City Council · 2025-07-08

word searches. It's just full of really fun— this is one of probably the best projects I feel like we've ever done as far as just pure fun and enjoyment. We had some local artists. It's a husband-wife team. They're based in Springville, but the husband grew up in Orem, and he was actually mentored by James Christensen. Hi. They lived next door, and so that's how he ended up becoming an artist, was because of the influence of James Christensen. And so he was really happy to do this project with us, and we hope you enjoy it. We have lots of copies, so if you want to give some out to your grandkids or Or people that you know, we'd love to supply you with those. But we— Sydney included some coloring pencils in there for you, so if things get a little dull at any point in the meeting, feel free to start in on your coloring book.

Are they something that people can buy?

Yeah, we will eventually. So right now the way you get one is by completing the library summer reading program. This is one of the prizes. So if you read— is it 10 hours, I think?

10 hours, something like that. 5 hours for toddlers.

Yeah, so if you complete the reading challenge, you get one of these for free, and then we have a bunch of different plans for them going forward after the library's done.

So they're not available, I think, yeah, to just anyone until the summer reading program is done.

Yeah. Then we'll look into that. So August 1st we'll start doing different things with them.

That's cool.

But yeah, really fun project.

They'll become a coveted item as far as, I mean, they start getting popular and have some scarcity.

Yeah. And, you know, the reason we wanted to do it is, you know, I feel like this person, I feel like every kid deserves to believe that they grew up in the best town in the country. And this helps them connect with Orem history and what we're trying to do as a city. And it's fun for adults too. There's some pretty good humor in here from the artists. And yeah, I just hope you really enjoy it, because it was a lot of fun to do, so I hope you do enjoy it.

Did you tell them about the page on the Sarah?

Oh yeah, and there's a page— you'll get in here and there's a page of the Sarah that shows some famous people and some less famous people that you know that have been to the Sarah. So check that page out. You might recognize some familiar faces.

If you go to Wiki and you look at all our notable people, Mr. Christianson is one of them.

That's right. That's right. And, uh, yeah, so this is— this has been really fun.

So we had a fake Jordan show up.

We did. Do you remember this story?

I don't.

I'm disappointed that I missed it. So do you remember the Utah Flash? No. Yeah, so they, they had this promotion.

Oh, I do remember that.

Yeah, so they had Brian Russell there and they said Michael Jordan was coming and they're gonna replay the push-off. And so they, during this day, they released different photos of this Michael Jordan at different places in town. He was at Mimi's Cafe. And from a certain angle and a long distance away, it really did look like Michael Jordan. But when they brought him out at halftime, he was about a foot too short and a little bit chubby. And so people just went crazy. It was sold out because they thought they were going to get to see Michael Jordan. But it turned out it was fake Michael Jordan, so they weren't happy. So there's great stories like that in my academia, just funny things that have happened.

Can you say about why you wanted to— has Fred the Ghost made his way over to this city hall yet?

We haven't seen him. But, you know, there's still a little bit left of the building, so maybe he'll make it over soon.

Now you can do some contests on social media with these, right?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Intermittently, randomly throw them in here or there.

Yeah, one of the plans we have, if we can pull it off, is we want to create a vending machine out here where you can buy WORM swag, and this will be one of the things in the vending machine, is you get these coloring books.

I think we've already come up with some new fun ideas. There's, there's a WORM event with like a sticker page, so we came up with things you can do at the events, and you can take a picture of it and then send it to us and we'll mail you like the stickers like that's with it. And we've already got like stickers that they've like put together so that we can make them for the future. So all of the city buildings that are in here will be made into stickers, all the little characters.

And we bought the rights to the artwork, so anything in the book can be used for anything we want. Like, you know, if you want a, you know, a giant mural of something you see in the coloring book put on the wall, we can do that. We can do stickers, posters, really anything. Contests. So it's been really, really a great project. Nice.

Nice work once again.

Thank you. This didn't even feel like work. This just felt like fun.

Okay, let's move on to item 2.3.

You might want to head on to 2.4. Steve's still out here. I was like, where's Steve?

Oh, 2.4 is the same thing. Oh, that's 2.5. So Ryan, Ryan can do 2.4. You want to go?

Yeah. I'll just pass these around. So this may look familiar to each of you. This is the intersection of 400 East, 1600 North. This is the phase 1 of improvements that will be constructed at this intersection. Yes, sir. This is about a $460,000 project. Originally in 2022, we signed an interlocal agreement with Utah County, which administers the MAG money. To do safety improvements there for about $1.3 million. At the time, we were looking at a roundabout project. Going through the public open house, getting input, the residents really would like a bridge. But we've got to find the funding for that, so that'll be phase 2. This will be phase 1 to get us through the time until we can build a bridge. This is about a $400,000— again, $460,000 project. The city will pay about 6.77% in a match. And We have a contractor on board, and so tonight we have a resolution before you to amend the agreement that we did in 2022 to reflect this project being built and the associated costs.

What is this project? Is it just painting the sides? What are we actually doing with this?

We are basically creating a more of a directional crosswalk system for those that use the trail. It will guide them to go through the darker pathway and make Diagonal crossings, not as advantageous because there will be boulders in the way and other safety measures. Oh, okay.

Because people will go straight across.

Oh yeah. I've known some of those people. So you're highlighting— No, no. I did that. To highlight— For the record. This is being recorded.

There will be a guardrail installed in order to get people to move more safely.

So yeah, there'll be some physical block to ride your bike. You might be able to walk over them, but you're not going to ride your bike diagonally.

Correct.

That makes sense.

This will make it Very apparent where the trail goes and which way you should go. I mean, if this works, we don't need it.

We might not need a bridge.

Yeah, but for now we'll find out if it does. But should be built here this year.

Um, pardon? Do you know when they're starting?

I do not. Um, unfortunately, the 2 men that do, one's out on vacation, one's out on personal days.

So glad we have you. So what does this require, discussion? What is this?

It'll be on your consent agenda as a resolution just to amend the agreement. And that was in the packet. It's a very simple amendment. Gotcha. Any other questions?

We're good. I just want to say really quick, thank you to who— I mean, the little things that have been added all along this process to make that intersection safer.

The flashing lights to let people know to watch, you know, look this way, look that way, don't do this, don't do that. Has been helpful, and so thank you for all of that in the process to make it better.

We'll pass that along to Chris's staff that worked on that. Thanks, John.

Thank you. All right, Gary, you might be up. All right, thank you, Ryan. Uh, I see some also In order to make everything work, so we'll go to item 2.5. Great. Okay, you can do the 15-minute version instead of the 30-minute version.

Yeah, we can do the 15-minute version. So what we're going to talk about in residential zones, we have some requirements on how high you can build a residential home, and it's 35 feet. State law also imposes on us certain restrictions.

Doesn't that vary by zoning? R-8 and R-12 are different heights, aren't they?

No, in those zones they can be the same. When you get higher, you could go up to 45 feet, and I think the R-20—

R-12 and 20.

Oh, 12 and 20.

Okay.

So you can go a little, a little higher. 35 feet's pretty tall. What's left of the conference room over there is probably not 35 feet. Okay, and so I think a lot of you have been contacted about a house that is 35 feet tall, and it is, uh, we affectionately call the shoebox that Shaquille O'Neal's shoes came in. Has been built, and what we'd like to do is just go through a brief presentation that we've given the Planning Commission. We're looking at some things that we can do to possibly change our code to maybe deal with this type of situation in the future, but we are somewhat limited. So, Jared, if you go ahead and come on up. Sure. And we'll have you hooked in and we'll show you this presentation. And it is a flat-roofed home, and I'll give a little spoiler, state law prohibits us from regulating the pitch of a house. We can't tell people they can have flat roofs. We can't tell them they can have gables. We can't tell them what the pitch is. And so we're limited. We can't tell people what, what color they can paint their house. And single-family homes and twin homes. So we're limited on some of those types of things. So as we're bringing this up, what we've done is we've gone around town and we— there's a few flat roof homes in town.

Can we regulate stories?

We can regulate height. We probably could regulate story. There are many 3-story homes above grade.

