City Council · 2026-01-13

Yeah, the hot seat's up there, Cameron.

All right.

All right.

All right.

Welcome, everyone. We did not all wear dark suits, Karen, because just, just pictures taken.

Got it.

Maybe next time we all wear plain colors.

I don't know.

But welcome everyone. Glad to have you here. Welcome those, those of you online. We are in for a treat. We have Cameron Deal, who is the executive director of Utah League of Cities and Towns, with us for a total of 60 minutes or 53 minutes or something like that. And you're going to be giving us a legislative update. Is that Is that what you plan on? That's what I have written here. So, all right, we're going to go ahead and turn the time over to Cameron.

Perfect.

Well, thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the opportunity to join you in your beautiful new City Hall. And for those of you who are newly elected, I'm Cameron Dill. I'm the director of the League. And so congratulations, Councilmember. Councilmember, welcome back to the council. I'm glad you— just nice to see you again. And then where's— nice to see you as well. So, and then, Mayor, of course, congratulations to you. And thank you for your willingness to serve during what is really a difficult time. I've been at the League now— this will be my 18th legislative session. So I've been at the League since 2006. It feels like every year gets a little more difficult. And so I am very appreciative of people who are willing to dedicate their time and their energy and sacrifice family time and, and other things and serve your community. So thank you for your service to Orem City. Mary, you talked about Hawaiian shirts, and I would, I would welcome that with one caveat. When my wife and I were dating, I had a red Hawaiian shirt I absolutely loved. I wore it on a date. I thought it was great. That Hawaiian shirt did not survive when we got married. If you do some sort of Hawaiian theme in the future, that'll give me a reason to buy a new Hawaiian shirt. File that away.

Well, it's better the shirt didn't make it rather than the marriage.

Yeah.

Happily married.

I'm—

but the shirt, yeah, the shirt did not make it. Over the next hour or so, it's my privilege slash responsibility to share with you what's going on at the Capitol and also share with you what's going on at the League. We had LPC yesterday, so I don't want to repeat LPC because Warren participated in that meeting yesterday. So my goal is really to give you some quick overviews, some quick highlights, and then just open up for discussion. And I want to know what's on your minds as Orange city leaders. Make sure we're aligned with what your priorities are, and then share with you what we're hearing and where we think different big-ticket items are going to go. The League engages at the Capitol through 3 primary principles of respect, collaboration, and outcomes. We want the legislature to respect the role of cities, just as we respect their role as a legislature. We want to collaborate and work together. And then we are focused on outcomes that ensure the quality of life of Utahns. Another thing you'll hear us say, 2 things: partnership, not preemption, and one size misfits all. So those of you who are new, just be prepared, you will hear me say that countless times over the next 4 years of your service. When I talk about respect and collaboration, one thing I want to emphasize here is that to collaborate means to co-labor. It really does mean you have to figure out how to work together. Before I jump into the legislative piece, I wanted to talk about one of the strategic initiatives that the League Board has created around conflict competence. Now, the League Board consists of 21 mayors and council members around the state. So those are my bosses. I report to them. 21, including a city manager, and the others are all elected. The current League President is Kate Bradshaw. She's the newly elected mayor of Bountiful City. And those 21 members of the League Board come from all over the state. We're required to have different geographic representation. We're required to have big cities. We're required to have small towns. Then we have the Policy Committee, and every city and town can participate in the Policy Committee. So thank you, Orem, for participating there. Right now, Orem does not have a board member of the 21-member board, though Orem has had board members throughout my career. I mentioned those 3 principles of respect, collaboration, and outcomes because the League Board prioritized a couple of years ago, how do we help our members navigate conflict? How do we help our members as you are working together, bringing different perspectives as elected officials or with senior staff? How can we help train elected officials to communicate with the public in a meaningful and productive way and address conflicts and work together to achieve positive outcomes? And of course, how do we work better with the legislature? Because that's rife with conflicts. And one thing I would emphasize is conflicts just are. That just is the name of the game. So we have been working diligently with the University of Utah Law School to create a dispute resolution program that is really geared toward city officials. We had a webinar about this this past Saturday. We had about 80 people online for that. And then we've had that professor do several presentations at league conferences. And this past fall, we did a half-day event where we had over 100 city leaders at the University of Utah Law School. Working through this conflict competence curriculum. And the reason I mentioned that out of the gate is because when we talk about collaboration, it really does mean to co-labor. The League in years past had a reputation as being the League of No at the Capitol. Now we've worked really hard to pivot from being perceived as the League of No to being viewed as the League of Collaboration, the League of Problem Solving. We still say no plenty. But it's different when you can say no, because we're solving problems over here. It gives you actually more credibility when you say no, because the expectation is you're going to try to solve problems where there's common ground. So before I pivot away from our conflict competence curriculum and the effort there, are there any questions about what we're trying to achieve in that space before I dive deeper into the literature?

Sure.

Are we— now, we were at our city council retreat last Saturday when you were having this. Are you going to be having another session? If we would like to attend, we can.

Yes, we— this was the first time we've done it as a webinar. Prior sessions had all been in-person sessions, so we were experimenting with the webinar and it went really well. We did breakout rooms. The professor was terrific, and we had people stay on afterward asking questions. So it was great. We did not record it. And that was intentional, because when you're talking about conflict, we wanted people to feel comfortable freely about the conflicts that they're experiencing. But yes, we do plan to continue that. We actually are in conversations with the City Management Association about potentially doing some overlapping programming around conflict competence during the April conferences in St. George. The UCMA board— that's the City Management Association board— was really interested in doing some overlapping programming. And then we'll do some more in-person sessions and webinars going forward.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions on, on that piece?

Comment, Jeff and I went to a session, I think it was at ULCT, or the conference in April, and that was fantastic.

So we're grateful that you're doing it. Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Dania has been really great to work with, and she's helped me see things differently, even just that whole concept of co-laboring and trying to understand what is it that underlines the conflict? And I think we've all, in different settings, have learned about active listening and putting yourself in other people's shoes. What I've learned from this is that you really need to get to that core interest. Like, why is that individual with whom there's conflict— why do they have that perspective? And then trying to figure out, is there a path to common ground? Is there a path to consensus? And then if there's not, how do you make sure there's still open dialogue? So I, it's, I've learned a lot from it over the last year and a half as we've been rolling out. So thank you for that feedback.

Yeah, we're gonna have, as the ELCT board and other councils and have state legislators, have they all been resonating with that message, or some kind of bristle at it, or?

That is a great question.

Not that it's perfection, but do you see progress?

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And so part of our strategy, we were putting this together, is we wanted to make sure that people didn't view this effort as stifling speech. We didn't want people to view this effort as picking winners and losers. So we were very intentional in our outreach to our members before we even decided on a partner, we did a survey. We had over 200 city leaders take it. And we made sure as part of that outreach that we got feedback from people all over the political spectrum because we wanted to make sure that whatever we were offering as training, that people would embrace it, that it wouldn't get politicized. And unfortunately, in today's world, things get politicized quickly, right?

Yes.

So I put in some really great conversations with people all over the political spectrum. And what we found was that everyone was frustrated by the political dialogue. Everyone was frustrated with feeling like people weren't listening to them. So, okay, great. So it doesn't matter where you're coming from. Here's the core problem. We agree on the core problem. Now let's build out the curriculum for it. So part of the training has been actually starting with that needs assessment and sharing with the attendees. Here's what York City colleagues have told us. And unsurprisingly, the number one cause of conflict from the elected officials who took the survey was in the land use space. That doesn't surprise any of us, right? So then we have the follow-up questions from there, like, okay, so what could be done to address the underlying concerns so you can have a healthy conversation around that, around that conflict? So the reason when you asked, did people bristle at it, I think initially there were some that were suspicious of it. There's been national discussion about this. There's been a local discussion, but we We've had Arthur Brooks speak at the League conference a couple of times. We've had Tim Shriver speak at the League conference a couple of times, and they're both— they are both preaching the same message, one left of center, one right of center, but they're both preaching that same message. And we said, okay, we want to take this from the preaching side to the actual skill-building side. And thus far, it's been well received. Now I have to put those skills into practice for the next 8 weeks at the legislature. The session kicks off this coming Tuesday. More importantly, it ends Friday, May— Friday, March 6th at midnight. That's the most important date in our family's household is when the session ends. For those of you who are new, my daughters make a paper chain every year and we count down the days until the end of the session. And that paper chain's gotten quite famous at the Capitol because our team basically kisses our families goodbye at the beginning of January and said, we'll see you in March because we're up there 24/7. And every session, it's— it has its own flair. We usually track around 250 bills that impact cities and towns in some form or fashion, whether that's on the public safety side or the land use side or anything in between. Already, already there are over 300 bill files open and public already. Session hasn't even started yet. And we know of many more bills that we've been negotiating or been involved of or just aware of that aren't even listed. that are still to come. So as usual, it'll be fast and furious. The biggest ticket items right now I would put in the land use category and in the tax fee revenue category. Public safety, I would put a little bit lower though. The Armenta— fixing the Armenta decision is a top priority of the League, and, and we've got a bill sponsor, Representative Gwynn, who's police chief in Roy and also a legislator. He'll be running that bill. We've already expressed our support. to address that Armenta decision, which will be great. So, again, I don't want to repeat LPC yesterday, so I'm just going to hit a couple highlights, and I just want to pause and open it up for discussion if that works for you, Mayor. So, on the land use side, there's— I'll call it good news, bad news, and incomplete news. The good news is, particularly in the House of Representatives, there are a lot of legislators who have Received the data that we've shared with them about the number of entitled units that cities have planned for but aren't being built. And there's a recognition that there are market forces outside of the control of cities. And so there are legislators saying, well, what can the state do to partner with cities to help those units get built? So just yesterday, before LPC, I had a meeting with Steve Waldrop, who's the governor's advisor on housing. Steve was actually with me, not in this room, but in that room. A few months ago, and Councilmember, you were there, and we were chatting about housing policy in Orem City, but it was very productive meeting with Steve. And I, I think there's a, there's a real chance that the state will provide some infrastructure dollars to partner with local governments to help get units built that are planned for, that are entitled, but are stuck due to infrastructure shortcomings. So that's a positive development.

Another bill.

Will consolidate all the state programs around housing under the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity. We'll also end the Commission on Housing Affordability. And, and even though Tom McDonald is no longer in elected office, I appreciate his service there. He represented the League for almost 4 years on that commission, and that was a thankless task. I thanked him all the time, but it was a thankless task. So that commission is coming to an end. And then we've been working on, on legislation that deals with annexation, deals with planning commissions, and deals with detached ADUs. And then I think there— well, I know there will be legislation on the use of publicly owned land for housing. And I've actually brought Orem's example up several times with the school turned rec center, school turned community center, as, as an example. But there will be several. Several bills that are in that space of surplus public land and what should come from it. I would put all of those in the good space. In the incomplete space, there are several bills out there that I'm hoping don't get traction. But there are— so I'm going to leave those for now. Then there are bills that we know are coming that one bill would create what's called a preferred land use. And Steve, if you asked him what a preferred land use is, You would love to say there's no such thing like that doesn't exist in code, but this would create a new term which would create all sorts of legal questions and really questions about your authority as a city council and what you approve or what you don't approve and your zoning authority. That's SB 184. We're opposed to that bill, but it creates preferred land use. Basically say that a property owner that wanted to do one of these preferred land uses could do it unless the city proactively says no within a, within a short period of time. Then there are other, there are other bill rumors out there in the land use space around impact fees, as well as around standards of review and litigation for actions that cities take. So stay tuned. There's, there's a lot in that incomplete space. The bad space right now is primarily House Bill 184, but there's a lot in the incomplete space. And then I think there are some good bills that we've been working on proactively. Infrastructure bill is something We've been working on really for the last 5 years, and this year might be the year that it gets funded. On the revenue side, there's a lot of consternation around property tax. I would describe it as there's frustration at school districts in general, with some counties, and then cities are kind of a distant third. We have been very proactive in the property tax space. But there are multiple bills there that are quite concerning, ranging from bills that would require voter approval of property tax increases, or capping the amount that a city could increase at no more than 5%. Now, as I've had these conversations with cities around the state, I was in St. George last week, and St. George hasn't raised property tax in decades. And the question sometimes comes up, well, we're not Interested in ever raising our property tax. So why should we care as a city about it? And my quick response to that is that we're still fundamentally, fundamentally talking about your legislative authority as a city council. You set the budget, and there may be a time where you have to have that tough conversation with your public and say, we're going to raise property taxes. Property tax is really the only tax lever that you control as a city. You can't go out and create a new sales tax. You can't go out impose a new gas tax, but you can, so long as you go through truth in taxation, increase your property tax. So that is your lever. And if the legislature restrains that lever, it's really restraining your legislative authority, even if you never intend to pull that lever. There's a lot of talk about the gas tax and trying to reduce gas prices by making adjustments to how we build out the gas tax. You as a city and all cities get 30— 62% of 30% of the gas tax. So when you pay at the gas pump, 70% stays at the state, 30% goes to local governments, and then it's separated between cities and counties. About 62% goes to cities, and then the rest goes to counties. So anytime the legislature modifies the gas tax, it has a ripple effect on cities. And the proposal that they're working on right now Is admittedly quite creative. The idea is that they would repeal a tax exemption on refining gas here in Utah. That would create new tax revenue by repealing the tax exemption. They would then take that money and put it into the transportation fund, which is what the gas tax funds, and then they would decrease the gas tax. And the idea is that it would be revenue neutral, but you'd be shifting who's paying, and it would bring down gas prices. That's the idea. The petroleum industry and the oil and gas industry is quite concerned about the bill right now. We haven't seen a final copy of it yet, so we're position pending until we can actually see the bill and understand what those ripple effects will be on cities and towns. And then the last piece in the revenue space that I'll bring up is just in the fee authority. Now, U.S. cities under state law have significant flexibility when it comes to imposing user fees unless the legislature has stepped in and dictated otherwise. So for example, of impact fees, Orem City cannot go impose an impact fee outside of the structure that state law has identified. Well, what you can do as a city is you can do user fees so long as they meet a reasonableness standard. For the last 2 and a half years, coming on 3 years now, we've been working on proactive legislation to codify the process to do a transportation utility fee. Provo was the first to do one of these. 11 cities followed course. There was litigation in Pleasant Grove that got settled 3 years ago. The Supreme Court said, yes, you have the authority to do this fee. It is not a tax. But the court did not rule on whether or not Pleasant Grove's fee was reasonable. That was the blank spot. And then the plaintiffs actually dropped the litigation before the district court could rule on reasonableness. So we have a Supreme Court case that says, yes, you can do this fee, but was silent on whether or not Pleasant Grove's fee was reasonable. So, for the last 2 sessions, and now coming into this 3rd session, we've been trying to define what that reasonableness standard looks like in code. And we've tried to spell out the process in code to do a transportation utility fee. And the reason I say that's been a proactive effort is there have been other stakeholders that wanted the legislature to simply say cities cannot do transportation utility fees. So, in an effort to say no to that preemption, we've instead focused on the partnership side to say, let's codify a process. And let's define reasonableness, and then everybody knows what to expect, and we preserve that authority of you as a legislative body to determine whether or not you want to go down the path of a transportation utility fee. But there's a lot of pressure at the Capitol for all governments to tighten their belts. Every meeting I'm in, whether it's on fees or taxes, usually finishes with a legislator saying, we're cutting the budget at the state, we expect local governments to cut their budgets as well. Where all that shakes out between now and March 6th is anybody's guess. There's a lot of time. There's not a lot of time, but there's plenty of time. So with that, Mayor, I'm happy to take questions and have a conversation with you and your colleagues about Orem's priorities, things you're seeing in your community that you want to make sure that I'm aware of, questions about the legislative process, anything and everything.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. Appreciate that update. So we—

Yeah.

We had this topic come up and had quite an extensive discussion, the legislative side of it, at our retreat this last weekend, this Saturday, that we discussed how we could better interact with the legislature. What issues we should be looking at. I'm going to ask, um, Brian if he could talk a little bit about what we, we were talking about at that retreat. And then for the council members, if you want to talk about, mention anything from that retreat as well, just to give Cameron an idea of where we're, where we're thinking with policy and what the involvement that we as a warm city— feel free to do that as well.

