City Council · 2026-03-10

To a future meeting. And the city council will be going into a closed-door session before the city council meeting. So we'll have that note. Appreciate Lieutenant Jameson coming in at a different time, and I appreciate his flexibility in doing that. But that will give us some time to cover a closed-door matter.

Thank you.

So with that, I will turn the time over. Oh, Steve, I— Baranowski. Okay, I'm gonna turn the time over to Mr. Baranowski from HomeServe USA, and he's the manager of partner success. And HomeServe USA, they're the company that we partner with to do water and sewer line insurance. So I'll turn it over.

Thanks, Mary.

Steve here.

We've been working with Steve for quite some time since we started the program and talking about saving water. These guys help our citizens save water in a certain way. And so, without further ado, I'm kind of the liaison. So, uh, come out several times to just discuss different elements with— I thought it might be a good point with Um, and the council engineer hasn't actually come and talked with council for a little while. I thought now would be a good time to have him come out and do that.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, Brandon. Yes, uh, good afternoon. I am Steve Pernowski, your account manager for the service line program. Uh, it's actually been quite a few years, I believe 3 years since I've last addressed council, and it was, um, well, we just surpassed $1 million in residential savings. So, um, I'm very appreciative of you. back and updating me on your program, because I do see a lot of new faces around since the last time I was out here. So, um, you— I can put a name to the face of the program, and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. I just really wanted to kind of talk about, for anyone that's unfamiliar, we are— what we do as a program, give you a little bit of, um, program oversight, and then dive into the statistics for Orem. And then kind of want to talk about ways that we can continue educating the residents of Orem the program is out there. So, who we are, we partner with over 1,300 municipalities and utilities throughout the United States to really educate residents on their water and sewer responsibilities. Most people don't know the water and sewer lines are their responsibility until something happens, and then the first thing they tend to do is call City Hall and say, hey, the guys are in my front yard, you guys need to come fix it, and have to have that unfortunate conversation that on the private side, this is actually your responsibility. So, what we've been doing since 2015 is we partnered with the City of Orem to send out direct mailers to your residents, letting them know that, hey, your water and sewer lines are your responsibility and offer optional coverage if residents are interested. So, we did a survey in 2025, and it showed that, you know, 81% of Residents or customers didn't have, or had a home repair emergency in the last 12 months, and then 1 in 4 didn't have $500 in their account to be able to pay for any such emergency that would pop up. So currently with the city of Orem, we have 2 coverages, the first being the water service line that is currently priced at $4.07 a month, and that is unlimited coverage. So, if a resident becomes one of our customers and they're having an issue, they give us a call. We are staffed 24/7, 365 to deal with any type of emergency. So, even if it's 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning and something's happening, they'll be able to call us and we'll get somebody dispatched out to their residence ASAP. And the nice thing is they only have to pay that $4.07 a month. If they do file a claim, there is no service charge, there is no deductible. And then with the coverage cap being unlimited, you know, if it's a complete line replacement, the residents don't have to worry about any out-of-pocket costs. So typically it could be a few hundred dollars just to do the line, but, you know, if it's discovered that, you know, Lead service line that bring up the federal guidelines, it's complete replacement, and residents don't have to worry about being out of pocket. So, for the sewer septic line, that is currently priced at $6.57 a month, but same as the water, no coverage cap. There's no deductible, no service charge if they have to file a claim. There's no limit how many claims they can file. In a year. So if they file a claim in January and, you know, it was a pretty, you know, just a tree root or something, we can— it opens up as many claims as they need to. So later on the year, if later on down the line is acting up, they can give us a call and we'll send somebody out. Again, there would be no coverage cap, no out-of-pocket expense.

So is repair sneaking the line, or what is repair?

Is it Do you blockage?

It just depends. So we work with the local contractors that will come out, look at what's going on, maybe camera the line to see what it is, and, um, you know, fix whatever the issue is. Now, if they can get away with just jetting the line, you know, we can certainly do that. But if the line's bad shape, yeah, um, and they recommend that, hey, we need to do a full or partial replacement, um, they'll call our Team, our contractor team at my company, and, you know, discuss the different options and what's best for the resident. All right, so, 2 important slides. So we currently have a little more than 2,500 customers in Orem that are signed up for a total of 4,300 policies. Now, we've not mailed the city of Orem since 2021. but we still have over 2,500 customers with the, as you can see down there, the 90% retention rate year over year. Residents are keeping the coverage mainly because it's cheap, it's reasonable, and, you know, you just, you never know with the water and sewer line where you're going to have an issue, and it kind of gives them that peace of mind. So I really like that 90% retention rate. On average, I would say 75% is pretty reasonable. It is pretty good what we see with other partnerships. So, State Rooms definitely ahead on that. And then also, we've completed over 1,200 claims, saving to date a little more than $1.7 million. So, you know, hopefully in a few months I'll be able to come back and present $2 million saved, as I did a couple years ago for the $1 million mark. That's always a cool milestone to hit. And then after each claim, we do send out customer satisfaction surveys, make sure that they were happy with the service they had. Did anything pop up that, you know, they were unsure about? And we have a current of 4.82 out of 5. So considering the partnership's been around for over 10 years, that's a solid number that we're very happy about. And, you know, if anything was to go wrong, or they do put a note in there that they were not happy with a certain aspect, we do reach out and say, hey, What happened? What can we do to make it right? And this is just a little bit of a breakdown between the 2 different coverages. As far as enrollments, they're pretty much dead even. See, there's a little bit higher claims for the sewer/septic line, and same with the cost, which is pretty normal regardless of where you are in the country. Sewer tends to be a little bit more expensive than a water line coverage. When it comes to the claims. But yeah, it's great to see that saving almost $1 million just on sewer itself. And then I include in the pack, this is some more recent, I think from the end of 2025, some customer satisfaction feedback. What I was talking about, the survey that we send out, it does give them an option for any type of feedback. And a lot of times they just, you know, will rate us. You know, 4 or 5 stars, but, you know, these residents did have some nice words about the program. One thing that I do like to point out every time I meet with a partner is we have HomeServe Cares. That is our foundation where we try to give back to the community. The main one that I like to call out is the Caring for People. This will be for any resident in a boardroom that is not a current customer. And then something happens that really puts them in a tough position, and either the city or the residents themselves can go on the HomeServe CARES website and file to have a claim taken care of by a local contractor at no cost to the homeowner. And again, this is for anybody that's not currently a customer. So being that you're a partner, this is always open for you. I've, I've had different partners from New Mexico to Florida that have reached out and utilized this. It's here whenever you would need it. So just something to keep in the back of your mind if, you know, later on down the road catch wind that somebody that's like maybe on a fixed income or something like that is having an issue. HomeServe Care is here for that. And then just moving forward, you know, there's different ways that we can communicate the Well, I'd love to get another mailer out. There's definitely some different content that we can do. I know you have a nice spot on your website for, you know, welcome to Orem for new residents, but even, you know, current residents, if you wanted to get some social content up, just letting them know that, hey, this program is available, and then have links to my company or the call center. I have all the digital assets that you would need to upload and make it part of of the website. If you're interested, you just let me know, and I'm happy to work with whoever's in charge of the city website to get that up. And then, yeah, same thing, social media. I mean, social media is done for everything nowadays. So, you know, we can always put blasts out on social media, just letting people know that, hey, this program is still around, or say residents have earned $1.7 million on this program. For more For more information, please go to their website or, you know, give us a call at, you know, the 800 number. I have a post-it note that you're more than welcome to utilize. And that's really it. I tried to keep it short and sweet. Anybody have any questions for me? Yes, ma'am.

I do.

And maybe it's not as much for you even as it is for Brandon or somebody, and that is, If, if, I mean, we got the postcard whenever it was, and I was like, what is this? How is this? And how do you decide, I guess, who you partner with? Or how does, how does that decision get made if residents ask us?

Um, back in the day, um, when they first approached us, uh, Steve Downs and research into looking into the company and how they were rated and, uh, of these customer ratings type of things to try to determine if other entities that use them. So from a reference standpoint, and he discussed that with those and did some research in that regard, and that's how we then settled on them, and they've been a good partner since then. So that's really how that has come to be where we're at today. I can add to that. What they provide us is quite unique, and you may have some that attempt to compete. I think that someone could go and, and, and, you know, this isn't forced on any residents. So if someone wanted to try and see if they could get another insurer, sure, the sewer lines, city's line, what's, what's not In their house. That's the line that is being insured through the service. Many cities find that they get residents that come and expect the city to make those repairs when it's between the house and the city's connection. And, um, I mean, I think previous to this partnership, maybe we tried to find a way to help or direct them to, you know, good contractors or— We provided what help we could, but typically cities just say that isn't the city's responsibility. So this was a way for us to kind of proactively find an option and a solution for residents. And, you know, it— we've got to keep the distinction and make sure our residents know that we are distinct and separate, but also provide a solution. So that's, that's kind of the partnership that, that we try to engage in. I don't, I don't know of anyone else who, who partners with cities in this way.

Absolutely. So, I mean, at the end of the day, we could— we're a company, we could market to anybody in the United States. The approach that we take, we will not market to a city unless we have a partnership or an agreement with a city because There are so many fraudulent pieces of mail that people get every day. You know, I get it. And, you know, with the partnership through the city, it kind of just catches the residents' eyes. And at the end of the day, it gets the conversation started, even if they don't want the program, the optional coverage. At least they're aware of it, that the water and sewer line are their responsibilities, or they might reach out to their homeowners to see that, hey, it's my home. I thought this was my homeowners and 9 times out of 10, it's not covered by the homeowners. If it is, they might be able to do a rider, but there's still a standard deductible, service charge, all that stuff that applies whenever you file a homeowner's claim. And that's kind of where we differ, just trying to give residents—

I love the educational aspect of this, actually. I think there's a lot of value in that. Is there any interest in doing another mailer? You said 2015 was the last one you did.

We've been partners since 2021.

So it's been 5 years now.

Yeah, absolutely. And before we mail, We always get the city's feedback. You're always eligible to take a look at it and say, you know, we like this, we don't like that. There's going to be certain things we need to leave in there for legal purposes, but our marketing team is very good about customizing the letter for you. You know your residents, you know what they're going to like, what they're not going to like. So before we mail anything out, we always get the okay from the city.

Thank you.

Can you share what some of the common repairs are.

I'm just curious as to how often one of our residents has to replace a whole line, water or sewer, and what would we expect to see from residents in Orem in terms of issues that come up that might be covered by what you do, and how often does that happen?

Yeah, so there was, I believe, about 1,200 So that's give or take, what, in 10 years, 120 a year. So we definitely, towards the beginning of the partnership, it's always slow. There's more enrollments than there are claims. And actually, let me look here. I think one thing I forgot to point out in 2015—

It's a year.

I'm sorry, in 2025, we did 102 claims for over $163,000. So, you know, that could be anything. Like, as I mentioned, it could just be tree roots, or it could be a faulty line. And even if, say, it is just a tree root, something that typically would just be a jet or clear it out, but it's discovered it is like a lead line that needs to be replaced. We're not just going to jet the line. We have to bring it up to local, state, and federal guidelines. So, you know, we would replace the full line in that instance. And it just, it really depends on each individual kind of how the house is situated. You know, there's a lot of trees. Obviously, we've got— I'm from Western Pennsylvania, so we have a lot of trees out there, same as you do here. And that's— tree roots are a very big problem where I'm from. Whereas I also work in New Mexico, where tree roots are not a huge problem. So it really just kind of depends on the individual cities that we work with. But, you know, over 100 claims a year is pretty good.

Do you have any guess as to how many of those 102 claims would be replacements?

Not off the top of my head. I just— the report that I typically receive on a monthly basis just has the breakdown on the different types of coverages. But if you'd like, I— when I get back later this week, I can do a little bit more digging and I can provide you more information.

That's great.

I can give you an email.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

I have a question. So is there a life expectancy of a— in other words, we have a lot of older homes in all of them. Summer on borrowed time, maybe, as far as that— those pipes go from the city connection to their home. Is there like a time where you should really be thinking about—

I mean, it's been in this home for 20 years or 25 years or 35 years. Is there any kind of data or research that shows this is when you're going to have a problem after so many years?

Yeah, so it depends on the type of line that was utilized. A lot of times when there's like a galvanized or like I'm not sure what all your lines are made up of for some of the older infrastructure, but really anything over probably 20 or 30 years is going to— maybe they want to look into this coverage. If you have a new housing plan that's built in the last 5 years, they're good. That's not really what this program's for. It's those older houses that or built in the early 1900s that might have had 3 or 4 different owners knows if there's ever been an issue or a line replacement, because, you know, everything's underground and you don't know until there's an issue that, you know, oh, this is what my pipe's made of. So, but yeah, I would say 20 to probably closer to 30 years would be a life expectancy.