Yeah, there's— I don't see anything in code that would keep us from regulating numbers of stories. And we do that to a degree with the first requirement, which is a minimum. So we do have a minimum. You can't build whatever they built, the pioneer houses that we see, just the foundation sticking up and then the tiny porch. Not allowed. You've got to be at least 8 feet above ground level or 1 story.

So in that one way, we already do.

To clarify, The 45 feet? The 45 feet. That's true. The R-12 and R-20 zones do allow heights up to 45, but only for 20% of the total roof area. So the whole thing can't be 45. And then it requires a greater setback, 50 feet from property lines. So we already, in those other zones, kind of start to do some of the things that we can talk about doing without regulating pitches and saying you have to have at least a 3:12 pitch, which was a typical minimum before the state took that ability away from cities to do.

Try using the other one.

That is one of the strategies that we can talk about, that, you know, you think of a 35-foot-tall shoebox and there's— it's just flat walls all the way around. We could probably— it would be a little frankly difficult, but I think we could do it— to figure out a regulatory scheme where As you go up to a certain height, you have a greater setback, so they need to be set back in more. Think of like a wedding cake or a tiered approach. And most people, even when they do go up that high, don't just have it one solid mass. They do put some architectural relief. They add some further back. You'll see a lot of frankly 35-foot-tall modern, more modern architecture type buildings that a lot of people look at and go, yeah, I, you know, I like that, that's, that's good. We wouldn't want to prohibit that. And so this is an approach that is going to take some time. We have been talking with the Planning Commission about it. We've been working on some things. We don't have any ideas. We're not here tonight to Tell you, oh, here's a solution. We're here tonight to introduce this issue to you because I would imagine some of you, if not all of you, heard comments about this house. And the reality is a lot of the state this house came in for a building permit application in 2023. Since 2021. The state law has really restricted what we can do. And they call these things design elements. And apparently our system does not like Jared.

No, it never has. Not yet.

Did yours come up? Okay. How are they design elements? It's still construction. It's the outer wall of the house. You know what I mean? A design element is a facade.

Those kind of design elements, we— so, like structural design elements, we could regulate and say you have to have 2 planes in your front, the front-facing facade. Nothing they've written so far, I think, would keep us from doing that. We can regulate, for example, we can say you have to have a porch feature. Yes.

But we can't say that the pitch of the porch has to be a certain pitch or a kind of— roof for it or the materials used for it. We can say that you have to have a porch.

I'm just doing the wrong one.

Try one of those, uh, windows people.

Okay. All right. Going to duplicate. Okay. All right. Well, let's— I'll run through these fast, okay? So the first— it's gone now?

Okay.

Windows+P.

Duplicate. I can— I'll leave it in the small screen format. How's that?

And our 15 minutes are up.

I hope this is very entertaining. We hope you've enjoyed this presentation.

Let's try it without this now. I'm going to share it with you just in case. Gary and Jared, maybe what we can do too is have you send out a follow-up email with this presentation.

We can do that.

We can do that. It actually is— it'd be great today if anybody has Uh, more particular questions, you know, please let me know. Come in, we'll sit down, we'll go through it and really talk about what we're doing.

Is your future plan or hopes to modify our code of what's allowed?

We're hoping that we can come up with a good code amendment that will stay within the parameters state law has given us, but yet prevent the worst Prevent that type of things from happening. Yeah. But yet still give people, you know, the flexibility to really do what they want with their property.

While protecting the neighbors next door. Sure. So they maintain their property rights.

Yeah, that's the issue, right? Yeah. I mean, you can't just have your property rights and then blow up everybody else's. Sure.

Do you want to— do you have time or not? Because I can send them.

I will go really fast.

So you don't need to see— these are just examples of features on homes that keep people from hating things like that. Again, we can't do pitches. This is another example of a really tall—

Is that 1600 South?

No, that's not in Orem. In the original slides that I did, I tried not to use pictures from homes in Orem to not, you know, drag that on. But here's a couple of other examples of just Yeah. We can't dictate these kinds of features, but we can encourage them in some ways, perhaps. We could look at other things that might help people do that. And we can require multiple panes or planes in the front facades and an entry feature of some sort, which adds actually a lot. It says— when you see a porch on a house, it says house. That is missing from that breadbox house, you know. It's just not there. They might add it in the end. We don't know. But right now, it's a little shocking.

Are we allowed to say not more than X feet taller than the adjoining neighbors or not?

You would not be allowed to do that. Well, I should— in a historic district, you can do more. So when an area has been declared a historic district, you can do that kind of thing.

Can you do it for an R-8 zone?

Not for the zoning, no. For regular zoning, no.

Historic district is a defined term, and we have to go in and designate areas as historic.

So just to clarify, we're talking about planes. It makes a big difference when there are multiple planes of feature on the front of a home. We might look at that kind of thing. Or birthday cake requirements, like Gary was talking about. You can see that the things that are missing— things that we do have as options, more limited height, but, again, there are a lot of 35-foot-high homes in Orem if you drive around and look around. They're just not as offensive to the eye as the breadbox house. And you see, you don't necessarily want to change that. Varied height requirements for roof styles, that might fall afoul, actually. Varied allowances for numbers of stories based on roof styles, I'm not sure if that would or not. We could test that and see. Requirements for entry features, that might help more than you think, or different planes to mass— break up that mass. I just asked. Requirements for offsets, like we just said, and then increased setbacks if you're going to go over a certain height. We could reduce height, Tie that to setbacks instead. We would be allowed to do that. And that can make a difference, too. These last couple of things— so, for example, this is a 35-foot home. There's a lot of height there, but it's all contained in that— it's contained in that pitch. But also, there's more feature, and that takes your eye away from that big, flat front plane. So, for example, this home here, while not 35 feet, has flat roofs, but there's more feature going on, and your eye is— It's not as flat. It's taken away from the height that you're looking at and the plain sort of front by just that simple door that says this is a house. You're drawn down to it by the color or whatever else. There's a lot of artsy-fartsy terms for it that we don't have time for today. But there are things we can do that might help with kind of the visual presence of homes that we haven't looked at in the past because we don't generally need to. This is another home. It doesn't quite have that feature going on that takes away, so you see that height a little more. Just to give you the last bit on this, as you look at this home, what you need to realize, I think, or what we can— what helps me think about it is that zoning— it's what we told the Planning Commission the other night— zoning draws a box in which you can build a house. The thing is, most people don't fill that entire box up like they're pouring water into a glass box. That's what happened here that no one would have really anticipated or expected.

They wanted all the setbacks, but they built it as tall as they could.

Yeah, they're actually not quite They're set back a little further than they would have had to have been because of an easement on one side. It could be a little bit bigger. It could have been just a little bigger, basically.

May I ask, what is the metric for measuring height? Is it the crown of the road? Is it the sidewalk? Good question. So this—

we can talk about that. Height is the vertical distance from the grade— this is our definition in our code— the vertical distance from the grade to the highest point of the structure. And we'd establish that grade by averaging between the 4 corners of the lot.

So— Can we— I think that's wrong. It should be based on the surrounding infrastructure.

We could change definitions and look at that kind of thing. We haven't—

And that's an avenue that we could look at. And it's difficult doing height, especially when you have a lot that maybe has a big slope in it, because how do you average that? And it's not as clear as it could be. This lot, however, is fairly flat, and any difference something like that would make to this lot would be negligible. It would be much more important in maybe hillside areas.

Yeah.

And so we will look at that, and we're actually looking at our hillside ordinance dealing with slopes and things that you can do with that right now anyway. And so we'll be putting that in. Just one last thing quickly, the last 2 slides with those 4 homes, 2 homes on each, those are all homes in Oro. Yeah.

And so, Gary and Jared, there's— we're limited to some extent on what we can record At the same time, we could, as a city, still propose sort of good neighbor— good neighborly sorts of things that that property owner housing could consider, right?

But not forced.

But not necessarily required. We could say, you know, look, if you'll consider different finishes or different colors or different— or adding a porch and stuff, then that would be a good neighborly thing. We could at least approach it that way.

