgive me, other alternative thought process. And I think one or two in there would help stir the thinking.

I think if you came to our meetings, you would notice that we actually have quite a variety. I do think that there is some room on the Planning Commission for more variety. I am the only woman on the Planning Commission. I would suspect that more than 14% of the forum is female. And yeah, I hope so.

Yeah, we'll have to do a study on that.

Yeah, age, I think. There's an age range. Only one person's younger than I am. And that's been great to have written on and have, I mean, somebody with a younger perspective because—

Well, you're 23, so that's not—

Absolutely.

But he can be 19 and be on the money. But like, I think there are ways. But when it comes to who we are, what our perspectives are, and what our variety are, there is a large variety.

Forgive me for— yeah, my pushback is so many have come to us with the 7-0 no vote. And I'm wondering about the diversity.

And I was gonna get to that. Like, part of what— how I've approached as chair, the 3 words that I have kept is civility, collaboration, and professionalism. That is my goal. And we come to sometimes the same conclusion, but very different perspectives. I mean, I think, like, well, There are different ones where I've been in a different position and come at it completely different than my vice chair and completely different than Rod or Haysom would have. As we discuss things, we tend to work towards coming together. And we've also had a number of things that have been completely— we've had some really close ones. We've had some null ones where we've literally had to send things to you without recommendations.

So, It—

we aren't always homogeneous, but sometimes I can see how it would look like that if it's like another 7-0 on this or 7-0.

Well, and just example, right? Your reappointment, it started out with a 4-3 vote to move it out of the consent. And then when it came time to reappoint you, it was a 6-1, right, after the discussion. So I think we do the same thing. And I think that what you're— what I'm afraid, Tom, I'm gonna push back on what you're saying, because I don't think a 7-0 means they're not diverse. They're not— they're of one mind. I think what you are saying is happening in your meetings is exactly what happened in our meeting. When we have the opportunity to discuss and to hear different points of view, it's a great opportunity to then say, You know what?

You made your point.

I agree with you. I'm gonna— where before I was maybe going to vote a different way, now I'm going to vote with that. And it doesn't imply that there are no free thinkers.

That's fair enough. I didn't see the sausage get made, right? That's— and I haven't— David has invited me to come to watch the sausage get made, but I haven't done that. So that's a good pushback.

And to Lenee's point, I mean, I don't know what the stats are right now, but we could look them up. But I'd say City Council votes together 7-0, 90% of the time.

But when we don't, it's a lot of fun.

It is a lot of fun. But I'm just saying, 90% of the time we're voting 7-0, and then we have fun on the other 10%.

So, Dave—

Mayor?

Yes.

So I do have those stats. So Um, out of 10 things that came before the council. So the first one was on Geneva Road. The Planning Commission voted 7-0 to recommend. City Council voted 7-0 to recommend. Next one, 1014 North, 1280 East. Planning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend. The City Council voted 7-0.

Geneva Road.

uh, rezone. Uh, it was 6-0 on the Planning Commission, and the City Council, we had 5 vote aye and 2 vote nay. That was Mayor Young and Lenay Millett. Next one, 1990 North State Street. Um, it was a, it was a 5-1 vote because Jerry wasn't there, and the City Council voted Um, 6-0 because Chris was not in town. Next one, uh, 1385 West 1600 North, 6-0 or 7-0 Planning Commission, 7-0 City Council. Next one, the 442 North 300 West, it was a recommended denial. We had 3 A's or ayes on Planning Commission, And 3 nays.

3 nays. So it comes to you with no recommendation.

No recommendation.

So just to be clear, City Council, because you were split, we voted to deny, and it was 4 to 2 because Tom wasn't. So I mean, it's interesting that in our meeting on the 14th, Chris said that, you know, it's all 7-0. Well, we are too, but this Is saying this rezone here, R-8 to a PRD, they voted 7-0 to deny, and they withdrew. They withdrew it because they knew it probably wasn't a good thing, right? So it didn't even come to us. Same with the other one, uh, on, uh, behind Lene's house. It was 7-0 to deny. It didn't come to us because they got the message that it was supposed to be R-8.

And did it come through now as RA?

Yeah, it was already— so it's just—

oh, they were asking for a change of zone.

So, and then we have it. And then the other one, it's a rezone PD-6 to PD-52.

What do those numbers mean?

Canyon Park? It was Canyon Park.

I think it's numbered new.

Okay, it isn't that there's 52 in an acre. There were 6 to an acre. It's just a new PD number.

Planning Commission voted 7-0. and the city council voted 7-0 to deny. Yeah, right. Um, and then on the Wilkerson Farm, they voted 7-0 to denial, and we just got withdrawn. But my, my point is going to be, to be fair to the Planning Commission, the Canyon Park, what they received was 150 homes. Okay, they voted on this. Yeah, but what did we get?

120? 108. 108.

Okay, so, so it's, it's garbage to say that it's all 7-0 because we don't We don't see what they're doing. You take Wilkerson Farm. Okay, what they saw was 97 homes, high density, right?

Yep.

Then it got tossed back and forth and went down to 88, and now it was— now it's 70 they want to propose. So to be fair to the Planning Commission, I think it's wrong to say that there's no diversity and that they're voting 7-0 and we're not voting 7-0. We need to look at ourselves, right? And don't be pointing the finger at the Planning Commission and saying they're bad people. That's wrong.

I don't think—

no, I think— well, hold, hold, hold on, hold on one second. The Planning Commission, as we've sat and had discussions— who's we? Lenny said that the entire council— as we had council discussions about rezoning and other issues. When the Planning Commission comes up with a 7-0 recommendation and then the City Council has a different— it's much different than 7-0, which is wrong— that process of those that are on the current commission, we cannot make sure their views are more in line with the entire city.

Okay, that doesn't say what's bad.

Okay, no, I don't think they represent the city's views. I'm here to represent the citizens of Warminster.

It's Chris Kopech.

And currently the citizens of Warm are not being represented by the Planning Commission.

Garbage.

Then he goes on and says, there I have also voted to say— I also voted to table the other one as well, as we— as well, until we had more discussion. And so we are doing the work of the Planning Commission.

We—

when they should be bringing recommendations When they just say nothing, 7-0.

You know, to me, it's wrong.

You know what, put your money where your mouth is, Chris, and come to the Planning Commission and listen.

None of us said anyone was bad. Yeah, exactly.

In fact, that's what I said in the meeting. No, this is not about any individual. This is about a process for the Planning Commission so we can understand that process. We wanted to talk about that process. Has nothing to do with individuals, as was said in that council.

I think, I think it is with individuals too.

No, it's not. That isn't what it was said, unless, unless you feel there's an issue with—

There's not, there's not an issue at all. And I didn't, I didn't recommend appoint these people, right? It was before my time, except Britton and, and, um, Rod Erickson, right? But I don't know, I, I said it's just like—

I think it's just that there was a criticism of what the Planning Commission is doing, and I think what he's trying to show in the stats is that we're at— we're actually doing a pretty good job of vetting developments.

So the question, the issue that I had is not— again, when I said the process needs to be discussed, has nothing to do with this. But there was no chance to discuss that. In fact, I would have wished in retreat we would have had a chance, because that's what we should have talked about, was, was the process for who's sitting on commissions.

How does that work?

Why does the Planning Commission only have one individual on the council when every other commission of any other size—

Not every other commission has 2 on the council.

That are of any size or any magnitude of city things has more than one. I wanted to talk about that process, not about individuals, not about concern. So you're making it— you're twisting what I was trying to say about process and trying to throw the bus under the people.

Nothing to do with the people.

You're saying they're not giving you recommendations and they're not doing their job?

No, that isn't what I was saying. I was saying that—

I listened to the same 4, 5, 6 times today.

It appears from the 7.0, as you described and went through all of the statistics on it.

Yes.

And our analysis that when it comes 7.0, 7.0, 7.0, which— and the diversity in making a sausage and all what you just invited us to come see. And this presentation was very helpful to help us all see that picture. And let's meet together more often, which is a great suggestion.

I agree.

The process is what I wanted to discuss, not about individuals, but because there was no buy-in and inclusion and more of just running forward without that opportunity to talk about concerns.

What are you talking about there?

Buy-in and inclusion?