Jeff, what I found in my neighborhood, the homes are Between 40 and 50 years old. And this is sad because it does affect my neighbors, but I begin to see when other neighbors—

Start seeing the trench in their front yard.

You start seeing that happening. It's not just a one-off. And so you kind of— because if you're in a subdivision, probably built with the same materials about the same time. So if you do have neighbors who've experienced that, that's probably a Sign that.

We've got 3 in our neighborhood at the 35, 40-year mark.

Yeah, that's what— and Flint Water Line comes.

I bet you most of their customers come from seeing a neighbor who has something happen and they go, oh, I'm right here. Maybe better go do that. Yeah, I think if they know about it, right?

And I would say, you know, for a partnership of 10+ years like Orem, word of mouth is our best marketing. And that's why we take customer service so seriously, not just because, you know, They're your residents. We want to make sure that we're shining a good light on them. But yes, one of our customers could have an issue and they say, oh yeah, they came out, fixed everything. It was super easy. They tell their neighbor who tells their neighbor. And the mailers that go out are great for new residents and older residents that haven't gotten it in a while. But word of mouth is really the best marketing tool that we can have.

If I can emphasize with that, and, and again, part of the uniqueness of this service, if we were getting a lot of complaints from our residents saying they're trying to get out of coverage or easy to work with, or didn't bring, uh, a subcontractor that was going to do quality work and, and bring it up to standards, current standards, then we wouldn't We wouldn't be continuing with this partnership. So, so unless you've heard of any complaints from residents that I haven't, that's really been a big, big part of why we wanted to continue this.

So how would someone—

how do people contact you? How does that— how does that happen if someone's interested to sign up, sign up for your service?

So if we want to get another mailer out, There are self-addressed return envelopes that residents can fill out. Marketing still are— enrollment numbers that we see that roll in are still through the direct mail. But, you know, residents can go on our website today or give us a call. Call center's located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and they can sign up on— On the website or through the call center today if they wanted to.

What's your web address?

It's SL—

we have, we have links on our website.

Oh, do we have links on the website?

Okay. Our staff immediately directs them to the call center.

Do you know where those links are?

I was just gonna say, I was gonna go and— oh, they were there once upon a time, so that's probably a good idea that I check with 311 to make sure that they still have the contact information, and then, yeah, that it's still out there on our utility billing.

It would be nice to have a specific page to send people to if they have—

Yes, oram.gov/service-line. Service line.

Service line.

Heard it again. It's Pete. You know, I can work with Brandon to get, you know, some updated materials on there as well. But yes, so they can— if they go on the city website and they see that, they can click the link, go right to our website, or again, call our call sign.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

So it's not on our welcome page we have?

It's on florida.gov/service-line.

Is it important putting it on that welcome page?

I think we'll put it on our, you know, just like with anything, we shine light on occasion certain services. So I think we wanted to make sure that you were all, you know, feeling good about this partnership and we Happy to reemphasize, highlight.

I definitely feel good about this partnership.

There's no cost for the city to do anything. We incur all the marketing costs and everything like that.

Right.

If there aren't any more questions, thank you. That was informative.

Very informative.

Yeah, I appreciate you letting me join, and I look forward to are also partnered with, uh, Orem Fest, so hopefully I'll be able to come out in, uh, it's June, correct? Again, I, a couple years ago, worked car show and that was a lot of fun.

Nice. So where did you come— where do you come from?

I'm from Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh, okay.

So yes, heading back home tomorrow. And, uh, I would love— I mean, this is absolutely gorgeous, so I wouldn't mind a second home out here. I'm very jealous of you. You could have the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins.

have. Well, safe travels. Thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. The next item on the agenda is a presentation by Midland Association of Governments, MAG. Now, is this Is it— are we going to be talking about the transportation?

Yes.

Okay, let me give you a little background as they're getting set up. One of my responsibilities as mayor is I serve on— represent Orem on the MPO, which is Metropolitan Planning Organization. I think that's the right— did I—

correct?

Oh, good.

Gold star.

And we talk all things transportation in Utah County and everything from talking about the federal monies that we may receive for different projects that will be coming and be on plans. And, and so last— the last meeting I was at, I asked if they could come and present to you because I thought the information was so valuable as we make decisions in, in planning and, and in governing the city that I, I wanted to have you have at least know what information is available to us as we go forward on that.

So.

Thank you.

Turn the time over to you 2.

Well, thank you, Mayor McCandless, and it's nice to see some familiar faces. I work with a lot of you over the time, and we're glad to have— glad to be here and present. My name is Bob Allen. I'm the programming manager at MAG, and Kevin Felt here is the transportation manager for us as well. Um, Lenise Davenport, unfortunately, she wanted to be here but couldn't be. She actually serves on the planning commission for her community, and they had a meeting tonight, so she couldn't make it. Um, We're here to talk about what you want to talk about. We have a very high-level presentation about what MAG is and what we do, but please don't hesitate to stop and say, Bob, we really want to talk about this, or we really have questions about that, and we're happy to have those conversations with you. Just very high level, MAG is one of Utah's 7 associations of governments. We're a regional organization that brings local communities together. to think regionally and, and work together to plan for the future. We advocate for local priorities, but also help communities to think regionally. We have 3 main focus areas. We have our aging services. Many of you have probably seen our Meals on Wheels trucks running around. So there's a lot of aging services that we do. We also do community and economic development work. And of course, Kevin and I—

Hi.

The mayor was talking about is we're certainly heavily invested in planning for the future for growth. We cover Summit, Utah, and Wasatch Counties. Our MPO, as the mayor mentioned, actually only just covers Utah County or the urban area of Utah County. And we do run an RPO, which is kind of what an— it's an MPO light, which is in Wasatch and Summit Counties. We call it the Wasatch Back RPO. We, again, we administer community and economic development planning programs. We support regional transportation and land use visioning through the Wasatch Choice vision, and we certainly provide a forum for regional discussion and collaboration. A lot, a lot of times it's easy for communities to start thinking about just my community and not worry too much about what's happening on the borders. And we are an organization that tries to help bring those together. An MPO is a federally designated group. Anytime an urban population gets above 50,000 in population, they're required to have an MPO. And so that's what we're here to do is help create a plan for our transportation future. We'll talk about 2 of the big products that we create in just a moment. We're broken up into 3 divisions. We have our transportation division that— Kevin and I both work in focusing on, again, transportation planning. We have our analytics division that is, as you would guess, data analytics, GIS mapping, our transportation, our travel demand models, our real estate models, etc. And then community planning division that provides community planning assistance to communities, stationary planning. There's a local administrative advisor that they do, and again, And we also do economic development as part of it as well. I'm not going to go through all of these, but these are just some of the programs that we do. Many of you maybe have heard of the Unified Planning Work— or I'm sorry, Utah's Unified Transportation Plan, Community Development Block Grants, the Regional Transportation Plan, the TIP, technical assistance, you know.

Yeah.

We do many different things. Corridor Preservation Program. Many of you notice when you register your car, there's a $10 fee that goes directly to purchasing right-of-way or corridors for future roads. We administer that. There's a lot of different things that we do, and we're happy to talk through any of the— any or all of these as you have time. As I mentioned, we're Utah County's federal designated MPO. The 2 primary products that most people are aware of that we create are the Regional Transportation Plan, or you probably heard RTP, and the Transportation Improvement Program, the TIP. It's a very important difference between the 2. An RTP is— a good example of what an RTP would be is like your general plan. It's you looking out into the future 10, 15, 20, 30 years and saying, this is what we want to be in the future, and these are policies and steps that we want to take. To meet that future goals, objectives, etc., etc. The Transportation Improvement Program is where actual funding comes into play. This is like a capital facilities plan that you have that's 5 years out that you say in 2027 we have $1 million and we're going to build this with it. That's what the TIP is. So the RTP is that long-range plan and the TIP is kind of how we implement the RTP, and we'll talk more specifically about both of those. We're governed By our locally elected officials, as Mayor McCandless said, she serves on our board. That board includes all of the elected officials or mayors and the county commission, as well as partners with UDOT, UTA, Division of Air Quality, Federal Highways. We also have Camp Williams as an ex officio member. It's staffed by, again, professional planners, data analysts.

Yeah.

And transportation experts such as ourselves. And why it matters is transportation projects must be in the RTP to receive federal and state funding. So, you know, cities do a great job of dealing with local roads and they're built through development, maintained, etc. We're talking about regionally significant roads, the big stuff. Let me go ahead. Regional Transportation Plan. Kevin, you want to talk a little bit about that?

Really, the purpose of it is, again, Bob mentioned we're federally required to have a metropolitan planning organization for any area over 50,000 people. And obviously this Utah Valley, Utah County is over 50,000. So we have the MPO, and our charge is to really long-term plan for the all modes of transportation, roads, transit, active transportation, all of those things. And hopefully some of the things we do positively impact your city as well as help you understand what that future network of transportation opportunities are so that you can better plan your land uses and those types of things. We really try to provide planning work for safe and efficient modes of transportation, which improves the mobility, safe movement of goods and people, and also for your growth, as I mentioned. So we, we do this regionally. So what we're looking at is urbanized area of Utah County, which is all the cities all the way from Geneva up to Santaquin, all the way up to Lehigh and over to Fairview and the whole urbanized area of the county. So we, we do that by looking at it on our end, quantitative perspective. Is the project needed based on conditions and those types of things? And then many of the subjective or the qualitative aspects of that plan, come from the board and the folks that don't really have the— they have the purview of looking over it, making sure we've done our job, basically, is what you're saying. And what we try to do is align that with the needs of the region. Also, because our region includes others, particularly the North and Wasatch Front Regional Council, which serves as the metropolitan funding organization in Salt Lake County. We have to coordinate with them to make sure that— and there's a lot of folks here in the county that work up there or vice versa. They live up in Salt Lake County and work down here. So we have to make sure that we coordinate with all of that as well. We update this every 4 years. Right now we're in a cycle to update it. It'll be adopted, hopefully adopted next June. And that'll last until— the horizon year is 2055. And then we'll do another plan. Hopefully will be adopted in 2031, which may have the same horizon year, but it may also go to 2060.

Okay.

We haven't identified that yet.

What I do want to also mention is, what is the Regional Transportation Council? Again, it's a unified transportation blueprint for all of Utah County. It plans— the plan actually helps you in your growth. Improves regional mobility for all the modes. Again, highways, transit, active transportation. We also— what we do is when we start building the plan with a lot of projects in it, look at all of the local government plans as well to try to get all those projects in. What I will mention is that all of the projects ended up in the plan at the end, at adoption. have to be what we call fiscally constrained, and that's kind of a misnomer in a sense. But what we do is we also look out and see not only what are our transportation needs for those years, we also look out and see what financial revenues that we might be obtaining in that time period. So our plan has to be something we can afford is what it really comes down to. What it is not, is not a mechanism to allocate specific dollars. That's what Bob's gonna talk about in a minute with the Transportation Improvement Program. What we're doing in a nutshell is we are, if you wanted to purchase a new home and you've got 4 or 5 different revenue sources that you have, you have your income from your job, you have income from interest, you have income from stocks and bonds and whatever other things you may have. But you're not assigning any specific dollars from those pots of money that you have. That's what the RTP is. We're just a big pot of money and a bunch of projects that add up to the same amount. That's kind of, kind of what we do. We don't do land use policy. We do look at land use from the perspective of population and employment. But we do not do land use policy. That is the purview of the local governments, and we stay out of that.

That stuff.

It's also not intended for local streets. All the local dollars that you have go to those local streets. That is not part of our plan. So if you wanted to widen 600 North, it's not a regionally significant roadway. So that would be the dollars that you would spend on it. Not be involved in that at all. And I think the big thing is this blue bar at the bottom, and Bob's already talked about it in a sense. If a project is receiving federal or state funding, it has to be in the regional transportation plan. Then I'll turn it back over to Bob to talk about the transportation improvement program.