Yeah, we could always try that. Some people take it very well and they're like, oh wow, you know, I never thought of it, that's a great idea. I have had experience where I've tried to do my best to give a very friendly suggestion, tried not to be too thou shalt do this, And they've taken offense at it. So while we try to do that, occasionally you may hear that, oh, staff was telling us what we can— what we should build and how my house should look. And, you know, at the end of the day, we can only regulate within the parameters of state law and our city code. But we frequently offer people suggestions on their projects.

Okay. All right, we're gonna have to keep going, but is there anything else you want to cover?

No, and just if there's any questions or you have a constituent has a concern, please don't hesitate to contact me or Jared. And we are working and hope that— again, I don't think there's an easy fix. I can't tell you, oh, there's— here's a really easy code amendment, well, it'll be to you in a month. It's going to take a little bit of time to really think through this, make sure it works from a planning standpoint, and then work with legal to make sure we can do it under state law.

Has there been any kind of outreach to the neighbors from the city, or is there any plan?

There has— we've been talking about doing that. We haven't done it yet, and we wanted to— before we did anything like a general outreach to the community, we wanted to have this discussion with the council first, though in the meantime we have talked to quite a few people about this and about the restrictions that we have.

And as you guys work on this project, you should gather other homes that, you know, kind of have some issues too. Remember that lady the other night? She was— I don't know if she reached out to you or not, but anyway, just gather other homes. It doesn't need to You have, you know, a dozen homes or whatever, and you can say, okay, we're trying to figure out how to make this work for the best future.

Yeah, and now is the perfect time if there's anything that people aren't liking. If our ordinances aren't giving us the result that we would want, now's the perfect time to go in and really dive into them and figure them out and get them right and make them At the end of the day though, you cannot legislate good taste. That's almost impossible to do.

Right. Okay. Thanks, everybody. All right, thank you. So we got 25 minutes left. We got some food that's been delivered. Let's go ahead and take just a 5-minute break, come back at 22, and we'll keep going because we still got more to go. Get someone like that for a blessing on the food.

He's about business. He's into business. No smiling Chris today. It's about business. You gotta do it on occasion. Yeah, you have to. Just to remind people. Just to remind people you can throw down when you need to.

We still need help, but we requested it. We have the money. I don't know if that carries over.

Green Code 2, Item 2.3. Proposal from members who want to speak on Section 2-3-4, campaign finance disclosure. Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so Mayor and Council, at our last, uh, City Council meeting, uh, or in our work session, there was some discussion about amending, uh, this Section 2-3-4 relating to campaign finance disclosures. Uh, part of the discussion, I think, was about doing a couple things, maybe either moving the current reporting requirement, which is due on June 30th, moving that to the end of the year, or possibly keeping that June 30th reporting requirement and adding in a second reporting requirement at the end of the year. So what I've done is I've We've prepared 2 possible options for you to consider, and— Which one do you want to start with? I think— I know we didn't give you a whole lot of notice to look at this. I think this was sent to you earlier this afternoon. Okay, so is that not working? Theresa, can I— okay. So let's do the other one, if you would, first. Okay. Theresa. Okay. So this is the first one. I guess you could call this the simpler version. We'll just call this Option 1. As you can see there, it's just basically changing the date that the reporting happens from June 30th to December 31st. And essentially, if you can scroll down a little bit, Theresa, the only other change to that is just deleting this Section 4, which basically was something that was put in there in 2023 that, that had a reporting requirement that was specific to 2023 and it's no longer applicable. So I thought let's just get rid of it. So essentially the effect of this is just again changing the reporting requirement from June 30th to December 31st.

Can you explain what that does?

What it does for you?

What the benefit is to make these changes?

Uh, you know, if I may, I think it means people who are leaving office— there's 4 seats up— it makes us account to the end of our term.

And I think that's an easier solution than making you do it twice a year because you probably aren't getting donations. But you know when a person's leaving their office that they disclose what they've gotten or not gotten in campaign funds. of what they've done. To me, that makes the most sense out of my brief reading. I can't tell you that an hour before I have, but that's what I think it does. Yeah, Steven.

Yeah. So was that part missed in the past?

Yeah, with June 30th, and that was it.

Yeah, probably. Yeah. I think the other thing it does, and we'll talk about this in regard to the second option a little bit too, is, you know, city council members who are running for reelection have some campaign finance disclosure requirements under state law, right? So if you're involved in a primary, then you have to file A disclosure 7 days before the primary date, and then if you're involved in the general election, you have another disclosure requirement prior to the general election. So, you know, if you throw in a June 30th requirement, then you've got another one that may be due around the 1st of August, and another one that's due, you know, maybe sometime in October. Right. You know, maybe it gets a little much. Confusing, yeah. Yeah, a little bit confusing. So there may be some advantage In that respect, we're just moving it to the end of the year. So the second option here, we can have Theresa put that up. So the second option basically keeps 2 reporting requirements. It keeps the June 30th date, but it has kind of an exception for if you're a city council member who Who's running for reelection. And again, if you're running for reelection, you're subject to these additional reporting requirements. So let's say that generally for city council members, you still file June 30th, but if you're running for reelection, then you file at the same time you would be required to file for your primary election. So you don't have to do it twice, essentially. So it does kind of create 2 different requirements based on whether you're running for reelection in that year or not. So again, most councilmen, those who are not running for reelection, would file on June 30th. Those who are running for reelection would file 7 days before the primary, which is the requirement for everyone. The idea behind that is to make it, you know, if you're running for reelection, it puts you on sort of the same footing as the other people you're running against in terms of when they have to file. So you're not, you know, maybe you could be put at a disadvantage if you have to file file on June 30th and your people you're running against don't file until, you know, August 1st or something like that. So that's kind of the intent of that requirement. And then what it does also adds a provision that it basically says if you are, let's see, so and then it also adds the December 31st requirement. So you have 2 times when you have to report. And then in subsection 3 there, basically this is kind of to cover somebody whose term of office expires. So if your term of office ends in January of a given year, then you just file by January 15th of that year, disclosing all contributions and expenditures made or received up until the end of your term in office, which is usually, I think, the first week of January.

Okay, so this one has a— If I'm not running for reelection, has a June and a December?

Correct.

Correct. If I am running, I, um, I'm on that other calendar with all the other candidates?

Correct.

But if they are running and they're reelected, do they have these— and they are reelected, do they have December 31st?

Yes. Yes.

So they have the extra one?

So, yes, everybody would still have 2, you know, kind of in the middle of the summer and then at the end of the year. And then it does add an additional requirement for somebody who is a former elected official, you know, whose term just expired. Because the language right now, I mean, it theoretically says, you know, it's a requirement for all elected officials, and this is kind of designed to also, you know, include former elected officials whose term expired. And it covers the entire time that they were in office.

So this, I think, adds more transparency for all of us as elected officials to have the 2. I like this because it puts us to have to report twice. So even if we're not up for reelection, we're still reporting every year. And then it kind of fixes that issue if we are running to just sort of 3 more weeks, kind of, or another month, I guess.

Yeah, it'd probably usually be about an extra month.

Yeah, it does complicate things.

It is a little bit more complicated, that's true.

And which I'm not totally opposed to if the end reward is worth it. I just wonder how much extra we're creating for ourselves. So I'd probably prefer simpler myself.

And I think to get full transparency Well, but the reason we put in the June date is in case there is anything so that everybody's transparent before any election.

Oh, before the election.

But wouldn't that show up at the end of the year?

After the election. You see what I mean?

So it's not transparent.

But they're not running for office either.

But they could donate money. They could receive money and donate it to a candidate in the election. But that would show up on the candidate's forms. Um, that's true, but how much money are they going to have received? And when— they could donate after the election to the candidate and then have it show up on their forms. But after the election, it's not supposed to be the very first year. Right, but don't you want to know it before the election? Shouldn't people know about it before the election?

Probably as transparent as you can be. I mean, it was a pain to do the statement in June, and we have to do another one in 3 weeks, but that's fine. The form's there, it's not that big a deal.

Wait, did you say that you're just told about June 30th and then you're doing it on the 6th?