We'll just take notes as we chat.

One thing in terms of one size fits all, one thing that we talked about that is only partially related is that, as you know, already has one of the highest property tax rates. And so we're trying to plan ahead beyond just a long fiscal year to look further into the future to make sure that we're, um, you know, diversifying our portfolio revenues and, and making sure that we're on a long-term plan. Part of that could consider, you know, looking at, uh, maybe at least keeping our property tax rate level so that we don't lose purchasing power every year. Um, So yeah, interested in this whole concept of the state is finally tightening their belt. Orem already has been for many years, and just how do you get cities to time it right with the state, essentially, so that we're all tightening the belt, I guess, at the same time? And to your point about St. George, ultimately maintaining that ability to make that decision when with the city. So that's one item. The other 2 kind of main topics that I recall and notes on was, um, we want to continue to pursue or continue the narrative and push that you've heard us do for a couple years of trying to emphasize owner-occupied housing. And then, um, and then we've loved what has happened Over the last few years of getting together legacy cities. So cities that are like Orem, of similar size, similar build-out, similar sort of time, have been around for a while. And how do we incentivize or help revitalization, renewal, in addition to build new?

Those are the 3 sort of main things that I recall.

Those are the 3 big things in life.

Okay, perfect. Well, I'll just walk down the list here. So first, Orem is not unique in feeling like you've tightened the belt. I think most cities, if not every city hall that I visit, shares that frustration that the state is making that comment as if city government is the issue. In actuality, you look at the services and infrastructure that cities provide. or the tax dollars that we receive, and it's an incredible bargain for the taxpayer, and that's something we should all be proud of. I mentioned that frustration with school districts and frustration with some counties. Cities in general, if you look at the aggregate data, are only 13% of all property tax revenue collected in the state.

We're 10.6%.

Oh, we're okay. So 13% of all that aggregate revenue Goes to cities. So we're— regardless of what city you are, we earn a small fraction of that property tax bill. And we are constantly trying to educate legislators about that. So the— my first answer to you is, one, make sure your legislative delegation and you have some fresh faces in your legislative delegation. Take the time to help them understand what Orem does. Orem is a full-service city.

Right there.

You are a tremendous community provider. And make sure that your legislators understand all the services that the taxpayers of Orem are paying for and that the city is providing. Number 2, help them understand how property tax works, sales tax works in your city, so that they feel like they are— they can be champions of Orem City. They understand how you function. The politics right now around property tax are bigger than Utah. I mentioned this at LPC yesterday, but we're seeing these, these property tax bills popping up in other states. So Governor DeSantis, for example, in Florida, has been pushing to end property tax altogether, and he's made statements like, as long as you still pay property tax, you never own your home. And that has resonated in other states. Last year, the state of Wyoming cut property tax 25%. Go and ask me how much money the state of Wyoming gets from property tax. Zero. They cut 25% of all the taxing entities and then did a victory lap for it.

Hmm.

So in light of those 2 proposals, ours are much more reasonable. Those still problematic. But I mentioned that, that there is this, this national push on property tax. And then there's a frustration that from legislators who feel like, one, we've seen these skyrocketing property values and they feel like local governments have benefited from those, which demonstrates they don't understand how the transaction system works. Number 2, There were, there were more legislators this summer that attended truth and taxation hearings than I've ever seen all across the state, because I was following it on social media. And often these legislators would actually get up in truth and taxation meetings and speak against the tax increase. Fascinating. I've never seen that before. So those same legislators have come back to the Capitol and said, my local government didn't listen. So one of the bills that we've been discussing has been Can we improve the truth-in-taxation process to get more public feedback earlier in the process? Now, what we were trying to do, and frankly, we're just unsuccessful, is we were trying to speed up and accelerate the truth-in-taxation process so that the county and the tax commission could get all of the information to us in the late spring, so that if Orem City went through truth-in-taxation, you would do it before you adopt your budget, not after. Unfortunately, the timing just does not work, which is why now we've been talking with Representative Karen Peterson and House Bill 234 of having an additional hearing requirement in May, June, in addition to the August hearing. But lots of moving pieces, property tax space. I think the number one thing Orem City could do is make sure your legislators understand that you're at 10.8%.

10.6%.

10.6%. And then help them understand the bigger property tax picture. I still think they want to cut property tax. Even because even the legislators who do understand the system still want to see it cut. But that is a good place to start.

We'll send them our citizen budget.

Yeah, there you go.

And our list of accomplishments for 2020.

But one rumor I've heard is that they potentially considered shifting.

They're going to take away some ability with property tax that could replace it with the ability to to add a sales tax component. Is that not—

So that is the deal that got cut in Georgia. In Georgia, they had their— the legislature cut their property tax, and then in exchange, they created a small sales tax authorization, and the Georgia League took that deal. That deal is not on the— it hasn't really been discussed in detail here. But as I've reached out to other state leagues around the country who've been dealing with this same Political situation. It's been interesting to see what they've done and, and different ways they approach it. The anxiousness that I expressed to Georgia, and Georgia agreed, was they basically traded out the stability of property tax for the volatility of sales tax. But they also said the votes were there to cut property tax significantly, and we'd rather have an additional revenue stream than just lose property tax, have nothing to show for it. Part of the fun, right? You mentioned owner occupancy, and Councilmember, you've been very vocal about this and all of our— I'm glad you are.

No, I'm glad.

No, I'm glad you are. I'm glad you're part of our advisory groups. I mentioned LPC has registration from every city and town, and then we put together different subgroups each year depending on the topic. So several years ago, we had a task force dedicated to public safety issues and That was when Chief Ross was police chief. So it's been a minute now. But it was a great task force. We brought together police chiefs, city attorneys, elected officials, and came up with several consensus bills. And this was after George Floyd was killed. And you saw bills in other parts of the country and trends in other parts of the country that I think everybody said, we need to take a deep breath and get this policy right. And so one of the things that came out of that workgroup that I'm really proud of was we closed the communication gap When there was an open investigation and an officer would leave and go to another agency, and the other agency didn't know about it, we were able to close that gap, and it came through our, our workgroup. So on the housing side, for the last 2 years, we've had an internal housing workgroup. And that has been a primary focus is affordable home ownership. So the League's core principles in the housing space have been affordable home ownership, sustainable infrastructure, and quality of life, and making sure any bills that are in the housing land use space we look at through that lens. And I think we've made some good progress. I've, I've been really pleased to learn about some efforts in other cities that we've been sharing as case studies in those, those meetings. So Washington City, for example, partnered with a developer and with SITLA to open up some SITLA ground in their city. And the city made some changes in the number of units that they were allowing. They made some changes to setbacks. uh, SIDLH disposed of the land and didn't make as much money back as they would have been required to make several years ago. But we created some flexibility in the law a couple of years ago to make it easier for public entities like SIDLH to dispose of land if it resulted in affordable owner-occupied housing. So they got a little less money back, and then the developer agreed to deed restrict units for ownership and then set aside units for First responders, military, and others that they would get first bite at the apple for those new homes. So it was a perfect example of a partnership of Washington City, the developer, and the state coming together to achieve affordable homeownership. And there are several other examples I, I could cite about that. So we've been preaching the owner occupancy piece, and, and that message has certainly resonated with legislators. Most of the tools that we've created, the tax increment tools in the last couple of years, all have a nexus back to affordable homeownership. And even the infrastructure funding that I was just describing, the nexus there has been unlocking housing units with a prioritization for affordable ownership. And then that actually dovetails nicely into the legacy city piece that you mentioned, Bren. Within the league, we have different Communities of Commonality caucuses. So at the 2 conferences in the spring and the fall, we bring together all of the, all of the communities of commonality, and it's just an opportunity, one, for you just to get to know each other, especially on the councils. You don't have the same opportunities to network as often the mayor does. And so that's been really valuable just to, you know, sit next to a council member from Ogden and have some like-minded conversations. But then we've also been able to pull out priorities from those meetings. And so last legislative session, based on dialogue that came from that big city caucus, and most of the big cities fit into that legacy city concept, we actually sponsored legislation and got some money set aside to help legacy cities that have a large amount of rental housing, existing rental housing, and transition that rental housing to owner-occupied housing. And this all started with a conversation with Ogden City. Ogden City has been running a program like this since 1991. And the mayor approached us about it and said, we've been doing this, we've been using federal CDBG dollars and other revenue sources, and we can do about 3 houses a year. Is there a way to take this to scale? So then we took that program, and then come to find out Salt Lake City had a similar program. And the legislature had set aside money for incentivizing starter homes, but the whole emphasis there was on new construction, and it did leave older neighborhoods a bit in the lurch. And we had tried to change that fund, but the governor was passionate about that fund being for new construction. The Senate president's passionate about that being for new construction. It just is what it is. So we looked elsewhere. And we were able to secure some, some one-time money last year. To create a proof of concept for legacy city housing transitioning from rental housing to owner-occupied housing. And it all started with a program that Ogden's been doing that then found out Salt Lake had done it. So that legacy city program right now is open to cities of the 1st and 2nd class. You just have to have an existing program because these are matching dollars, and I expect that that language is going to get tweaked this session. In fact, I got an email this morning from Salt Lake asking about some potential tweaks to it, but That bill and that appropriation came out of conversations of legacy cities about how do we, how do we tackle these challenges that are not just unique to the housing stock? Like I mentioned earlier about closed schools, that conversation is happening up and down the state in legacy neighborhoods. And what do you do when those schools close? How do you incentivize or encourage young families to move into those neighborhoods? That's not unique to ORM, unfortunately. That's, that's out there.

So who, who do we talk to? Who do we reach out to maximize those conversations and encourage them to continue and offer our support, vision, whatever we can do to help move that along?

The quick answer to that is You as a city needs to identify, right, of the newly electeds here, who is going to be your primary liaison at the Capitol. That would be the first easy piece. So right now, Brent and I communicate regularly. Steve represents Orem City on the Land Use Task Force, has been a great voice there, and there are others. Ryan and I text regularly. Several of your elected officials have been involved in groups. What's the most beneficial is if, you know, as a city, this person is the point person on legislative items. So that way, when these things like this legacy city opportunity presents itself, it's an easy phone call. It's an easy text. It's an easy email to so-and-so, and then so-and-so can spread the word, and then you can contact your legislators and say that bill will be of great value to Orem City, or conversely, the other way around, right? Like, This bill is a preemption bill. Make sure, make sure that happens. And this time of year, every city is going through that question of who the primary point person is. So ideally, let us know this week who that primary person is. We'll rock and roll. And then making sure that we as, as League, and I will relay this back to our League officers, and Mayor McCandless was at our big city meeting that we held in November. Making sure that we know everyone's priorities so that we can advocate for them. And, Mayor, what did you think of that big city meeting that you attended in November?

It was, it was very helpful. It, it helped me. I knew, I knew that the issues facing Oron were— we were not facing those alone, that there are other cities having, having some of the same concerns that we have. And, and so having— getting together in the room with the other leaders, and granted, I had been— this was what, like 3 days after the election? So it was just— I was 3 or 4 days after the election. But listening to, one, the concerns that other cities have, how we share those— a lot of those concerns, and then what's being done. I think having, having that commonality there was really, really important. Rather than, here's Orem, who's been around for over 100 years, versus another city. Other cities are important too, but Maybe have been around for 20 years.

Is it helpful if, as a city, I don't know who's on that in the hearing making these, you know, listening to these bills and voting some of these on. Is there a way for us to create a way to have connection with those representatives and senators? Can you help us know this bill, the people to contact?

Yep. For sure. So every day during the session, we do a daily briefing, 10:15. It's primarily staff, but anybody's welcome. And in that daily briefing, we review what is coming up in the next 24 to 48 hours, make assignments. And before a bill gets to LPC for consideration, LPC, we've talked about it in the daily briefing each day. So there are some bills that come up, it's like, yep, this bill just makes sense. We're good. Give it a thumbs up. We let the bill sponsor know. Sometimes we'll have somebody there to testify in support. Off it goes. And then there are other bills that are more problematic. And so that's where we'll weigh, okay, we have this much political capital over 40, over 45 days. How much political capital do we want to spend on this? And I chat with the league officers twice a week during the session on Mondays and Thursdays. So we will be going back to them as the elected officials and saying, based on the feedback we're hearing, this bill is very problematic. We can try to fix it. We can try to fight it. Where do we want to spend our political capital? Here are the policy shortcomings with it. And then they're giving us that direction throughout the week. And then we'll bring things to LPC on Monday. But making sure you have someone who's part of that daily briefing is helpful because then whoever that person is, and sometimes it's been Brent, sometimes it's been Steve, like, Orem's always been part of that, right? Like, this is nothing new. So Orem's been in those conversations. But then we will lay out— here are the 20 bills coming in the next 24 hours. The most bills we've ever had in a 24-hour period, and brace yourself, we had 53 bills on agendas in a 24-hour period once. Yeah, let that set in for a second. But that also gets to just the political capital conversation. Okay, we got 53 bills up in the next 24 hours. Which one's the most important? Going where? What partners can we have? If it's a public safety piece, does the Chiefs of Police Association have it covered? Do we need to be there to support? And then we're texting legislators, we're meeting with legislators. That— and that is an anomaly. That day is a day I'll never forget. But usually it's 10 to 20 bills in any given 24-hour period of time. And so the nightly email that we send gives the recap, and then we'll try to look ahead. And so if you're following the nightly email, you have your liaison, in those daily calls, getting briefed, then you're up to speed so that when the bad bill drops or the good bill is moving forward and you get an action alert saying, please contact your legislator, you're ready to rock.

So I guess that's—

oh, go ahead.

I was gonna say, I guess that's kind of my question. These action alerts, I have had several residents that have said, I feel bad I have not been engaged in my community like I should be. Things are kind of worrying me now. How do I know when to— because the unions are doing it, there are groups doing this. So how do I form a resident group that wants to do this? So are you saying perhaps we can be a liaison with some resident groups through your action alerts? Is that—

would that be a good—

Yeah, that's an interesting question because we are very member-focused, right? We represent our membership, but there will be bills that you may look at and say, this doesn't just frustrate me as a council member. This frustrates me as a Utahn. And so you may say, this is a bill that's bigger than just the city interest. Like, the league has alerted me of what the city interest is, but this is something that I need to share with my constituents. Go for it. Right? Like, that ultimately, I would defer to your discretion on that. And we have had bills in the past where and council members have asked us, is this something that we should tell our residents? And I'll give you an example, Bill. My first year as director— and this will be my 18th session, and I've been director now since 2017— so it's the 2018 legislative session. There was a bill that a legislator introduced that year that would have created a state advisory committee that would have had the authority to overrule any action taken by a local school board, a county commission, or city council. So let that sit in for a second. A group of legislators— that's who would make up this council— this group of legislators could receive complaints about anything, right? And then by a 5-4 vote, and say, Orem City Council, no thanks. We as a board are going to veto what you did. Well, admittedly, I was sleep deprived that week because my daughter was born that week.

Yay!

And, but I was, I was in, I was super frustrated by the bill. Our members were frustrated by the bill. And Interestingly, there were other stakeholder groups that told the bill sponsor, yeah, we're willing to work with you on this. To which I said, no, we're not. Well, the bill passed out of committee, but when it got to the House floor, we had an all-hands-on-deck approach. We were tweeting about the bill. We talked to media about the bill. We had our members contacting legislators about the bill. Every member of House leadership voted for that bill. That bill died on the House floor. And it was because of the grassroots effort. Now, I don't know how many members of the public contacted legislators about that bill, but I would hope that members of the public would look at that bill and feel like that's an assault on their local government leaders who they vote for and who are their neighbors. And why is there a state committee that is trumping these local actions? So to me, that would be a perfect example of a bill that it would be great to engage the public on. Now, mainly there are other bills that are very technical, and the public could get confused by them, and because they're complicated, that's where I would defer to you of where— what do you think? And if there's ever a bill where you feel like this is something I think would be worthy of discussing with the general public, just text me or call me and strategize about it.

Maybe to highlight the communications Council, and maybe more particularly for some of our new ones. In addition to your Friday Facts email, you do specific issue, specific bill action alerts throughout the session. And essentially, once you send that to our council, that is a public—

That's a 5-alarm fire. Yeah. And it's—

it's—

How do we get on that? How do we get on those emails if we're signed up to Friday Facts? Yes.