So, Transportation Improvement Program, the TIP, again, very high level. This is where the money hits the road, you know, the rubber hits the road. This is where money hits the road. It's again another federally required plan. But instead of looking out through 2055, we're only looking out through 2030, 2031, and identifying the projects that will be built, what kind of money will be going to them, what year that money will be available, and, and getting that project up and going. It covers again all transportation modes, and we have to maintain fiscal constraint as well. It includes all regionally significant projects, whether they're funded through MEG, through UDOT, through UTA. And you can see kind of on the chart on the right, our TIP is comprised of those MPO-funded projects, UDOT-funded projects, UTA-funded projects. They all get compiled together into our TIP. Our TIP is compiled with all the other MPOs' TIPs, as well as UDOT rural projects. And that rolls into the STIP, the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. This plan we update every year as per requirements, but MAG, for our, our process of assigning funds to projects, that only happens every 2 years. So, at a glance, I'll go through this slide, then we'll maybe stop and see if there's any questions. So, The question we often get is, how does an idea become a reality? Well, it starts with identifying a need, and oftentimes that's a community helping us identify that, whether that's through congestion that's existing or growth issues. Maybe there's a safety concern. Maybe there's new transportation modes. Can't tell you how many times people are starting to talk about air mobility and all these kinds of things and asking about it. Maybe there's a regional trail or there's a gap somewhere that we need to fix. Any number of ways that say, hey, this is a regionally significant project, we have a need, let's start talking about it. Then it goes into the RTP that Kevin talked about. It goes through that process where we start looking at the project and say, does it meet local needs? It gets phased and prioritized based on the goals and policies that our board gives us. We run through a data-driven driven process to identify what is most important of it. Sometimes we do specific corridor plans to identify, are we making the right decision or building the right project for the— to fix the problem? And of course, we need to make sure that it meets air quality standards. There are stricter quality standards that we have to cover as part of that. So then that project hopefully gets listed in the RTP and says, okay, it's a Phase 1 need. We need it in the next 10 years. Then it goes to the prioritization or programming process. And really that's where things kind of split ways a little bit. There's the UDOT or state prioritization process. They, you know, it depends on the year, anywhere between a little bit less than $1 billion. Some years they don't do much of anything depending on the state budget. And then there's other years where there's multiple billions of dollars of—

These are annual, the billion and $110 million are annually?

So the top one is annually.

And it happens every 2 years.

Correct. And that is— these are the big projects. We're building a freeway, we're putting in a new interchange, we're building major arterial kind of roads. That's, that's where most of those projects come from, because simply you can see MAG's pot of money is only $110 million every 2 years. You guys probably know this stuff's expensive. You know, an interchange these days can be anywhere from $60 to Hundreds of millions of dollars. But UDOT's, their process is annually, so they have a prioritization process annually, and the Transportation Commission is the people that make the final decision of what should be funded and what shouldn't. For MAG's process, we do it biannually, and we only have $110 million. These are some more of the kind of what I would call Kind of missing middle projects. Cities do a great job with local roads, but it's hard for communities to fund those non-UDOT facilities in the middle.

Could you maybe give an example or 2 from the last handful of years of what regional projects MAG has programmed in Orem?

Sure. So Lakeview Parkway is a great example. The new roundabout down on 12th and 4th, the proposed roundabout that turned into not a roundabout up on 16th and 4th. There is a widening of Center Street between the freeway and Geneva Road. That's an upcoming project. Those are kind of those missing middle. There may not be a UDOT facility, and it's pretty expensive for a city to come up and build that.

Yeah.

But it's not on UDOT's— I won't say it's not on their radar, it's just not their facility. They don't tend to spend money on somebody else's facilities. So it's those kinds of that scale of project. And one of the reasons we only do it every 2 years is because really we only generate about $55 to $60 million in revenue every year. And we've got a lot of mouths to feed, so to speak, a lot of demands. And so When somebody comes in and says, so Center Street, the widening of Center Street, I think that was $11, $12 million is what we're awarded for that. It's really hard to give $11 million when the pot is only $50 million, when there's so many other people that have $10 million projects. But when it's $110 million, okay, it's a little easier to say, okay, yeah, let's give Orem that, or let's give Lehigh or Santaquin or wherever that. So that's why we do that. And the MPO board is the final— We're right in the middle of a process right now. Your staff has submitted a couple of ideas to us, and we're working through that process to find some projects to potentially fund an ORAM. It's a pretty competitive process for sure, because there's lots of needs and not a lot of money. But great question. Any other questions about, like, programming, how a project becomes a thing?

I just want to mention to the council that it's important when that— what this is, one reason why our master transportation plan is so important, because it is my understanding is if it can, it has to be on our master transportation plan to be part of their RTP. So I can't just come in and say, oh, you know what, as a resident or from the city and say there's this gap in this trail. It has— that gap has to be on the master transportation plan as being Something we want to do before it could even get this far. Is that right?

That's correct. Your plans are the building block of our building blocks of our plan. And it's, it's, there's got to be a pretty significant issue for us to come in and say, hey, Orem City, you really need to put this in your plan because we got to put it in our plan to fit regional needs or whatever the case may be. Great point. And if you're going to apply for at least MAGS funding, it is a requirement that has to be in your plan and And we make sure the mayor says, yes, I know what my people are asking for, and I'm okay with it. You'd be surprised where some people say, wait, what are my guys asking for?

And I'm—

No, I had to sign something that I— letters that the 2— I think there were 3 of them, 3 applications saying this is what we're thinking about. And just say that, like, maybe nothing that would happen, what, years and years and years down the road.

Yeah.

So, Orem staff communicates really well with their elected officials.

Well, we force them to, at least in this state. I saw a hand, please. How would I know if I'm on a regionally significant road? That's a really good question. Um, if you—

we—

so the technical way that we would signify that is, is a major collector or higher. If you know what the difference between a local, a collector versus an arterial road is, that hierarchy.

of roads.

That's typically what we do. And UDOT has a map that's called the Functional Classified Map. And basically every road that is not a local street has been designated by MAG, UDOT, and Federal Highway Administration to say this is a collector road, this is an arterial. Typically, but for the layperson driving down the road, if it's got signal traffic signals on it and it's got 3 lanes, And it gets you from one side of your community to another, or connects you into the next community. Those are going to be the lower level of regionally significant roads. Obviously, I-15, State Street, 8th North, the Parkway, all of those are obvious regionally significant roads. Geneva Road, Center Street.

Good.

go on and off, but that's generally how you would know that. We have a classification system that we could certainly share that link with you, and you could put yourself to sleep trying to decide what is what. But yeah, we certainly can help you understand that. Did I answer your question? I saw another hand.

Yeah, so what, um, how much opportunity do you have to, um, To get— so, to your point, the resident says, problem here, yada yada. They come to us, we come to you. So, and I'm just going to give an example because we have this Linden Temple open house happening.

Yeah.

I've received several calls and emails about traffic on 400 West in Orem traveling to 2000. How are you guys gonna, you know, and then that brings up the whole discussion, why is Linden and Pleasant Grove coming To our city. So that— and I know you're working on the Linden, uh, the additional little off there between that PG. So at what point, how do we facilitate those conversations that says, hey, we would love to see you before things get super bad, plan ahead and figure out a way, because there's more growth happening in those cities? Or is it just when things get super bad? What has been your experience?

That is a great question, and the answer is yes. Well, and I'll answer that by saying the ideal is certainly helping us understand, and I could go to a slide. What we need from you is, but really early identification of some of these needs, helping us understand what's happening in your city. What's your plan for the future? And helping us understand how that could change the transportation system. In your community, because unfortunately, one of the hard parts about transportation planning is it's very much a long game, right? When we're talking about those projects that are in the TIP, those projects, we've already— we, UDOT, and this is standard practice across the country, we've already identified— We've spent all our money out through 2030, 2031. So if you came to us and said, hey, we got this problem, we need to fix it. Now, and it was big, expensive kind of thing, we kind of have to say, I wish you would talk to us 5 years ago, right? So being very involved and engaged in helping us understand your plans for the future to hopefully help avoid that become— before it becomes a problem is the ideal way and the best way to do it. Unfortunately, the flip side of it too is sometimes Well, and we see this a lot. We are growing so fast that there's lots of fires out there that we're trying to get a hold and put out fires. And so it makes it— we do end up sometimes playing catch-up as well. And a great example of that is anybody that's driven to Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain lately, or, you know, we can think— I could name a handful of places where you're like, oh, Going to Vineyard, shoot, you know, they build a city in a— I call it a fishbowl, right? With between the railroad tracks and the lake and the, you know, there's lots of issues out there. And so we're scrambling out there trying to catch up and deal with some of those things as well. So really the best part is being engaged in our process, really thinking hard about what's Orem's priorities, what are the issues that we see or foresee, and let's see if we can work with Magdefield Figure out what's the best solutions to those problems. Allow us to work with you, UDOT, UTA, whoever the right partnership is to say, okay, how do we get this done? Because a lot of times, especially with the big projects, it's, it's a coalition of a lot of people, a lot of work, and a lot of coordination. And that's what we're trying to do as best we can, is to bring the group together and have those conversations.

Yeah, I think kind of related to this, actually have 2 questions, one not related to this one. I, uh, we're noticing a lot more traffic coming out of Provo Canyon, so I wonder if you can talk to us about what you see happening there.

You know, Provo Canyon, I, I think that is my, my, my personal read on that is mostly a lot of that is due to usage of the canyon, especially in the summer, right? Um, it's become a destination for recreation and to just the growth in Wasatch and Summit Counties. You guys probably all know this, but a big problem they have is they're growing like crazy, but only— I think the last time I saw, 30 to 35% of units or homes built up there are owner— not owner-occupied, but they're primary residence. A vast majority of those are second homes. And so One of the problems they have is a school teacher or anybody that works up there just can't afford to live up there. So there's probably a lot of commute up there as well. That's probably part of it. It's growing like crazy up there for sure, and just the growth down here. So I think that's a lot of the issues that you're probably seeing, and it's probably going to continue. I would assume so, just with growth and I mean, I'm a kid. I grew up in Lehi when Lehi didn't have a traffic signal in town, and there was 100 kids in my graduating class. And now it's— I can't— I don't recognize the place anymore, right? It's just the pluses and minuses of living in a good, economically thriving place like Utah is, and that's something we got to deal with.

Well, I would love to see that just at least addressed, because in the summer you get lines from the light The bottom of the hill, oh, like miles back.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

UDOT, I know, does have plans to look at that mini interchange, and they've worked with your group a lot to talk about that. So there's plans in the works. I don't know if they have a funded project in the next 5 or 10 years.

I can highlight something that he said was a lot of times these take sort of multi-jurisdictional partnerships. Absolutely. Ryan could give just a brief update on what he heard from UDOT as it relates to a continuous turn into Orem from the canyon.

Yeah, they're currently working on a design for a project. I don't remember the year though off the top of my head. I have to look it up.

Do you remember?

It was relatively soon though.

If they're working on design, I would assume they usually don't start design until they've got money to build it relatively quickly. So If they're working on design, I'm guessing I could look it up and tell you in a little bit. It would take me a few minutes.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

My next question is tangential. You talked about you look at new modes of transportation. Have you addressed at all this proliferation of electric transportation? So electric bikes, electric one wheels, all those things?

We get it all, right? That is a, that is a great question, and we're starting to get more and more questions about that. You know, 5 years ago we were, we're building, like, the Murdock Canal Trail seemed like huge. It seemed like this huge wide trail. Why could we, why could we ever have problems on it? And now with proliferation of that, we don't really have a great solution for it right now. It's really an enforcement and Unfortunately, it's kind of at the city's feet. It's kind of saying, well, how are we going to deal with that? I would imagine that more and more, if we start to see more and more use of those kinds of transportation modes, that we might see a proliferation of things like cycle tracks where it's kind of like a trail, but only for cyclists. And, and it's a little bit more safe than just being in a bike lane or just off the side of the road. If we really start seeing a lot of that, we'll start probably planning for more of those kinds of things. UDOT has the Utah Trail Network that they're dealing with a lot of that kind of stuff. But we also, we grapple with a lot of different transportation mode issues like on-demand air mobility. We're actually working with UDOT right now to start— UDOT's actually working on identifying potential locations where it could work and sharing with cities best practices to identify locations and regulation about how that could be in the future. We also get lots of questions about a lot of different things like connected and autonomous vehicles. If all of our— if everybody drove a Tesla that talked to each other, we could actually— they're so efficient that we could actually get lots more capacity out of our existing system, but we just got to catch up to the technology. Another big one that we've dealt with in the past is People that work from home. During— before the pandemic, I think Utah was pretty high and we had roughly like, I want to say, 10% of people that worked from home full-time. During the pandemic, that skyrocketed and everybody loved it because when you drove, you're like, wow, where did all the congestion go? This is great. And at the time, we grappled with, well, what— and people would say, nobody's going to go back to work. Nobody's going to have to go back to the office. Well, we've seen that that's changed, but— we had to grapple with what does that mean? Because if we think we're going to jump to 20% or 30% in the future, you know, that can have big effects on our long-range plans that we don't want to undershoot, so to speak. So there's lots of different technology aspects that we deal with. We don't get a lot into the regulation of those electric scooters and bicycles and so forth, just because that's kind of outside our— that pollet, that— That policy and regulation is kind of outside of our purview. We certainly could act as a, maybe a gathering point to have conversations about it. I know Wasatch County's really struggled with this, and they all came together to kind of do a standardized regulation of it, so to speak.