So if you're, if you're a council member who's running for reelection, I am running for reelection, In that case, you would not file June 3rd. You would only have to file 7 days before the primary or— and again, before the general election.

You'd be in sync with all the other candidates, basically, as far as reporting?

Correct.

Yeah, but let's take your case, Mayor, for example. You're not— you're running for reelection as mayor, but you're not subject to a primary, right? So, in that case, your date would still be June 3rd. But if you're subject to a primary, Then you have— then you don't have to file in June period. You just file at the same time everybody else files.

So, so with the different variables, that's where it comes to how I want to be informed. Like, like the city recorder, somebody sends out the things and says, this is your situation, this is when you have to report. And so it's pretty crystal clear.

Otherwise, it is pretty Yeah, that piece of it is just to try and put people again, people who run for reelection on the same footing as their people who run.

So are you saying put something in the code that says the reporter has to send out an email?

Because the body's against it.

She does that anyway, right?

She does it anyway. We don't want to make it a crime.

My concern is that. Somebody's running and they don't figure this all out, and then all of a sudden they're criminals, right? And so we just— it just needs to be pretty crystal clear.

It's— I don't think that's— it's that hard if you're running. So get your packet that has all the dates.

I mean, I think Theresa will absolutely tell you when to do your file, but many times We have to allow for the human element a little bit.

What happens, like, if you finish your term and then somebody gives you money 2 months later? Do you have to report that?

Well, I don't think they can give you a campaign contribution. They would just— I don't know how they would do that because you don't have— you're not an eligible officeholder and you're not Running for office, so they must do their job if they want to. Then it would just be to you personally; it's not to you as a candidate or an officeholder. So, so then I don't think there's any reporting requirements because it's only you know these are campaign finance laws that don't apply to people that are not candidates or officeholders. Yeah, then the IRS just wants to.

So once you're not in office anymore, they can get something? I don't understand.

Then I think that's just a personal gift.

Okay. Yeah. Once you're out of office.

Yeah. So what do you need from us?

So we have this, I guess, discussion on which option you prefer, and then we have the schedule for the Regular meeting, and you can decide to select one of these 2 options or do nothing at all or have a hybrid version, whatever you would like to do.

So I would like to bring up one other point there and wondering from you, Steve, how we or if we can regulate this. You know, I came across this Facebook group or post or whatever that talked about 501s. They're a nonprofit organization that is set up that is often used to funnel what you call dark money for campaigns. So what that means is these groups set up a 501. They don't have to report who the donors are into their supposed nonprofit, they do have to report who they give the money to, but you have no way of tracing that back to— there's no transparency there. So my question would be, from a municipal standpoint, is there a way that we can encourage or create some type of ordinance that would say if you're going to donate You know, to municipal candidates, or I don't even know, but to create that transparency for those organizations where we're not going to have situations where this dark money is coming into our elections.

I mean, that's a good question. I don't know a lot about this, just to be totally honest with you. It's probably something we'd have to look into a little bit more and think about. It might be a challenge because it's You know, I'm assuming the 501 is an IRS— it's a section of the IRS Code, right, that allows for like a 501 IRS Code. And so I don't know, you know, what regulations the IRS has established to allow for this type of an entity and, you know, whether we can override some of those potentially or From what I'm understanding then, so somebody makes a 501, makes a donation to a political candidate, that candidate has to report the name of that entity. Your concern is that we don't know who contributed the money to the— and I don't know how you would possibly— because if they're getting donations from 100 different people, how would we know where those donations came from? Well, I think that's the point. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

Could we require a statement to be put on our reporting forms or someone's reporting forms that says something like, this commission came from a 501 that is not per whatever, is not required to disclose who was the original donor into that, or something kind of identifying what— how a 501 works. I just want to— those are notorious. For dark money in elections. So how do we be transparent and help our public understand what these finance papers are actually saying? If someone's getting money from a 501, I've read some article, you know, 85% of the people believe that it's dark money. It's— there's, you know, out of state, out of country, Who knows, you know. So just the transparency would come if we can't— if we can't, and I'd like to look at if we can do something about our own ordinance to kind of qualify that. If we can't do that, then maybe there's some type of a descriptive informative statement that can be made for those particular— to identify those donations on our—

Yeah, there might be. If you want us to do that, it might be You might include in the reporting requirement that you have to identify that this is a 501, for example. And if you wanted, you could put something on the form that says, you know, whatever explanation you want to have about a 501 and what it is.

Okay.

But yeah, that might be one possibility.

Most of the s are PICs, not PACs.

Okay.

And we might be, you know, we could also maybe explore how other jurisdictions have dealt with that, how other people have tried to tackle that situation. I'd really like to look into that.

I'm just— I read a couple articles when I heard about this a few weeks ago. I've read a couple articles and it's concerning. You know, I think if we are doing— if we're If people are reporting, if we're doing all this structure to report, you know, where's the influence coming, who are the donations coming from, you know, that's to help our public understand and even from an election standpoint to create this transparency. But if we're having this entity come into our community and donate, you know, go through this donation process, we're losing that transparency. And there should be, there should be a red flag for that. And then people can judge for themselves what that means. So maybe that's what I'd like to do is maybe look into that, what ways that we can better help our public understand what that means.

I agree, I think that'd be great. I mean, more transparency is better.

Yeah, I mean, we can look at— we can explore some options on that. I mean, like I said, do some research on what other places have done with that.

Okay.

That would be great.

Jeff, Tom, Jen, want to weigh in?

No, I think it's all about transparency and letting people know what's happening and who's donating. So I've never heard of that. I've never heard of that. for. So this is all—

it would be good to know what other cities are doing, if other cities are concerned, or if that's something that is an issue.

Okay, so it sounds like this is going to be continued, Mr. Mayor, is that right?

Well, that— this could be different.

That's what we're talking about now.

Yeah.

Do we have a consensus on what we've been thinking about, what we're talking about now? I mean, I agree with Monet. I think we should pursue this and dig a little deeper and come back to it on the policy. But as far as these 2 options—

Are we going to finalize the option tonight?

It's on the agenda in case you want to do that. So like I said, your options, you could pass one of these versions, you could do nothing at all, you can continue it, or you—

Does anyone have strong feelings? We've got— you're not getting 2 options.

It's not on the consent agenda.

It's not on the consent agenda.

It's not. So we're not doing anything with it necessarily tonight.

It's a regularly scheduled—

Oh, scheduled ordinance. I see, Steve. I'm sorry.

We're voting on something, or they want— Or not.

Or not. My vote doesn't matter. I'm going to fill out what's December— once a year.

Here's why.

Your vote matters just as much as everyone else's still.

Well, if I were on the council, I'd vote for the once a year. That's easy for me to understand. I just— not with school— I think it provides transparency and maybe less paperwork.

I don't think it does because we had donations, um, when we first did this ordinance. There were donations that were disclosed. That would not have shown up but for this ordinance.

It would have been in December.

We didn't have the ordinance then. Right, right, but once a year would have done it.

Right, but this was in June. Um, it could, it could have happened in June if it were an election year. You see what I mean? It would have been important in an election year.

I mean, I'm not looking for more reports to do, and I have to tell you, every time I get the email from Theresa saying it's time for PTSD, I'm afraid I'm going to miss the deadline somehow. But I'm fine either way, as long as Theresa will keep letting us know that we have this coming up. Well, it's multiple emails that she sends, so it's not like you can miss them.

It's hard to miss them. If you don't want the email, you just turn it in and I'll stop emailing you.

That's how it works. I think a lot of— I mean, if we're really trying to be totally transparent, let's just do— I mean, I think it's another form of encryption.

And mine is zero, right? I mean, it's usually zero, right?

Okay, so you want to— we're out of time. Do you want to just continue this discussion in the meeting after? You represent it again, we'll kind of talk through it. You figure it out. All right. I don't know if we have time to go through the agenda. Who's— it's pretty simple.

I got the prayer and pledge.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you might remember that Dan spoke at our veterans program this last year. Dan and his son. Dan's giving the prayer and his son Isaac is giving the pledge. I'll be happy to make a brief introduction.