And you're on the email list. It's the same one and the same. One and the same. In fact, former council member in Orem, Sam Lentz, we had 3 different emails at one point we were sending each day, and I'll never forget him calling me one night. He's like, dude, I get a lot of emails. Can you consolidate this into one instead of 3? Fair enough. We consolidated into one instead of 3. So the artifacts email that you're hopefully all receiving now is weekly. During the session, we send a daily update. That's the update. So it's, here's what happened, here's what's coming. Then the action alert is a separate email. So that is it. Sometimes you will get 2 emails in 1 day because we'll send the daily update and then we'll still send the action alert. And the action alert means we are at an impasse and we need to bring as much pressure as possible to work through this impasse.

And that it's urgent.

And it's urgent. Yep.

Yep.

We don't send action alerts for something that's still 5 days away from a vote. In the daily updates, we will be saying, remember this problematic bill? Well, it's now on a calendar. Maybe heard next week, talk to your legislators about it. Action alert is this bill is in committee tomorrow. We need to contact, and we've, we've— we have a sophisticated enough system that when a bill is in committee, this gets to your question, Councilmember. Let's say the bill is in political subs. Well, we don't need to hit the entire legislature. We just need to hit political— the political subdivisions committee, and OAR may not have anybody on there.

Right.

But the cities that do have people on there, we expect those cities to contact those legislators so we can fight it at committee because bills pick up momentum. So even if we lose in committee, we still want to have a good showing so that when it gets to the floor, now ORM's contacting your delegation. We're building off of what we started. Sometimes the action alerts will just go to certain cities based on committees.

And just so you know, Kip, so we had our retreat, like Mayor said. And as part of that, there was assignments given to the different commissions and boards that we're also part of. So if I remember correctly, Mayor McCandless and Councilmember Crystal Muhlstein will be voting members of the Legislative Policy Committee.

Yes.

And then I believe Crystal Muhlstein and Lanay have assignments to— on sort of ULCT subcommittees related to CHA or housing affordable.

Well, but isn't the CHAW— just say you're not doing the CHAW anymore.

The Commission on Housing Affordability, if House Bill 68 passes, will be gone. But I still anticipate we will have our workgroup because we set up that workgroup so it could feed into our representatives at the CHAW. So we'll reconfigure it based on what comes out of House Bill 68. And it's entirely possible during the session that we'll just use that same email list and say, we need, we need to do a deep dive on this bill. So we'll pull together that email list so we can talk about it in between LPCs, because sometimes things just can't wait till Monday.

And in my prior life in community, community action, I would either listen live or listen to the recordings of those Housing Affordability Commission meetings. I always appreciated you being there representing cities as a lot of different ideas were wrestled with and tackled and discussed. So thank you.

You're welcome. I'm really proud of the collaborative work we've done. I look at some of the bills that the legislature has passed in recent years, and I do look at them as examples of collaboration. There are bills certainly that have come out that do not fit that spirit, but generally speaking, we've been successful at fighting those off or modifying them if we recognize politically these are going to pass, modifying to a point that they're workable. But the big-ticket bills, I look at what's happened in other states, and I'm quite proud of what we've achieved here. And I think it has made a difference in terms of good planning and good planning outcomes. Check back with me in March.

Like on the— give me a couple few days to recap.

That's right.

Yeah.

Council members or staff, do you have any Other questions, or—

I do have one, if it's okay. Did you finish what you were going to say?

Yep, I hit all of your main points, so let's keep it up.

For me, this has been enormously helpful. Thank you for being so clear and helping us understand the big picture there. Given your experience the last legislative session, and I know that a ton of stuff happens at the end. Right, and some things don't cross the line because you're squeezing too much stuff into a funnel. I'm just wondering, based on last year's experience, were there things that related to our topics today that didn't make it through because of that pressure at the end, but that might make it through this year because there's been continued support and planning to get them through this year? Or what can we learn about the outcome of the last weeks of the session last year that might influence what we're going to see?

Yeah, absolutely. For better or for worse, the way our system is designed is 80% of the bills officially passed the last week of the session. And on one hand, you may look at that as a flaw. On the other, by the time you get to the last week of the session, Those— the battles over the bills have generally happened. And then you're right, it is the funnel of what's going to get across the line. One key exception to that last year was the transportation utility fee bill, which had a pitched battle the last week of the session, ultimately did not pass for a variety of reasons. Today's Tuesday, and on Thursday I have a meeting with the bill sponsor and other stakeholders, and my hope is that we will get to yes. on that version of the bill, and then it won't get caught up in the funnel this time around. So that's the first one that comes to mind. The second one is that this is a very tight budget year. Last year, there was some funding cut from the League's Local Administrative Advisor Program. And I'm super proud of this program. And it doesn't affect Orem City directly, but it does benefit Orem City. And here's why I say that. This Local Administrative Advisor Program, first of its kind in the country— we created it a couple Years ago, the partnership with the governor's office and the different associations of government and City Management Association. And this local administrative advisor program provides professional staffing to communities that don't have full-time staff. So essentially, think about a Brent or Ryan who is embedded at MAG, but is doing a few hours a week in Goshen, a few hours a week in Genoa, a few hours a week in Colville, and other communities around MAG. So we created that program a couple years ago. The state funded it. Some of the funding got cut at the end of the session, and we're hoping to get that funding restored this coming session. There were, there were a couple of hostile bills last year that nearly got substituted into bills on the last night of the session that we were able to fight off. Those were land use-related bills, and the underlying issue that was driving those bills I hope will be resolved. It's not entirely resolved yet, but I hope it will be resolved in the next few days. So as I think back to the last week of the session, those are the ones that immediately come to mind of things from last year that will come back this year. There will be bills or variations of bills from last year that come back. I mentioned the preferred land use piece that's in the ADU space. There was a bill last year that would have preempted cities on ADUs. There will be bills in that space again. The proposal that we've worked on through our housing group, and that our board has endorsed in concept, is basically every city over a certain size has to allow detached ADUs under certain circumstances, but leaving a lot of the ultimate flexibility to the local governments to figure out those circumstances. We'll see where all that— we'll see where all that ends up, but there's Last year there wasn't that much appetite to push something on ADUs across the finish line, so it failed. This year there very much is.

If we have specific things like, you know, some of the things I said in the LPC meetings or something, I can just maybe chat with you about it, see if it's getting into a bill, because we talked about those possibilities. As the council talk and decide if we want to. You help us? Concerned?

Yes, generally speaking, yes. And I say generally speaking, because I'm running around like a chicken with my head chopped off. So if you can't get a hold of me, our team is terrific, and you can, you can reach out to them. And then I just want to make sure I had your assignments right so I can update our list. So, Mayor, you and Councilmember—

We have 3, don't we? Aren't there 3?

Okay, great. So you'll be the 3, and then Councilmember Kilpatrick and You guys are involved in the subgroup side.

Just Milstein again.

Milstein again was last year's.

And Councilmember Millett.

Perfect.

Anything else?

Thank you for your important work. And would you say thank you also to your sweetie and your kids? Their paper chain real quick.

Paper chain this weekend. No, thank you. It's— it has been a tremendous privilege to represent cities. I've basically spent my whole adult life at the League, and I have taken great satisfaction in feeling like we collectively are making a difference to the quality of life of Utahns. And the challenges are real. I really do applaud you for being willing to be a public servant at this time and in this age. And Thank you for your willingness to do it, and I view my job as helping you do your job to serve the public. So thank you for your willingness, and thank you for the opportunity to chat tonight. Any other questions, Mary?

You did a great job.

Yes, I think— thank you.

Truly fantastic.

Yeah, if I can say too, Cameron, we really enjoy working with you, and thank you for giving us extra time. And if I offer up, use us. I know, you know, there's great interest from Council, and even though Steve may not be a voting member of LMC, please continue to use— you know, I'm not going to let him completely detach himself.

You don't want to detach yourself either, in part because of just the tremendous institutional knowledge. Maybe that's my, my last, my last parting comment here, is it really is a team effort. The strength of the league is the membership, and it's you as elected officials, it's your tremendous staff, and it's work I came from Provo City Hall where I was meeting with, with some of the new folks in Provo, and then I'm leaving here to go to West Valley to meet with them. And it really is a team effort. And so when we reach out asking for information or asking for analysis, we want to know what it means to the Orem Police Department. We want Steve's legal expertise. We want your expertise and thoughts as policymakers. And then we aggregate that with everybody else so that we can finalize our position and move forward together. So the strength of the league really is the membership, and it's— I appreciate that. I appreciate the kind words. It's a team effort, and I look forward to seeing all of you in sunny St. George in April.

Thank you, Cameron.

Thank you very much.

Be safe. Safe travels. Right. The next item on our agenda is the— is this the annual— the Annual Open Meeting Act and Ethics Training? And so we'll turn that over to Steve Earl.

Theresa, I probably need to come up there, right?

You probably want to.

And just so you know, those who have not had— I think April and Quinn, you will, as you are on boards and commissions, they get this training as well. So by the end of the year, you will probably have this memorized.

Every—

well, and the others will have it memorized as well.

All right, thank you.

Okay, are we ready to go? So thank you, Mayor. This, as you mentioned, this is our annual ethics and open meetings training. This is training that is required by IRMAA for us to do every year. And so we're getting it done right early in the year, and that's actually a great time with new mayor and new council members to take care of that right now. So we're going to start with the Open Public Meetings Act. This is Utah Code Section 52-4-101. Sure, you've all heard of that before. Basically, the underlying premise of the Open Meetings Act is that public business should be conducted in a public meeting, which notice has been given, so that it's transparent. The public has an opportunity to be aware, to participate, and to be engaged. So, first question is, well, what is— what constitutes a meeting? And interestingly, not every gathering of the City Council is a meeting under the Open Public Meetings Act. But it's specifically defined as the convening of a public body with a quorum for the express purpose of receiving public comment, deliberating, or taking action upon a matter that is within the scope of the authority of the public body. So obviously, that covers your regular meetings at 6 o'clock we have twice, twice a month. It covers this meeting that we do, the work sessions. It covers the retreat that we just had, but there are certain types of get-togethers that it does not cover. For example, Christmas party, where even if all 7 of the council members are present, that's not for the purpose of deliberating or taking action, or a casual social gathering. If 4 or 5 of you happen to meet at Orem Fest, that is not a public meeting unless you decide you want to start talking about issues that are coming before you. And that's something I would ask you not to do, because then that turns it into a public meeting, which is a social gathering is not. So, um, again, generally meetings are required to be open to the public unless the requirements for a closed meeting are met. And we'll talk about that here in just a little bit. So public meetings have to have notice given, um, And that has to be done at least 24 hours before each public meeting. And that's something that Teresa takes care of, does a great job with that. So the notice is required to include the date of the meeting, the time, place, and the meeting agenda again, so the public can have an opportunity to know what's being discussed and when it's being held. The agenda needs to have reasonable specificity. Specificity as to the topics that are to be considered at the meeting, and each topic must be listed under an agenda item. So to go back here, so if something's not on the agenda, it's not something that you can actually take action on or take a vote on. So if you happen to think of something, oh shoot, I wish that we put this on the agenda, we didn't get it noticed in time, not going to be able to take any action on that. Um, as you know, we often have personal appearances in our, uh, City Council meetings where members of the public can come up and comment and talk about for 3 minutes on any subject that they want to. And even if they bring up a topic that wasn't included on the agenda, the City Council can discuss it, can respond to the comments that were brought up, but you just can't take any final action with that.

Okay.

But you can talk about it even though it wasn't on the agenda. So I should go back to that. Oftentimes, you know, somebody will bring something up and you might direct staff to look into it further and bring it back as an item on the agenda at a future meeting. So we already talked about that. No final action can be taken Unless it's listed under the— on the agenda. Okay, so meeting minutes, you're probably all familiar with minutes. State law requires that minutes and a recording be kept of all open meetings. The written minutes will include substance of all matters discussed or proposed, comments by the city council, record of each vote taken by the council. And the name of each person, not a member of the council, who provided testimony or comments. Again, so that's just so the public can go back and look at a record of what happened at the meeting, be fully informed as to everything that occurred at that open meeting. Also required to have a recording of each meeting. That's something, again, Teresa does at all of our meetings. We do actually both an audio recording and a video recording for most meetings, which, which are available to the public, the video on our YouTube channel. The one exception to that is that a recording is not required when we go on a site visit or a traveling tour, as long as no voter action is taken. So sometimes we'll do a site visit, not required to have a recording there. Sometimes you'll see this. Sometimes other people, members of the public, will come to a meeting and they've got a recorder, or they even have a camera that they want to record the meeting, and that's perfectly fine. State law gives them the right to do that as long as they're not interfering with the conduct of the meeting. So closed meetings requires that meetings that are not required to be open to the public. So the first Closed meeting may be held if 2/3 of the members of the council vote to approve closing the meeting. Given that there are 7 members in our council, that means as long as at least 5 members of the council, it's required to go into a closed meeting. And now, a closed meeting, and I think most of you are pretty familiar with this, but a closed meeting may only be held for limited topics. There are really 3 that are the most common. That we deal with. There's probably a list of 20 or 25 reasons you can have a closed meeting, but really only 3 or 4 are commonly encountered. The first is to discuss the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual. And that obviously usually relates to some sort of a personnel action that we're contemplating or discussing. Strategy sessions to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation. This is probably the most common reason that we go into a closed session. Oftentimes we'll come to you with something we're worried about, a lawsuit being filed, or one that's already happening, and we need some guidance or direction from you as to whether to settle or go to trial, or, you know, what kind of direction we want to take in the litigation. And then thirdly, strategy sessions to discuss the purchase, lease, or sale of real property. Now, although you can discuss these items in a closed meeting, you're not allowed to take an actual vote in a closed meeting except for a vote to end the closed part of the meeting. So you can't pass any ordinance, resolution, rule, contract, or take any other action that's a final action that requires a vote of the council. You can discuss it in the closed meeting, but then when you want to take action, that has to go be noticed again, be put on an agenda, and then the formal vote. By the way, I didn't say— if you— free to stop me if you have any questions along the line. I'm kind of going through here, going through these things pretty fast. So any questions up to this point?

I have a question, but I want to wait and see if you cover it. Not yet. I'll see how the Those, but I have a—

can you tell me which, uh, what it has about texting?

Texting or text during meetings or any type of communication that way between council members on items?

Yeah, this is probably an appropriate time to talk about that. So do you want me to talk about that? Do you have a specific question or what?

Well, just, just in general, what's— what is the— what is it that we can do? It's my understanding that we cannot text during meetings. To each other, that anything that we have to say needs to be said out loud?

You know, the Open Meetings Act doesn't address that specifically. So some people might say that texting other council members is contrary to the spirit of open meetings because you're communicating about that. There's no specific prohibition on that. So, So yeah, but, you know, maybe like you said, it could be something that's considered contrary to the spirit. On the other hand, a counterargument to that would be, well, can I whisper to my neighbor on the council? Can I— you know, that's not really something that's, you know, that the public can hear either. And a text would be kind of like that.

But I would— I feel that that— is it contrary to the spirit of what's intended?

Now, the other thing that I would say, and I think we've given this instruction before too, is that if you are texting, to another council member or a staff member during a meeting, that's, that's going to be a public record. So that's something that would be subject to a grandma request. And, you know, somebody could— somebody sees you texting, they could actually ask for that record. So something to be aware of if that actually happens. How does the site come into that? That gives an appearance that, I mean, public doesn't know what you're doing. So it looks like you're checking a football score or not engaged in what's happening. And so, yeah, I would agree that it's probably just a good policy to not— yeah, probably best practice not to do that.

And so that would be during the meeting. My other question is, and I assume the answer is going to be public record, and we— or we just don't do it— if we have a group text with everyone, uh, with everybody on the council, and we start— if we go start heading down a path of discussing particular issues Then we need to stop, or that— and that becomes a public record. So that doesn't— is that not addressed either?

So that's not specifically addressed. And a similar question has to do with group emails, which is kind of the same. And this has come up before because, you know, sometimes that happens. So the best way to communicate with council sometimes outside of a meeting is through a group email. And, and The Open Meetings Act actually specifically allows that to happen.