On all the commissions, nothing, nothing to do with even specifically the Planning Commission, but just have an opportunity to discuss the, uh, what are recommendations, what do we have for considerations for all of the commissions in the city. And how does that lay out other than just being told, but we're all part of a 7-group that we should have discussed that on a retreat.

So, in the city council, you said the process when we were gonna—

I said I have no concern about the vote of this individual, but I have a concern about the process. So I'd like to wait and talk about the process. So, as we complete the process of the planning commission, or the process of all the commissions, because the planning commission is different. And some of the other major ones is that we just added one to the neighborhood. We just had to on the events commission. That was the question or the concern or the ideas that I wanted to have us discuss. Again, nothing specific about planning commission, nothing about the individuals on the planning commission. It's the process that I was trying to describe.

I'm sure a poor girl trying to describe that.

Well, maybe what you're saying is you'd like just an opportunity to have dialogue like we're doing, and to have some discussion about how it works so that we can better understand and be there so we can weigh in on it. Does that summarize kind of what you're saying?

Yeah, that says it.

I think that's fair. I think this meeting is a great start. Madeline, you did a great job helping introduce this.

Yeah, I think we start there. Gary, excuse me, and the mayor, it's okay if Gary arranges that for one of our earlier meetings with the full Planning Commission, because I was embarrassed last, last City Council meeting. I had to remember what Jim's name was. Then I asked you, wait a minute, I know that guy, what's his name? If I shut up and read the agenda, I would have known, because— but it just took me a minute, which means I'm not getting enough face time. And I may recommend, if that's possible, I think that'd be helpful in a future Planning Commission— in a police work session. Excuse me.

And I'm speaking for myself and our fellow commissioners. We're more than happy to talk to any of you. That if there's something coming before us and you have questions, reach out to us. We're happy to talk to you.

And you were both receptive when I talked to you right after the meeting last time.

Yeah, we—

thank you.

Being open-minded and fair-minded is a large part of it. We want to hear what you have to say. We want to hear what Linnea has to say. We want to hear what the mayor has to say. That helps inform our decision too.

But I, I, I know for a fact in the Planning Commission from that meeting on the 14th, they were just bewildered. It was pretty devastating to them that you guys didn't trust them, or however it came across.

You're putting words in my mouth.

No, no, no, I'm not talking— no, I'm talking about the Planning Commission. They were bewildered. Yeah, it's like you didn't trust their decisions or whatever, and everything's 7-0, which is not true. But I mean, the thing is, if you really want to put your money where your mouth is, come to the meeting. They're just— I mean, you know, so come and you'll see the diversity.

I mean, we have Jerry, who's, you know, I don't know how old he is.

I mean, he's experienced.

He has some great—

sharp.

Yes, yes. I heard him make some comments I didn't think about.

I just think, I mean, let's give them the benefit of the doubt before—

Given the pledge tonight, by the way.

So what you're recommending, Dave, is that people the city council members come to Planning Commission and just see what we're talking about.

And if they have concerns about anything, they can talk to me and then we'll go from there.

I, I will say on that whole thing, and Gary, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I, I think it's great for Planning Commission members to go to city council and observe and see what's happening. I'm not crazy about city council members commenting, uh, in the public comment just because I think it pushes things in a weird way.

Yeah, I mean, I've never—

oh, city council going to Planning Commission. You said, you said, so go to Planning Commission, but don't comment.

That's why I'm saying, yeah, I've never commented. Yeah, I think Terry Peterson commented, but it's only—

I'm just saying, if we're going to start having a lot of city council members go, yeah, that's probably—

you can also watch the meetings, they're recorded, right?

Or online, right? A little blind, right?

Can I just—

yeah, they're a little different vibe. I'm gonna tell you to watch online.

I just want to say something. I feel like this has been one of our most productive productive conversations that we've had in a long time. So thank you for this, and thank you everyone for having a conversation, and I'm excited to move forward. Forward and under.

And I need to learn more.

Thank you.

This has been great. And to the mayor's last point, in a former jurisdiction in which I worked Well, I guess with that— At one time, we would frequently have a council member come to Planning Commission and not just watch, but he would get up and comment on matters that would ultimately go to the council. And he would come in and say, the council, we think, and say things like that. And every time he did that, I had to then get up and say, He does not speak for the council. The council speaks by a vote of the majority. And anything he said was just his opinion. And that was a difficult position for staff to be in. So I would love to see any of you come to Planning Commission at any time. I would also dearly love to see you never make a comment on an item that's in front of the Planning Commission.

Or else you'll stand up and say what you said.

Or I will stand up and say what I said.

Perfect.

Okay, so as far as where we're at now, um, Gary, did you have more you want to talk about?

There, there— the only thing I did have was to go through and, and, and say this is in really brief outline our current process. And I know we're at 5:30, so I'll be extremely quick. Uh, they apply online. We have 7 members of the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission is appointed by the mayor with the advice and consent of the council, and in accordance with any policy that's been adopted by the council. So if you have a handbook or something like that, you want to have a particular process, you could put that in your handbook. Uh, uh, our code says that they're not selected They are selected without respect to any political affiliation, and removal is by the mayor with the advice and consent of the council. And a member of the Planning Commission can only serve 2 consecutive appointments. However, they do serve until a successor is chosen.

Okay.

So if their term is up, they'll continue so that we have a quorum.

Part of our test that was in our training.

Yeah.

There's an answer for the test.

This next slide, you probably can't read it. Carrie's group did a lot of research for us and came back. Most communities you see there with all the yeses in that column is where they're appointed by the mayor and approved with the advice and consent of the council. Uh, one, uh, West Valley there on the bottom, the city manager, uh, appoints with advice and consent of council. And then South Jordan does something kind of weird I haven't seen.

It's—

they— I think they have, uh, council members come from discrete districts within the city, and they choose or nominate a planning commission member who then by majority vote of the council. If they're put on, they're on the Planning Commission, and their term is the same length as the council member. And if the council member leaves, they leave also. So that's kind of an outlier. I have, I have never seen a process like that.

So like Dave's guy would be on for 12 years.

So Gary, whether they want to or not.

Gary, so then, like, I mean, it looks like most of it's 4 years. So are we looking at maybe a 4-year term, or—

Well, ours is 3 years. Some places have 4 years. There's even, you know, some places have, have 2. So it varies. There's no right answer under state code. It's up to the council to determine the best way to go about doing this. One thing that we've talked about—

Gary, I thought I told you to take off the West Valley.

That was Wayne Powell.

I'm mad at Bren, and this is my passive-aggressive way of getting back, putting the city manager on. So just some things, possible tools to help the process. We've talked about, would it help if as staff for Planning Commission, we know when appointments are coming up. If we send out an email to all council members, say, hey, there's going to be an appointment coming up. And then maybe we could print out their application forms and send that out. I know Dave's been going and vetting all of them right now. This could be a reminder, you know, so that nobody's surprised that there's Something coming down.

And I think part of it was there were applications from 5 years back. So I think we, we, at one point, I remember a year or 2 ago, we said drop everything every 2 years.

Yeah, you know, that makes sense. And that's the next one, change the application form. Should we go in and we automatically, the system, gauge them out, we call them out at some point along? That's something that could help so that we Keep more current applications, because if there's 30 applicants, that's pretty overwhelming.

You know what you could do? I mean, you can just drop them out after a couple of years, or you could notify them that they're getting dropped out, and if they want to reapply, they can.

So they know.

Yeah, that's, that's a much better—

Can I say something from the applicant side, having gone through the applicant process? And I don't think it's changed since. It's one application for all the boards and commissions. Yeah, so maybe more specific. So more specific. That's a good idea because I, I love Planning Commission and I'd stay here forever, but do not put me on like Aurum Fest or the beautification. That is just not me. That's not who I am as a person. And I think being able to maybe be more specific— I know we can list it off in the application process, but maybe because especially like Planning Commission where it's a totally different skill set, it's a Totally different time commitment. If we could see your professional skills, your background might be helpful. I think that's a good idea. So they do—

you do attach resumes.

You do?

Yeah. So, but the— I think your point to— there could be a little better application.

So how does that work? I don't understand because— so when you applied, did you put in for everything?