Okay, well, let's go ahead and adjourn this meeting and move to the next one. Mayor, I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome everyone here tonight. We appreciate you coming out. We'll start out with an invocation from Dan Patterson and then a Pledge of Allegiance from Isaac Patterson. These are friends of Tom's, and if you'd like to introduce them, Tom.

Well, they should be a friend of everyone. Uh, Dan is recently retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel, and Isaac is awaiting his mission call. So, Dan, you're up first.

I just pushed that on if it's not on.

Test. Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, we thank thee for this opportunity to gather together as a city and leaders of the city. Father, we ask thee for thy blessings at this time upon the city and upon those who are in this room who will be making decisions, and ask thee to please bless them and that their will may be aligned with thy will.

Father, we ask thee to please bless this great city, bless all those who are struggling and have needs, that their needs may be addressed. in accordance with thy will. Father, we ask thee that we may be able to show our gratitude to thee as well.

We're so very grateful for this country and the freedoms that we have and the opportunity to celebrate that recently. And Father, we give thee gratitude for all that we have, and we say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Isaac. If you'd like to come do the pledge.

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

Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to item 8.1. Actually, 8.1, we're not going to have that at this meeting. So we'll move on to item 8.2. Uh, we've got a presentation of a Bablow Scholarship recipient from Carrie Rugg, our Deputy City Manager.

Does this work? Thank you, Mayor and Council. It should show recipients because we have more than one Bavo Scholarship winner, but, um, it is my pleasure to remind you about our scholarship program that we started in 2021. Since that time, with your support, the city has awarded 29 employees scholarships. As a result of these scholarships, 14 of the previous awardees have been promoted within the city. This scholarship program is successful in opening doors for growth to those who may not otherwise have the opportunity to gain the formal education and to be competitive for new opportunities within the city. Knowing how successful this scholarship program has been in previous years, I'm excited to share with you this year is no exception. This year's awardees exemplify building a better Orem. I'm proud to present to you the 2025-2026 Babel Scholarship awardees. As I call your name, if you're here, if you wouldn't mind coming up to the front, and Amy is going to give you the scholarship. And then after we have everybody up here, we will, we'll do a picture. So the first one is Jet Buxton. Jet started with the city 6 years ago as an engineering intern and has since been promoted to a GIS analyst in the Public Works Department. He will use the scholarship to work towards his bachelor's degree in GIS. Tyler Pay. Tyler has worked for the city for 17 years, starting as a public works technician. Since that time, he's worked hard and promoted to assistant public works director. He will use this scholarship towards his master's in public administration. Brooke Williams. Brooke Williams has worked for the city for 2 years, starting out as a public work technician in the parks division, and has since been promoted to crew leader with the public works department. She will use this scholarship towards her master's in public administration. Matt works in the library department and was recently promoted to librarian. He will use this scholarship to pursue his master's degree in library science. Dallin is a police officer and has worked for the city for 4 years. He will use his scholarship towards a bachelor in emergency services. Erica has worked for the city for a year and a half as a senior engineer in the Community Development Department. She will use the scholarship towards her master's in public administration. Luke Chatwin. Luke began working for the city as a teenager during the summer at the Sarah Pool in 2018 and now works in the Human Resources Division of the Management Services Department. He will be working towards his bachelor's degree. Holden Sanderson. Holden is a police officer and has worked for the city for 2 and a half years. Holden plans to use this scholarship towards his associate's degree. Gavin Johnson. Gavin was hired in 2019 as an intern in the police department. Since that time, Gavin has become a police officer. Gavin will use this scholarship towards his bachelor's in criminal justice. Jake Gould. Jake was hired as the IT Help Desk Supervisor in 2021 and has since promoted to the Systems Engineer in the Management Services Department. Jake will use this scholarship towards his master's in IT Management. Mariah Shirley. Mariah has worked for the city for 3 and a half years as the Recreation Fitness Center Manager. She is using the scholarship towards her bachelor's in Business Management. Katie Smith. Katie is the executive assistant to the chief of police and has worked for the city for 5 years. She plans to use the scholarship towards her bachelor's in communications. David Monzo. David started with the city as a library page. He's also worked for 311 and currently works in the Management Services Department as an HR generalist. He will use his scholarship towards his bachelor's degree in HR management. Brandon Stevens. Brandon was recently promoted to a librarian and has worked for the city for 3 and a half years. He will use this scholarship towards his master's in library science. Please join me in congratulating our Babel 2025-2026 scholarship awardees.

1, 2, 3. All right, thanks. Congratulations, everyone. That's exciting. It's great to have employees that want to get their education furthered, and it's great to have a great city program that allows you to do that. So congratulations, Jen.

And also, I'm super proud of you because I know it's hard to go back to school at this point in your lives, but I'm so proud of you. And it was really fun to see so many familiar faces up here. So good job, guys.

Okay, next up. We've got item 8.3, presentation. City Recorder received a Certified Municipal Clerk certification. Carrie?

Okay, Teresa, come on up. Ladies, are you here for this too? You come up. Okay, so I am thrilled to announce that my good friend and our City Recorder, the one and only Teresa McKittrick, has earned the prestigious designation of Certified Municipal Clerk awarded by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks. And I would like to turn— I don't know which one of you is Kim. I'm Kim. Kim Crane is here. She's part of the UMCA president and also the Springville City Recorder to say a few words about this. Well, thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, this is a special time. Um, we want to take this opportunity to recognize Teresa McKittrick, someone who has shown incredible dedication to her profession and to the community she serves. We're, we're here on behalf of the Utah Municipal Clerks Association in partnership with the International Institute of Municipal Clerks, and our mission is simple but meaningful: to support our members through education, connection, and collaboration to help them grow professionally and serve their communities in excellence. Our international organization offers 2 certification programs designed to strengthen and elevate the role of the municipal clerk. Here in Utah, we're proud to administer these programs through our association and even more proud of our partnership with Southern Utah University, which provides the outstanding educational foundation behind them. So tonight, as we celebrate Teresa, she has officially earned her Certified Municipal Clerk designation. And although this title isn't small, it represents her commitment to hundreds of hours of professional development and a passion for serving her city well. To qualify, she had to actively work in a municipal role performing the essential duties of a clerk recorder and complete at least 120 hours of coursework to meet the certification requirements. This dedication doesn't happen overnight, and it's a long journey, and Shell's perseverance perseverance and pride in her work. So I'd like to thank Orem City leadership— mayor, city council, city manager— for supporting Teresa in her professional growth. And we have a little, just something to say, great job. Oh, no, you guys are up there.

Mayor and council, can I just briefly add that this also is evidence that Teresa is just A super doer beyond super doers. I mean, for her to be able to get this level of certification, that's not easy to get, and get up to speed on being a recorder and doing everything that she does. And, you know, elections now, uh, part of her duties in facilitating that.

So, um, she is just exceptional, gets so much done, and is, uh, just great to work with.

So I want to make sure you, you know that additional context.

Thank you, Brent. I know we all know Teresa, and Teresa does a great job. You're doing an amazing job. Thank you. Next up, we've got item 8.4, Best of State Forum winners, uh, Mayor, Parks and Rec, Mental Health Unit of the Police Department. And we're back to Carrie.