Okay.

That's not considered to be a violation.

Okay.

Now, I, you know, I think that you have to still exercise some wisdom and good judgment. Usually, we'll, you know, there might be an email to give information that needs to go out, you know, on a timely basis, but I don't think the intent of that was to necessarily have an ongoing debate or discussion on a particular issue. So, but again, the state law does allow for group emails to occur. It's not considered a violation. Obviously, you couldn't take votes or things like that, but—

Thank you. Thank you for that clarification.

Steve, could I ask a different question regarding minutes? I think I saw you say that Minutes in public comment should also name the person that's speaking?

Yes.

I know that our current minutes don't do that, in part because I think it's hard to identify sometimes, at least by voice and other things.

Who is—

what's the best practice there?

Well, and part of that maybe is making sure when somebody does come up and make a comment that they identify themselves and we get that on the record so that Teresa can include their name. Obviously, if they never gave their name, you know, what can you do? Yeah, but yeah, so I think best practice would be just to try and make sure they give their name, and then, you know, Theresa will include it.

We'll be fine.

And that's all they need to give. They don't need to give address or city or anything, just name, right?

Right.

I mean, you can ask for more if you think that's helpful for context. So, you know, are you an Orem resident, or, you know, are you visiting from outside of Orem? That's up to you whether you want to ask for that.

Okay, Council, I pause for just a second. What, what would you like? What information? How would you like to work all that? Because I've seen everything from where people are given their addresses to their, to their, just their city or just their name. What would you as, as council members prefer?

Name in most cases works for me.

I'd like to know if they're ARM residents or not. Just whether they live here or not.

And then—

okay, so name and whether or not they're an Orem resident.

Maybe connection to Orem.

Are you a resident?

Do you have—

what's the— why, why is it relevant that you're here?

Why?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, any other questions at this point? Okay, uh, all right.

Here.

Okay, when we're in closed meetings, uh, even though they're not open to the public, um, a recording of the closed meeting still needs to be made unless the only topic that's being discussed is the character, competence, or health of an individual. And when that happens, then the mayor has to sign a sworn statement stating that that was the sole purpose of the closed meeting. And that's something that Teresa, again, makes sure gets signed.

Steve?

Yeah, those recordings. I mean, we record. Does someone have the opportunity to listen to that? What would be the mechanism that— Meaning some council member? No, someone outside of the council that's not in the closed meeting. Yeah, so that's going to be a protected record. So if somebody made it, let's say, a grandma request for the recording of a closed meeting, they would not be entitled to get that. Generally speaking, they would not be entitled to that. So it's recorded and it's filed away, but nobody can ever get to it? No, but with the one exception to that, I would say under— a general member of the public is not going to be able to get a copy of that recording. However, let's say there's some sort of litigation that goes on, it's— that involves, or somebody, you know, a party in litigation could potentially try to subpoena that recording. You know, if we're talking about litigation, they're not going to get it because that's going to be attorney-client privilege. But if, for example, you're talking about character or competence of an individual, maybe, or sale of real property, and somehow the litigation has to do with that, they might be able to get that kind of a record, actually.

Can the existing elected officials request to listen?

Yes. Yeah, and that's happened before. I mean, you know, the closed session is for the council, for the benefit of the council. And so if you wanted to get a— or listen to that, you would be relive that moment. Totally entitled to do that.

Yeah.

And then we have parameters for violations of the closed-door meeting, you know, someone publicly speaking about what was said in the closed-door meeting.

Nope.

There are no penalties.

Telling people.

It's basically to you. I mean, we obviously Have these discussions in a closed session for a reason. And we want you to keep that information confidential, but there are no penalties if somebody doesn't do that.

So, there's no misdemeanor.

It used to be, I think, back when I was on the council, that was— there was a criminal component if pursued. Uh, I don't, as I recall, but that's— it sounds like it's not there now.

It, you know, where it could come into play, let's say, is if they're just talking about it, like they went to somebody outside the council or the city and just said, hey, here's what happened in this closed meeting. There's no penalty for that. The one possibility is that You know, because these records are protected under GRAMA, that if you're disclosing information that's protected under GRAMA, then there might be an argument that's made that that's a violation.

Okay.

But the Open Meetings Act itself doesn't list any kind of a penalty. But potentially, I guess I have to correct, you know, backtrack a little bit. Potentially, there could be consequences or penalties under So it's kind of a backdoor route, I guess. But yeah, thank you. Okay, so next up is electronic meetings. This is something that, that we do from time to time, especially when council members are not able to be there in person. They have the option to participate electronically. And the city— the state law allows us pursuant to rules adopted by the city council. Council has previously adopted rules for the holding of electronic meetings, so we're fully authorized to do that. Oh, that's weird. Just talked about that. I think that's again the Class B misdemeanor. Or no, sorry, what this is— what this is talking about is not the disclosing of information. It's the having a closed meeting when you're not entitled to do it.

Okay.

So if you're having a closed meeting on a subject you're not entitled to do, that's potentially a Class B misdemeanor. But again, under this, there's no criminal penalty for Talking about the contents. Okay, so key takeaways. Best practice not to discuss items on an agenda or deliberate on matters outside of a council meeting if you're in a group of 4 city council members. If you're in a group, you can ask, gather information, ask questions before a meeting, but don't deliberate or decide an issue before the meeting. This is, you know, if an applicant's coming before you for a zone change, for example, or maybe a text amendment, they have a right to an impartial hearing and not come before you after the matter's already been prejudged or pre-decided. So that's why it's really— it's best not to really, you know, have conversations about how you're going to vote or what you think about an item outside of the public meeting. Okay, so we're done with the Open Meetings. That's the end of that part of the presentation. Do you have any other questions regarding Open Meetings before I move on to ethics? Okay, we'll move right along here. Okay, first up is conflict of interest. Again, probably this is old hat for most of you, and Probably really common sense too. This is Orem's. So there's 2 parallel tracks dealing with ethics. One track is city code, and the other track is state law requirements. So this is the Orem City Code part of it, Section 2-6-8, and dealing with conflict of interest. And this is probably— The most important conflict of interest aspect. So this section just states that whenever your duty requiring some action on any matter involving your interest or a relative's direct financial or personal interests, and it is reasonably foreseeable that the decision will have a material effect on such interest, then you're supposed to disclose the conflict and disqualify yourself from deliberating, deciding, and voting on the matter. So this comes up typically, you know, if you're in a council meeting and you have a direct relative, whether that be your spouse, maybe it's a child, maybe it's a sibling, and they have a direct financial or personal interest, or you yourself have a direct financial personal interest. In that situation, you need to disclose that conflict and then recuse yourself from participating in that discussion or that vote. Now, what it does not mean is that anytime that you know somebody who comes before you, whether that be a neighbor or casual acquaintance or something like that, that does not require you to recuse yourself. And it's only when there is a direct financial or personal interest. So not just that you might have a parent who, you know, has an opinion, that doesn't, you know, that doesn't require you to recuse yourself. So just be aware that, you know, I think that you'll instinctively know when you might have a potential conflict of interest in a matter, and if that, you know, kind of You have that alert, feel free to come and talk to me about, you know, whether that issue is significant enough to require you to recuse yourself. I'm happy to walk through and do the analysis to make that determination. Any thoughts or questions on that?

Okay.

Moving on here. So the next, we'll talk about the Utah State Code track, the Municipal Officers and Employees Ethics Act. And just to establish standards of conduct for official municipal officials. So this just prohibits you from using your office for personal benefit. You know, that's common sense. We're all public servants and we're not using our offices to acquire personal benefit. So it is an offense for an elected official or an employee to disclose or improperly use private controlled of protected information that you obtain by reason or of your official position to further substantially your personal economic interest or secure special privileges for yourself or for others.

Okay.

Now, that doesn't apply to information that might be in the public. So that's only information that is non-public type information.

Okay.

It also is an offense to use or attempt your official position to further substantially your personal economic interest or to secure special privileges for the officer, employer, or others.

Any—

is that common sense, or is that something you have any questions or other thoughts on?

Okay.

Pretty clear.

And again, you know, if there's ever a situation that arises where you have a question, you're not sure if it applies or not, feel free to come and talk to me. I'm happy to go through it with you. Okay, so it's an offense to knowingly receive, accept, solicit, or indirectly or directly a gift of substantial value or substantial economic benefit tantamount to a gift that would tend to improperly influence a reasonable person in the discharge of your public duties. And that the per— or that the person knows, should know, is primarily for the purpose of rewarding the person for official action taken. This does not apply to an occasional gift having a value of $50 or less, public award, or a political campaign contribution.

Okay.

So this seems pretty clear, but actually sometimes it's it's not so clear because, you know, sometimes there are organizations or entities that either we do business with or, you know, they, they have interactions with us and they like to take you out golfing or give you tickets to a show or jazz tickets or whatever it may be. So, you know, the general rule has typically been just be really cautious about that. You know, if it has a value of less than $50, You're generally going to be safe, but it has a value of more than $50. You should be really cautious about accepting that. And, and there are times when you really want to accept it. But I think best practices, just to be totally safe, that has a value of more than $50. My advice is not to take it. Just, it's just not worth the appearance, and it's not worth you know, potentially be being called into question whether you violated this section. Okay, so any other— any thoughts or questions on that? We're just about done here. It's an offense for an elected official to receive compensation for assisting any person in a transaction involving the municipality. Unless you make a disclosure and file a sworn statement with the mayor outlining that, your name and address, name of the person or business entity being assisted, description of the transaction, and services to be performed. So it's not an absolute prohibition that you could assist somebody on the outside, but you have to make these disclosures and Just so everything is above board.

Okay.

Now, if you are an officer, director, agent of a— or have a substantial interest in any business entity that does business with the city or is subject to regulation of the city, you're required to disclose your position or your interest upon first becoming elected or employed. So that usually doesn't apply to anyone, but it could. So if you are— if you, for example, if you have an interest in an entity that has a current contract with the city for some kind of a service, that would be something you would need to disclose.

Okay.

All right.

So, this is— these provisions are actually— there's the penalties for violating these sections are actually quite severe. So, a person who knowingly and intentionally violates this Municipal Ethics Act shall be dismissed from employment or removed from office and is guilty of a 2nd-degree felony, 3rd-degree felony, or Class A misdemeanor, depending on the value involved. So, Not something you want to do. Any questions? Okay, well, we did that in about 30 minutes, so that's pretty good.

Thank you. Let me know that dinner's ready. Um, I guess we— I would— we typically have a blessing on the food. I just want— if there's a council member that would be willing to do that, I would We're grateful, Heavenly Father, for this day.

We're grateful for the blessings of being engaged in this civic duty. We're thankful for the opportunity we have now to partake of a meal and pray thy blessing upon it to strengthen our nourishes, help us through the evening to be well and accomplish the important duties of the city. Grateful for the privilege of participating in the process that allows all of our citizens to feel engaged and represented. And we thank you again for the time. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

And so we'll get dinner, and then he—

hello, nice to meet you.

Um, give me a minute to set up, and we'll have you do your That'd be exciting. I like your shoes.

Walk around. I'll be there.

That heat will be going south there.

I'm here to help you. I want to be your right-hand man.

Same.

This is the notebook. Probably need to get your lights on.

Special notebook.

Yeah, I have to be a special notebook.

Remarkable.

So sorry, going digital. Remarkable.

Done.

Something at the end of the tunnel.

Can't get out of it now. We messed up the spice camp today. Space, because like, you know, if you're sitting in the audience, you're not going to be able to see people's faces. So much zoom on that. Anything is going to be able to see me, but mostly for elected officials, not for staff.

Stuff they can see I'm actually dipping her.

No, we won't.

Yes, sir.

Ready?

The people I have—

that's— it's just, it's just the same seats.

People start thinking I didn't.

Well, yeah, that's kind of your life.

It was like I sat over there. Church where you have your unofficial official seating chart.

But I like chicken.

I think I said, are you ready to print off and then run at the exact same time?

1, 1.

Yeah, they said they could actually have the people that need to work under—

if we have money, right? But, but they're going to do it on a paid— I'm not going to— Figure that out if we want. That's good enough. There's chicken.

Yes, I knew I was coming.

I'll get a lot more details, but then we'll probably have—

I don't know, sure.

I don't know how they're going to come into work. Yeah, I just wanted to— I just found out about this. It was, uh, So that's stick signal.

Stick signal.

Thanks for what you're doing.

Yeah, I'm there.

Nice job. I'll get a new gentleman.

Jack, you have to call that Dave Noble guy.

Yeah, we have a favorite restaurant besides Al's.

We've got lots, but this year we finally— family members, the family.

That should be included in the top.

No, this is going to work.

What were the top choices?

Is that—

I have that sometimes. Yes, that was— yes, they had been surface mission and they're like, he didn't pass the test.

We like a lot of—

that's great.

Love Village Baker.

Yeah, the impact phase was the gentleman's.

They have— I think they've already done it.

So last week, my search, if you like, combination list of some—

that was for January.

No, 2 spots.

2 spots.

Where are they now?

They're playing Arizona Monday night.

No, I guess All right, are you ready, my friend?

I'm ready.

All right, we're gonna eat and then we'll go ahead and turn the time over to you. All right.

Thanks for the time. Thanks for letting me come here and present. Uh, I spoke with Brent, and he kind of wants me to cover emergency management in general, the role of mayor and council, and then kind of what I do as an emergency manager for the city.

See this?

All right, so I start this on all of my presentations. Uh, it's just— it's LIP is what it is: life safety, incident stabilization, and property environmental conservation. So behind this acronym, this is everything that kind of first responders do, whether it's incident command, whether it's EOC, or whether it would be decisions that our exec staff and Mary making. We're going to focus on kind of these 3 things: safety and the installation, protecting the properties.

This is also just a shout out, I mean, from a first responder perspective, I mean, there's been lots of focus in past years of police and fire, but we really consider whoever works in any department, regardless of the emergency that gets involved, primarily be a first responder. And so we're trying to change that perspective, citywide view, not just a police and fire thing. So thanks, Steve.

All right, so this next slide up here, it's quite a, quite a bit going on. Quite a few words, but this is kind of the key organization for our city. There's, as you can see, 4 different bubbles up here. So we have our incident command, which is the on-scene personnel. We have our emergency operations center, which is just upstairs right above us here. And then we have our executive staff and our mayor and council. And so as you can see, they both have a conference room. If we were to have a big event, this is kind of how this would lay out. This would be the organization for this group. As you kind of look here, so incident command, they're doing their tactical decisions. That's our police, our fire, our public works, whoever it may be out in the field taking care of the incident. And then the Emergency Operations Center, we're working coordinating what's going on on the scene, supporting them, but also providing kind of an avenue to reach our exec staff and mayor and council. So Exec staff. And then, Brent, specifically, he would be kind of the liaison between the EOC and the mayor and council. So taking your mayor and council would be a 30,000-foot level, right? What is going on with the city on the entirety of the city? And then taking those policies and what responsibility priorities that you guys want done. Following that through Brynn and exec staff into the EOC. We've worked kind of this layout here. It just aligns the city, aligns everybody that's working on this event really well. We used it, so with the Charlie Kirk incident down at UVU, our incident command, we had PD, they were down at UVU in the incident command, and then we had our EOC open. Supporting what needs PD had. And then we did the vigil the following night, and we were able to run in the EOC. We had drones and cameras and all different things that we were helping support the response and then the vigil. So we push really, really hard to keep this alignment within the city. It just, it works really well through what we've had in Orem. Plus, All the after-actions that I've been a part of on a state and a county level.

It's really our goal. If you look at the sheet from the exec staff and the Operations Center, is that we're providing you, Mayor and council members, all the information you need so that you don't have questions. I feel like if through Bren, if we're not— if you guys have questions that aren't being answered, there's a breakdown in communication. And that's what we're going to strive real hard at, assuring that we provide you enough information that you're prepared for the news media conferences and, and make you all look as successful as this operation is going to be, because we have amazing people that handle our emergencies. So that's kind of the goal of this whole operation.