Yeah, basically it's the same form. Yeah, same questions. And then I think there was one little box where I could, like, say where— what, like, Board of Adjustments or Planning Commission or whatever that I was interested in. But, like, everyone's going through that same process. And so, yeah, you do select—

you do select specific ones. Yeah, the problem that we found is if you select all, it doesn't necessarily put your application in. That was a bug we found. I don't know if they ever fixed that one. But in all of them, but I think to your point, it sounds like what you're saying though is you'd like to have a more specific application that would apply to the specific— like if you're on Orem Fest, you know what, there's some skills there, right? Parade organization.

Or even like, do you have time? Can you commit to X number of hours a week to do this? I mean, like, that would be just coming right away. Yeah. So I've And maybe you kick into it.

It's kind of in the description of the job, but that's not even on there.

There's no description on there. No, it just says dropdown menu, the one you want, and then why do you want to do this job?

And not on the application. There is— you can go read about the different commissions, but it would be much better to have it right with that.

Exactly.

And you could also kick in extra questions.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Like, okay, I clicked Planning Commission. Maybe I should ask you a few more questions about Time commitment or what?

Yeah.

And then the last one is, if there's in particular an issue with someone, not just Planning Commission, but any applicant coming up, there is the possibility to use a closed meeting and have discussions about an individual applicant for a board. It's often you want to be sensitive to those who are willing to volunteer in the community. And, you know, don't want to talk about applicants in a public meeting in a very careful way.

And so the closer office, forget that. But yes, you're applying for the commission, should be more gentle.

Well, when you're, when you're a public servant, often people think you're a public sidewalk that can be walked on.

Very true.

So we just want to be sensitive and just allow that that's a tool that can be used to help in the process. And that's all I have.

This is super helpful.

This is what I was hoping we could talk about, just what ideas we have, how can we have a discussion about it. So thank you. That's good.

And then we're going to talk about the portal.

Oh, yes. We are running a little bit out of time, but I could take you to the portal to show you the—

What are you talking about?

The applicant.

For the applicants? Well, so what we should do is we should, we should Grab our food, we're not going to eat it. Yeah. Um, and then we could keep going if you want.

Okay.

Or at our next meeting when we meet together, like once or twice a year, maybe that could be part of our once a year where we discuss that. I don't know how much time it takes and what you need to do.

So what, what is the portal you're talking about? Where they apply?

Uh, where an applicant applies so that you can see the portal, but also council members, staff, we can get in and see who has applied for different Maybe you can send us a link.

Would that be—

Yeah, so, and I do, I have the link in the little tab reference.

But it would remind us if you send us a link and say this.

But the point I'm trying to say with this is in that portal too, we can go in and look at the expiration of the terms. It's all— everything is in there if you're questioning. I think it's great that they're willing to send out these emails. Everybody forgets, we all lose track of time. So to me, that's just this timeline thing of Is a great opportunity. I also know that, Dave, you had Pete do PDFs of the applicants so you could send to the planning— to the city council. So that incorporating that so he doesn't have to request it every time, having that there.

And that could be something that we could do automatically for you so you don't have to spend a lot of time.

Well, I just go in because I know I've talked to everybody, so I have all the resumes.

So.

Yeah, very sorry.

I thought you were talking about the portal for the applicants for zoning changes.

It's the same location. Okay, the, the, the applicant can go in, and then there's a section where you can do a, a staff login. And would love to help anybody go through it, and at another time we could do some training on how to do those things so that you could look at the application process. To see if, if we do need to change the application and put more information in to help people understand what on earth are you getting into if you plan in commission.

The suggestions that were made by Madeline are excellent.

Yeah.

Help, help those that are applying understand more fully what they're asking, what we're asking them to do, and have them have a greater understanding.

Planning commission is one of those that we ask a lot.

Sure. Okay, well, thank you and a great presentation, both of you. Thanks.

Thanks very much.

So, okay, but we didn't necessarily resolve some of these things. Do you want to do that now or do you want to do it another time?

So, I mean, I thought from the presentation we're going to do these different things, and unless there's something else—

I guess my—

I don't agree with the fact that we should have 2 council liaisons I just think it's a small enough group. The one— the groups that we have to are either Care, because there's some money decisions involved there, Youth Council, because the group this year is huge. In the past, we've not really had that big of a group. Um, uh, what's— it's not called Wormfest now, but Events.

Events.

That one, because there's a lot of moving parts on that. Um, and then Neighborhood, I actually don't feel like we need to on the Neighborhood Commission. I'm on the Neighborhood mission. And I, I think sometimes that complicates things. But to the point that, um, I'm also understanding that there are people on the council, and, you know, me included, we're all busy. And do we want to increase, um, uh, activities and responsibilities for council members? Tom's going, no, I don't want to.

I don't need to attend that. To have the same kind of influence.

Yeah, so, and exactly, that's the point. I feel like this application process that we're going through, um, uh, I'm comfortable with the staff, you know, sending, you know, tweaking the application from, from the applicant so it works better for us to review and them to know what they're getting into. Um, getting the timeline set and getting the applications to us, emailed to us. So Dave's not necessarily doing that, but Dave is the liaison there. So he's watching to make sure procedurally we're doing things and staying up on stuff in case the staff isn't, right? So we've got that checks and balances. I guess that's my point. I don't necessarily see that there is a need for a second person based on how Gary's explained that the process works. You know, it's not a large group of people. There's 7 people. that is on that commission. So I just wanted to kind of feel that one out with you guys and see if you really feel strongly about that, or if, you know, now that the process has been explained a little bit better and we all know what our time constraints are, you know, maybe that's not an issue. Unless you think that will solve some other issue, and then please identify that issue.

Let me just say really quickly to that point, I mean, it makes sense to me that you have a council member be the liaison to the Planning Commission. That makes total sense. To have 2 of those doesn't necessarily make sense because you can have the official council member that's going there.

And then—

but I think it would be really positive for every council member independently throughout the year to go and watch the process and be there.

And to 1 or 2, not to every month.

Yeah, yeah. And so that way, you know, in this situation, David Spencer would be the main guy, but all of us would be invited and encouraged to go, you know, to different council meetings.

Well, I think too, I mean, like on the resumes, I mean, last time I sent 8 out, I mean, but the city council picks whoever you want, right? You can send any resume to the mayor, but the mayor has to appoint So if he doesn't like your appointment, he's not going to appoint it, right? So, so I, I just thought that the candidates I sent last time, 8 of them, I thought they were very good. Bruce Cameron was a new one. Dwight Green, I mean, if you know Natalie Green, I mean, her dad is awesome. So, and he's a certified appraiser. So I'm thinking, you know, we've got realtors, we've got all sorts of different expertise. And I just think, I don't know why we'd be shortchanging some of these people because I don't know if we really looked at them. Did we really call every one of them and ask?

I did, but—

and I don't know half of them, right? But they seem good and nice. And you guys need to take a step and also call them and say, hey, it's just like Jeffrey sat down with Madeline, didn't know Madeline probably from anybody, and it was a good meeting. So that's all I'm asking, give, give people the benefit of the doubt. And I'm not trying to stack the Planning Commission. I'm just— these are people that applied, and I thought they were decent, and I sent them out. But I couldn't get any take on any of these last ones, which was pretty upsetting. I mean, even though Jerry said he'd come back, right? So you just need to be open-minded, I think.

To answer, at least from my point of view, I think if we're in a process right now, let's see how the meetings go. I don't think there's any reason for me to make any changes right now. Let's just see how this goes. I'm happy to have more discussion. And we— I hope it all works out great. So I don't see there's a line in the sand at this point.

I agree with Tom on that.

And I actually think as long as we can keep the discussion open, and if I feel like I have input into the process, and like, I think just letting us know a month ahead of time some of the things that you outlined, I feel very comfortable with that. And we can just watch and see how it goes. And I think having a month ahead of time will be great.

So, I mean, I mean, ASIMS occurs coming up, I think in May, so I can start sending resumes out. This is what's on the docket. who's in, and if you want to recruit somebody else.

I would think we ought to have a meeting with the Planning Commission before that time so we know who Mr. Curtis is.

You know who Haysom is?

Oh, I know Haysom, but his time's up.

Wait, I'm sorry.

Oh, you mean you said someone's up? Curtis? Oh, Haysom. Sorry, sorry, I thought you said Curtis and I didn't know Curtis was— he's been on 2 terms, so yeah, he's, he's off. Yeah. All right. So, no, I reverse that. Somebody else is going to apply. I thought it was a Mr. Curtis who was up for renewal.