So—

I was going to say, that's what we would like your help with, because, you know, you already provide a venue for all of the mayors to together and election officials. And so we want to make— we want to approach it with a unified front. And so we've been preparing materials to bring, you know, what some cities and counties do.

And so—

For the April MPO meeting.

Okay, great.

Yeah.

For that.

So let me just throw something else on. In answer to your question, a lot of that then happens at the transit agency level. For instance, UTA looks at a lot of that, what we call first mile, last mile. type connections to their, to their facilities, to their stations, and to their systems. So a lot of that planning work from that perspective happens with them. Again, that's more local, so it's not so much our purview from a regional perspective. And also, as Bob mentioned, with the regulation and the codifying of those regulations, that falls onto the local government level. Madam Mayor, I will also let you know That one of the things you will hear at the MPO board meeting on Thursday, we had talked about a separate committee under the MPO for kind of looking at growth topics and things. Well, we've decided to maybe back from that and make it more of a regional forum. So these are some of the topics that we'd like to see in that regional forum is that You guys can all talk about them together and come to some— maybe Orem has the initial legislation and then Provo adopts it and Lehi adopts it. Some of those kind of things. So we don't like to make that as a part of our Regional Growth Forum. Great topics. How do we deal with this micro transportation?

We've got to go to a closed-door session. So about 5 more minutes.

Any other questions? We're happy. Also, you can always request us to come back. We're here to serve you and answer your questions.

So, Council Ryan, an answer on the mouth of the can.

Yeah, so UDOT's currently in a concept and estimate phase with Avenue Consultants.

It's not done.

I don't think that means it's funded, but that's the first step to get funding is to have the concept. Yeah, and then I just wanted to share that Bob meets with our engineering team every month and with UDOT and UTA, and we are always talking about all these projects together, and he's fantastic to work with. And look forward to working with Kevin more. I know Kevin's fairly new, but— I'm better than Kevin.

Orem's your favorite city?

100%. This isn't being recorded, right?

Offices are in our—

so our offices are actually moving, so don't say that.

I appreciate you coming. I'm sorry to probably cut your presentation a little bit. The council, of course, we can have them come back. There's so much more I know you haven't covered. This was one of those things is when I became mayor was a fire hose. There's several fire hoses. This was, this was probably fire hose with a capital F.

And that's why you have us to help you through that.

You also have the presentation, and our contact information is in there along with all those links. Okay, get in touch with us.

We've got, we've got business cards and brochures and things that we'll leave with you that you can share or use as confetti.

And we're happy to have amazing resources on their website too. All this.

Thank you for your time so much.

Thank you.

Drink while you can. All right, Council, our food is here. Um, I've asked Council Member Lamson if he would— earlier, if he would offer a blessing on the food. And then after we get our food, then we will go adjourn to the closed session.

Our Father in heaven, worthy in gratitude to thank thee for this day, to thank thee for the opportunity of being together, to thank thee for the opportunity of serving Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this food. We ask of thee to bless it, that it will be nourishing and strengthening to our bodies, that we might use that strength to do good, to serve thee, and to serve our fellow citizens. We pray for thy Spirit to be with us throughout our meetings this evening, that we might have thy Spirit to guide and direct us here and always. We humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you. Before we go to get our food, do you want to— should we do the motion to adjourn before you conclude?

Mayor, just to note, I think that we have, uh, the closed session is listed as item 13, so I think you're proposing to take that out of order. Is that right?

Yes, basically move it up.

Um, and I— and maybe you want to kind of split it because I think maybe you want to do a closed session partly now and partly now and partly later.

Yes.

So, um, just to note for the record that that's what we're doing.

Okay, we're splitting up Item number 13. And so I would look for a motion to adjourn to a closed-door session in the Summit Conference Room to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation, the character or professional competence of an individual, or the purchase or lease of real property.

So moved.

All right, thank you. We have a motion. Is there a second?

Second.

Second. Thank you. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Um, any opposed? All right, we've met the 5. threshold for the 5. So thank you. We got the food and taking food upstairs. Go upstairs.

Thanks.

I don't mean to sound bossy. We plead your welcome. Invite you to take some food.

Yeah, go ahead.

Hey.

3 minutes.

Hey, I can get this set up. Pete, are you coming over here? Uh, Carlos says it's not going to play sound.

They haven't—

they haven't got back to him. Well, it works now. It's when we turn on Zoom.

Oh, Zoom on.

And we can test it.

Because if not, I'll give you a different mic.

That's just me, right? He's gonna see if he can find a sound. Okay, I'll give him my mic. That's the right one, right? Water reuse. Make sure this works. Oh, it just has to be turned on.

Yeah.

They're gonna be spent.

So just like I said, there's water over here.

Okay, good to know.

It's not great.

Oh, there they are.

Yes, that's very wonderful.

We're going to wait for Councilman Kilpatrick for just another minute, and then we'll go ahead and get started. We have 15 people signed up for personal appearances, so You know what, I think we can do 3 minutes each, but if you want to do less, great, whatever you want to do. But the max will be 3 minutes on that, and it's a mix tonight. So I feel like, I feel like a server at a restaurant. Tonight's specials are short-term rentals and the North Union Canal, and then something I— Okay, I could read it. So it looks like that's what's on the menu tonight. So, um, not to make light of their comments, but that's what we're gonna be— it looks like those are all the— what the comments will be about: canal trails, bike trails. So yeah, we'll wait for Councilmember Kilpatrick.

Thank you.

All right, welcome, welcome to our City Council meeting here on March 10th, 2026. We're glad to have you here today. Um, just to tell you a little bit we had about our work session items, we had went and had a ribbon cutting. It felt like spring earlier today, and then when it came time to cut the ribbon, a great Wind rose and it felt like it was going to start snowing. So we have our great new water reuse facility that is going to be coming online that will save millions of gallons, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of gallons of water, of our culinary water that's being used to water Golf Course, Sleepy Ridge, and then parks over on the west side. And so we— that's— we had that today, and we had a couple of presentations on that. And appreciate you waiting for us. We had a closed-door session and, and got here as soon as we can— as soon as we could, excuse me. So we'll start with invocation, inspirational thought by Jeff Madsen, and the Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Susan Madsen. Turn that over to you.

Thank you.

Our Father in Heaven, we're grateful to live in this beautiful city and for the opportunity to be together. To— we are grateful for those who see to our needs and help keep us safe, and pray a blessing upon them. As we begin this meeting, we pray for harmony, mutual respect, and productivity as we See to the needs of our beautiful city. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

You'll all rise and you can join me in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Madam. Susan is a new— one of our newest members of our Planning Commission, and appreciate your service. Thank you. All right, we have 2 presentations this evening. We have the water reuse facility ribbon cutting recap. And so, right. Chris, is it you? Are you coming up? And then Chris Shirkey, our Public Works Director, as well as Reed Price, our Assistant Public Works Director. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

It was a beautiful day today out at the water reclamation facility. We appreciate your support. It's been 25 years in the making, so finally had this great day to have the ribbon cutting. Um, I'd like to have, uh, turn the time over to Reed to present kind of a recap summary for those who weren't present and to give a summary of, of all of the good things that are happening in Orem.

Yeah, it was a great day, a monumental day, one that we've been waiting for for quite some time, and appreciate the efforts of, of my staff to get the facility looking so nice. Also for Peter Wolfley and the communications team for their helping us to look at the little details and make sure that it was a Good inviting event. So wanted to recognize them and appreciate your attendance as well. I know it means a lot to, uh, to our staff to see support from you. So thank you for being there. So this water reuse facility, when you hear the term water reuse, you kind of think it should be reused water. Well, that's what we're doing. Uh, it could also be called recycled water. Um, and so we, we call it the, uh, the water reuse and nutrient removal facility. This facility has a dual purpose. The first is to treat wastewater and use it as a valuable irrigation resource. And the second is to— the facility can also remove phosphorus from the wastewater stream. Um, this has an advanced filtering, uh, uh, equipment in there that will reduce— will eliminate phosphorus and decrease the amount of nutrients that flow to Utah Lake and aid in its health. So, I'd like to first talk about the water reuse portion. This has been decades in the making. It was envisioned back in the late 1990s, and efforts were made to submit an application to reuse Um, our, our wastewater, and it took a bit, but in 2003, uh, the application was approved and plans were made to, uh, uh, to knowing that we would be, uh, developing that someday. And we put pipes in the ground so that we could supply water to the golf course that had not yet been, been constructed, as well as extended that pipe to our Lakeside Sports Park, which was under construction at the time. Uh, but it's been a long time. We started in about 2019 with an engineering firm to design it and started construction a little over— a little under 3 years ago, and today was the final day. So why was this vision made back in the late 1990s? Well, there's 3 key reasons. Um, one is, as, as the mayor and Chris mentioned, it saves millions of gallons of drinking water. We're essentially using water 2 times. Water that would have just gone on our— would have gone on our lawns now can be— or sorry, not on our lawns, on the turf at Sleepy Ridge Golf Course and Lakeside Golf Course. What the drinking water that would have gone there will now be reused water, water that went through our system through a rigorous treatment process and made clean and suitable for irrigation. It's also a natural fertilizer. Reused water contains nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen. Those are things that our parks won't have to add because we're, we're adding it through the, the reuse water. It's also drought-proof. Now, drought-proof is kind of a strange term, but there was always going to be a supply of wastewater that comes down through our treatment plant, and we will be able to, to use that when it comes through. So, where will we be using it? Well, we'll be using it at Sleepy Ridge Golf Course. They need about 1 million gallons per day in order to keep that— the course Nice and green. Lakeside Sports Park, which is programmed by our Parks and Recreation Department with soccer and softball and other sports. They'll need about 400,000 gallons per day. And then right next to the wastewater treatment plant is Springwater Park, another neighborhood park, which will, which will be connected at some point in the future. It, it, uh, the first 2 will Begin receiving reuse water this spring. Spring water, we still need to connect, and at some point in the future, we'll make that connection. So, one question that we get is, is reuse water safe? And it absolutely is for irrigation. It is clean. It is cleaner than most of the other communities that have secondary irrigation systems that don't treat their water. It just comes straight from surface water, such as a river or other runoff. And so, this particular water type, it's a different— it's one that hasn't been used where we're cleaning wastewater and kind of has an ick factor, but we treat it to Type 1 reuse standards, which includes double disinfection. So, it's treated with UV, uh, to kill, which is the way we currently have always treated it for, for many years. And then in order to use it for reuse, we have to have a slight chlorine residual as well. So we inject chlorine at the end of the treatment process and basically double disinfect it. That said, it is not suitable for human consumption, so we don't suggest that parents let their children drink from the sprinklers. It's dangerous anyway, but it's perfectly safe to use for irrigation purposes. Now, I mentioned that this was a dual-purpose facility. The other purpose is to remove phosphorus, and recent regulations, because of the algae blooms at Utah Lake, have given us— we have been given a phosphorus removal requirement where we have to get our wastewater flow down to 1 milligram per liter or lower, and that became effective January 1st, 2026. Before this, we did not have one, and the discharge that we would send out there ranged from 1.5 to 4 milligrams per liter. So we had to— it's a significant amount that we need to drop it. We can push this lower if we need to. If regulations come out where they say, sorry, 1's not good enough, it's not helping the lake, we need to push you to 0.5 or 0.1. This technology that we have will allow us to do that. Um, mentioned that we had 1.5 million gallons that would be needed to irrigate these— the, uh, the golf course and the parks. We get about 9 million gallons a day, so a lot of the flow isn't going to be used for irrigation, and we don't irrigate during the wintertime either. So most of the flow will go through and be treated for phosphorus. So, that's, that's, uh, that's going to be a major portion, uh, component of that. Um, we can switch back and forth. So, we want the phosphorus in the reuse water. We don't want it going to the lake. We don't— we already disinfected it once, so we don't need to dose it with chlorine a second time when it goes to the lake, but we have to dose it with chlorine when it goes to reuse. So, um, we, uh, We will meet the Type 1 reuse regulations, and this will be a great thing for the city. Some questions have brought up, how was this funded? Um, it was initially estimated to be a $10 million project that ended up costing $21 million after the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Um, we planned to spend $10 million, uh, and needed to find another $11 million. We found $13.5 million in different grants from a representative at the time, now Senator Curtis, helped us get an appro— a $3 million appropriation. And we received ARPA funding, which is COVID funds from the federal government, in the amount of $7 million from the Utah County Commission. They had funding that they could determine how to, how to distribute it. The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity provided a $1 million grant and a $2.5 million grant from the Utah legislature for Utah Lake improvements. So about $7.5 million came from bonding and will be paid by the users of, of, of Orem City, our residents. So we feel that this is a great investment, a great, a great— it's been a great process to Um, uh, to, to, to come to fruition, and we're excited to, uh, to, to use the facility and, and look forward to the benefits that it, that it will provide for decades to come. Thank you.