And then just like how the city was aligned, so if we were to have a disaster here in Orem, They're along the bottom. So it's always going to start with our individuals, the households. You have your private sector, your non-governmental agencies, your VOADs, which is volunteers that are coming in to help out. And then FEMA pushes the same alignment. So I guess everything starts at the local government. If you need help with the local, you'll go to the county and then the state and then federal. So just how OREM is aligned. It's aligned throughout the nation as well. And then our Emergency Operations Center upstairs, again, just love having it. We've always set up EOCs, but we've kind of jumped around just because we haven't had— I'll mention that here. We talk about the EOCs that we've activated, but now having a space that we're able to use, it's fantastic. Again, that's just a centralized location where the leadership goes to help support what is going on out in the field, boots on the ground. And so just this little picture here, you can have as many incident commands, right? If we have stuff going on all over the city, and then that's when you're going to set up your EOC, is when those resources within our city are starting to become overwhelmed. We don't have what we need. We would set up that EOC, and that's when those decisions would start branching outside of the city to bring in the resources and support that's needed. Sorry, jumped forward here, but why we activate and when we activate, just kind of mentioned that there. So Everbridge, which we'll talk about here in a minute, Sorry for everybody that's seen me present before. You had to know an Everbridge slide was coming.

So, um, jump in here.

Okay, so as you can see, the EOC, um, pretty much every department, if we were to have a full activation, would be involved in our EOC. How we have it aligned, so there's multiple—

Wait a minute.

that FEMA asks you organize your EOC. We do what's called an incident support model, which is basically taking people in their everyday roles and plugging them into EOC roles that are very similar to what they do on an everyday basis rather than trying to throw them into something that they're not used to or they're not quite as comfortable with. So, and then once we're— when we're working in that EOC, so city council, Mayor, your role directing city manager and the exec staff. Um, if we get to the point where we need to declare an emergency to start moving funding up to the state level, uh, that would be something that you would declare a disaster, declare an emergency. Again, setting those policies and priorities at that 30,000-foot level, uh, looking at the city as a whole. And then Unfortunately, money is going to be a thing when you have a big disaster trying to get the resources that you need. So authorizing money and then working with our PIOs, with Pete, Chief Hurston Fire, and Jameson. Jameson and Petey, making sure that we're putting together a one-voice message, that they're giving you all the information that you need So when you get to stand in front of the camera, uh, when we have those disasters.

So, like, the question is, is there criteria on what an emergency is? So when we as a city council need to declare an emergency, is there a particular threshold or criteria that is for different types of situations? Emergency?

Yeah, so that threshold is when we have maxed out on Orem City resources. So if Orem City is able to take care of it with what we have, then you're not usually going to declare a disaster. But as soon as you have— since we have to reach out on a big event that everything within Orem, and I'm having to reach out to the county, and the county emergency manager doesn't have what, what we need, and then we're reaching out to the state. So it's just when our resources are overwhelmed, um, is how it works.

And Mayor, the one thing I think that you and the council members need Just rest assured is that the conversations that we've had with Glenn is that we are going to set you up to be successful. And so you guys don't know what you don't know. We're going to provide you all the information so that when you're in front of the camera and you're representing Orem, that you have all of the details to make us shine in the emergencies. And we've done that in the past.

Yeah.

We've had really good representation with the emergencies we've dealt with and And, Mayor, this council is not going to be any different than what we've done in the past.

Thank you.

Heath, is that purely financial, or is that also just in resources, meaning your fire crews just can't cover it all, so therefore that qualifies, if you will?

Yeah.

Yep.

Not just financially. So, yeah, fire, PD, public works, if you don't have the resources or the personnel, you need to reach outside.

When the big event happens, either the flooding that we've dealt with up on 2000 with the microburst, The fire, PD incidents with Charlie Kirk, all the rest of the calls that we normally do on a day-to-day basis still happen. So that's, that's where we get overwhelmed, is we can handle the big emergency. We're really good, police and fire, at honestly winging it because we just prepare for those kind of things. It's all the other stuff that we can't control that we know is coming that really puts us in a bind of taxes or resources.

Has OREM declared an emergency before that we can think of in the past? Like, I'm sorry, has OREM declared an emergency before and when was it? Do we know?

Yeah, we did. We declared an emergency during COVID Um, that one, I think it was almost a year and a half that we were— had that emergency declared.

So, okay.

And we officially—

I mean, from a resource perspective, I would say that Microburst with Chris's team Obviously, the Range Fire that I hate to bring up, and even the Charlie Kirk, are all 3 that taxed our resources beyond where we actually reached out for state and federal assistance. So whether we actually formally declared an emergency, we actually anticipated just like it was. And they were all very— I mean, terrible, terrible incidents, but we handled them well.

Yeah, to do the mayor declaration for an emergency, usually that's going to come like the governor will have known about the event that's taking place, and then that kind of funnels down from the governor through the state emergency management, county emergency management, like, hey, just so you know, this funding or these resources, these are available. Um, I would suggest or highly suggest declaring for a disaster type of thing.

Okay. Helpful.

Yeah, so that works both ways. It would funnel down if those resources were available or that financial aid is available.

The benefit that we have, honestly, in Heath and his position is his contact list is amazing. And so there's nothing that you would pose a question that whether he knows the information, he knows somebody that can provide the information. And so Orem is very well suited for Heath as our emergency manager. I know BJ and I for sure are grateful for what he provides for us.

When we were in COVID and we needed masks, nobody could get masks.

He said, I know a guy.

We still have some of those masks in storage.

Thank you for that.

This listed a few of the benefits here for the EOC. Again, that main one, coordinating with our elected officials. Like Chief Sanderson said, is make sure you have all the information that you need to make the decisions and to go in front of the camera. Again, provide situational awareness, make sure we're all on the same page, which is then going to increase our coordination, make sure we're working together on the scene, in the EOC, and with our staff and elected officials.

That also I mean, of course, to help you do well in communicating with news outlets or on social media. Also, seeing you all really just want to go out and be human with the residents too, right? So, as long as we make sure that we're communicating with you and organizing things and communicating with you well, that sort of allows you to go out and in a direct way, And this slide is just a few of the examples of when we set up our EOC here in Orem.

So again, with the Charlie Kirk microburst there that happened, it was 1600 north and like 12 west.

We had a bunch—

this is where these kind of pictures are here with flooding that took place.

Yeah, these type of swimming pools are no bueno.

We don't like them.

That's not a benefit at base Basement swimming pool.

And then we had COVID. We also— sounds like the range fire we don't want to talk about.

Why'd you bring it up again? I already dropped it. I already said it one time.

Sounds like we both got it once. And then for all of our events that we do, our— so we'll talk about mass gathering events here shortly, but all of our city events that require mass gathering, we have some kind of EOC. It's not always a full activation upstairs, We will be over in the park to start, but the groups are over there in the park and we're all aligned for all of these events. So if we did have something that was— that were to blow up over there or within the city, then we would shift back here, but we would start an EOC out there.

So—

I think this is where maybe Bryce, you could weigh in. This is where Bryce's team really benefits us, is assuring that Any of these events that come through, they involve Heath when necessary. And so we don't have Bryce's team who's scheduling these events, and it's a giant team effort within a lot of our departments, not just, just Rec events and fire or police. It's, it's use of all of our organization.

So—

Because you have a plan, right? If you have an event where you're anticipating 5,000, 10,000 people, We have 1 or 2 ambulances ready, whatever.

Give me 2 slides.

Okay.

We'll answer all of those questions. And then just through those events that we've had and through our disasters, just some of the lessons that we've learned. A couple of these main ones that I'll just— I won't read all of these, but multiple ways within our EOC to receive information. So we've always had 911 and then 311. And then we've also now have, with this new EOC setup, we have some designated EOC lines that we would be able to plug in during an emergency just to have more ways to get information in.

Okay.

This 3rd one here under communication, just that kind of chain of command and that unity that we were talking about. When that's followed, everything seems to just flow a lot more smoothly and more effectively. Therefore, I'll just kind of shooting from the hip and flying all over the place type thing. And then Carlo's in here, so I'm gonna bring it up. But since we've set this up, Carlo and I, it feels like almost daily, are calling back and forth like, hey, how can we update this? Or what can we do for this? And anytime we have an event, or anytime, like with the Charlie Kirk stuff when we were upstairs, I mean, there's 3 or 4 things that just kept popping up. So. He's been fantastic to work with. Just want to recognize you. You probably hate me right now, but I had to do it because you're in here. So, but just making sure the technology within that EOC will function how we need it to function when we have that big event. So, again, so this is a big— this multi-agency coordination, that is just our Mayor and council and our exec staff. So when you combine those 2 groups, it pulls into this multi-agency coordination. And then there's the responsibilities list on the right. I'll give you guys just a couple of seconds to look through that. I don't feel like I need to read all of those, but if you have any questions on any of those, feel free to—

Click on that list, you can see the point that Brent made. In just helping maintain the public confidence. I mean, if our mayor and council members are losing their mind or don't have the right information, that's going to create our own emergency aside from what we're dealing with. And so, our goal is just keep you informed so that you can talk to the constituents and assure them that everything will be fine.

And all of this information is in the handout.

So, yeah, the last thing I'll say on this slide is just those responsibilities, kind of looking at those. You can tell they're all that high-level overall city leadership. So that's what this multi-agency or MAC group would work on, is that 30,000-foot view. And then just a couple takeaways from that last slide. So the city council and mayors govern the response, and then our responders are going to execute it. I've been through quite a few of these, but whether it's a disaster, a real event, or an exercise, and the fact we have really good people working here at Orem. So the more we trust those people, better. And, Brady, you got a comment or a question?

Keith, is that picture of the actual Drone Show logo? That wasn't put in digitally afterwards?

And it was—

told you, I totally called him on it. I'm like, you Photoshopped this in, what is the deal, dude?

That is 100%— that was the legit picture. So I stood there and took it.

Pete, we need to— we need to—

that's an awesome picture.

Yes, hired.

City photographer.

He can't think how much— it's the only picture that's any value he's ever taken.

I'm gonna get hired.

That is AI. May I ask a question?

And maybe you'll come up to this, but just curious how the citizens' response has been with your emergency, your neighborhood emergency. Responses, those 6 o'clock on Tuesday evening, we're going to have an emergency. And the block captains and that whole thing, have we been getting— are we seeing that improve over the years?

Yeah, the Orem City drill. So we have been— the numbers out there, it's one of the slides in here that we would go over real quick.

Sorry.

No, you're good.

We can talk about it now. Get there in just a minute.

So, about now things. And maybe that's maybe for Brent or Steve, and that is if the mayor and council are meeting to, you know, provide strategic direction on this stuff, how do open meeting laws apply to that? Like, what can we do in that place?

So if you're meeting to give strategic direction, what can you mean?

We meet upstairs during an emergency. What's— what are the open meeting— does Theresa come take minutes?

I, you know, I have to go back and double-check this, but I think there is an exception in the Open Meetings Act for emergency meetings.

For—

let's go double-check what the rules are on that. There is a provision for emergency meetings.

And it affects noticing that you don't have to do.

Right.

But you'd probably—

we'd probably still have to record it.

You might still have to record it.

But it wouldn't be a public meeting necessarily, because that may not be appropriate in that situation.

Yeah, I think there's— probably some exceptions.

So you're not gonna make one of us step outside because there's 4 in the room? Get us to go out and take turns coming back in?

No, Steve, make sure and maybe send you some details on that.

Sure.

And from an emergency management side, just even if you— right, if it's a closed meeting, you don't have to take a minute— make sure we're You guys are documenting everything that you're doing in there, because then when you turn that into FEMA, the reimbursement side could actually happen. If we have no documentation to turn in, it's 100% FEMA side. So, all right, so now we're going to jump into Lenee's question here about mass gathering permits. So, mass gathering permit for our city events is any event that's 1,000 people or more. for 2 or more hours at a location that's not normally designated for that. So, like a basketball gym that has 5,000 people, that's what it's designated for. You wouldn't need a mass gathering permit for that. But when we have 50,000 people for Orem Fest in the park, that's where this mass gathering picks up. And so, with the mass gathering permit, do a lot of work with Bryce and the event committee And then Pete helped me out quite a bit, as well as work with police and fire and public works. Like Chief Sanders was saying, it's a huge event that we put together. And then each one of these events, so as you can see right now, we have these 4: Orem Fest, Lights On, Taste of Orem, and then our PD, our Police National Night Out. Those are the 4 events right now that hit this definition.

Okay.

There are some events that we use Orem City property for, but it's outside agencies that are bringing the event to our property. In that case, those outside organizations have to fill out this— the mass gathering permit is through the Utah County Health Department. So they have to fill that out and then bring it to whether it's Brynn or Debbie and risk. Someone has to sign that from an Orem City side saying, Yeah, what you have here, you have everything that the health department requires.

The perfect example is the trick-or-treating at University Mall that way exceeds the mass gathering permit. That's on their responsibility, but we're notified and so that we can prepare for that in case of an emergency, but it's not our responsibility.

Colonial Days under the Freedom Festival.

All right.

They would make that application to us.

We've received a couple of calls from y'all over the years of an event at City Center Park that wasn't ours, but it looked like ours. And so a year ago, we added in a process where we— they can fill out a better application, still use our park, but then we can loop in Heath or these other agencies that need to know about it so that it can still— because at the end of the day, it's still the same emergency response team that would be responding to it. But I think we had 9 this last year that fell into that where outside agency, our park, our rules, and then we're able to cue in the right people. So it runs a lot safer and smoother.

We should also give credit to Debbie D'Amico, risk manager. She helps us anticipate needs and make sure that we're preventing Inshallah.

So just real quick, with each one of those mass gathering events, we create an incident action plan. So in there it lists like an overview, a briefing, our objectives, which obviously the first one is keep responders and residents or employees and residents safe, list the personnel, and then in there it provides that medical plan. The health department requires so many first responders there. So that's— that was your question. And then we do see something, say something to kind of help get more eyes out there. So this usually turns out to be between a 30 and 35 page document that we put together in this incident action plan for each of those events that require that mass gathering. Again, here's my shameless Everbridge pitch. Um, it's kind of our impromptu emergency plan. So it sounds Pete and his team are monthly or sending out social media posts to try to get residents to sign up for this. Um, this is our emergency notification system. So if we were to have anything happen within the city, we can go through Everbridge. And hit all of those cell phones.

Um, I think the very best thing you guys can do as elected officials is talk to your neighborhoods and all of your supporters. And this is how we're going to communicate through this system. And if they're not signed up and participating, they just won't be informed. And it's a simple process. We won't sell their information yet. Just kidding.

I was gonna say, I'm just kidding.

Yeah, right now I send out a message with the city drill and then send out a test message when we do the Great Utah ShakeOut in April. So as long as nothing crazy is happening, it's just 2 messages a year is what gets sent out. So, and then Jeff, here's back to your question about Orem City Drills. So once a year we put together this Orem City Drill. We use a block captain program. So it's just set up, organized throughout the entire city. It's done through people with ham radio, as well as people going face-to-face, starting at their household, working through a few layers, and then eventually getting up to the Orem EOC. So—

The majority of these people who have cell phones participated In Everbridge, it would be outstanding because these numbers blow my mind. When he— the first year we really crossed that 45,000 number, when he said— I mean, I'm like, no, what? No way. It's amazing the participation we get from our residents.

Yeah, it's a great drill. It really is. It's fun to see how many people come out. And then you see 18 of the 21 areas. So we have a lot of areas that are— little fin worm— that are Participating in this as well.

How this compares to other cities?

So not a lot of cities do something like this. So I know like Spanish Fork does. We always say in emergency management, if you get 30% of people participating, you're doing something right. That's kind of what we try. Kind of a low benchmark, but that's people that participate in emergency management. It's about there. Linden does this similar drill. Luckily for them, they only have 11,000 people, so they usually get a pretty good— it's like a 75% turnout. Whereas ours—

Hmm.

So with our numbers, I send out one message to UVU's emergency manager, and then she sends it through her— their school email. And so I don't usually account for UVU students either. So that's just another— we have a way to get information, right? The people that don't live here but are coming here for school, they do get pinged on this night. And I know that they all get it because it gets sent through their school email. So just another—

Yeah, I think to your point, Jen, though, is if there's not a lot of communities, we should capitalize on the success of this event and even just police and fire social media, whatever that looks like, and To show other communities what we do.