And I just want to, you know, I kind of feel— I, I think maybe this has pointed something out that perhaps in our orientation of new council members or something like that, we need to be more, um, deliberate. I know when I came on the council, there were things people thought I knew that I didn't know, and I didn't know I didn't know them. You know, so like Jen says, I just want to, you know, if I have issues with the process or whatever, then let's just ask and figure out. So, because I would not want you to feel like you're not involved in the process, you know. So let's just make sure that we're all, you know, learning what we don't know.

What were the 3 words you used, Madeline? Yeah, I love them. Hold on, hold on. I wrote them down. Let's see if I'm right. Civility, collaboration, and professionalism.

Yes, right.

Perfect. I've made a note. We're just going to— thank you. So I think we've been taking notes too as staff. We can, we can work on essentially a productive work session, joint work session, before May, or ideally well before May. Just to clarify, Mr. Chair, Jerry is up in May.

Okay, so yeah, well, Jerry's— Jerry's already—

would be—

if he is a renewal, I'd like to have our meeting with him before.

Absolutely.

And we'll get you a list out because there— I think there are 3 up this year.

2 for Gary, 1 for the places.

4, 4 from who've— this— they've already served 2 terms.

4 of them? No, only— we had 2 drop off when we first—

you're starting your second term now.

Yeah, because it was a clean sweep.

Oh, they're renewals.

Sorry, Mike's in December.

Mike's in December.

Now, Tom, there wasn't a clean sweep.

Stop saying that. Yeah, talk to me.

Yeah, let's just stop with that kind of language, shall we?

Okay, doesn't make anyone happy.

Do you think we can Make this? That's what I'm saying.

Well, it's a short city council meeting.

We gotta eat our dinner though.

That's what I'm saying, afterwards.

After the meal? I know you do that all the time.

Yeah, well, my name—

All right, anything else? Should we adjourn this meeting?

Actually, we just pause it.

We will pause it.

It's gonna be a quick pause.

Um, yeah, we'll pause this meeting. I'm just not sure if the math works to eat that food before we—

Our Father in heaven, we're grateful for this food. We're grateful for the open discussion and the opportunity to speak with professionalism and civility and collaboration. We thank you for the time we've had together. Please bless this meal to give us strength and nourishment. Help us do our duty. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen. Same day.

You asked—

these guys did.

I did. Evidence Jerry Crisman.

I totally forgot to say it.

I'll let you introduce yourself.

We're celebrating Nancy's birthday.

Oh my goodness.

We reference them because that's what we're doing. And so, and that's a nuance that I think is super public and super difficult.

3, 3, 4, 5.

There you go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'd like to welcome all of you here tonight and call this meeting to order. We'll start off with an invocation, uh, by Britton Rolfson and a Pledge of Allegiance by Jerry Christman. And Lenay invited these, uh, these people to do this, and so if you'd like to introduce them.

Yeah, I just want to introduce Britton and Jerry. They are 2 members of our community who serve on our Planning Commission. We're very grateful for your Time that you put in and the sacrifices that you make and appreciate your service. So thank you.

Oh yeah, there.

Most gracious Father in heaven, we come before thee in prayer this evening to thank you for the opportunity that we have to come together as, as citizens in this great town that we have all come to, to love and to call home. We're grateful for those that have gone before us to help and contribute its building and what makes it great. We ask that thou please bless us this evening with thy spirit over this meeting, that we'll be able to all come together in a mind of collaboration and can-do attitudes in a way that we can strive to make Orem an even better city that we can continue to flourish in and enjoy for generations to come. And we thank you for The many blessings you pour upon us and upon this city and upon this state as well. We ask for blessings to be put upon the nation and those of its citizens, that we can continue to strive to come together and to work in collaboration across the nation as well. These things we ask humbly in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Britton. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Thank you, Jerry. We'll go to item number 7, 7.1. We have a recognition. From the National Association of School Resource Officers, and our police chief would please present that.

Get them all up here. Uh, community mayor, council, Mr. Bybee, and community forum. Don't lick me.

Okay.

Come on.

The, uh, culture of the City of Orem's Police Department is one to work hard, succeed, move the needle forward, and not overly emphasize external recognition. However, this past August, the National Association of School Resource Officers at their annual conference in Phoenix recognized the School Resource Officer Program of Orem Police Department as one of only 6 model agencies across the United States and the first ever from the state of Utah. For the past several years, our SRO program has been the go-to and beta tester for law enforcement and school collaboration for Alpine School District, the largest school district in the state of Utah. Oftentimes when they have any, hey, how do we do this, how do we fix a problem that covers over 85,000 students, they're coming to our police department, they're coming to our school resource program, and we're hammering out solutions that work district-wide. It's fair to say thousands of dollars and millions of ideas have been passed along through our people to make that difference across the northern end of Utah County. I would also want to note that our collaboration and our accomplishments have always been done with less funding and manpower than most other jurisdictions provide their schools, their resource programs. If I may take a few minutes and highlight some of the services provided by our school resource officer program to the city of Orem. Each SRO has completed the national standards to be a certified SRO through the NASRO program, and two of our SROs are advanced SRO level, which is very prestigious. Since 2020, our SRO program prepares Prepares and updates individual response plans for every public, charter, and private school in Orem every year. During that same time, each of our 21 schools undergoes an annual safety assessment, something that only became a standard in Utah this past year. It's been our habit for a long time. Beginning in 2023, our SRO program has also assisted several of these schools in applying for and receiving grant funding to improve school safety and security. And prior to the beginning of each school year, our SROs and myself as the chief of police meet individually with the— excuse me, meet individually with each administration at every one of those 21 schools to collaborate, ensure needs are being met, and to foster communication. For me, I continually collect emails, letters, and letters from students, faculty, and once in a blue moon, actually a parent commenting on how pleased they are with the services provided by our SROs in each one of our secondary schools and the trickle-down effect they have in each one of our elementary schools. One of Warren PD's core beliefs is that children of Warren are the greatest community— our greatest commodity our community can provide to the world. Helping to provide a safe space for the, for the minds of these children to grow is a duty we view as sacred, and it is our honor to focus on that effort. Warren Police Department as a force stands ever ready to oppose anyone who may intend to violate the safe space of learning, and our SROs serve as true and constant diplomats to listen, to intervene, and to act in this effort. Uh, these gentlemen, um, in fact, if you, if you want to know who the two— I believe the two advanced SROs are, if you need a clue, they don't have hair.

Um, but—

All right.

It's a requirement, I guess. They're not allowed to have hair to be, you know, anyway. One, one, uh, not special guest. We have a service dog that joined our SRO program this fall as well, and she is a hit with, with the children and has actually done a lot of good to bring, um, you know, there's, there's a lot of anecdotal stories where, um, having that dog at school has been kind of an icebreaker with a lot of Tougher kids that view the uniform or view the position as something difficult. But we all can, as human beings, I think we all can universally view a dog as man's best friend. So if the guy at the other end of the leash, he shouldn't be too half bad either. And personally, I just want to say how grateful I am for these guys. They really do work long hours. We essentially ask them to forego taking any time off between August and, and June of every year. So they're expected to be at school, they're expected to be working after hours. Every extracurricular activity, everything like that, is attended by our SROs at those secondary schools. And they have a very positive attitude about it. They work very good as, as a team. And again, uh, I'm thrilled with the accomplishments they're making. And I just gave you a sample. We do— they do a lot of good stuff every day. And, uh, you know, there's not a big flag to fly when it comes to school resource programs, but we, we do truly have one of the top-tier programs in the nation, and I appreciate the hard work of these gentlemen behind me.

Hang on.

Let's take a, let's take a photo.

Come on.

It's looking good.

All right, here we go.

Want to—

oh, Jen, let's have you scoot this way a little bit.

Not you, Josh.

Josh, you go this way.

There you go. Perfect.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. That's a great recognition that our police officers received. We're, we're really proud of what you guys do for the city. We've got item 7.2 now, presentation, uh, from Chief Sanderson, our fire chief.