Back to me. It's the Carrie show tonight. Okay, so, uh, as the mayor just stated, we have 3 awards that we want to share with you. It's my distinct pleasure to stand before you today and celebrate the exceptional achievements that have earned these individuals and teams the prestigious Best of State Award. Their dedication, innovation, and unwavering commitment to excellence has truly set them apart. First, we'd like to recognize and congratulate Mayor Dave Young, the Best of State winner for Mayor. This year, Mayor Young was nominated by a group of Orem residents completely independent of city staff, a testament to the deep respect and admiration he has earned within the community. Mayor Young is quick to acknowledge that this award wouldn't have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of our city staff. Their high-level operations and the incredible number of significant accomplishments achieved last year and this year have been truly remarkable. Compared to our peers, Orem has been absolutely knocking it out of the park, and that is a direct reflection of the leadership and collaboration fostered by Mayor Young and his dedicated team. Congratulations, Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay, the next Best of State Award is for our Police Department's Mental Health Unit. So if you'll come on up— while they're coming up, I'll read a little bit about that. They've been recognized as a Best of State winner, and they are humbled and deeply appreciative of the foundational efforts of those who have paved the way for their current successes. The police department understands the necessity to have specialized training and response to help assist the increasing daily interactions and demand that police officers have with those displaying mental illness in the community. The journey of this vital unit began in 2016 when Jeremy Jameson initiated it as a part-time position, which evolved into a full-time assignment in 2017. We want to acknowledge the remarkable individuals who have shaped this unit: Jeremy Jamison, John Savage, who is now retired, Andrew Wright from the FBI, Annalise Langs, Raymond Vitelli, David Hamill, Cameron Wilson, and our current dedicated interns, Mary Rodriguez and Anna Rogers from BYU and Erica Bunker from UVU. The Mental Health Unit also extends its heartfelt gratitude to the organizations that have provided invaluable support Wasatch Behavioral Health, Aspen Grove Behavioral Health, Utah Valley University College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Brigham Young University— if I can turn my page— bachelor's and master's of social work programs. Their collaborative spirit has been instrumental in the unit's success. Congratulations. If you guys will just stay up here, we'll get a photo at the end. I'd like to invite the Parks Division and the Recreation Department to come on up as we finally celebrate the outstanding work of the city's Park Division and Recreation Department. Over the past few years, the combined efforts of the Orem Recreation Department and the Orem Public Works Department to expand parks and recreation amenities in our city have been driven by a singular goal to enhance the quality of life for all citizens in Utah. While Orem residents are a significant part of those who enjoy our parks and amenities, the great sports tournaments, parks facilities, and diverse programs our Orem City offers draw countless visitors to our city. They come to enjoy time in nature and recreate with their loved ones, bringing vibrancy and economic activity to our community. A shining example of how we've improved the quality of life is our All Together Playground. As the first all-abilities playground in Utah It has opened up an invaluable opportunity for children with disabilities to play alongside other kids, fostering inclusivity and joy for everyone. Our robust sports programs are also vital in getting kids and adults active and healthy and socializing. These programs significantly improve their physical and mental well-being and contribute to a higher quality of life for everyone involved. Congratulations, our Parks Division and our Recreation Department. Okay, so we'd like to get a photo of all of our winners. Mayor, I don't know if you want to stand up there or come down with the rest of the group, but— Thank you. Here we go. 1, 2, 3. So can I also add Hoku onto that recognition? Police officers, do you guys— you want to show us your cute little dog? I saw Hoku at the police picnic, and I've heard some amazing stories. It's a she, right? Isn't she? Okay. Yeah. She's not normally mine. I will say she's usually with Rob, one of our SROs. I'm babysitting for the week, so I deserve no credit. She's very sweet, very fun, very tired. Come a little closer. I want them to see her on the camera here. Oh, is that not on? Right, come closer to the mayor and turn around and let's show everybody our cute Hoku here. Thanks.

Hey, thank you. We'll now move on to item number 9, personal appearances. And we have 5 individuals that would like to share their ideas with us. We'll start out with Madison Palika.

This is good. Okay. Hi, I'm Maddie Palika. Thank you for hearing me. We are selling the soul of our city to progress. Do we care more about keeping up with the world or the health and well-being of our very soul? I have called Orem River Bottoms home since I was 5 years old, and back then life here was slow, safe, family-oriented, and stunningly beautiful. I remember coming to this very intersection and stopping not just for traffic, But to gaze up at Mount Timpanogos, it wasn't just scenery. It was a symbol of what was grounded, unshakable, and steady. And it was a reminder to look up and be still and remember what truly matters. And now it's blocked by this very building. And I think it's a real-life picture of what's happening here. The city is building over the very things that once made this place Sacred. This genuinely makes my heart ache, especially now as a young woman thinking about my future, about family, and about what kind of life I want to raise my children in. I don't want to leave behind what I know and love, but sometimes I wonder, is this even the same place that I knew and loved? The streets are more crowded than ever, yet our population is declining. We're not becoming more rooted, we're becoming more rushed. People are not moving in to stay. They're only passing through. And our neighborhoods are filling up with high turnover, high density housing, and cheap construction that's barely livable, let alone lovable. Many of the older family homes that are left are run down and look more like hoarder houses than places where kids could safely ride their bikes or build a life. This does not look like a city that's thriving. It looks like a city being hollowed out from the inside. Thank you. They'll say if you're not growing, you're dying. But I believe the growth we're seeing is the death. The death of beauty, the death of peace, and the death of a life actually worth living in. If we keep chasing growth at all costs, we risk losing that calm, beautiful, community-oriented life and the very soul of this place. This is a heart matter, a spiritual matter, and a generational matter. And this is my plea. Orem is at a crossroads, and if we don't make the right change of heart now, I fear that it'll be too late. It feels like a moment in time where we get to choose the trajectory of this once amazing city. So let's build a future that our children can actually live in and not just pass through. Let's return to the soul of this city before it's too far gone, and let's stand for something while there's something still worth standing on. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, PJ Eager.

Hi, my name is PJ Eager. Um, I'm here from the Geneva Heights neighborhood, um, which is a historic neighborhood in Orem. Um, one, First, I just wanted to say thank you for fixing our street to the Public Works Department. They're pretty awesome. My neighbors have been living there for 40 years, and they've been waiting 20 years to have our road and our sidewalks fixed. And I'm really grateful that it happened, and they did a great job. And our road was a little bit crazy for a couple months, but it was totally worth it. 2, also to say thank you for the My Hometown project and the city's support of that. That's happening in my neighborhood, and it's made a big difference, and I really appreciate it. And then 3, I am still wondering, I don't know if you guys know, I know you can't answer questions right now, but what's going on with short-term rentals in Orem? My neighborhood is filled with houses from the 1940s and '50s, and they're some of the most affordable homes in Orem. But that also means they're much more likely to be snatched up by an investor. Statistically across the US, 1 in 4 homes in an area that are in the most affordable bracket are going to be picked up by an investor. And so we're seeing a lot more of that in my neighborhood and a lot more Airbnbs. And with the Olympics approaching, we're a little bit worried that it's just going to keep turning over and over and over. So if there's any information, if you can point me in any direction, I'd really appreciate that. Thanks.

Thank you. Next up, Ashton Jensen.

Good evening, City Council. First, thank you to the Parks Department. Orem has some of the best parks. I live really close to Northridge and love the pickleball courts and the tennis court that just went in.

Um, I and a few friends and neighbors drafted a letter that I will be sending each of you after this. But I wanted to read you most of that letter and then let you know that we're going to be collecting some signatures, people of Orem who agree with thoughts in this letter, between now and the next city council meeting. Then, and then we'll send you all those signatures after the fact. I want to bring up the issue of housing affordability in Orem. Everybody's heard about the housing crisis. The average home in Utah, and Orem is no exception, is far out of the reach of the average family. Where it is aging, but young families are not able to move in. As a result of skyrocketing home prices, many longtime residents are realizing that their kids or their grandkids will not be able to afford to live near them. So whether or not you're pleased with rising home prices and property values, it's quickly going to negatively affect somebody close to you. Where it's home to both software developers and fast food workers, private equity managers and teachers. But it needs to create the conditions to provide housing for them all. While we understand that the city does not set prices, it creates— we're concerned that Family City USA is not creating the conditions to allow for home and rental prices for those families who would like to live here. Just a few quick examples of housing that do work and don't work in Orem. Number 1, the Browns have lived in the same house for 30+ years and were able to convert their basement into a rentable apartment. They have little to no retirement savings and depend on the apartment's rent month to month. They love living in Orem and want to stay here, and the ability to rent out space they no longer use is a blessing for their financial stability, and it's great for their renters. Contrast that with Audrey, who has worked from 5 to 10 PM every evening in fast food for the last few years after her husband works all day painting just to afford to rent a small 2-bedroom apartment for her family of 4. Is she not working hard enough? Is that why her family has to commit 2 share high of their income for a very small apartment? So what we propose is that we allow homeowners to use— empower them to use their free space. Many would love to make extra money by renting out unused space, but encounter a burdensome and confusing permitting process, or no ability to build backyard cottages or ADUs, even if they have the space. So we propose that City Council consider any or all of these policy changes. Number 1, permit backyard cottages and ADUs in residential zones. Number 2, legalize starter homes everywhere and decrease minimum lot size to allow for building smaller, more affordable homes. Allow single-family homes to convert into duplexes and then streamline the approval process. And who benefits? Really, we think that everybody with a stronger with greater financial stability for homeowners and controlling that incremental development and providing more options for everybody. So I'll send you this after this meeting, but thank you for your time.