And this is—

Thank you. This is, this is a big deal. It's a really big deal. I remember when I— before, when I was on the council talking about this back in the olden days. And so excited for what it's going to do with water conservation and good work. Any questions for Reed or Chris? Council comments? What's that?

Well, you do.

Okay.

This is enormously impressive. I'm so delighted that we have this in our community. I just think it is the culmination of so much work. from so many people over many years, and I just want to say, uh, how excited I am about it. I think it's fantastic.

Thank you, Mr. Miko.

Oh, um, Councilmember Muelstein.

So I love this project as well, and it's the— it's just a great example of the kind of forward thinking that OREM does to protect our infrastructure moving forward into the future. We all know we live in a desert and that water is one of the most valued commodities we have, and so to, to see projects like this go forward and for us to be good stewards of what we have Way to go, past, present, everybody who's worked on this project. It's just a fantastic thing for our community and such a great example for the rest of the state. Thank you.

Thank you. We'd like to say that the cream rises to the top and it doesn't go away. So over 30 or 25 years ago, you know, this idea was conceived in conjunction with others, and the state allowed for us to submit plans to do a reuse project. We didn't have the appetite or the funding available then, but we did today, and we overcame a ginormous hurdle of the $10 million gap resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and the supply chain issues that were challenged there. I would like to mention also that former Mayor Young was instrumental in that $7 million grant that we obtained through Utah County, and that was a huge monumental step in that, in that, in that direction. So Reed and I were able to go and present our project to that council. to the, to the commission, um, among many other cities and other players in the, in the community and area. And we felt really comfortable, but we were unsure. And I know we walked away thinking, you know, I think we're going to get it, but, you know, we'll see.

And then they did.

They awarded it. And if that had not happened, this would have been dead in the water— excuse the pun— but literally dead in the water. So we are so grateful to the council, the mayors, current and past, that have supported us, and for Senator Curtis, for Representative Kennedy, and for all of the other players that have been involved. We've had enormous support from Lyndon City. Um, we treat 100% of their, their wastewater today for about 12,000 people, and then a good portion of southern, southern port, uh, part of Vineyard south of 4 South. So it's a regional facility, and it's a, it's a wonderful blessing for our community and for future generations. And it is expandable and scalable, and we are teaming up and working with Central Utah Water Conservancy District on expanding the facility to be able to provide more water for future generations. So, thank you for your support.

All right, thank you. Councilmember Millett.

I just wanted to say one thing. I was in a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and it was very interesting. It was a comment made by someone who lived on the west side of the lake, a derogatory comment about our green Um, parks, you know, golf courses. And I just wanted to, on that Zoom call, say, yeah, but do you know how we're doing it? And this is it. We're recycling water. We are doing it. We are out in front of this.

You are.

And I appreciate your efforts. And like you said, everyone from the past that has done this, because this is the way we're going to be successful at doing that balance of providing these beautiful areas for our kids to play soccer, for our residents to get outdoor entertainment and get some vitamin D and be out there. And thank you for what you've done.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, thank you. Anyone else? Oh, Councilmember Lamson.

I just, I just want to add, um, to, to Crystal's comment. I, I marvel at the vision that you all have had in putting Putting pipes in ground when there was nothing connected to those pipes, knowing that one day this would happen. And and so then you just needed to kind of make those connections to get the water to the end of the row, so to speak. So thank you. And again, I know that goes back generations, but thank you for the foresight and vision to put to add that piping as you're doing new developments and and as things move along. And I'm excited to hear that it's expandable and scalable and that, that this is not the end of it. This is just the beginning. So thank you.

All right, thank you. All right, the next item on our agenda is a presentation, Employee Appreciation Day, with our presenters Amy Peterson, who is the city's HR manager, and Pete Wolfley, communications manager and public information officer. So welcome.

Okay, thank you.

Good morning, or good evening, Mayor and council members. This past Friday was National Employee Appreciation Day, and it was a great day for us to recognize the incredible people who keep the City of Orem running every day. Thank you for this opportunity to publicly recognize the many contributions of the city's employees. Much of what our employees do to make Orem clean, friendly, and a wonderful city happens behind the scenes. Much of the work is done in the early mornings and the late nights and doesn't receive the attention it deserves, but our dedicated employees always keep the mission in mind and strive each and every day to build a better Orem. The employee culture we have here is truly one of a kind. Employees who have worked at other organizations or even other cities tell us that what we have in Orem is really special. While we celebrate the professional contributions of our staff, I also want to share a personal experience that illuminates The truly exceptional culture of our organization. Following a recent cancer diagnosis, I had the privilege of— I've had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the kind of thoughtful and deeply supportive nature of our employees. The outpouring of generosity has been overwhelming, from thoughtful gift baskets, cards, flowers, and our firefighters bringing my family dinner, and countless employees stopping by my office between treatments. to check on me. This profound support from our Orem family has helped me get through some very tough days. It is clear that the dedication of our employees extends far beyond their job descriptions, affirming that Orem employees are without a doubt truly the best. On behalf of the Human Resources team, we want to express our sincere appreciation to every City of Orem employee. Thank you for the work you do and for the pride you take in serving this community. And then now we'd like to show you a short video that Pete Wolfley and his communications team put together.

Thank you.

I'm just going to also express my appreciation to the wonderful, wonderful staff here we have at the City of Orem. It's, it's an amazing environment, and it's a privilege to serve with, with all the employees, and it's a, it's a great place. And Amy, I wish you the best in your treatments, and I'm sure other council members would have something to say as well. Okay, Council Member Gale.

I have been in office now for just over 2 years, and the one thing that has just struck me again and again and again is how amazing our city staff is. Everyone, everyone is just awesome, and we really appreciate the things that you do. You keep our city moving, and most of it is behind the scenes, and most of it residents don't even realize, but you do it so well, and we're so grateful. So thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else? Um, Councilmember Kilpatrick.

Thank you.

I, I just also want to reiterate the blessing that it is to interact with all of those who are city employees, the staff, and all those that come to create what we enjoy as citizens and as elected officials as we participate In this marvelous area of a collection of families in a community where we really truly feel that blessing and that opportunity to gather together and do great things. And the culture is really exemplified in the power of what you do with each other, for each other, for us as a community. So, thank you all who serve in any way in our city as employees.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other council members? All right, thank you. All right, our next item on the agenda is our consent item. We have approval of the February 24th, 2026 meeting minutes, City Council meeting minutes. Um, might entertain a motion.

Mayor, I move that we approve the meeting minutes from February 24th, 2026.

Right, thank you. I have a motion. Is there a second?

I'll second that.

Right, thank you. We have a motion and a second. Um, I'm going to start— I usually still start over, not to break with tradition. Start down here. How, um, Council Member Lamson, how do you vote?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Right, motion carries. Thank you. Item number 9 is time for personal appearances. Time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak needed to have signed up before the beginning of the meeting, and encourage you to please limit your comments to 3 minutes or less.

Thank you.

So we'll go ahead and we'll start with Leisha Geddes. Is Leisha here? Oh, there you are.

Welcome.

And then the next person, is it Tawny? Is there someone named Tawny here? Okay, I'm gonna just— if you can say your last— put your last name so we can hear your last name for the record when you— when it's your turn.

Mayor and council members, thank you for your time. My name is Leisha Geddes and I'm a resident of Orem. That feels really loud. I also operate a basement apartment as a short-term rental. We are owner-occupied, and it's been a wonderful blessing to us and also to our neighbors, as we've been able to facilitate a lot of their family members as they've come into town for special events. I'm here today to express my support for a clear, enforceable short-term rental policy rather than an outright ban. A ban may seem like a solution, but it actually removes the city's ability to manage short-term rentals effectively. Banning short-term rentals does not eliminate problematic short-term rentals, but regulating them does. A well-defined policy would give the city the tools it needs: licensing, inspections, parking standards, occupancy rules, and the ability to shut down bad actors, which we fully support. I fully support. Without these guidelines, enforcement becomes inconsistent and nearly impossible. In my neighborhood, the difference between short-term rentals and long-term rentals is striking. I have 4 short-term rentals within a 5-minute walk of my home. They are clean, cared for, and quiet. Owners take pride in maintaining them because reviews and guest expectations depend on it. Meanwhile, also within a few doors on either side, I have 5 long-term rentals. These are consistently in violation of existing ordinances. The homes have overcrowded parking, property neglect, and continuing ongoing issues that are far more disruptive to our neighborhood than any of the short-term rentals are. This highlights the key point: the issue isn't short-term rentals, it's the absence of standards and enforcement tools. A policy would fix that, a ban would not. A thoughtful short-term rental policy allows the city to set clear expectations for property care and maintenance, regulate parking and occupancy, enforce quiet hours, hold operators accountable through licensing and inspections, protect neighborhoods from problem properties, whether short or long-term. And importantly, it allows responsible homeowners like myself to continue contributing positively to the community. Many of us rely on this income to offset rising living expenses and remain in Orem. We want to comply. We welcome the rules, and we want consistency. I urge the council to adopt a balanced short-term rental policy, one that supports neighborhoods, supports enforcement, and supports responsible homeowners. Thank you so much for your time and your service.

Thank you.

All right, Tawny, you're up next. And then on deck, we have Chris Hammond after Tawny.

I can't remember her name, but I agree with everything she just said.

Um, Lisa, that was great.

My name is Tawny Merrill, M-E-R-R-E-L-L. I am an Orem resident and I do have a landlord license and I have a VRBO next to my home in Orem and we've had a very pleasant experience. We've never received complaints from our neighbors. As a matter of fact, 2 of my neighbors have actually rented our home so that they could have a gathering place for family When they came for special occasions or the holidays. One item that I have not heard brought up at our— any of the city council meetings is that the STRs do pay lodging taxes on every rental in addition to the property taxes assessed to all property owners. These taxes include a mass transit tax at the district level as a general sales and use tax. Orem City, Utah County, and Utah State all receive accommodation tax and general sales and use tax, and these taxes total 14% of every user's total booking amount. Thus, Orem City, Utah County, and Utah State all benefit from the taxes on STRs. I'm sure the city treasurer should be able to provide you with an annual report on the revenue generated by STRs. One other thing that I don't think anybody has mentioned is our VRBO has had several people rent from us because they are coming to Utah County for specialized medical treatment, in particular brain trauma treatment. Apparently there's one in Provo that they come to, and they require facilities that are clean, that are quiet and that they can have their patient come to and feel calm and relaxed and stress-free, be able to cook their meals at home and not be exposed to, you know, whatever is out in the community. So I think that's one more reason why it's important that we have short-term rentals available to people that have that need. Earlier today, I sent an email to each of you and included a list of possible solutions that may be helpful to both sides of this STR debate, including parking restrictions and guest limitations, STR owner monitoring of their property, requiring STR owners to be a Utah resident might be a good idea, and providing event regulations if someone has an event at their rental. And also providing STR host training class That would require every owner who has a short-term rental to take the class so that they would be eligible to be a host. So I hope that some of these suggestions are helpful to you in your discussions as a city council on how to regulate STRs in Orem so that all those that are impacted have a more positive experience.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I'll look, I'll look for that email and, and read it. Appreciate it. Next up is Ms. Hammond, and then after her Jeff, starts with a G. It's about the North Union Canal. Okay, is that you? Okay, you're next. I'm sorry, I look forward to hearing you say your last name.

Hi to all of you. Guess what? It's the old lady one more time.

Take a deep breath.

I'm here again.

Welcome to come.