Mayor, council, thank you for this opportunity. It's a recap of our awards banquet, but also our review of our 2024 annual report. I believe each one of you have a copy, and then I have a dozen copies in the back for any members of the audience that wants to take one home with them. But I've asked Pete just to run through these slides with me as we recap this. Pete, that first slide. This is one of the things I'm most proud about, is this is an organizational change. We tasked our members with developing a new department motto, which is Service and Sacrifice, and you can see that it's been put on our ambulances just above the cab. The department also created its first Orem Fire flag that represents that motto, and then the members of the department developed our department purpose. This, uh, we're very proud of these changes. Moving through this, moving through this program, um, of course I do a letter to the organization or the members of the community that read that, but then we dive right into a department overview that Outlines the organization and just the inner workings of our department. Pictures of our administrative staff, and then a page that shows all the members assigned to each station and the platoon. It's on page 6. We further the report with diving into our fire stations. It'll be nice when we— with the focus on Station 31 being rebuilt and what that will look like, and then next year adding a Station 35 that will be in Vineyard to the book will be amazing. We, we dive into fleet. I mean, our fleet department's amazing. Um, it's amazing when you look at the, the combined hours that our heavy apparatus drives— 62,747 miles. Our ambulances and our squad, including the battalion chief vehicle, operate 92,513 Miles. We get these numbers from Thane, but it's, I mean, it's, it's the gallons of gas, the hours in the shop. We're very fortunate that we don't spend a lot of hours in the shop for the size of fleet we have. They, they get us in and out of there in a timely manner. Some additions to our 2024 fleet. You can see that battalion chief rig was replaced and it's currently in service along with taking service of the 4 ambulances. And this would seem like a really big purchase all at one time, but, um, having ordered them over 3 subsequent years with supply chain, they all just showed up like within the same 2 weeks. And so we put them all into service, and we're currently trying to work a rotation so that we can stagger those miles to get back on the once-a-year type rotation for our fleet. That helps with budgeting and costs. We really focused heavily on the Vineyard Firehouse as just expanding along with our Orem training facility. We're super excited about that. There's pictures that are circulating currently, steel's out of the ground, and we anticipate that being in full service early fall, late summer. Following the Training facility, we dive into all of our fire and training that takes place. We've identified, you know, 15, 16 different classes that people have taken outside the state, all across the country. A lot of them are funded and supported by our budget, but a lot of them are also supported by the firefighters' personal finances. That's the one thing I'm most impressed about with our guys is their focus on training. We deliver the level of service that we're able to provide based on just their intentions and their desires to be the very best. We also, I mean, there's a ton of certifications that all of our guys go through and acquire. They're all part of our career ladder and our career advancement. And then we jump right into our emergency medical services portion where we've got pictures of our promoted 9 critical care paramedics that, that honestly perform at a much higher level than any paramedics in the state, with 17 different variances outside the normal standard protocols of the state paramedic program. We're very proud of that. Fire prevention is always and continues to be a huge focus. The focus on this youth fire setting— fire, fire setting program, and also the first ever Orem Fire Cadet Program. It was a huge success. It, it was a big project to get off, but it's a great partnership with Alpine School District and our local high schools in an attempt to provide an opportunity for these high school students to see if the fire service is where they want to go. And then there are our own communities, residents, children that have that opportunity. And we're actually fulfilling that. I just offered an 18-year-old right out of high school a job this afternoon. And so, I mean, it's amazing. Our Wildland Program is the next section of the book. I bragged, I think it's maybe 4 years, 5 years, Brandon, but I think we just crested just over $1 million in annual revenue that the Wildland has brought back to the organization to then further the program with apparatus deployments to help, with the recent— most recent being the deployment to California. And I believe we're on the agenda for next month for a wildland presentation where they can— they'll bring in and show you some pictures, and they can talk through not only the entire program but the California fires themselves. Emergency management is huge, and I think the thing we want to focus on is the more than 44,000 residents participated in our drill last year, which is just a huge number. And I know there were a couple of areas that we had zero participation, and I know the council members reached out and we provided, um, contacts for the names of those leaders in those areas for, for you to reach out to, to see what we can do to encourage more participation. We highlighted the, um, Emergency Operations Center that's currently almost completed in our new building. And Heath is very excited about that. Then we jump into our statistics, our call data. Last year we ran 7,578 calls, and we break these all down: Orem, Linden, Vineyard, fire versus EMS, total calls for service. And it's always, it's always this little competition of which apparatus run the most. It's like bragging rights for the next year of who was the busiest. So we've included those. Our, our continuing education, I think, is probably the thing when I decide to retire that I'll be most proud of, is that we're the only fire department in the state that requires degrees for their promotions. And when you not only look at the amount of money the city supports for our tuition reimbursement program, but also then requiring degrees for our promoted positions, You can see on that page the number that is generated: 53 associate degrees, 38 bachelor's degrees, and then a master's degree. And that number just continues to climb every semester. It's very impressive. The next page, I think what I love about this is we always identify our new hires, our promotions, retirements, early departures. But the thing that I'm most proud about, we titled this year Boomerangs. These are employees that think the grass is greener or they have a different opportunity. They just seem to come back to us. It just goes to show that we're doing things right and the grass is not greener. And so we've identified them and it's a, it's a really good culture that we've created. Only one retirement with Battalion Chief John Tills last year. We did have 2 funeral services, which This is the first year we've included these into our program, and it means a lot, especially for you that attended, to see Wayne Fish come back, receive an award, but recognize him in the book. We're trying to— they all get an invitation, and the hopes is that they'll all be joining us. There's 50 retired members of our department still alive, and we hope that we see them every year. And so we've included those guys in the book. And then just some random pictures that fill the pages. We did have a Utah Fire Nuggets affiliation, which is huge for us. It's a national affiliation based off of our fire training and our fire training facility. We'll be hosting national courses when this is complete. The things that we're sending our people to, the rest of the country will be now sending their firefighters to Orem to receive the same level of training that our guys are going after. The Utah Fire Service Administrative Assistance Conference. This is something that Brent has been very supportive of. This is a project that Hillary took on that the police are really well organized with this. Katie does an amazing job. I believe she was the president one year Hillary attended, and there wasn't anything like this for the fire administrative assistance. We put with this, with the support of Orem, our administration, um, she hosted this for the entire state and it just continues to grow. It's been very successful. Just one more thing that like puts the spotlight on Orem Fire or Orem City. And then we get into our awards. The whole reason why we have our banquet is to award the guys for the things they've done. These letters of commendation we hold on a quarterly basis. I've read these to you guys. Quarter 1, there were 7. Quarter 2, 58. Quarter 3, there was only 1. And then quarter 4, 21. But diving into the main awards, um, our Meritorious Company Awards and Fire Chief Company Awards, you can see we've listed each individual, their name, the type of award, and then during our banquet, we read the circumstances that surround the award and how why its recognition was so important. Fire Service Cross. This is my favorite award because we were able to recognize the Chief Officer of the Year, the Fire Officer of the Year, the Firefighter of the Year, and then the Civilian of the Year. And all 4 individuals were well deserving of this award. We recognized our Fire Chief Citation with Dr. Micah Smith. He's been instrumental in our EMS delivery service supporting the 17 variances, or just a higher level of service that we're able to deliver. And he works in the emergency room at Timpanogos, and so that just creates a much stronger relationship with what we do. The picture of Wayne Fish, it's amazing. We dove back into history to try to figure out the that may have been missed, not recognized. Wayne Fish was a firefighter that was severely injured. I mean, to his account, thrown down 2 stories of stairs, unconscious, unresponsive in a fire. The guys drug him out of the fire. He had a malfunction with his mask. I happened to be the paramedic on scene. So this tells you how long ago this call took place. But it did prove to the guys that there was a time when I actually worked on the ambulance, not just sat in the office. From our distinguished Jim Reams Service Award to Ryan Orr, our distinguished Fire Service Award. These 2 individuals, and I, I'm so sorry that I didn't bring up Justice Woodward's wife, Bailey. She's a nurse, and she reminded me at the end of the party that she actually did CPR on 4 of the patients where our paramedics only did CPR on 2 of the patients. And so I failed to recognize her, and I wish we could have at that horrific accident in Lake Powell. Our guys not only do it on duty but off duty. The Medal of Courage— these were the 2 awards, 2 different rescues of citizens that were stuck in fires that very easily could have died if Grady Robleski, Jamie Rigler, in one case Chief Swenson, Engineer Deagle hadn't made these rescues. And they just— as important as it is that we rescue and save lives, to not have any documentation or recognition from the past that supports what these guys have done is why we reached back into the past to pull them forward. And then the Medal of Honor, which is our highest award that we, that we provide, is Derek Spencer and Dave Lesser. It's amazing picture of Dave. It was too bad he couldn't join us, but they were the 2 that actually rescued Wayne Fish, who have received the Purple Heart from that night. And then our last page, like always, just thanks everybody that supports our, our service, our employees, and everything we do. And with that, Mayor, I don't have anything else to report.