Thank you. Okay, I'm not sure I can read this. Uh, I'm guessing it says Chick Sisson. Chuck. Okay, Chuck. Orum.

Chuck Sisson. I live in Orem. Um, I'd like to take this opportunity to say good evening to the mayor and the city council and the residents of Orem. I'm here to voice concerns about the neighborhood improvement team's code enforcement practices, particularly in low and moderate income neighborhoods like Orem North, Geneva Heights, Sharon Park, Stonewood, Lake Ridge, In Cherry Hill, the CDBG code enforcement plan outlines NIT's goal of promoting safe neighborhoods through compassionate enforcement and voluntary compliance. While I appreciate the initiatives like the critical home repair program, my personal experiences suggest the NIT approach often feels punitive and lacks clear communication. Communication undermining these goals. I'd like to relate to you a personal experience. I received multiple notices from different NIF officers, each citing different violations. I wrote letters to the city and left voicemail messages for the officers. But I received no response. In fact, I was ghosted. Then I was summoned to court, requiring me to take time off from work. The court's location was not clear, and it caused me to be late. Only then did I learn one of the citations had been canceled. There was no explanation. of when or how it was canceled. The judge refused to answer my questions when I said, who did it and did they ever notify me? Eventually, they fined me nearly $200. This felt unfair given the lack of communication. More recently, uh, a family member received a letter on June 16th, 2025. The letter demanded repairs to be performed by June 17th, 2025, a 1-day window during a heat wave. This unrealistic deadline, coupled with a threatened $50-a-day fine, felt like a setup for failure, especially considering the health risks like heat stroke. In June, we received multiple notices Like these, not counting the letter that we received, which conveniently was not dated by the city. A friend of mine—

I'm sorry, but your 3 minutes is up.

Oh, my apology. You're right. Thank you.

Okay. Brent, is there somebody at the city that he could talk to to address his concerns?

Yeah, we've got, uh, assistant chief here.

So if you'd like to go talk to the assistant chief and, you know, go through the, the issues that you got, that'd be great. Thank you for coming. Uh, last up we've got Evan Thacker.

Hello, Mayor Young and City Council. Thanks for hosting the meeting and thanks for having us all here today. Uh, just want to express some gratitude for a great improvement that's occurred on my street just today. As you probably know, there are crews out doing asphalt refinishing on the roads, and, uh, it's awesome for my street. Really good. It really improves how the street looks, and I'm sure it's going to improve how that street functions for a long time. So thank you. And I'm guessing it's probably Public Works Department that runs that stuff. So I'm grateful to the people who make the decisions and figure out the budgets and hire the contractors and get all that stuff done. Really great improvement for our neighborhood. Thanks.

Thank you. All right, thank you everyone for your comments. We'll now move to item number 10, consent items. On the consent items, we've got item 10.1, approval of the meeting minutes for May 27th, 2025. Item 10.2, Mayor Pro Tem for July 2025 to December 2025 will be Jen Gale replacing Lynette Millett. Thank you for your service. And next we've got item 10.3, a resolution authorizing the mayor to sign the 1st Amendment to Interlocal Agreement 2022-286 between Utah County Utah and Orem City for the 1600 North, 400 East project. Someone like to make a motion on those items?

Mayor, I move that we approve the consent items. Second. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The consent items pass. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to schedule items. We've got item 11.1, an ordinance amending Section 2-3-4 of the OMC Code, campaign finance disclosures. And Steve Roll, if you'd like to present that to us.

Thank you, Mayor, uh, Mayor and Council.

This, uh, uh, we're talking about potential modifications to Section 2-3-4 of our city code's campaign finance disclosure ordinance. We have before you 2 possibilities.

We discussed these a little bit in the pre-meeting, but we'll talk about them a little bit now again.

The first option is a relatively simple modification. Currently, the ordinance requires all city council members, all elected officials, to file an annual campaign finance statement no later than June 30th of each year while in office. And, uh, one of the proposals is to move that— the first proposal would move that date from June 30th to December 31st and would also strike some language in, uh, subsection B that relates to a specific filing requirement dating to 2023, which is no longer applicable. applicable. But again, the primary substantive change of this first option is just changing the annual reporting date from June 30th to December 31st. Uh, the second option, uh, would, would, uh, keep—

Steve, just to interject, so you'd be moving it from June 30th to December 31st?

Correct.

So does it currently just pick up 6 months with what it's at right now? Or is it going from the previous calendar?

Well, it would basically— the way it reads right now, it covers everything that hasn't already been previously reported.

Steve, I think the mayor's question— it's currently on a fiscal year from July 1st to June 30th. This would make it January 1st to December 31st, except for this short year.

Yeah, I think that's essentially correct.

So, so what I'm trying to understand is by moving to December 31st, Does that make it an 18-month reporting period?

No, no, because it would just make it from December 31st. Well, essentially, because when you— if you were reporting on December 31st, you would be reporting everything up until December 15th.

And so basically you'd be covering a whole year, but you would just be changing that 1-year reporting period from basically June 30th to December 31st.

So you're still getting the same amount.

You're still getting— you're still covering the whole year.

Yeah. Okay.

Maybe the key difference is that it picks up that last 6 months for someone who's leaving office in January. It captures that. Is that the goal?

Uh, yeah, that, that's one of the purposes, one of the advantages of potentially doing it in December as opposed to in June.

Yes. Okay. Any other questions on the first option? Okay. So the second option, uh, is a little bit more complex. It keeps the June 30th reporting date, um, but it also modifies that date for council members or elected officials who are running for reelection and who will be participating in a primary election. So right now, any candidate that is, uh, participating in a primary has to file a campaign disclosure statement 6—

or sorry, 7 days before the primary. So typically the primary is in the first part of August, and so normally that means that that particular statement would be due around the 1st of August or the end of July.

And so, you know, that might— if a council member who's running for reelection has to file on June 30th and the people that they're running against don't have to file until the end of July or early August, That could potentially create a little bit of a disadvantage for the council members. So the proposal would be to, for those council members or mayor who's running for reelection, their filing date would not be June 30th, but we would rather be 7 days before the primary election, which would be the same date that every, all the other candidates have to file. So make that, that date the same for them. And then it would also add another filing time for December 31st. So there would be— this proposal would require 2 filing dates as opposed to just 1 filing date in the current ordinance. And lastly, the 2nd proposal in subsection B3 contains a provision that An elected official whose term ends in January of a given year would file a campaign statement no later than January 15th of that year that would disclose all contributions received and expenditures made up until the date of that elected official's term of office. So that might actually cover, you know, up until January 4th or January 3rd, whatever that date might happen to be. So, uh, any questions about option 2? So basically, uh, you have these 2 possible options before you. So your choices tonight would be to either leave things the way they are. You could approve option 1, approve option 2. Or approve some variation on either of those 2 options.

And explain how things are currently without any changes.

So the way things are right now without any changes is every elected official has to file this annual campaign finance disclosure statement on or before June 30th of every year.

And is there a reason for that? Is that Is that to stay in line with our fiscal year? Is that something to do with—

You know, I, I'm not entirely sure why that particular date was chosen. I, I suspect that it was to align with the end of the fiscal year.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, I think there'd be a door number 3 that we haven't discussed, and that's anyone who's leaving office needs to fill one out for the 6 months. If any of us aren't— don't win reelection on our election year, they'd still file June 30th, and as they're leaving office, they'd file one on December 31st.

That would certainly be an option as well.