So I'm a real estate agent and this just last weekend. I have a family who is looking to purchase a home so that their huge family can have a gathering that is a short-term rental. So we traveled all over to Camas, Colville, and Midway and Heber, and I had to research regulations before we went. And in all of those cities, they did not eliminate short-term rentals but have done some regulation. And some of the things that I thought were important were the guidelines we're using, the size of the home as far as occupancy standards, things like not parking in front of someone's driveway as a restriction. But one of the things that I think is important is in the state legislature, even HOAs can no longer restrict or ticket people that are parking on the street because it's public and you pay taxes to use those streets. And so I, I have a concern about that. Not that in my particular home, I think we would have plenty of parking. When the discussion about changes in Orem for short-term rentals started over a year and a half ago, it started out with the understanding that we were going to find some way to work together and that we were going to problem solve on and improve communication with the city and the neighborhoods to be responsible owners. Unfortunately, something has changed in the last while. The conversation has become increasingly negative and divisive. Orem has moved to being an A+ place to be to a D, and it's no longer Family City USA. The public dialogue surrounding this issue has created different perceptions of Orem and its residents. Many people now feel hesitant to speak openly and engage in civil discussion, some forming opinions about short-term rentals without ever having been there and used them. In my research, the role of the city council, as far as what I have learned, should be expected to be something that is objective, without bias, carefully weighing both the positive and negative impacts of any policy decision. It is certainly true that not every short-term rental is a good neighbor. It is also true that not every long-term rental or property owner is a good neighbor. There are issues all over the way. This raises the question of, is it the role of the city to enforce every neighborhood dispute or establish fair policies that addresses every documented problem, although the responsible residents to use their property? There has been open discussion that short-term rentals create a problem with availability availability of housing, yet currently there are 150 rentals and 181 homes for sale. I cannot see a correlation between short-term rentals and the decrease in housing. I hope that each member of the City Council will take a moment to put yourself in my shoes and the shoes of those who are property owners and continue to use a responsibility and an unbiased position to consider what you're going to do. I believe that responsibility of the council is to approach the issue thoughtfully and without prejudice, fully informed about both the benefits, which are many, of short-term rentals, which we've discussed. My hopes is that Orem will continue to live up to the spirit of Family USA, a place where different families, different needs, and different housing options can coexist respectfully and where everyone feels welcome. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Jeff, you're up, and then on deck we have Dean York.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Jeff Gaffane, and I live a couple hundred feet from the North Union Canal. I'm here tonight because I believe we have a rare opportunity in front of us. It is my understanding that the canal is being decommissioned. That corridor through the city is about to become idle land, and I think we have a great opportunity to turn it into an asset that will benefit the community for generations. We've seen this type of trail work here in Orem. The Murdoch Canal Trail is a 17-mile-long paved corridor that now serves hundreds of thousands of users each year. We can do that same thing again here. There are currently several grant programs specifically designed for projects like this. UDOT's Utah Trail Network Program has already funded canal trail conversions across the state, one in Vernal and one in Riverton, and they are actively looking for new projects to fund. There's other grants that are available as well: the Transportation Alternative Program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the Federal Federal Build Grants. All of these funds would help alleviate the resources needed by the city to build this trail. Many of them will cover up to 80% of the construction costs. The key to accessing that money is getting the corridor in the Regional Transportation Plan through the Mountainland Association of Governments. That is the door that opens all these other opportunities, and the timing matters. UDOT Trails divisions is in the middle of building out a statewide master plan right now, and the projects that are in the pipeline get prioritized for funding down the line. I'm asking the council if they would be willing to direct the city staff to contact the MAG and potentially the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation to begin a feasibility conversation about the North Union Canal Trail. That at least puts us in the room as the opportunity for funding arises in the future. Thank you so much for your time and service. Appreciate all your help.

Right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, I— is it Gary? Is the one Gary that I would need to— or Steve? I'm going to ask for an update on where we are with the trail, with the canal, at some point when we get done with the other comments. Just just at the end of the public appearances, because I know this is something that, that we as a council, I believe we discussed at our retreat about our desire to have— to, to— we expressed interest in, in looking into that. So I just don't know where we're at right now on that. So we'll go ahead and have Mr. York present, and then after him, Jeanette York will be up.

She's related. So Dean York, a longtime Orem resident and, uh, Airbnb owner, uh, locally owned and operated. We are within walking distance of our Airbnb that sleeps 6. Uh, we have a lot of people come in for hatchings, matchings, and dispatchings. Also, uh, like we said before, medical issues. We have people that come to our place because they like the quiet, uh, home feel that they get with that. What I've loved and what I've I've heard so far is that people aren't just bringing you problems, they are bringing you solutions. So I'm just asking you to, to weigh those solutions. Uh, I served in, uh, public service for 29 years in a local city here, and, uh, you have, uh, businesses that have occupancy loads, and only, you know, so many people can be in those. It's based on square footage. It's It's based maybe on how many bathrooms they have. There are certainly things that you can look at that would help, and none of us want to be a bad short-term owner. We want to have good experiences for the people that come in. And you need to have accountability from us, but there has to be rules and there has to be standards set that we are all familiar with, that we can, we can contribute with that. I live in the Hillcrest area, and a majority of the Hillcrest area is a lot of apartments. And so in, in past meetings, I've heard about people saying, well, we want people that put down roots in, in our areas. And, uh, most of those apartments are going to be students. They're not going to be here for very long. So in our local, uh, clergy, in our local meetinghouses, we have a lot A lot of turnover, a lot of transient-type turnover. So, uh, we are such a small group, uh, these short-term, um, owners, that a lot more effect I see out of apartments than, than from us. So when we talk about putting down roots, uh, my grandfather Milton Jameson, uh, he was a mayor here in Orem, and so my roots do run deep. But, uh, just the area that I'm in with all those apartments, my Airbnb doesn't make a whole lot of difference. And the people that come— my one, my last group was from LA. They came because their son entered the MTC, and their comment was what a great experience it was to have those last few days together after the— after they were going to have a 2-year break from their son. So there's A lot of benefits from us. And, and as my time runs out, I do appreciate, uh, the time that you put in, and I know it's a sacrifice on your part as well. So I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you. All right, Jeanette York, and then Zach Golding is on deck.

Mayor and council members, thank you so much for listening to our concerns. Um, my husband and I, we have lived here for 43 years, and our children now live here with our grandchildren. So it's wonderful that we've got to stay here in this tight community because we love living here. Um, the thing that Dean neglected to say, we're living on the same property as the old mayor of Orange City where this Airbnb is at. So it's kind of ironic. So we had to come up with something to help us with our income now that we are retired and we have this duplex. And so we have renters that have been in there, and as they have left, we're shocked at the damage that renters do leave because they don't really care because it's not their property. So after having so much damage, we decided to make one of those an Airbnb. And as you can imagine, we put a lot of money into this. It's not easy to create an Airbnb. So we took a chunk of our savings and we put it to good use into creating a beautiful Airbnb. We purchased all of our furniture here in Orem from Ashley Furniture, all our appliances from R.C. Willey. And Costco supplies monthly abundance in our Airbnb. So we keep a lot of our business with our Airbnb here in Orem. Um, in our Airbnb, we also have a list of grocery stores, um, restaurants, coffee shops, all sorts of things so people can go to. So the people that stay with us, we keep them here within community spending their money as they come in to help, help with economy. Um, here we have one of our many, many guest books. People come in, they send us pictures, they tell us all sorts of things. And, um, I did mark one. It happened to be a medical one as well. And it says here, Dean and Jeanette, staying in your home has been such a blessing to our families. Our father was in the hospital And it was comforting for us to have a home away from home. So a lot of people make the comment about how homey our Airbnb is and how grateful they are for that. Our guests that are staying with us right now are from Seattle. We've had people from all over, all over the country and a few out of the country. And it's like, how did you find us? This is crazy. Little old Orem. But the comment they made to us this morning at 10:10 was, I'm constantly blown away with how perfectly you have created this space. It is clean and it has everything that is within need, and the views take my breath away. This is a high-stress week for us with intense emotions. So much is going on. We are grateful to have this space. to call home base, and we are truly blessed. So we constantly have comments like this. Um, and as my husband says, weddings, blessings, BYU, everything, vacations, the medical is amazing, graduations. We have over 162 reviews, and we would encourage you to go in and read those to see how blessed we are with this area.

Airbnb.

Um, it has been a great decision for us to create this Airbnb. We've been very blessed with it, so we would hope that you would keep that in your considerations. Right, thank you.

Thank you. Right, Zach. And after Zach, Bennett Cookson will be up after Zach Golding.

Greetings, Orem City Council. My name is Zach Golding, and I'm a resident, business owner, and father here in Orem. I live within the City Center and Sharon Park neighborhoods. My wife and I started the Cascade Elementary School bike bus, and we are proud to say we are the largest bike bus in the state of Utah. A bike bus is a large group of parents and children who all ride their bikes together to school one day out of the week. We recently had Mayor McCandless ride with us last week, as well as Councilmember Lamson. last year, and we look forward to having many other council members ride with us in the future. Um, it's been an incredible experience to see kids gaining confidence and independence as they ride on our bike bus on bike bus days. Also, when they ride on their own during the week, every month our bike bus continues to grow with upwards of 70 people. Our route goes directly over the North Union Canal. I am confident in saying that if the North Union Canal was turned into pedestrian pathway, it will be used daily by the elementary school kids and their families that ride in our bike bus. Another benefit from this potential trail would be people accessing the farmers market here at the City Center Park every Wednesday during the summer months. As many of you can attest, parking here can be an absolute nightmare. I am also on the— I am also a board member of the volunteer advocacy group Bike Orem that helps with the bike valet. Where people can park their bikes as they ride, ride to the farmers market. We see more and more students, more and more residents riding their bikes to this weekly market. We appreciate all the improvements the city has made to the City Center Park, making it more pedestrian-friendly by adding more crosswalks and signals to help with the pedestrians accessing this beautiful community event. This potential future North Union Canal Trail will only encourage and increase more people to access the farmers market and many other city events in a safe way that reduces traffic and parking. I have spoken with many of you, and I know that you are in support of this potential North Union Canal Trail, so thank you. But I also realize that this project could be a lengthy process with many hurdles and barriers. I am here to voice my support and lend my Efforts in any way I can to address any concerns residents have. I'm here to ask for the city council to pursue turning the North Union Canal into a pedestrian-friendly pathway to strengthen our connections in our community. Thank you.

Thank you. And if you've never ridden on a bike bus, it's, it's fun. Zach, I will be there Friday because I had so much fun on it. All right. Bennett, and then after Mr. Cookson, we have Shawna Meekum.

Okay, so my name is Bennett Cookson, and for the last 16 years I've run my little piece of the canal to water my trees and in my yard. I'm sad that, that there's no longer going to be the canal, but also I've been part of it every year, been part of a team that goes and helps clean the extended canal. Like, not near my house, but miles from my house up the canal. We're cleaning it every year, which is no longer going to be happening. So I think those canals, instead of being a benefit, they're just going to become a hazard. Um, and the other thing is that it's hard to find safe trails through any city. Orem has some particularly dangerous places. I've almost been hit on State Street. Uh, city street, you know, this center street's got really dangerous places. There's not any place to ride. You're competing on the sidewalk. And so there's a unique opportunity to be able to do on those canals because they travel through neighborhoods in ways there's no way that you could do that without having like the right— the canal pathway through. There's no way you could just plow through. Yards like that, and I think there's a lot of issues with land ownership and stuff, but I think it's worth addressing those. And I think there's a huge value in doing that. Property values are going to go up. So I think you do that. And also, the other topic of tonight has been the short-term rentals. So let me just make one comment on that. I thank the city council in coming up with very reasonable regulations because I think if you don't have reasonable more regulations, you essentially have unregulated short-term rentals. And I would have concerns on both sides. And I think that the thing to do would be to have well-regulated, good rules. And one example is we have a member of my family who— and I wouldn't— he lives in— technically, the owner lives in California. He's an owner, but he has a lot of family here, including kids, children. and me as extended relative. And what he'd like to do is take a house that he buy, have a house that he can use and have a place to stay when he comes, because he comes all the time. And the rest of the time you can fill in the short-term rentals. Otherwise you may not be able to afford to have a house sitting there vacant. You wouldn't want a vacant house anyway. So I think that's a reasonable use case. Maybe the requirement would be not that the owner would have to resident, but that the owner would have to have a representative in Orem that could help address problems. Thank you.

All right, thank you. All right, um, Ms. Meekum is up, and then after Ms. Meekum, Joshua Moore will be up.

Thank you.

I'm Shawna Meekum, co-director of Bike Orem. I want to express thanks for the crosswalks around the city center, the temporary roundabout on 900 East. I biked through that every day. It was very fun. Love the heart. BikeCorum's goal is to create safe streets for everyone, and we see the North Union Provo Bench Canals as a way to support activity and community in just an everyday natural way, an opportunity that won't come again anywhere near the city center. So our primary goal with the North Union is to have a connected, safe trail that ties in with other, other trails, important regional trails. To that end, we want to be a positive partner for the city in creating this trail. We understand that it's not going to be an easy process, that the trail may not follow the canal exactly, or we might need some very creative interim solutions. We want you to know that we're in this for the long haul. After all, the Murdoch Canal required a literal act of Congress and scrambling for money during the recession. We did hard things before and we can do it again.

Thank you.

Thank you. Right, um, Joshua Moore. All right, and after Mr. Moore we have, um, Kim Poole. Welcome.