Yeah, no, that's a great presentation. Chief Sanderson.

Thank you.

And, uh, I'm really impressed with everything you guys do. Um, you know, I gave you the challenge to be the best in the state, and I think you're making that happen. I mean, to think that you had over 6,000 calls last year, and besides taking 6,000 calls, you guys were able to accomplish all these different things and win these different awards. It's pretty remarkable.

So it really, it really is a team effort, Mayor, all the way from Brandon, our exec staff, finance, HR, everybody in our city's involved. It doesn't matter the departments, right? Rec, library, public works, everybody's involved in supporting the things we do, and, and it goes all the way around.

Absolutely. Great job.

Thank you, Chief. First of all, thanks for providing us this booklet. I had a chance to read it after our event the other night.

Thank you very much.

You included my favorite Winston Churchill quote, so thank you very much. A great write-up, a great memory. Thank you for sharing that, your accomplishments with us. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Mayor and Council and Chief Sanderson, I would be remiss if I didn't publicly thank— and I think my wife would be upset with me if I didn't publicly thank Elena Berg, Scott Ash, and Bridget Kirkman for responding to one of those calls to my home this year for my oldest boy. And they took the time at the award banquet to come and say hi and to ask about my boy. And it just was an extra personal, direct interaction that hit home to me just the value of the high character and just wonderfulness and excellence that we have in our fire department.

Oh, it's amazing. And when you look at 6,000 calls, I mean, You guys came to my, my mom's house several times when she fell, different times, and you were there within 2 or 3 minutes. And, uh, and I met another guy that had a widowmaker heart attack and should have died, but you guys were there within a couple minutes. So there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes like that. They're, they're incredible, and we really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you.

Just to echo what has been said, I I was one of those 7,578 calls. My father-in-law had a medical emergency. And just to comment on the time of response, how quickly they were— the paramedics and fire team responded. But the thing that impressed me most was, you know, these are, these are strong men who came in and they were a machine. It was interesting watching them. Each one had a job, each one had a role, and they were professional and efficient and effective at every level and everything that they did. But the thing that I was most touched with was the amount of compassion and care that they gave to my father-in-law while they were doing everything else. And I think that speaks volumes about the quality, uh, that we have. So thank you for that.

Thank you, appreciate it. I'll pass the word along. They know and they feel your support every day, so thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next up we've got item 7.3. We've, uh, it's legislative session. We're right in the thick of the legislature. Uh, this year. And so we invited Nelson Abbott to come speak to our group as one of our local representatives. So Nelson, if you'd just like to tell us what you want to tell us.

Okay, well, thank you. I appreciate you inviting me to be here. It's good to be up here and, uh, speak to you guys. So we are— we're about halfway through the legislative session, so we've passed the base budget and it's balanced, so that's good. We've been working now on any changes that we might want to make to the base budget, and we've set aside about $150 million for maybe some tax cuts. So I won't predict that that's actually going to happen, but I think there's a good likelihood it will. And the discussion we're having right now is what will those tax cuts look like. There's quite a bit of interest in Reducing or eliminating tax on Social Security income, which I think a lot of the— our elderly citizens would appreciate. Right now, uh, Social Security income is tax-free at the state level for people with adjusted gross incomes of $75,000 or less. And so one of the issues is, do we eliminate it entirely, or do we just increase that number? to something higher. And, uh, there's also some talk about, uh, increasing the child tax credit and then some talk about lowering the overall income tax rate. So those are some— those are things we've been working on quite a bit lately. Property tax is something that a lot of people are interested in reducing. That one's harder for us to reduce because our share, the state's share of property tax is fairly low, and every city, county, school district sets their own tax rates on that one. Uh, there is a— I do hear from a lot of constituents that are concerned, especially elderly constituents, about how do they make those payments. There's been some news, uh, about maybe eliminating the circuit breaker. I don't think there's a lot of support up there to eliminate the circuit breaker because I know a lot of elderly people rely on that and they need that that kind of help. So, so the circuit breaker is they can apply for help with their— to pay their income— or sorry, their property tax, and they get that from the state. The state gives money to help pay that. So the property tax doesn't go away, it just is paid in a different way, and, and it's based on needs. And so, so those are a couple things. Uh, other things we've been working on We just passed out of the House a bill that cracks down on those who traffic in fentanyl. Fentanyl has been a huge issue in both our state and across the nation. There are a lot of deaths. It's, it's kind of scary to see the number of people who succumb to that issue. And fentanyl is a particularly dangerous drug because The tolerance for overdose is fairly narrow, and so it's easy for people to overdose on that. And there's different potencies of fentanyl that they'll get their hands on. And so we did make it a first-degree felony if somebody is in possession of more than 100 grams of fentanyl, which is a lot of fentanyl. But that would be somebody who's trafficking in it. I hope that passes. the Senate, and then hopefully that makes it more difficult for people to traffic in fentanyl. One of the things I've been working on this past week is we do have, uh, we call it the Utah Debate Commission, which we funded in years past. We're trying to move that down to UVU, so that would be housed in Orem. It would be at the Herbert Institute at UVU, and so that would give members of our community the opportunity to be more involved in that. The debates wouldn't all occur here. They would still occur across the state, and we'd try and be geographically diverse in that way. But it would be a good connection to Orem, I think, to have that housed down here. So those are a few things we've been working on. I'm happy to take any questions or, um, let you get back to your business, whatever you want to do.

Do we have any questions from the council?

I'd just like to have you keep an eye out for the Senator Grover's bill with the school district reconfiguration and keeping an eye on the interest for our area, the South District, just to make sure that some of our needs are addressed from the House side. And supportive of that bill, we feel like Senator Grover's doing a good job, but, you know, we'd like to make sure— we'd like to have a House rep that would really, you know, recognize our needs here.

Yeah, I'd love to help out on that. It hasn't come over to our side yet, so I'm not as familiar with that one, but I'm a little familiar with what he's doing, and I've looked at that. So I'm happy to help out, and we can talk offline if you want to.

So, Mayor and Council, if I can just say that Representative Abbott's been one of those representatives who's been very accessible, and he, he came and joined us when we were up at the Dayton legislature and met with our youth council. Council, and, uh, just he and Representative Lisa Shepherd were the 2 that came by and said hi. And, um, uh, as you know, we've had a handful of kind of priorities that we've been following up on with in conjunction with the Utah League of Cities and Towns and with our state representatives, um, namely land use control on the local level. Um, uh, we want to look at a jurisdictional transfer of the Lakeview corridor to the state. We're interested in seeing how— what comes from the state in defining and regulating short-term rentals. And then we also have a close eye on utility transportation fees and what are the regulations around that. But of particular note, we are interested in a kind of multi-year process of looking at the canals in the city, and if there might be opportunities to turn those into trails. And Representative Abbott's been one that's been very helpful previous to now, and I'm sure currently in helping us stay on top of that and find solutions and alternatives for that moving forward. So I want to publicly thank you for your help and accessibility.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Well, thank you. It's been great being here. Appreciate it and appreciate the work you guys do. Fabulous city. I love living in Orem. It's a great city and you guys are doing a great job. So thank you.

Thank you, Nelson.

Have a good day.

Okay, we'll move on to item number 8. We have personal appearances. And let me just read this. Time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak should have signed up before the beginning of the meeting. Please limit your comments to 3 minutes or less. I've got a list here of people who have signed up, and we'll just go down the list, starting with James Brown.