Did UVU text or just email?

I'm sorry?

Did they text or email?

Um, so the UVU emergency manager tells me it's sent through the school email. Now, I don't know whether that hits phones as well.

Because I'm signed up, I have a child up at Utah State, and I get, uh, things— intruder on campus or Anything like that. I would love to see if we could figure out what they're doing then and bring that to—

Yeah, I can ask her. So my guess would be in this day and age it's probably hitting both, but she always uses the word email, so that's what I use as well. Then these next couple slides are just some of the stuff that I focus on with our outreach and teaching. So we do a lot of stuff with ham radio, and then they help us a lot with our city drill. They're volunteers for Orem Fest on our parade route and with the drop zone with fireworks. And then just a bunch of these different fairs and booths. Our neighborhood preparedness courses, we do those once a month. We've started combining with Provo. And their emergency manager and myself work together. So we'll do a quarter, 3 months here, and then we'll go down to Provo and do 3 months and It's amazing how much that's kind of boosted our participation in those. We would get, you know, somewhere between 15 and 30 people here in Orem when we were just doing them by ourselves. Provo was kind of the same, and we were trying to figure out how to boost this. And now, since we've combined, we're getting close to between— I'd say the highest we had was 120. We're usually right around 40 or 50. So it does help boost, plus we're teaching, right? In an emergency, Orem and Provo, 2 biggest cities here in Utah County, we're going to be working together quite often.

So.

So many of these things are like behind the scenes. You don't hear from Heath very often. You don't see him. He's at the end of the hallway. But when I compare to how busy I am, I don't want his schedule and the things he does. It's an extremely busy position and just thank goodness he's there. That we ever need.

I mean, maybe I shouldn't say it in here, but I jokingly tell people all the time, I really hope I never have to use all of my job at one time. So it's not a good day for Orem. Um, and then same thing, just a bunch of training. So work with our city employees as well as our city residents, um, just on a wide variety of different trainings that we put on. And now with your EOC upstairs, we're going to try to boost those trainings. Again, I try to walk the fine line of making sure our employees are trained without overwhelming them from their daily jobs as well. So, but we are going to start doing a few more of those where we bring the whole group together rather than individual department trainings.

Some mock activations will really make us all much more comfortable in our own roles for sure.

I have a question.

Is Everbridge advertised or pushed during City Drill and It is.

Yeah.

It pushed pretty big during those. And then any of these outreach, any of these fairs or Orem Fest, I have cards that I hand out to everybody. So, and then just a bunch of different exercises. So I worked again with the city, with the county, with the state, FEMA, with our school districts, and we've gone through quite a few. exercises and after-actions with each other. So it's been, it's been great. I just have 2 slides left here. So it's kind of a summary of what we've talked about as far as mayor and council roles. Let's go off this checklist off the right here on the screen. Just direct with city manager and exec staff declaring those local emergencies, approving the spending. And then setting that 30,000-foot-level priority list for Orem City to make sure that we are— that boots on the ground are moving in the right direction of what mayor and council and exec staff wants. So then I kind of like this slide, just the last little summary here. Um, again, that bottom there is that life's— the, the LIP acronym, life safety. Um, so the 3 questions. So I think this is a good slide. Instead of why aren't they doing X, ask what is the risk to life, stabilization, property, and city right now? What decisions require elected authority or political judgment? And then what support or policy clarity does exec staff, the EOC, or the incident response need from us? So if you're answering those 3 questions, that's gonna funnel down and affect how boots on the ground, right, what their priorities are. So instead of getting mad at people out in the field, asking those 3 questions, and it'll probably lead to, you know, an answer or mayor and council needing to push a different direction. Um, so that's all I have. I'll throw up this last slide just with a couple quotes that I think are great for emergency management and my favorite picture, so I also put it That was from some fire.

Fire around somewhere.

That's, that's going to be one of my next budget extension requests.

Just kidding. The bucket?

The thing holding the bucket. Never want to have to utilize it. airlift for water ever again. So cool.

So thanks again for your time.

Thank you.

Nice to meet you.

Good to meet you too. I'm, I'm grateful to have this information. I kept thinking of the impediment as we— this may— I, I can picture it running smoothly, but these little guys are going to go— if, if there's cell service, they're going to go nuts with us, right? So we just have to set them down and say we need to follow focus on—

for sure.

Mayor, can I just make one comment? All right. I mean, this is extremely impressive. For those of you that were at the retreat with me, I showed you some survey results I've been doing about what makes people love their communities. One thing I didn't share with you, but we did ask in that, was, has your community experienced a tragedy? And then did that tragedy bring your community closer together? And We just have a lot of evidence that tragedies handled correctly are community-building events. Tragedies handled incorrectly are community-dividing events. And so I think you've set us up really well to have potentially a very meaningful experience, even in the face of tragedy, if it isn't.

Thank you. This is great, great work. Hope we never have to use it all.

That's my hope. Then obviously feel free to send an email or call if you have any questions or follow-up from any of this stuff.

Thank you, Heath.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. We've got just a couple minutes. I wanted to give Councilmember Kilpatrick the opportunity to give a report. As if you have information, is it for committees? Is that what it is?

Okay.

Typically has—

sorry, this is my first rodeo.

It typically has been, and those have all been changed, so I can report on what we have done. But as you wish, I'm here to—

Whatever you would.

So the commission, uh, areas where I've been helping on this last while has been the library and also events. Library is going to be Quinn coming up, and events will be Crystal and Jeff. And, uh, Jen and I were on the events previously. Also historic preservation, and Crystal and I actually served there, and that was Jeff. And, uh, and then the ULCT, the LPC committee, and the vote. Crystal now has that that I had last year. The library is moving forward. We've heard— in fact, rather than talk a lot about the things that we all heard in the retreat, that's basically Discussion. Uh, the library is in good hands, and I'm so grateful for all of those who serve in the library, particularly those that are the professionally certified librarians that have given their whole entire focus and effort to help our community enjoy the resources that we can gain there. And then just, just a shout out to their leadership and As being here, having passed that on. Um, on the, on the Events Commission also, that's, uh, been, uh, consolidated. Used to be the, uh, old Orem Fest version, and now we still celebrate the Orem Fest, but it's, um, now all the major events as were described, it's all under that. And that's a marvelous, well-run machine that helps all of our citizens enjoy major events, uh, including the one that we're still enjoying through— is it still February 14th?

The lights on.

So kudos again to all those who serve there. Historic preservation is an important part of our, um, community where they do that survey, they do that kind of roll through and determine what parts of the city they have rolled when they're doing that survey, and then determining those parts of the city that could be utilized for historic preservation. And also consideration for possible rejuvenation. So that's been an effective and important committee. And then, of course, we've heard from Mr. ULCT himself this evening. I had that privilege of participating. So just thank all of you for the privilege of serving with all of you and look forward to doing whatever I can on any of those commissions and your new responsibilities.

I look forward to a great break.

Thank you for your report. I appreciate it. Um, I'm gonna take 1 minute here, I guess, to have a minute, a couple minutes before we start our, our regular council meeting. The agenda review, we are having the presentation from Representative Lisa Shepherd. Representative David Schallenberger will be joining her.

He's right behind you.

Oh, he's here.

He's ready to go.

Okay.

Um, and then we're gonna have a presentation on, um, Mr.— uh, say Mr. Chris. The Chris, you're getting, uh, water emergency repair recognition. And then, uh, Pete, you have the City Council retreat recap. Uh, retreat recap. And then we have some consent. We have personal appearances and we have some consent items. Uh, Quinn, or Councilmember Member Meekum, you had— I call my kids all their different names. I only have 2 kids and I never call them the right names. So you guys are in for a treat. Um, you have a change. What did you—

did you have—

I just had a question on our minutes. Uh, as I was looking over them, they were very substantive. Um, on the 2nd to last page, which is page 24, at the very top, There was— and maybe Theresa, you could just help us think through this. There was— it appeared to be a motion that was passed twice on the same thing, but by different people. I just wanted to verify that that was right. So at the top of page 24, and then if you go to the bottom of page 23, It looked to me like it might be conflicting. So if so, I'm happy to support the minutes amendment.

Okay, as Teresa's looking at that, just a couple of— a few other things on the consent items. The updated City Council's meeting schedule to reflect different— some different events that are happening during the year. Appointment of city representative to the Utah Lake Authority, and, and that would be myself. And then we have An appointment, one appointment this evening to the Events Advisory Commission, and we have Taylor Fox. Question I have on the financial information, do I, uh, Brandon, do I turn the time over to you? Is that just something for our own edification?

It's the second one.

Okay, and then you have— then do you—

Yeah, I just share a couple of things coming up.

Okay, and then we adjourn to a closed session in the Summit Conference Room, and that's going to require a motion and a second and 2/3 vote. We just learned that, refreshed our memories on that tonight to discuss pending employment location, character, professional competence of an individual, or purchase or lease of real property.

All right.

Yeah, so let's table the minutes and then—

With that, did you see what I was seeing?

So let's just table them.

Okay, so we'll pull the— we'll pull the minutes out of the consent. And bring them back for the next meeting. Is that what you're saying?

Okay, thank you.

We can do that.

And then also on the library, um, we were going to possibly have a person, but they're not on the list, so we'll just make sure we get them on the next because that was—

oh yes, yeah, an individual here in person.

So they move it.

Yeah, appreciate that. Alrighty, thank you all.

See you any Oh, that's the one. What he described is the best one.

Love it.

If I'm being honest, yeah.

I'll sit up here.

Oh, I got it. Here we go.

It goes fast.

So basically, uh, operational—

one of them was a wonderful operational So the division manager, they decide to run it.

Well, I would say in that case, I probably like riding a bike.

I'm like, oh yeah, planning and strategy. It wasn't—

well, I mean, the question was, do you have to have a builder? That was one of the ones.

I don't know, like, we're of course discussing things without—

80%.

Which, which, which, uh, classic speech.

I know.

And it's like they're not going to have that.

Enjoy doing that stuff.

Like, I've done some stuff sometimes. I just—

Good evening. I'd like to welcome you to the first city council meeting of, of the Orem City Council in 2026. And I am Karen McCandless. I was only sworn in as mayor last week, so yes, tonight is my first rodeo, and then at the end of the month I'll have my second rodeo. So please bear with me as, as I embark on this adventure of running the council meetings. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve with my colleagues up here on the dais. We had a 2-day city council retreat where we got together and discussed priorities for the coming year and had a really good opportunity to get to know each other better. And I'm really, really excited about what we're going to be able to accomplish here in the coming year. Each person up here loves Orem and wants what's best for our city, and I look forward to to moving Orem even higher and better in the coming year with, with my colleagues here. And you'll hear a report on that retreat here shortly. So we'll go ahead and open our meeting with an invocation or inspirational thought by Julie Colby, and then Isaac Colby will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Our most gracious Father in heaven, we thank thee for this beautiful city in which we live, for the peace and prosperity that we enjoy, and we thank thee for these dedicated public servants that have given so much of their time, their talents, and their energy to serving this community. Father, we ask thee to bless them, that their ears will be open to the concerns of the citizens, that their hearts will be full of empathy for those with points of views that differ from their own, and intellects that are clear and sharp to discern the best solutions to any challenges that face this community at this time. Father, this is our prayer humbly in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen. Thank you.

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, Julie and Isaac, for, for the prayer and, and the pledge. The next item on the agenda is we have a legislative report. Let's— oh, perfect timing, we have 2 of our, 2 of our great state representatives here. We have Representative Lisa Shepard and we also have Representative David Schallenberger, and they're going to give us an update and a legislative report. So let Representative Shepard have a seat for a second and, and then we'll go ahead and turn the time over to you. to welcome— keep pushing the button.

Thank you. Good evening and congratulations to everyone that's here and making it through those reflections. Appreciate your service. We understand what that is like. I'm Representative Lisa Shepherd. I represent Southwest Orem, and I will let my colleague introduce himself.

David Schallenberger.

I'm in the North Representative Schallenberger and I are the only ones that represent both Provo and Orem, so we like to team up and go places together. I wanted to give you a brief report regarding the policy priorities of the House Majority Caucus, and we have worked very hard on this one and listened to voters. And you just listened to voters, so we would love some feedback from you as well as some things as we head into into session on next Tuesday so that we can have your perspectives in our mind as we're looking at potential legislation. So we have addressed— we're trying to address the cost of living, and that will be reining in property taxes. We're looking at cutting taxes, lowering gas prices— that's a big one that's very popular— and keeping homeownership in, in within reach.

Thanks.

We're also trying to focus on, uh, the strong families, supporting families, protecting children, whether it's in schools or on our streets, and different, uh, policies that we can do to, to make that a priority.

Thank you. We're also looking at limited government, so we're protecting Utah's economy with balanced budgets and smart investments. And I'm on the Revenue and Taxation Committee, so I'll get to look at some of these issues with budgets and investments and revenue and taxation. We'll be cutting government spending, and we're looking at mitigating federal uncertainty. As you're aware that we had that great big beautiful bill that has affected Utah, the state of Utah's budget by $300 million. So we're looking at ways to, to make sure we can get our budgets and be able to serve as well at that time.

Thanks.

And, uh, infrastructure, uh, I've been appointed as the House representative for MAG, which helps with the road planning throughout Utah County. So working with the mayor and all the mayors across the county is a big deal, and helping to have a bridge of connection and communication with the state and with our county and municipalities. Critical minerals is a huge issue. Utah is one of the few states that they've identified 60 critical minerals that goes into phone, like, circuit boards, things like that. And Utah is one of the only states that has a huge number of those. We have 50 of the 60 critical minerals found in Utah. So trying to make that a— working with the state government, with the federal government on grants to help get those into our communities and from manufacturing, mining to manufacturing to the processing of everything. So it's exciting.

I'm excited that he's on that one. I used to go to the MAG meetings as well when I worked for the county commission. And that's great that you're there. I appreciate that you do that. We're looking at making sure for accountability and transparency, and you can see what it is. Well, I guess for the benefit of the audience, I'll let you know too. So we're gonna try to restore representative democracy, and that has to do with our redistricting going on right now. We want to enhance election integrity and transparency in government and judicial accountability and accessibility. So as far as enhancing election integrity, I couldn't tell you right this minute how many bills I have that address that, but I do have a Secretary of State bill so that we can restore that separation of powers there. And it's a structural issue, it's not a personality issue, it's just structural. So I have that, and I have a couple other ones too that are addressing the signature verification process and bringing more transparency into that. And I have a bill that addresses grandma. So if you are the— if you're in the approval process and a grandma request is about you, you just don't engage. That's basically all it is. That's pretty common sense.

Obviously, water is a big issue. I'm running a few water bills, whether they're helping with the Great Salt Lake, or just making sure that we have water forecasted out into the future. So working with the state engineer, with our Central Utah Water Conservancy District, we actually have a huge brain trust here in Orem that represents the state. So we have the— Gene Shawcroft lives just on the Provo side of our border, but he represents Utah in our Colorado River Compact in the negotiations. So very close. And we have former Senator Valentine, he's the head of the tax division. And Jim Evans helps with our transportation, helps plan that for the state. And just on the Lyndon side, we have Jeff— Mayor Jeff Asason, who's one of the directors of UTA, so also there. So we have a great influence coming out of Orem and our area for help planning with the state. And water is going to be a big deal. It's, it's an exciting time.

I'm on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, and we are definitely looking at some public safety issues. We want to maintain Utah's high quality of life by keeping our communities among the safest in the nation. We're going to address homelessness. And if you know Representative Clancy, he's going to be the homeless czar. Not sure what they're calling him, but we're calling him the czar for the state of Utah as soon as our session's over. So we're excited about him. doing that, but not excited about him leaving our body. We want to help keep Utah safe. And so, Chief Robinson, I'm really looking forward to partnering with you on some of these issues. I also have a bill about decontamination. So in some of our retail lodging facilities, sometimes there's decontamination regarding hazardous chemicals. So we're looking more at meth and fentanyl. And I have a bill addressing that. And so I will have a conversation with our good chief of police here so he has some idea of what's going on with that. That actually has been brought to me by Provo, and so I'm carrying that one for Provo, but it's also a necessary bill for across the state. So we do have that issue. I have a child suicide amendment bill as well that's going to deal with some public safety with children as well.