Hey, I'm Joshua Moore and I'm a runner for Lake Ridge Junior High, and I plan to run for Mountain View Junior High or Mountain View High School. Orem is known around the state for its distance running, but what we don't have is a safe running trail that connects different parts of the city. If you're ever on the Murdoch Canal Trail any Saturday of the year, you'll see NCAA champions for cross-country and distance teams from BYU, conference champions teams from UVU and state champion high school teams training. You will see Olympic medalist and American marathon record holder Connor Mantz and future Olympians like Jane Hennigren out training. Orem is a distance running mecca. Right now, high school teams and other running— other people's running on city streets and sidewalks are often risking their lives while crossing streets and avoiding distracted drivers. Orem can make, um, a safe place to run across the city, and we need to do it. Thank you.

Thank you, and best of luck in your running. That's awesome. All right, um, Kim Poole. Then after, um, Ms. Poole, we have Laura Redford.

Hello.

Hi, thank you, Mayor and Councilman. My name is Kim Poole, and I have lived at 1458 North 75 East in Orem since 1991. I've served on city and school committees such as Neighborhoods in Action, PTA, and CERT. In 2021, the vacant house next door had been an eyesore for 7 years, with a fire in the overgrown and break-ins requiring city responses. When the house went up for sale, I reached out to developers Kim and Cherie Best. I also called my daughter Katie, who had been unable to afford a home. We worked together on a plan to fit our needs and improve the neighborhood. To ensure our plan was legal, Katie explained to the city that she would rent the basement apartment to the Bests, who would then operate an STR as their own business. The clerk admitted this was an unusual arrangement and asked a supervisor for a second opinion. Only after both confirmed everything about the arrangement was compliant with city code did we continue with the plan. The Best bought the home and rebuilt the top floor, and Katie purchased it—

excuse me—

from them in March 2022. After Katie moved in, my husband and I using retirement savings, financed the significant cost of the basement remodel, including an exterior backyard entrance and wider driveway in keeping with city code. Imagine my confusion and frustration when last year I found out that Orem claimed there was a long-standing law which prohibited STRs. Not even city employees knew about that law when we were asking for clarification, and now the law surfaces. I expect better from my city government. I reflected my opinion of the dismissive attitude of current elected officials during last November's elections. I hope new leadership will be more representative and less reactional. These are some of the reasons, um, I support lawful short-term rentals in Orem. Short-term rentals and accessory apartments provide needed income to many families, Especially with the drastic increase in housing costs. To suddenly change longstanding licensure would result in significant economic hardship. Orem guests— and this is a second one— Orem guests rely on short-term rentals due to a shortage of hotels in a city of nearly 100,000 people. Short-term rentals are often a second business, often a family business, and I thought Orem supported small businesses. I have no complaints about the short-term rentals nearby. Guests are peaceful, respectful owners, and try hard to avoid disturbing our quiet neighborhood. And I would second some of the other opinions that a lot of the rentals in my neighborhood are much less maintained than the short-term rentals. If existing Orem laws for parking and noise are broken, then those short-term rentals should be fined and have licenses revoked. Why punish those who do follow the rules?

All right, if you want to hand it over to, um, our city recorder, we'll make sure we get a copy of that. Thank you. All right, Ms. Redford, and after Ms. Redford, we have Cheryl Radmall.

Hello.

Hello, Mayor and City Council. My name is Laura Redford. My family and I live in the Northridge neighborhood of Orem. The Union Canal runs along our backyard and side yard. I'm here to let the council know that I support turning the canal into a path for walking and biking. I have concerns about what will happen to the canal now that it won't run water. Who will be in charge of its upkeep? It already causes problems with weeds and thorny blackberry bushes that come into our yard. And I could see it collecting trash and other debris. As a homeowner, I would love to be able to install a gate and access a path for walks, biking, or even roller skating with my kids. I know there's a lot of property owners along the canal, and it can be tricky to do this. Nevertheless, I urge the city to take up the project. It will provide a safer route to Timpanogos High School.

Thank you.

And other schools along the canal. I serve on the Transportation Advisory Commission for the city, and our city has made great strides in making school crossings safer for kids. I really appreciate that effort, and I feel like this would be an extension of that in getting kids to school safely. It would also be a terrific addition to our active transportation options in Orem. Thank you for your work on behalf of Orem residents.

I appreciate your time.

I hope you will seriously consider devoting city resources to this project. And like Zach, I am willing to help as needed.

Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for your service on the Transportation Commission. Right after Ms. Radmall, we have Sarah Bateman.

Hello, thank you for this opportunity. I am Cheryl Radmall. I am a new member of the Neighborhood Commission. I do have a few thoughts about short-term rentals. I'd like to read a statement my sister wrote. She could not be here tonight because she had a meeting at her school. I live in the neighborhood in the southwest, in Southwest Orem. It is located just a few blocks from UVU. I have lived in my home for the past 8 and a half years. In late 2005, the home next door to me was sold to someone who lives in Hawaii. In early 2026, I realized the home had been opened as an Airbnb. It is a 6-bedroom that allows 17 guests to stay in the home. It has been filled at least 3 days each week since opening. Because of the large number of guests that are allowed, there are always at least 4 vehicles associated with the party staying in the home. The driveway cannot accommodate that many vehicles, so the additional cars must park on the street. About a block and a half down the street is another Airbnb. It is a home with 9 bedrooms that allows 30 guests to stay. I know of another home on the street behind me that is using their basement apartment as an Airbnb. So within a block of her home, there are 3 Airbnbs, 2 of them renting to large numbers of people. So I'm afraid her experience is very different from the owners here that are speaking. And, and like I say, the house The house next door to her is— the owners aren't even living in-state. So I have a couple articles here that I want to read real quickly from. Airbnb began as a friendly alternative to hotels, an idea rooted in connection and authenticity. But over the past decade, it has morphed into a powerful force in global real estate, one that is now blamed for distorting housing markets, accelerating gentrification, and altering the social fabric of cities. While travelers may see convenience and charm, many locals see displacement, unaffordable rents, and communities hollowed out by overtourism. Italy, Croatia, New York City, Spain— all popular tourism destinations with severe housing challenges— have recently launched crackdowns on holiday rentals. And this year, Montreal is set to implement one of the strictest laws against short-term rentals in the world. So my time's running out. I can leave this article. This article is from the Harvard Business Review. It's written by 3 professors. It has a lot of controls, a lot of kind of technical talk, but really basically talking about the negative impact economically for housing and for rentals from short-term rentals. So I'll leave these articles. I can email you copies of them.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Appreciate the information. Right. Thank you, Ms. Bateman. And then after, after Ms. Bateman, we have Brendan Beale. So welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Sarah Bateman, and this year marks 25 years that I've lived in the Geneva neighborhood. So thank you for letting us speak tonight. I am here to speak to the possible conversion by this City of the defunct North Union Canal into a walking and biking trail. I love the idea of investing in spaces that encourage an active lifestyle and wholesome recreation for families. These public spaces can also contribute to improved social health of our community members, something that significantly factors into quality of life and longevity. I do not live along the canal, um, But I understand that some neighbors are eagerly supporting the idea and some do not, and that some sections of the canal are more conducive to a safe conversion than others. So should the city decide to explore this option, I encourage robust outreach and good faith efforts to hear from the neighbors and facilitate creative problem solving for improved buy-in to whichever choice the city makes. Of all the wonderful assets Orem has to offer, working together as neighbors should be a signature of who we are. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Mr. Beal, Brendan Beal. Right now, I guess not here. And Derek, is there a Derek here?

Okay.

And our final person, final guest this evening is Varden Hatfield, if you'd like to come up. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Varden. I've lived in Orem, northeast Orem, for about 27 years now and love it. I'm an avid biker and a vice chair of the Utah Valley Trails Alliance. Where we now have, thanks to Orem City, a little over $1 million of trails under construction this summer and next summer. That's a result of the $500,000 or more that Orem is spending on the Timpanogos Foothills Trail. We were able to use that as a match for Utah Valley for a Utah State Outdoor Recreation grant. So We're avid connectors. I also have a son who had a brain injury 3 years ago and has difficulty with vision. And he is able to— he loves that Murdock Canal Trail. He's able to bike on that and not worry so much about traffic or stoplights. And my daughter and I decided to try a 100-mile bike ride last weekend, and we were able to ride from our house in Northeast Orem along the Murdoch Canal Trail, connect with Jordan River all the way up to I-80 on dedicated trails. But the challenge is right now we don't have a good connection through the central part of Orem, and the North Union Canal would be a wonderful way to provide that, to get right through the center of Orem and even the backside on the bottom part of Palisade Drive, that hill, could connect us right up to the Provo River Trail as well. So I'm very much in support of the project and feel it would be a wise use of resources. The per capita cost of the Murdock Canal Trail surely by now is minimal. And I think we'd see even more use on the North Union Canal Trail.

Thank you.

Thank you for your support of biking and outdoor recreation, and I hope we find more of that with this project. Thanks.

All right, thank you. All right, esteemed staff, who can I ask— who can answer questions just very basic about where we are with the canal, the project, and some— maybe a couple of the challenges that we face? A challenge we face, I think, is we don't own it. So just a minor one. But anyway, I don't know who would—

Mayor and council, I can maybe give a general overview.

That would be great.

And Gary, of course, can fill in some, a little bit more details. But we did apply for a grant to help us study this, turning the canal abandonment into a potential trail. Part of that study effort would include communication and education with adjacent property owners. And then since then, we have also engaged with state legislators, primarily Representative Nelson Abbott, to try to see if there would be sort of state assistance and solutions and legislation even. Um, uh, some of that has had limited success, but it's nice to know that we've got advocates on our side, uh, up, up with the state. In terms of next steps, um, we, we need to continue to build partnerships with, like, MAG, who came, uh, MAG representatives, Mountain Lion Association of Governments, who came to our work session today, and then Provo, uh, the East side of this bench, of this canal right-of-way, is actually consists of our border with Provo City. And so if we can connect with them and get Provo City support, then I think that would give us a real leg up in getting to a solution and getting to a trail for this project. If we could just snap our fingers and, you know, have it fully developed and funded and a trail, I think we could develop really quick and easy, uh, you know, general support. But there is some distance between where we're at today and getting to that point. But that doesn't mean we won't continue to, to try and, and see what we can do.

Yes.

I'm very encouraged by the public feedback we've gotten here Tonight, and I'm very hopeful that that is indicative of, of our Orem population generally. We, we have heard that there are some potential residents who live immediately adjacent, at least in some portions of the right-of-way, that, that may have some concerns. And so we'll just need to communicate and collaborate with them and see if there is a solution that we can get to. If I was a betting person, I think we can get to some solutions along portions of the corridor at the very least. But again, we'll, we'll do whatever we can. Gary, anything else you would add to that?

What he said.

Okay.

All right, thank you. Thank you to all who have come and spoken on these important issues. Appreciate you taking the time to be here. We're going to go ahead and move to our scheduled items, and we have 2. And the first one is about item 10.1, appointments, appointments to the Natural Resources Advisory Commission. And so the, the way that our, our city code reads is that appointments to our commissions, uh, the mayor makes a recommendation to make the appointments with the advice and consent of the City Council. So I'm actually going to break this down into several different steps. We're going to vote on each of these individuals individually rather than as a whole group. So the first name I would like to present to the Council for the Natural Resources Advisory Commission is Robert McFadden. Is Mr. McFadden here. All right, thank you. Thanks for coming this evening. And so I, I open it up for discussion or motion, uh, to, to appoint Mr. McFadden to the Natural Resources Advisory Commission.

I motion to appoint Robert McFadden to our Natural Resources Commission. He served on Beautification Commission previously, and, um, we're going to be happy to have him in Natural Resources if it's approved.

I second that.

All right, thank you. We have a motion and a second. All right, and we'll just follow down this row. Um, Council Member Millett, how would you vote?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, motion carries. Thank you and welcome. Welcome to the Natural Resources Commission. We look forward to your service and your expertise. Right, the second, second name being put forth this evening is to appoint Tara Bishop to the Natural Resources Advisory Commission. So I would be open to discussion or motion, whatever the council—

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we table the appointment of Tara Tara Bishop for the Natural Resources Commission.

All right, we have a motion. Is there a second?

I'll second that.

All right, we have a motion and a second to table the nomination of Tara Bishop to the Natural Resources Advisory Commission. All right, we'll go ahead and start with you, Councilmember Meekum. Nay.

Nay.

Aye.

Nay.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, so it was a 4-3. Is that okay? So, um, the motion failed to pass.

I motion to appoint Tara Bishop to the Natural Resources Commission.

I second it.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to appoint Tara Bishop to the Natural Resources Advisory Commission, and I'll start off and I'll vote aye.

Oh, Mayor, I'd like to open that for discussion.

Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Yes, any discussion?