I just want to take a moment and say thank you to the fire department as well. My daughter was also one of those calls. Um, I happened to be there at the time, and, and they were very professional, so I, I really appreciate them helping out. So, uh, I came to talk about, uh, townhouses. We have an interesting problem with, uh, development in, in the state, and so I wanted to address that briefly. Uh, there was a recent survey in the Deseret News that says 96% of the younger generation want a single-family home. Only 4% of those people would be happy in a townhome. So a modest home with a yard is what they're looking for, and they've said that they will leave the state of Utah to get that if they can't get it here. So if we're building more townhomes, we're not really serving what those people are asking for. 96% want a real home with a yard, like just a normal modest home. Governor Cox has said that we're short 50,000 houses. We currently have 200,000 houses that have been approved and haven't yet been built. So we're 300% oversubscribed from what the governor says we need. We're going to have plenty of houses. We don't need to build more high-density housing. So I don't believe, you know, we, we originally came here tonight to talk about the project over at Wilkerson Farm, and I understand that that's been removed and they're They're trying kind of a sneaky 2-piece thing to try and get that through, and it's really contingent upon building a bunch of townhomes in order to make that profitable for them. But I don't think anybody is going to want those townhomes that are next to the Front Runner track, that are next to the Union Pacific track going by, shaking their house to death. It's up against an industrial storage yard. I just don't think people are going to Want that when we're 300% oversubscribed in other houses? So I don't think it's going to be something that's going to be profitable. I don't think anyone in Southwest Orem is interested in having more high-density housing there. I'm going to do everything that I can, and I know there's a lot of other people that are going to do everything they can to make that project not happen. And if it does happen, if you guys approve that, I think there's going to be— there's going to be consequences to that, right, at the next election if people say, oh, these are the guys who voted for townhouses instead of a food-producing farm. So I just throw that out there at you. I, I would encourage you to vote against any sort of project like that that's going to destroy a farm and replace it with townhouses. Thank you.

Yes.

Yes, I'd be happy to.

Next, Margaret Dayton.

Mayor Young and council members, my name is Margaret Dayton. I appreciate the time to speak. I appreciate your service. And I appreciate that big clock you're building on the new building.

Thank you.

I grew up all over the United States by assignment since my father was in the Air Force. My husband and I have lived in Orem for a long time. We live here by choice because it's a wonderful place. And I always said it's the best part of the best state of the best country. So we're very glad to be here. And I was very glad to represent this area in the legislature for 22 years. By the way, I very much enjoyed Representative Abbott's report, and I'm trying not to have my feelings hurt that when I was a senator, I was never invited to come and give an update on the legislature. But I did enjoy serving. I mean, it's these blood-bought freedoms, as I speak of the military, that allow us to vote and allow you to serve on the council and allowed me to serve in the Senate. And I'm very grateful for that opportunity. Of course, many of my constituents were your— are your constituents. And, and I might— all my 22 years of service, I never ever had anyone come to me and say, please build more high-density housing, please cover up farmland with high-density housing, please make sure that we don't still be recognized as Family City USA. Our current Senator Keith Keith Grover has taken the position where I served, and I connected with him this week and I said, Senator Grover, have you ever had people asking you, especially in this time when there's a lot of suggestion for building going on, that people are requesting for more high-density housing to be built? And he said never. So I'm just asking that you please acknowledge Family City USA, Family Neighborhoods. Please acknowledge the integrity of our neighborhoods.

neighborhoods.

Please acknowledge the feelings that we have of a place where people, I think, think the most important open space is their own backyard. And please know that I appreciate your service and appreciate the chance to talk to all of you.

Thank you. Holly Robinson.

Thank you so much for, for having me today. Um, aside from the tickets that I often deserve from the police, and I appreciate that, uh, one time my Charlie called, uh, he threatened to call the police on his brothers, and he did, and we got nothing but respectful treatment, and it really elevated my kids' view of the Orem City emergency services. So thank Thank you. Um, today I wanted to talk a little bit about, uh, a little misunderstanding that we had at Orem Summerfest last year. Um, I make handmade brooms and brushes. It's kind of a weird profession. And, uh, I applied for the Summerfest in December of 2023 for the 2024, uh, spot, and the vendors weren't notified whether or not we had been accepted until just about a week before opening day. And that's kind of bad because vendors need time to plan. If we get rejected somewhere, we need to apply somewhere else, and we need time for that. Many local craftspeople and I got rejected from Orem Fest last year, and we were kind of confused. So we thought that maybe better craftspeople had replaced us. So a couple of us went to Orem Fest to see the people who won the spots over us. And when we got there, in addition to a few local and non-local craftspeople, we saw that the space that Orem Fest usually fills was mostly empty. And the booths were spread out and really sparse, not like in the past years. And many of the vendors who replaced us were just selling cheap mass-produced products from other, from foreign countries. And we wondered what was going on because we thought that was super, super weird. We'd never seen that before. I mean, you can see, you know, less expensive imported products, but they wouldn't have replaced the craftspeople. When we called to see if we could still get in because there was still a lot of space left, we found out why we had gotten rejected. The person who was in charge of selecting vendors and arranging the space for Aurum Fest had not been aware that Aurum Fest is in large measure for Aurum craftspeople. And the reason I suspect the person didn't know this is because the person was young and inexperienced. And although she was really pleasant and very sweet, it was also very obvious that she was new to the job and had been left to her own devices to do her best. when what she actually needed was mentoring and to be able to help with the Orem Fest vending instead of being in charge of it. If nothing else, Orem Fest should be for local craftspeople over all others, not because we're skilled, although we truly are, but because we live and sweat here and this is our home and we should not be getting replaced by cheap mass-produced foreign products. We are in fact all that is left of craftspeople in Orem, and we do it even though it's incredibly difficult way to earn a living. So I just want to request that Orem City Council be willing, uh, to specifically take craftspeople into consideration this year and allow somebody to be in charge of the vending part who appreciates us and also who is on the more mature side So they can mentor a younger generation of festival organizers rather than, you know, just kind of being in a panic, you know, trying to figure out how to do it themselves, because that's probably what had happened. I think I made her a little bit defensive. I felt bad about that. Do you have any questions for me about that?

I, I don't think we do.

Okay.

But I appreciate coming out, Holly.

All right.

And we do have 2 council members, uh, Chris Kilpack and Jen Gale, that are both on involved with the Orem Fest.

I love it.

And so yeah, if you could reach out to them and connect with them, they can carry that message back to the entire group.

I appreciate that so much. Thank you so much for having me and hearing me out. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. We can also make sure and connect with the staff support for the Orem events commission as well.

Who would that be, Jeff?

Bryce.

Bryce. Okay, so that, that would—

Holly, that would be the other person to connect with is Bryce over here.

Thank you.

Okay, next we've got Linda Olson.

Hi, my name is Linda Olson, and I thank you for the time that you're allowing me to speak today. Um, this is an election year for 4 of you, and we're watching closely to see the attitudes of residents on social media between the widening of 1600 North and the potential destruction of Wilkerson farms, Orme residents are getting vocal. There's already a lot of talk in our community that Chris Kilpack, Jen Gale, and Jeff Lamson promised on the campaign trail and in cottage meetings that they would not put high density into our neighborhoods. They promised that they would listen to citizens, and now their integrity is being questioned. So for the 4 of you up for election this year, Citizens are watching closely how you vote on high-density apartments developments, and it will make or break your election chances. We're aware that Mayor Young, Lenay Millett, and Dave Spencer are good to their word. They say they are against high-density development, and their vote reflects it. Tom McDonald's reputation is questionable. Every vote you make between now and November Will be scrutinized, Mr. McDonald. Unfortunately, you will probably bear the burden of the other 3 violating their election promises, especially when you have Mr. Kilpatrick speak for you to flip the Planning Commission because they reflect the will of the majority of Orem citizens and won't vote for high-density housing. Mr. McDonald, if you are not running for reelection this year, then vote however you want. But if you hope to be sitting in the seat January 2026, I recommend that you vote very, very cautiously. Every comment and every vote is being watched. Thank you.

Next, we've got Lynn Tromley.