Thanks.

And the last priority for our House caucus is education. I saw I saw a report today that there's already like 40 bills opened addressing education issues, and that's not uncommon. So the educators across the state, every year they just feel like they're drinking from a fire hose because it's— some of them are trying to tighten up education, some of them are trying to fund education, control phone use in education, pull funds out of education, send it to homeschool. Or just all across the board. So it's, uh, I don't even know how to describe it. It's just all over the place. So I feel bad for the people in education because it's all over the place. Uh, I, I did want to point out I'm grateful for the City Council, specifically Jen Gill. One of the things that came up this summer was the wilderness, the wildlife management area up here, up in the foothills. If you remember back at the beginning of the summer, a bill went into effect that required hikers and bikers and anyone that went up there to buy a hunting or fishing license, at least $40. And we've been working on this and been getting input from the city, from the recreation teams, the bike teams, the hikers, the neighbors up there, and the different communities. And we had a bill go through Natural Resources that I Senator Stratton and I are sponsoring that really are bringing all the groups together, and I think we found a win-win for everybody. That's gonna— the wildlife folks are really excited about it. It's not going to require anybody to pay money for a license. They'll watch like a little educational video that explains what is unique about the wildlife areas, but still allow a lot of recreation up there. And in fact, also provide an avenue for people to donate money, whether it's $5 or $100, and that's going to go directly to these areas to improve trails and maintenance and the wildlife up there, as well as provide service opportunities. The, the bike teams, these high school bike teams, put in hundreds of hours of trail work for this area, and the wildlife groups are going to open that up to the hikers, the neighbors up there, and have some public service days. So So we'd love to work with the city and DWR and maybe have some public service days to do some trail cleanup or some different things up in the foothills. And so that'd be a great collaborative effort as that rolls forward.

I'm really grateful that Representative Schallenberger has taken that one on. I received quite a few phone calls after session from some of my constituents actually in Orem. And so, you know, Had a chance to have a conversation with him. He went right to work to to get that taken care of. I did want to go back to education real quick, and as you understand, if you've if you've been in schools, have kids in schools, or if you've been administrator, school teacher, any of the above, that it's really difficult with all the bills that we pass to be able to get those those those laws and and get the and just get it all planned out. Sorry, I couldn't think my words right there. Get all of it planned out and make sure that you're in compliance with law before you start the school year. And that's very difficult. So I have a bill that actually puts a default day for education to have that start the following— the end of the school year, the following school year, the end of that school year, so that they'd be enacted then. So when we have our public safety, when we have the different issues and, and all that we're requiring from our school districts. We want them to be able to actually— this is my bill— want them to be able to have time to be able to thoroughly think through it and get their, get their projects, you know, going the right way. So I appreciate that.

I am—

I really also appreciate the opportunity to partner with Orem City. Representative Schallenberger and I did, and the other representatives and senators from Orem, and to partner with you last month and sending a letter and making sure that you guys get to do your types of zoning with high density and that. So thank you for letting us be a part of that. Do you want to ask them?

No, one of my goals for the new year, New Year resolution. So we just finished our first year in the house, starting year 2. And one of my New Year's resolutions is to really have the great communication with the cities that I work with. So, Lindon, Orem, and Provo. So, if— please text if there's any specific bills that you have issues with or problems, or— I was just telling, uh, Brad and Bybee that we have like 800 bills come up during the session. It's hard to track every one of them. And so sometimes if we get a text saying, hey, this bill is a concern, it's coming up, if you hear something that helps put it on the radar to let us zone in and give it specific attention and Then that helps a lot, and we'll try to bring anything to your attention that might affect ORM that we see that might not be on your radar. So, have better communication going both ways.

Yes, really appreciate that opportunity to do that too. I met with the mayor for, I don't know, an hour and a half or so, and was able to hear some things, and, and I shared some things with her. So, again, that 2-way conversation is essential for us as we're looking at that potential legislation. Sometimes you guys are the boots on the ground over here. We need you. So thank you for that.

And my invitation goes out to everyone out in the audience. Please reach out. We'd love to hear from you.

Yeah, amen to that. And especially too with our police chief and fire chief, love to have that communication with you two as well so to make sure that when we're looking at bills that affect Orem's fire and police and public safety overall, that we can address needs and that we can know what they are if we need to an amendment on a bill, or if something's not right, or, or, hey, let's go forward and do it. So thank you so much.

All right, thank you. Council, do you have any questions or any comments to the representatives? Um, Mrs. Millett?

So yeah, I just want a huge shout out thank you because I was on that Station Area Plan Committee and there was some misunderstanding, some miscommunications, and Basically not understanding what we have in Orem. You know, the legislation that was going to require us to place high density around every BRT station, every UVX station, would destroy our economic engine that we've invested 40, 50 years in this commercial infrastructure to provide the sales tax for our city budgets and the revenues there. So that letter that we received, I know it was just put together. You were so stepped up so quickly there. And And we just appreciate— I was in that meeting when those questions came up, and it was— we just felt so grateful to be supported by you as a city to help, you know, keep the understanding that one size misfits all, you know, that, that, that directive that was placed on us by the legislature didn't fit our city. So the fact that you guys are willing to stand up and with us, I so appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, Councilmember Kilpatrick, and then Councilmember Gale.

And just thank you so much for interfacing with us on the, on the local level on all that you do, and, and appreciate your skill set and what you're accomplishing there to help represent all of us in the state. So just being here tonight and, and also expressing your major priorities for the coming session is very helpful, and we just thank you for Your willingness to represent all of us here in this part of the state.

Thank you.

I just want to echo what Chris said, but, but specifically, thank you for being proactive. We didn't have to ask you to come. You wanted to come, and we really appreciate that. And this is fabulous. It's really helpful, and you can bet we'll be calling you. So thanks for opening the doors to make it easier for us to do that.

And make sure you have our cell phone so you can text us. I will answer your calls on the floor unless I'm getting ready to speak. I will answer your text messages if you're my constituent, and you guys would be representing our shared constituencies. We need to hear from you if something's happening and there's a substitute, it's not working. Same with our police chief and fire chief. If it's not working and you need something, you need us to jump into action, please text us both.

Right, thank you. And I want to express my thanks, and we did spend an hour, this, um, from 3:30 to 4:30 with Cameron Deal from the Utah League of Cities and Towns, and we discussed several different bills and possible bills that would be coming— that could be coming forward in the legislative session that we as a city have a particular interest in. I see a couple of them here, the reining in property taxes and keeping homeownership within reach. So I'm sure that as we have our new assignments, as far as legislative responsibilities that I, I'm sure you'll be hearing from us, and we would love to visit with you and learn more.

And I'm—

and thank you for taking the initiative to come and meet with us this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, item 7.2 is a presentation, water emergency repair recognition. Our Public Works Director, Chris Shirkey, and our Public Works Assistant Director, Reed Price, and a group of others whose names are not on this paper. The ones to be recognized.

They will be revealed momentarily. So I'm Chris Shirkey. I'm the Public Works Director for the City of Orem. I have with me my Assistant Director Reed Price over Water Resources and Quinn Fenton, Over our water. He's our water manager for the whole city. The city of Orem has about a $24 million budget for all of the water in the water system in the entire city, which includes our wells, our drinking water, our sources, all of our storage facilities, all of our distribution lines, and so on and so forth. Each year we dedicate about $3 million for the operation and maintenance and of areas where we have significant challenges or problems. And as you might imagine, it's hard to identify where all those are over 500 miles of water lines in the city. Oftentimes they will manifest on their own and let us know where the problems are. And tonight we're going to tell you a little bit about what happened in the last— about 2 or 3 weeks ago. And I'll let Reed and Quinn provide further information and then recognize some of our team here tonight. So thank you.

Yeah, well, this is kind of an unusual opportunity to have a few water guys in the room with no mud tracks coming in here. So it's kind of nice to see the clean carpet. But where it's the first council meeting, I'll keep it short. I'm going to just read this so I don't get off track. Hopefully get you guys out here at a good time. But the dedication of the Water Division team was on full display the first week of December as crews stayed behind starting at 3 o'clock on Thursday, the very start of their scheduled weekend, to tackle an unrelenting series of infrastructure failures. What began as a 10-hour shift changed into a 30-hour marathon for several employees as they battled 9 challenging breaks west of I-15. The culprit was failing ductile iron pipe that was installed in the early 1990s, which has fallen victim to severe corrosion. The pressure was increased in this area about 15 pounds due to a very small 3/8 of an inch tubing leak on a control valve. And any increase or change in pressure uncovers weakness in the pipe system. Beyond the, beyond the physical toll that the guys were feeling, they also felt empathy for the residents, often having to deliver news that the water would be back on shortly, only to have another section of the pipe fail as the system was slowly re-energized. The job didn't end with plumbing. The massive amounts of mud throughout the neighborhood required extensive cleanup to restore the streets to a safe condition. It was commendable how the water crews organized and divided equipment and supported each other throughout the weekend's events. Some of the guys were here nearly 40 hours before we finally could get them home. But it started on Thursday afternoon, as I mentioned, 5 initial mainline leaks just as the guys were getting ready to go home after their 10-hour day. By Friday afternoon at 3 PM, there had been 9 repaired because 4 were generated from re-energizing the pipelines. Saturday there were 2 more, Sunday 1 more, Monday 1 more, and there's been 5 in the area since then. So, um, appreciate the recognition, the support from all of our city leaders, City Council, for financial support and just the confidence to run the water system. Appreciate the recognition And this group of guys right here and them showing up tonight. Yeah, it's, it's great. So appreciate that.

Yeah, our guys go above and beyond to make sure that we provide this essential service. So there were over 25 Public Works employees. It wasn't just the Water Division, but there was— there's expertise that have moved to other areas of Public Works. that we called on as well. But representing those that did respond, if they would stand up, we have Denver Foote, who's a field supervisor over the water distribution system. We have Colin Mackey, who is our backflow specialist. We have Mitchell, I can't remember your last name, Mitch.

Cox.

Cox, that's right. Mitchell Cox, who is a crew leader on the distribution crew. We've got Chris Clements, who's our water quality specialist. And then we have Mark Gibson, who is over Blue Stakes. This is just 5 of the 25-plus that responded, but we are really grateful for their dedication during this challenging and lengthy episode. We do have— we have been in touch with our engineering department and have plans to address these— this area, because it has been problematic in the past. And, and we do have funding in place to be able to ensure that— to fix this for, for the long term so that it's not just pieced together. So again, my hat's off to this, to, to our stellar crews that we have in, in Public Works to respond to these types of of situations and, and keep the city moving forward. I appreciate working with them and their, their dedication to, to the city.

Thank you. Let's give them a round of applause. That's the thing. Orem has outstanding employees, and if you will convey our, the council's appreciation to those who aren't here this evening who also worked on that. Thank you. Thank you for coming this evening and for the opportunity to, to recognize you. Um, Chris has a comment, and if the council members have anything they'd like to say, we'll go.

Mayor and council, as mentioned in our council retreat, I think I said this almost directly and, and, and, and very specifically to you, that these employees have left a lot of DNA in the trenches of the city of Orem throughout the city. And I mean blood, sweat, and tears. And I'm not kidding, their DNA is all over the city. This is a representative of 5, or of a portion of the, of the entire number of employees that responded at this time. And I'm just so proud of them. I like to say I'm very proud of their dedication. They're willing to come out when when, when, you know, at 3 in the morning to help on a water line, that's an emergency. It's not uncommon that happens throughout the winter seasons where the, where the ground is shifting. There's freezing and there's a thaw and there's a ground and a pipe shift and so forth. And it's not uncommon. And so this is— these are great employees that are dedicated to the city. I just can't tell you how proud I am of them. So thank you for the recognition.

Right, thank you. I just have to mention that earlier Well, this last fall I had the opportunity to walk around Orem a lot. And I remember one particular neighborhood, I came upon a very large hole with some of the— either you might have been or your colleagues were in the hole doing something. And they were— I just talked to them for a second and they were very kind. They said, oh, this isn't going to take much longer. They knew exactly what they were doing and just waiting. I think I think they're waiting for a piece of equipment to come at that point. But boy, they just— they didn't know who I was, and they just chat with anybody who comes and walks by while they're standing in that hole. All right, Councilmember Gale.

Okay, I just want to say thank you guys for coming tonight because I'm sure that you're like, like, this is so awkward and embarrassing, but I am so grateful that you're here so that we could hear this story and so that our residents can hear this story because you guys really are the superheroes of our city. You keep it running and you do it behind the scenes that most people don't even know what's happening from day to day. We turn our water on and it works and we don't even think about it, but without you, that would not happen. So, as a resident and as a member of the city council, I'm just really grateful for what you do.

So, thank you.

Thank you, Brynn.

Um, we would like to never forget this awkward and embarrassing recognition and ask that these gentlemen come up and get their pictures taken with Oh, make it even more awkward.

Did you have any comments?

I'll make sure they can—

do we— oh, okay. I'll switch it up.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, this is coming together nicely.

All right, 1, 2, 3. Okay, thanks a bunch, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Right, thank you. Our item 7.3 is next, our City Council retreat recap. The presenter is going to be Pete Wolfley, our Communications Manager.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. As you talked about at the beginning of the meeting, we did have a wonderful retreat this past weekend. This is a very important ritual for the City Council and for the exec staff because it's a chance for us to look back on the previous year and see what good things happened and what we still need to improve upon. And then also it's a chance to look forward and work together so that that we set out our goals and our vision for the year. So I just wanted to start real quick. You were all there, you knew what happened, but we like to come forward and do this in a public meeting, one, to clue the public in on what we talked about, but also to commit to you as employees and as exec staff that we're going to carry this vision forward and give it our best effort to make these things happen in 2026. So just real quick, we lined up a whole bunch of different things that follow the areas of of your focus, city council areas of focus. And so there's 6 categories, and we're just going to hit on a few of the highlights. Um, just a second. This is last year's presentation. Like, this feels familiar. Yeah, like, tell you all the old stuff that happened. 1 second. Okay, so I apologize for that. I didn't want to bore you with last year's details. Let's do something new. All right, so this is all the topics that we discussed over the 2 days, and just with a little bit of detail about each one. So as you can see, it covered all kinds of different topics and categories and touched everything from really huge hard things to tackle to really super easy things. But it all is built together to— now I'm hearing myself.

Holy cow.

So it's all put together to make Orem better, to build a better Orem. So the first area is aligning the City Council, the city employees, and the citizens. And we've already kind of started on this first one, which is improving improving our legislator relations. So you saw 2 representatives from our state legislature come and just building those relationships, making sure that Orem is well represented. We want to focus on school board connections. So with the new school board coming online, we want to make sure that we're staying close to them, giving them the support they need and the support that we need. And then of course working with our boards and commissions, our dedicated volunteers, to make sure that we're moving the vision forward. The next area is the safe, livable, connected, and engaged neighborhoods. A big thing that we've been working on is getting this across the, the goal line is this short-term rental regulation. That's something that we've been working on for over a year. We want to make sure we see that through this year. Renewing and engaging Orem neighborhoods, you heard a little bit about that from our representatives. And then one thing I'm super excited about is this increasing public art and artistic opportunities for both residents and artists who are outside of Orem, just to strengthen neighborhoods and quality of life here in the city. For our thriving and balanced business environment, we want to really solicit more feedback from the business community. We've always tried to be supportive. We've tried to make it really easy to own a business here in Orem, but we want to hear from our business community and make sure that we're giving them the help that they need. Keep building on the momentum of the Orem Business Alliance, which has been a huge hit, and then this year start the Economic Development Tiger Team, which will be a group of skilled individuals, interdisciplinary, who can really make great economic things happen for Orem. Then we have our dependable infrastructure. You know, we just saw, you know, a great team from Public Works who works on this every single day. Obviously, we want to preserve corridors for our public use, work on some traffic congestion solutions. We work with UTA and UDOT to improve public transit and then finish our active transportation plan. And then, of course, we There's a big initiative this year to plant a lot more trees, which we're excited about. On community focus and effective government, we want to get a broader pulse on the community, you know, not just going off of what we see on Facebook, but, you know, what are people really thinking about what we're trying to accomplish here? What do citizens from every walk of life want us to work on? What matters to them? And then kind of beef up our comparative city analysis and cross-city collaboration. So working with our sister cities and the cities that are most like us across the country and in the state of Utah to see what can we learn from them that would help us do a better job here. And then finally, our skilled and talented workforce. We're always focused on cross-training certifications and career growth opportunities, making sure that we're growing from within, that we're promoting from within, and giving our people chances to really sink in in Orem and set down some roots and grow and have that job satisfaction. Satisfaction. We also talked about this employee speakers bureau that we're really excited about, a chance for, you know, exec-level employees to go out and meet with civic organizations, talk to kids, talk to schools, and let them know, you know, what's happening in the city. And then just, you know, we've built on this for the last several years, but more employee interactions both for you and for management. That way everyone knows what's going on and feels connected to the mission of what we're doing here in Orem. So with that in anything you would add about the retreat, just from my perspective. This was the 4th one I've got to be a part of. It was amazing. I walked away feeling so optimistic, hopeful, and just energized for where we're going to go from here. So thank you all. But if you have any comments, I'd love to hear them.