I have a comment I'd like to make. Mayor and colleagues, I want to begin by saying I appreciate everyone who is willing to volunteer their time to serve on our boards and commissions. These volunteers play an important role in advising the council, interacting with residents, and helping our city move forward. Our boards and commissions are important extensions of the work of this council. The individuals who serve there represent the civic culture of Orem, and because of that, the standard of respectful engagement and civil discourse matters. Less than 5 months ago, during a candidate debate at UVU, an incident occurred involving the proposed appointee. While seated in the front row, there were repeated visible reactions during my responses to the questions, and one— and at one point, a verbal interruption calling out, that's not true, which disrupted the debate and required moderator intervention to restore decorum. This exchange is also visible in the publicly available recording of that debate. Disagreement is a healthy and necessary part of civic life. We should welcome differing viewpoints, but in formal public settings, there is also an expectation of decorum and respect so that dialogue can remain constructive. This is not about a personal disagreement or political differences. It is about maintaining a culture of professionalism, respect, and constructive participation in the work of our city. For me, when we make appointments to our boards and commissions, we should apply a consistent expectation that those representing the city conduct themselves respectfully in public forums. I believe it's important that we apply the same expectations of respectful public conduct to everyone we appoint to represent our city. When we appoint someone to a city commission, we are not only selecting someone with an interest in the project area, we are selecting someone who will represent Orem in public meetings and in interactions with residents, staff, and city leadership. In my view, it would be more appropriate at this time to consider other applicants who demonstrate the standard of respectful public engagement that we hope to see from those representing our city. Therefore, I will not be supporting this appointment tonight. I hope my colleagues will join with me in upholding a standard of civility, respect, and constructive public engagement for those who represent the City of Orem on our boards and commissions. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. I appreciate your— appreciate your thoughts and your comments. comments on that. Thank you. Is there any— I'm sorry, I didn't— I neglected to ask, any more discussion on, on this?

Okay.

Mr. Councilmember Meekum.

Yeah, I, I do appreciate, uh, those thoughts, um, uh, that we just heard and also support the idea that anyone who is serving in a public capacity has an obligation to treat one another with respect and with Uh, with grace, and I hope that that's something that we can role model as a, as a council as we make these appointments. Um, I'm, I'm grateful for those who are willing to serve, and, uh, I hope that we will hold those that we do appoint tonight to that standard.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? I just want to just say I echo what Councilmember Meekums says. I, I expect in the capacity as commissioners and representatives of the city, that they— that those we do appoint uphold a standard of respect and dignity and, and good behavior. All right. On that note, if there's no other discussion, I guess it's my turn to start off. I'm going to vote aye.

Aye.

Nay.

Aye.

Nay.

Nay.

Aye.

All right, motion carries, um, 4 to 3. Thank you. All right, the next item on the agenda are appointments to the Planning Commission. Again, these are appointments that, um, are recommendations that the mayor gives to the City Council with advice and consent But I would like to just give a moment to, to Councilmember Meekum, who is the City Council representative with the Planning Commission, to talk about— talk about these appointments.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Uh, as we mentioned in our meeting in February, where we also had Planning Commission appointments, this is a really important commission. We're so grateful for those who serve. Our Planning Commission Chair, Madeline Komen, is here with us tonight. We're grateful for her service and the way that she leads that commission with grace and dignity. Really grateful for that, Madeline. Because this is an important responsibility, we've invited all of the council members and the mayor to consider a range of applicants. We've had now 15 interviews of Planning Commission candidates, and we anticipate that we will have additional Planning Commission appointments at some point in the future as well. But I just want to, to express appreciation to the council and the mayor for taking this responsibility so seriously and being so engaged in, in talking to those who are willing to serve in our community. We've really tried, I think, to find a way to bring candidates onto our Planning Commission that have widespread support across the council. I also want to mention that we do have one council member, Mike Carpenter, who— sorry, Planning Commissioner Mike Carpenter, who has finished his term. He finished his term on Planning Commission in December. He's been graciously willing to stay on for a couple of months beyond that. We've needed him in that role. He's served an important role as vice chair.

Thank you.

chair of our Planning Commission. And, uh, we just want to express— I want to express my personal appreciation for the way in which he's really sought to represent Orem and, and many of the concerns of neighbors around Orem throughout his time on Planning Commission. Thank you.

Right.

Thank you. And I too want to express my appreciation to the council for taking the time. It was a tremendous amount of time to interview and ponder and make recommendations to me as to who to appoint. I also want to express my appreciation to Mr. Carpenter for his service on the Planning Commission and appreciate his interest in civic matters and for the positive contribution that he's made. I'm going to go ahead and do the same thing As we did with the other appointments, I have 2— as the mayor, we have 2 recommendations, and we'll just take each one individually. I first would like to recommend Micah Ladle to be appointed as a member of the Planning Commission. Mr. Ladle, are you here this evening, perchance? Okay, I don't see— okay, I don't see you. So that would, that would be my recommendation.

On the question—

Are you ready for a motion?

What's that?

Are you ready for a motion?

I'm ready for a motion.

Yes, you were asking for one. Um, I, I make a motion that we approve Michael, and I think it's Liddell.

Oh, I am so sorry, Mr. Liddell, if you're in the camera. Sorry, Liddell.

I'll second that.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Is there any more discussion on Mr. Liddell's appointment to the Planning Commission? All right, we'll start voting with Mr. Councilmember Kilpatrick.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Okay, motion carries. Okay, thank you. And our final— my final recommendation this evening is to appoint Jeff Reeves to be a member of the Planning Commission. Are you here this evening, Mr. He's not here this evening as well. So at this time, I would open it up for discussion or motion, whatever you, you see fit, Council.

I'd actually like to say something, if I may. Okay, is it appropriate now? Okay, um, as we consider these Planning Commission appointments, I'd like to highlight a principle that I believe is important in the effectiveness and credibility of that body. Our Planning Commission, and that is one of broad geographic representation across our city. The Planning Commission makes recommendations that shape land use, development, and zoning decisions that affect every neighborhood in Orem. Because of that, it is valuable for the commission to reflect a range of perspectives from across our city, not only in experience and background but also geographically. Orem is made up of many distinct neighborhoods, each, each with its own character, priorities, and especially with their own experiences with growth and with development. When residents from different areas of the city are represented on the commission, it brings a broader understanding of how decisions impact our community as a whole. Thank you. When multiple members live within just a few blocks of one another, it naturally raises the question of whether we are capturing the full range of neighborhood perspectives across Orem. A commission that draws members from different parts of the city strengthens those discussions, improves the recommendations that come forward, and helps the residents feel representative and represented. And I've heard that several times from certain areas of Orem in my last 4 years on the council. As we make appointments tonight, I hope that we will continue working toward a planning commission that reflects a full geography of Orem and represents the diverse voices of Orem. of our community. Thank you, Mayor.

All right, thank you. Appreciate your, your thoughts. Anybody else? Um, Councilmember Muelstein.

We're in a very unusual situation in which we are replacing 5 commission members at one time due to many reasons as to why that's happening. I question the Uh, decision to replace a longstanding member at this time, leaving our chair in a position where she needs to train so many people. And I just wanted to voice that publicly.

Well, thank you. I appreciate your, your thoughts on that. About that, we do have our Planning Commission chair here in the audience this evening. Um, Chair Coleman. appreciate your service and willingness to be part of our Planning Commission. Is there any other discussion?

I guess I'll also voice my concern at the appointment of this— at the replacement of that commission member at this time because of the number of members who are new. I feel experience is very important on our Planning Commission. And, um, would like to just do that as a vote of support for our Planning Commission chair. Sorry about this.

All right, thank you. Yes, I know I've been a Planning Commission chair before. Yeah, I mean, not, not in this— not here in Orem, but in another entity. And yes, I understand the— that goes into that and understand The— thank you. All right, council, any other discussion? All right. Would you like to—

I motion to appoint Jeff Reeves to the Planning Commission.

Can we have a motion to approve Jeff Reeves to the Planning Commission?

I'll second.

Okay, we have a second. Um, all right, we'll go ahead and take a vote. Councilmember Muelstein.

Nay.

Aye.

Aye.

Nay.

Aye.

And I vote aye.

Aye.

Right, the motion carries. Thank you. All right, the next item on our agenda is number 11, financial items. You have in your packet a copy of the monthly January 2026, uh, monthly financial statement on that, and just that's for information Only. And then number 2, item 12, City Manager information items. So we'll turn the time over to Mr. Bybee.

Thank you so much. Just a few items tonight. So I want to give one last plug and reminder of our State of the City event this Thursday morning at 10 AM in our library hall. And then I know that you're— many of you are probably getting questions and concerns from Orem residents, particularly, particularly those that live kind of north of 12th North, 1600 North, about the upcoming Linden open house and the traffic that that's going to cause, a potential parking. Just want you to feel assured and please help assure the residents over there that Orem is involved. We have been in communication. and attempting to collaborate and even offer resources and help during the time of the open house. And our Tiger Traffic team has been in communication with Linden staff and, and our public safety leadership. So, uh, and if you want to encourage any residents to, uh, um, travel south and go shop at, you know, University Place rather than up into Linden, then that would help with the traffic.

Thank you.

As well.

Um, nice news.

Shameless plug for shopping in Orem.

In this audience, if you ride your bicycle to the Temple open house, it's all downhill to University Place.

The Murdoch Canal is right next to it. Okay, um, I wish I would have said that with a straighter face. Um, as you know, the, uh, state legislative session is, is is done, we will still have some of our state legislators come in and present and share some of the things that they feel have been accomplished for OREM during the legislative session. I will just also say myself that I think that this has been one of the more effective legislative sessions that OREM and cities have had, and super appreciate the time and effort and, uh, communication and relationships that you've, uh, developed during the legislative session. It has been effective. One that I'm particularly interested in, and that we've already got our strategy and innovation staff looking into, is House Bill 492. That's been a bill that's been in the works for multiple years, and it's money being set aside for housing renewal. Efforts. So, um, that's one that, uh, we're, we're keeping a sharp eye on, and we're, we're ready to see if we can't get some of those dollars here to Orem. Um, and then, uh, we've talked a lot about the water reuse project. There will also be a neighborhood meeting this coming, um, Thursday at 6:30 PM. Correct. That's right.

Yeah, that's Sleepy Ridge Golf Course.

At Sleepy Ridge Golf Course, and that will be to, you know, educate those residents that are more adjacent to that, that project. That a calendar invite has, has been put on your calendar so that you're aware of it. You know, we want to make sure that we're being proactive and going the extra mile in communication with our residents.

If I could, if I could insert too, please, we've sent letters with the help of Pete Wolfley in the Communications team to all the neighborhood that is adjacent to the golf course and Lakeside Sports Park. So they're aware of the transition to water reuse and its benefits and the dos and don'ts of using that water.

Don't drink from the hose, right? Or the sprinklers.

Don't drink the water.

Thank you, Chris. One last little shout out to our library hall staff.

They—

we have had 2 sold-out classes for the water-wise classes there in our library hall. So I think that we'll even try to offer some more of those. So, uh, pretty fun that our residents are paying attention to the programming and educational opportunities provided in our library hall. That's all I have.

All right, thank you. I do have a question. If you just clarify, when, when was the next time that we will be meeting? In here as a city council.

Oh, good point. Um, we won't have another city council regular session meeting until April 28th, so the 4th Tuesday in April. And that's because later this month, uh, um, we are— uh, Mayor and, and I and some of the exec staff are, are taking a trip to DC to continue to meet with our federal delegation to get back as many dollars as we can to Orem and to Orem projects. Much like we experienced today at our wastewater treatment plant. And then on April 14th, we will have a work session, but not a regular session because of the Utah Valley Chamber Pillar of the Valley event that day.

Okay.

All right, thank you. And just so you know, um, council members too, that we did submit how many applications to the Congre— um, congressional delegation for projects? Was it 2? 2 different projects we're, we're asking funding for. And so we'll, as when we go there, we'll be, we'll be promoting and discussing those.

We've been quite successful in recent years, uh, literally bringing back millions, multi-millions of dollars for these Orem-specific beneficial projects.

All right, thank you. Okay, Mr. Earl, I need a little guidance on how this is supposed to be done because we're— we need to go back to our closed-door session. So how does that motion need to be?

Just the same as, as you always make a motion just to adjourn to a closed session for the purposes stated in the agenda.

Okay, I would entertain a motion to adjourn to a closed session in the Summit Conference Room to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation, the character or professional competence of an individual, or the purchase or lease of real property.

So moved.

I have a motion. Is there a second?

Second.

All right, thank you. All right, so Councilmember Muelzer, And did I leave off with you as the first one to vote? Oh, Councilmember Gale, I'm sorry.

Aye.

Okay.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, motion carries. Thank you. We'll see you in April.