Hi, I'm just going to echo what everybody else said. Thank you, and thank you for the work that you do and the service you provide. My name is Lynn Tromley, as you said, um, and again, I appreciate being up here. Um, I'd like to address a comment that was made by one city council member, and that was when they were discussing the Wilkerson Farm. It was Stated that the farm is not large enough to feed the whole of Orem, therefore it's not valuable. Um, I'd like to speak to that if I could. Having a local farm is having food insurance for the people. Now more than ever, consumers are looking to buy fresh local produce instead of food that's been treated and shipped for days across the country. Go no further than local farmers markets that are booming in popularity right now, especially to the millennials and beyond. As we've learned in the past 4 years, one of the lessons is that nothing is certain. Emergencies come up and when you least expect them, and so. Um, Wilkerson Farm sits on very nutritious, dense, prime topsoil. Um, Cherry Hill Farm next door is 150 acres of that same valuable topsoil. That is 170 collective acres that will produce enough food to feed a good portion of our city. Do I keep spitting in this?

It keeps Spell me.

I don't know. What we have is the expertise, the knowledge, and the experience of farming in this area. Does a landowner have the right to sell this land? Absolutely. But the residents have a voice for their community. They trust you to be that voice. Rezoning the property to high-density housing is not A benefit to the city of Orem. There's already an abundance of the same housing and traffic that it brings. Instead of a strain on our infrastructure, why not have it a positive for the city in producing food and allowing precious open space? It's getting smaller all the time. The effects, one way or the other, will be far-reaching, and they will be felt for generations. Thank you so much.

John Chaney.

Good evening, uh, Mayor and City Council. So I'm here to also echo a lot of the voices that have been stated. This is Rich soil that Wilkinson Farm sits on. And it is also maybe not enough to feed the city, but it feeds many. 250,000 pounds of food are estimated to come from there each year. Many are donated to our food banks locally, but they also have— and I'm very proud to be part of this— the community-supported agriculture every year. So it's sort of a co-op which they started during COVID and that was a fantastic opportunity to have fresh, local sourced food, which was far better than what was getting to us in the stores because of those delays from COVID And so to have this resource, to be able to have 50,000 people come to the fall fairs, as I've always done every year, it's great for our recreation, it's great for our connection to our land. And it's also great for us to have this resource locally, um, with agriculture that ties us back to the beginnings of this city with its, uh, its agriculture that has always been a great resource. Thank you.

Tyler Horan.

Uh, yeah, my name's Tyler Horan. I represent the developer that has the, uh, Wilkerson Farm property under contract and has submitted the plans for development. And I just wanted to kind of explain just what happened, just to be on the record. Um, after our last city council meeting, we obviously— we had a long night and got a lot of feedback. Um, we went and made some pretty substantial changes to our plans. Um, and then we met with the city staff to, to talk about those changes. And, um, the changes that we made, we reduced the density and we increased the lot size, and we're changing, uh, what we're proposing to be, uh, R-8 zoning next to the existing R-8 zoning. Um, and the feeling was when we met with staff a couple months ago, that because the changes that we were making were in line and were less dense than what we had presented before, that we wouldn't need to go to the Planning Commission. And then we got a phone call yesterday that said staff had reviewed it a little bit more, and they now felt that because we had changed our proposal, even though we felt like it was in line with what we had been kind of directed to do, we still need to go back to the Planning Commission. So our plan is to go back to the Planning Commission, um, and then just bring our plans back in front of you. So I just wanted to explain, kind of, we had been meeting and talking and our plan was to come here. And, um, so we just kind of had that step get put in front of us. So just wanted to say that.

Truman Van Cott.

Well, thank you. I'm glad I get to follow the developer because I just want to remind people that our general plan is the ceiling, not the floor. And when we're proposing high-density projects, we should always start with that in mind. We do not negotiate with terrorists. We need to remember that even if something does not— if something is too high dense, we need to be able to say no.

Thank you.

We do not amend our plans that we spent thousands of dollars, of taxpayer dollars, I might add, and good public input to change these plans. We do not need to change them. And also, I'd just like to point out, Tom McDonald, you have been on your personal computer and your phone for a lot of this and previous meetings. If you could pay attention to some of us residents, we would greatly appreciate it.

I think most of us are taking notes.

Well, that's great. You've taken notes today, but I've seen you on your phone quite a bit, and I would just Appreciate if you would engage with people as they're speaking to you. Anyway, I will end by saying we need to have low-density development in Orem. That is what people in my generation want. As was stated earlier, we don't need this high-density terror that is coming to Orem. We need good planned development, and we had that because we had a general plan that was well thought out, well studied. And paid for by taxpayers. We do not need to change that. And so, as they consider their next proposal, I'd encourage them to remember the ceiling is the highest density that we have in our general plan. That is not their floor. Thank you.

Last up, we've got Stockton House.

Okay, well, hello everyone. My name is Stockton Hawes. I have nothing to do with the farm or anything that's going on, but, um, so I am a student at Utah Valley University, and I work for the Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative, which is a part of the larger organization, which is the Center for Constitutional Studies, a part of The job that I have with working with the Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative is having a civic project every year where we would go out into the community and do some sort of project. And this year we would like to make it a little bit bigger and potentially work with the city of Orem or the Orem City Council and try and see if there are potential service projects out there that we as UVU students and potentially encouraging other community members to get involved in things ranging from, you know, helping to clean up a park or those sorts of things. And so we would just love to get involved in the community and help other community members get involved in that regard. The bigger and larger goal of this would be for it to be replicated every year. with us helping to support this new project. And then, yeah, just encouraging others to come out and do it. So you have my phone number, but I would love to, I don't know, leave with someone's email or phone number so that we can kind of be in contact with— yeah, go ahead.

We would love to put you to work.

Yeah.

If you can meet with Carrie Rugg here, Deputy City Manager, and she, she helps oversee a lot of our service projects.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, appreciate it. That's all I had.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you for all of your input. Next up, we've got our consent items, number 9, and all we've got on the consent items tonight Our reappointment to our Recreation Advisory Commission of Carol Walker.

Mayor, I make a motion that we approve the consent items.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The consent items are approved. Next, we'll go to item number 10.

So, Mayor, Yeah, just on Carol Walker, um, she served, you know, we just reappointed her, but she also, uh, retired, uh, and she's helping Kathy Lewis now with the Business Alliance in Welke. So she's really servicing the community very well.

Oh, nice.

Thank you.

I saw her there today. Perfect.

Thank you.

Nice.

Thank you. Um, so item 10, this was a scheduled item. with Whitestone Estates and Wilkerson Farm, uh, but the application's been withdrawn, as has been noted. Um, can I just ask if you're here for that agenda item? I'm just curious. Okay, for the Wilkerson Farm. Okay. All right, as I mentioned, that, that has been withdrawn. Um, that will move us to item number 11, financial information. And then last up, we've got city manager information items for Bren.

Um, just a couple of quick items. One, um, you know that our, our Lights On event is, you know, probably our most thanked event that we have. Those lights Unfortunately go off this Friday. So make sure and make any last trips, potentially for Valentine's Day.

If you need to get engaged or anything, make sure you get over there.

I have not in my family, but things are getting uncomfortably close.

I think it was a general question.

So I don't think I'll be giving that suggestion at this She doesn't want to be the first one in Orem. It would be a very picturesque place, but we don't want to force anything. She's not— she hasn't even been home from her mission for 3 months. Okay, um, other thing, uh, I, I think you've probably seen it on your calendars, but following, uh, Friday the 21st is the annual Sera Gala. that we're always excited about. Last thing, I just want to make sure that you know that on behalf of the city, we did send flowers to President Tubines and the family in— to express our joint grieving and condolences to the family with the tragic passing of Jeffrey Tolke. So I want to make sure you know that we have expressed our condolences and care for, for President Domínguez.

Thanks.

Can we do some official statement from here expressing our concern and pass it maybe at our next meeting and send that to her? I think we've done those type of things before. I think it would be helpful, and if it came from the council as a whole—

mayor and the council, excuse me.

Yes, I'm— I'll, I'll work with Pete and we'll, we'll do up an official message.

Thank you.

That'd be great.

Thank you.

Okay, I think we've got everything covered. So would someone like to make a motion to adjourn?

As much as I love being with you, I'll make that motion, Mayor, that we adjourn.

Thank you.

I second that.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

This meeting is adjourned. Thank you for coming.

Are you going to get coffee?

Yeah, 6:30 to 8:30, I think.

Yeah, are you going?

I don't think— this was supposed to be a very long time.

I have a call with—

who's that?

Hi, how are you?

Thank you.

Still feeling good to be