So that would essentially be taking that subsection B3 from, uh, what's Option 2 and adding it to Option 1, is I think what you're— what you're—

Yeah, I think, I think so. Okay, Steve, thank you.

So does Option 2 already cover that?

Option 2 does include that already, yes, but Option 1 does not. Okay.

And Mayor, if I'm remembering our discussion we had back in 2023, I think part of the reason— there were 2 reasons why we picked that June deadline. Uh, we wanted something in June, uh, because, um, it's typically the month where the election season begins. Every other year we have an election season. So I think we wanted to have some transparency from all of the council members, um, just starting fresh with that. I think we, we kind of found out that with it, you know, the change to make it align with, um, the candidate filing dates would create a more, um, an easier process for people who are the— which would be incumbents who are running again. And then also for the fiscal year ending in June, I think we were kind of playing around with both of those, but my recollection is it was tried to— so everything was transparent. Um, in case there were an election. And then, of course, the off years when there isn't an election, there was also an opportunity for transparency in case there had been some additional donations made after the final disclosures of the election the year prior. That's my reminder— recollection from 2023. I don't know if you want discussion, or do you want a motion first and then discussion? How do you want to do this?

Well, I think we just chat about this for a minute. We, I mean, we talked about it in the work meeting. Let's just kind of talk about it a little bit more and try and come to some kind of consensus of what we think makes the most sense.

I mean, my point is, I think the more transparency, the better. And I think option 2 is the one that gives more transparency to the citizens and to everybody else.

So let me ask, as far as option 2, does that move the date from June 30th? Are we still— is that still the same as it is now?

It keeps the date at June 30th for everyone who's not running for reelection.

So it's the same as it is right now?

Yes, but also adds the December 31st filing requirement. So it adds an additional filing requirement.

So it picks up that issue?

Yes.

And then it also gets the, uh, Whoever's running in sync with the other candidates as far as their disclosures, right?

Correct.

So I kind of— it's a little bit more complicated, but that seems like it covers everything.

Yeah, that's what I think. I think it covers— it kind of takes into account every situation. And like Dave said, Dave Spencer, lends to transparency on our part as elected officials and candidates. So. Say something. So, I think transparency is the goal here, and I think any one of those solutions probably provides for transparency.

Uh, I personally would prefer the simpler option just because it reduces administrative burden on both staff and council. Um, and then maybe with Tom's suggestion that we get outgoing people, you know, they have to fill something out before they go, but I could support any of them. That would just be my personal preference.

I would— I will say this whole idea of getting— I mean, because I'm running now, so I'm experiencing this. But the idea of I filed something on June 30th, and then I'm not sure if I need to file this out or that, but if I'm aligned with the other candidates who are running as far as their dates, that seems like a plus to me. Just, it just puts everyone on an even playing field.

And that actually does simplify it for candidates, right? Because we don't have to file twice, which we had to do this year. We had to file the June 30th, and then we're gonna have to file again. 7 days before the election.

Um, and oh, the other point I was going to make is typically, as an elected official not involved in an election, um, my forms have been zero. I have— I don't receive donations when I'm not running as a candidate. Thank you. in years that are not election years, I don't know why I would be soliciting donations or receiving donations.

So I think if that's happening, that's what this other reporting period does. It takes it in, uh, in June, and then of course there's the December one to kind of make sure we get outgoing people and, um, just kind of button it all up.

Then I would agree with that. I think it's important to be able to see where campaign donations are coming from throughout our entire time while we're serving on the city council. I agree with Jen. I'm not looking for another form to fill out, but I, I could wholeheartedly support option 2, especially as I mentioned earlier in our meeting before with our newly certified municipal clerk certified city recorder, Theresa McKittrick. If, if she would be so kind, as she has done such a great job of just making sure that we know when and where we need to have those papers filled in and turned in, I could support that.

I think we're— go ahead.

Okay, I just want to make one more comment before we vote, unless there's something else. I just want to make a comment of something we discussed in the work meeting, something that also learning about from transparency in elections and in donations. The last little while I've become aware of a kind of a workaround way to decrease transparency, and that is this setting up an entity called a 501, which is a nonprofit. And the problem is Because the 501 does not require them to report who donates to them, where the money comes from. They do need to report if they donate to a candidate, to a political entity, but they call that dark money. And there are, you know, just real concerns coming up about this. Thank you. Is this dark money. If you have a 501, it eliminates transparency and accountability. And they're finding that many of the ads are funded— or that are funded by dark money are more likely to be negative and to attack opponents, which we don't need more vitriol in our elections. I think we're all trying to strive for more civility. in our processes. So I've kind of asked if we can maybe look into ways to, um, on the municipal level, in some other type of legislation, to kind of provide more transparency there on reporting forms for candidates. If they're receiving money from a 501, then there needs to be some type of disclosure As to what that entity is, or maybe if we can require that entity to disclose where their money's coming from that is being directed to this candidate. Just some thoughts out there for some additional opportunities that we can consider for transparency, I would say, in the near future.

A thought on that as well, Lenee. I don't think any of us would want to accept money from— I don't think any of us would want dark money. And so to have the opportunity to know, to be able to identify that beforehand would be very helpful so that we could say, thanks, but no thanks.

Uh, I don't want that money as part of my campaign.

So, Mayor, I can make a motion.

The city council, by ordinance, amending Section 2-3-4 of the Orange City Code, campaign financial disclosures, number 2 option, 2nd option.

I'll second that. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

The ordinance is approved. Okay, thank you, Steve. And if you'll look into that with the dark money, we'll talk more about that later. All right, last up. We've got our city manager.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Just 2 quick items. One, uh, you'll, you'll see us doing more communication outreach in coordination with the Central Utah Water Conservancy District and the Alpine Aqueduct project they're doing as they hit certain milestones, and particularly as those milestones, um, result in potential increased concerns or questions from the public, then we'll want to get that information out. Of particular note, they will be closing off 1560 East between 800 North and all the way north there starting today through Friday. And so there will be some inconvenience for the businesses and residents around there during that closing. And then another item that we expect to hear, you know, potential concerns or questions from the public will be in— will start in late July and go for a couple months into the fall will be some blasting operations. So it'll be away from the homes, but they're doing some tunneling as part of the project. And so, and they'll do some warnings that'll have some some horns and things to, to make the public aware. And safety is, of course, top priority, but that will be— I mean, it's a major project, and I'm sure will be of heightened concern. So just so you know, we, we will be ramping up those types of communications. In positive note, today, one of the shows of appreciation and recognition that we engaged in was with our Parks and Recreation, and I just wanted to add my kudos to these groups. Just in the month of July alone, yes, yesterday we opened up Northridge Park and added pickleball courts and playgrounds and tennis courts there. Earlier this month, we had the Windsor, the jazz court that was added to Windsor Park. We had Orem Fest that was at multiple park locations and record-breaking attendance. Um, on July 3rd and July 4th, we had 15,000 people go through the Colonial Fest event.

And that's—

Orem doesn't often get credit for our participation in, in the American Freedom Festival, but that is a, you know, a well-attended and important part of that whole celebration. And then finally, last week, our summer concert series started. And this includes live music every Wednesday in conjunction with a farmers market, and we get around 10,000 people going through the park every Wednesday as part of that. And of particular note, the Orem Fest Orem's Got Talent winners, which was a group of Orem High band kids, they are going to be performing tomorrow as kind of the second act of that series. So It's just wonderful to see. Um, there is a tremendous amount of work that goes on behind the scenes by our Parks and Recreation. I'm so glad that they're getting recognition, uh, you know, outside the city, amongst the state, amongst their peers, but, uh, they're also getting it from me, and I know from you. And so just want to publicly thank them for their tremendous work. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. And I'll just add to that, uh, with Bryce, that is amazing what's going on with Parks and Rec. I mean, it's— when you, when you were awarded that Best of State Award, um, you were competing against a number of different cities with some really good projects, and Warren won. So that was awesome. You guys are doing a great job. And with that, unless anyone's got anything else, I was going to make a motion.

Okay, I move that we adjourn this meeting, Mayor. I second. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.