Right. Thank you, Pete. Council, do you have any questions or comments? Councilmember Lamson.

Thank you. Thanks, Pete, for that presentation. And I just want to say I came away feeling the same way—

energized, optimistic, and happy.

And, uh, thank you to you and, and the exec staff that were there, um, for working with us in those brainstorming opportunities and, and helping us to— uh, the fact that you've got this put together so quickly just says a lot about who you are. And so thank you for, for all that you've done.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. Um, Councilmember Meekum.

This was my first retreat, uh, and, uh, I was just so impressed with the way that, uh, the mayor and the, and the executive staff facilitated a wonderful conversation. I felt like our ideas were taken very seriously and, uh, that we've developed a really nice mode of collaboration early in the year that has to do with a lot of the quality of the people in the room and just the, the way that you want to work together with us. So thank you so much.

Right.

Anyone else?

All right. Um, I have a question. Is this going to be posted publicly? Is this— are these areas— is that going to be something that it would be easily publicly accessible?

Yeah, so we have the areas of focus posted on the City Council website, but if you'd like us to go into more detail with some of the things we talked about and some of our initiatives this year, we can do that as we move forward.

Okay, right, thank you. All right, and that concludes our presentations, and we're going to move to item number 8, which is personal appearances. And so this time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas and concerns and comments on items that aren't on the agenda this evening. So the Your comments should be focused on issues concerning the city. And you have— and I have the sign-in sheet. And what would be helpful is, as I ask you to come up, if you can state your name and your connection to Orem. It could be that you live in Orem, or you grew up in Orem, or you wish you lived in Orem, or you shop in Orem, whatever it is. Just, just it helps us as a council understand.

Thank you.

understand what your connection is to our— to this great community. So the first person on the agenda is Tammy— okay, I'm gonna kill it— Santistevan. Okay, come on, it's— you're first, and I'm sorry I just massacred your name.

And also, do you mind if I sit down?

Go ahead and sit down.

Okay, so, um, my name is Tammy Santa Steven. Um, I have lived in Orem and have worked in Orem for many years. I actually worked for Alpine School District. I've worked for Alpine School District for over 20 years, and most of that has been in the city of Orem, Mountain View High School, Canyon View Junior High. Um, we've lived here for many, many years. Um, yeah, over, over 30 years.

Yeah, so welcome.

Thank you. So we, we thoroughly enjoy Orem. Um, it's a beautiful city. Um, so the reason I am here today, and I have a picture up, this is a picture of my son Um, as I said, my name is Tammy Santistevan, and I'm here to talk about my son Jamal and the request that I have for him. So my son Jamal was born November 11th, 2001, at Utah Valley Regional Hospital. He grew up here and attended Orchard Elementary, Canyon View Junior High, and Orem High School, and he spent his days with his family and friends, many of whom over the course of time became extended family members. His passions in life were basketball, football, and baseball, which he played both in school and in the city leagues. He also spent endless hours in the mountains hunting with family, fishing the surrounding lakes and rivers, and camping. One of his favorite spots to fish was just below the spillway on the Provo River. During his last year of life, he spent many hours fishing that particular stretch of water because this is where he found his peace. He was the light of our lives, making us laugh at his jokes, the game we— the games we played, and the love that he had for his family and friends. Despite his age, he was a shoulder to lean on in hard times, possessing wisdom well beyond his years. Yesterday marked 8 months since I lost my son to physical complications and the inability to cope with his own challenges. Because I decided to have him cremated, there isn't a traditional spot for family and friends to come together and remember this extraordinary young man who supported others facing life's challenges, even though he couldn't always do the same for himself. Tonight, I ask for permission to place a memorial at the site where we celebrated his life. Timpanogos Park, one of his favorite places to fish along the Provo River, holds special meaning. His spirit lives on in all the people and places he touched, and I can think of no more fitting A place for us to gather and honor in his memory. Along with this request, because red was Jamal's favorite color, my request involves placing a red steel bench with his name, birth and date of birth and death, along with his image fabricated by Smith Steelworkers in Spanish Fork, which I understand they work with you guys in all of your parks for that sort of thing.

Thank you.

Um, and I thank you for your kindness and your consideration for my request.

All right, thank you. And I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for, for your loss. And, uh, so I'm not sure who would be the best, best one of our staff members for, for Tammy to, to work with on the possibility of Of a bench at Mount Timodocus Park.

Yeah, I'll—

we'll ask her to get with our Public Works Director, Chris Shirkey, and, and, or I don't see Bryce here as well, but we do have a specific internal policy for this type of thing. And so we'll, we'll work with this individual to see what might be done.

Okay, thank you.

Right. Thank you.

Thank you for coming this evening again. I'm sorry. My condolences.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Right. Second person is Scott DeGearing.

Yeah.

And are you Alex too?

I am.

Okay. So you two are going to be tag teaming?

Yeah, we are.

Yeah.

Okay.

So if you can at least state your names and why we're here. What brings you to Orem this evening?

Hello, I'm Scott DeGearing, and this is my colleague Alex. Milne, and I'm from Orem, grew up here. I went to Orem High School, so I have good roots here. And Alex did not, unfortunately, but we worked together. We worked together for about 8 years at Summit Energy, and we are a natural gas supplier, a third-party supplier of natural gas through Enbridge Gas lines. So Enbridge Gas has a program, and it's in their— inside their tariff that allows big industrials and commercial users to buy their natural gas wholesale cheaper than you would through Enbridge's lines. So Summit Energy does not own the infrastructure. It's Enbridge Gas that owns the lines, but we put our gas in their lines and deliver to these industrial customers, assuming that you qualify. And there's specifics of how you can qualify. Usually it's a consumption of natural gas, a certain amount. But we used to supply the City of Orem, the rec center and the wastewater treatment plant for about 8 years. And so, but in 2024, Orem City left. And so the, you know, there is some cost savings that's being lost there from not buying third-party gas. And so that's why we're here. And I'll let Alex kind of talk about what that savings looks like and some of our other supplier— customers, sorry.

Sure.

Yeah, we currently serve just about every school district in the state, including Alpine and Orem. The 2 meters that we did serve before, like you said, were the rec center and the wastewater treatment plant. We ran some analysis based on average of past usages. If you guys were to come back into the TS program, you guys would be saving approximately $90,000 over the next year starting in July with the way that the current rates are set up and the market cost. What it means to move over to the TS rate— and I can give these to you guys if anybody would like to look at these.

Okay.

Uh, what, what it means is just you have the opportunity to then look at what market cost is rather than retail cost, um, provided through the utility. It's a terrific way for municipalities, cities, whoever's going to utilize that to save money. Um, so that's really all we have to say.

Right. Thank you. Um, uh, Bryn, may I ask you to follow up with them on this?

Yeah, I am familiar with it, and we'll, we'll look into it. Um, there was a specific reason why we left out of it before, but so we'd want to make sure that we didn't run into the same, uh, concern of the past. But, uh, again, happy to look into it.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right, we'll talk to you later. All right, Byron Workman. Welcome.

Thank you.

I am— I, I have 2 attachments to Orem. One, I work for the city of Orem, which I love, best job I've ever had. And 2, I've lived here since 1979, with the exception of the 8 years that I was in the Air Force. And so there was no question we were coming back to Orem when our service was done. Um, the reason I'm here tonight is because I had a really scary experience On my personal time with my wife, and I want to bring it to your attention because I think it needs to be addressed. I know there's been issues, other issues besides what I'm going to talk about with the car dealerships along State Street. There's so many of them. But we were driving along State Street going out to dinner with some friends. This is a few weeks ago, and I'm old, so I eat early so I can go to bed. And it was late afternoon, early evening. And there was between 4th and 8th North, there were 2 big rigs in the middle lane unloading cars for 2 different dealerships at the same time. And if I wasn't a very cautious driver, I would have killed somebody. I barely missed this guy. If there was a car next to me, I'd have taken them out to miss him. And I think that if car dealerships are going to function on our State Street and they're going to unload cars, they need to do it on their own property. And if they don't have the room to do it, then they need to do it somewhere else and drive the cars to their property.

Thank you.

It's dangerous and someone's going to get killed, and I don't want to be responsible for that. The second concern I have is on Center Street. There's a— as you go underneath the freeway and you head towards Geneva, and I realize that road is really congested and there are plans to expand it, there's a sheetrock company who, again, middle of the day, they'll park right in the middle between the lanes and unload sheetrock. It's dangerous and someone's going to get killed. And if we don't already have something on the books, we should put something on the books and make it illegal. I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

You bet.

I'm sorry, that was— it sounds like a very traumatic experience, scary experience. I don't know what the laws are in our community or the state, on the state roads or local roads about that, but I'm going to look over at Brent again and—

Yeah, we do have laws and practices that we engage in, and I know that our public safety follows up on these inappropriate or inappropriate loading and unloading, but that's something that we can put some extra attention and thought to and make sure that our Tiger Traffic team is included in kind of that thought process. And also, I'll just say, Byron knows that I love him to death, and he's— he knows where I office as well. So, and I think he's got a key to it too.

All right, so there— yes, we'll have some follow-up, um, for you, Mr. Workman. And finally, we have, um, David Shorten. If you would like to come up, love to hear from you. I haven't seen you for a while. Welcome.

Hi, my name is David Short, and presently I reside in American Fork, but I do own a property at 155 East 980 North, which is just around the corner from Mr. DeGearing's house when he grew up. So, uh, if that's my— We moved to Orem in 1972, bought a home in 1974. I received over the weekend an email Uh, concerning landlord licensing, uh, I— the home in Orem that my wife Janet and I purchased in 1974— I feel like I'm talking in a barrel— in 1974 has continually stayed within our family. I own the home. When she passed away in 2005, I remarried And we subsequently moved. My son stays in the home. I pay all of the bills. I pay the property taxes and I pay the utilities. It is my understanding that one of the important points of why Orem passed this bill was that owners and renters— there was some discussion about who would pay the utilities. I pay all the Utilities. I've never been in arrears as far as I know, and so my concern is I'm being asked to get a license as a landlord to a property I do not rent out, nor do I derive income from. So, um, my question to the council is, how can I find an accommodation with you without having to license, uh, for an inter-family estate. When I pass away, the house goes into the estate, and then you can deal with my kids. I don't care. So what can I do, or who can I speak with?

Well, it's not, it's not an official renter. It's a family, you know. So I mean, again, since it's my first rodeo, I mean, I'm looking at you a lot, Brian.

I did speak with a lady this afternoon, and the phone number 7275, the extension, and she was very kind and very, uh, very helpful in explaining it. But it appears that the, the, um, the ordinance does require a license, if I understand the word correctly, that I would have to purchase, and then And my concern, the $55 is not the issue. It is the fact that if I now have a license as a rental, how do I square that with my income tax filings at the year also?

I mean, I, yeah, I'd love to have to connect you with our finance director, Brandon Nelson, to help look at your exact situation and how it relates to our policies. I believe that there's, especially where it's your direct immediate son and part of your—

Yeah, we're immediate family. I'm not asking for a carve-out of a huge thing, but maybe we can reach some consideration accommodation.

Yeah, no, you seem like a very reasonable gentleman. Let's make sure we talk it through.

Should I contact your office, or who should I see?

There's Brandon right over here. Okay, right there.

I'll saddle up with him afterwards and we'll find out something. Okay, thank you.

Of course.

Or if you would like to leave your contact information with Teresa, then Brandon can contact you as well.

Okay, I will do that. Thank you.

What's that?

Yeah.

Oh, yep.

All right, that concludes our personal appearances, and we're going to move to the consent items. There's going to be one item That is going to be pulled from the consent calendar and will be, uh, be approved at the next meeting, and that is 9.1, the meeting minutes of December 9th, 2025. So that will not be part of the consent calendar this evening, but rather it will be back on the agenda on January 27th.

So, Mayor, I move that we Table 9.1, approval of meeting minutes.

I second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Or do we do roll— do you do roll calls? Oh, okay. Sorry again. Sorry, y'all. It's my first rodeo. Um, we're gonna start down here. Councilmember Lamson.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, motion carries. And so, do you want me to make the next motion? Yes, please.

Mayor, I move that we approve the consent items 9.2 through 9.4.

Second.

All right, thank you. And I'm going to start this way.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, and that motion carries as well. Is Taylor Fox here this evening? Taylor, I would like to— I just wanted to welcome you. You were just approved to serve on our Advanced Advisory Commission. So, oh, and you're— and you're— you're personally— you're the boss of the family, is just as excited as you are. So welcome to the, the world of ORM boards and commissions. We're glad to have you. So, all right.

Karen, you should announce your appointment too. I'm sorry.

What's that?

Spoke by doing that motion so quickly.

Would you want to read through your appointment today?

You can do it.

You have this.

Oh, good. Let me do that.

Okay.

So just because I want to go back and state these consent items, 9.2 was approval of the 2026 City Council schedule. And then she said 9.4, but 9.3 is a resolution to appoint the city representative to the Utah Lake Authority Governing Board of Mayor Karen McCammon.

So, all right, so we've got motion. We just want to make sure we get all that like, like we're supposed to there. Thank you for catching that. I have a second motion. Is there a second?

Voted.

Oh, just clarifying. Okay, never mind. Okay. Uh, all right, so we've got— you're just clarifying what was done before. Okay, thank you. I apologize. And I'm not going to say it's my first rodeo. Um, this item number 10 is financial information. That's for the council. There you see our monthly financial summary for November 2025. And we have item number 11, the city manager information items. Mr. Bybee?

Yes, just a couple of quick items. Um, one, just want to make you and the public aware that Back by popular demand, the lights out here in City Center Park will be on until Valentine's Day again. And then interestingly, so we let you know before, I think we had about 7,900 people that came to Lights On, but since Lights On, we've had 23,000 unique individuals going and strolling the park there and enjoying the lights. So just over the last 2 and a half weeks or so. Well, no, I guess we do it since beginning of December, but the, the last handful of weeks, uh, is that many. So anyway, people are really enjoying it, and that will keep going and keep things a little brighter, uh, during these darker months. And then the next thing to, uh, be aware of is the, um, Volunteer Appreciation Dinner that's down at UVU. Not this coming Friday, but the Friday after at 6 PM. We'd love for y'all to be there, and in particular, you have assignments to, uh, help us give out the awards to the volunteers at that, at that dinner. And it's a lovely event. We want to make sure that all of our volunteers feel appreciated and, and recognized and know how much we love working with them.

That's it.

All right, thank you. All right, so the next item on the agenda is to adjourn to a closed-door session to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation, the character or professional competence of an individual, or the purchase or lease of real property. I'm going to need a motion and a second, and this is going to need to pass by a 2/3 vote.

Mayor, may I?

Yes.

Mayor, I move that, uh, we move adjourn to a closed session, uh, in the Summit Conference Room to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation or the character or professional competence of an individual or the purchase of leased or real property.

Second.

All right, I have a motion and a second. All right, go ahead. And, um, Councilmember Lamson?

Aye.

Councilmember?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, motion carries. So we are going to adjourn from this meeting and go to a closed-door session. Thank you all for coming this evening and take care.