City Council · 2026-06-15

That's a special order. He had a special order. Wow. So we just want to make sure.

Warren City Council and the Lehigh City Council, welcome. I've asked, um, Councilmember Chris Kilpatrick if he would offer a blessing on the food and an invocation.

Heavenly Father, we're mindful of our blessings this day as we've met in this combined council meeting to deliberate over those items that will bless and benefit our communities. We're thankful for the opportunity to serve in ways that will lift and strengthen citizens and those who live in our midst, to, uh, provide those basic services and also opportunities to provide a lifestyle of joy and happiness within community and outreach. We're thankful for the food that's been prepared that might provide us energy and nourishment and pray that it will do so. We open this time unto thee and ask thy care and keeping spirit will abide with us, that we might deliberate in ways that will strengthen our bonds of unity together in these communities. And also help us to go forth and, uh, helped in every way to move forward those important goals that we each have. We ask for thy blessing in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Thank you, Councilman. I'd like to do— because I've got to be refreshed with names here— if we can just go around and introduce ourselves and say what brings you here. We'll go ahead and start right here and just go with An invitation. Invitation left.

I'm Ken Jacobs. I'm on the Linden City Council, and apparently I chose this seat with just 1 person on the side. Not that I'm antisocial. I sat basically— that's it.

If we welcome you, we can bring some people up next to you. And then we have our— it looks like Teresa's busy, and Teresa's our city recorder. And Bradley Days are— he's helping Teresa. He's— oh, Bradley, I can't remember your new title. I'm so sorry. Sustainability Officer.

Okay, thank you. All right. Cole Huley, Lyndon City Council.

Adam Cowie, the Lyndon City Administrator. Steve Stewart, Lyndon City Council.

Van Broderick, Lyndon City Council. Chris Kilpack, Orem City Council. Crystal Muelstein, Orem City Council.

My name is Lynette, City Council.

I'm Andy, Orem City Manager.

I'm Karen McCandless, I'm Orem City Mayor.

Roland Lindberg, thank you, City Mayor.

I'm Quinn Meekum, Orem City Council. Jeff Lamson, Orem City Council.

And Gail, Orem City Council. Let's, let's go ahead and catch the people around the edge of the room as well.

Juan Garrido, Public Works Director. Pete Price, the Public Utilities Director.

Gary, Community Development Director. Brian Clark, Assistant City Manager. BJ Robinson, Chief of Police.

Mike Brower, BJ's friend.

Thank you.

Mark Anderson. Bryce Merrill, Community Services Director.

Thank you. Welcome all of you to our meeting today. Go ahead and get started. Um, item number 1.1, we're going to move down a little bit until Terry Rugg, our Deputy City Manager, arrives. She's running— she's got another commitment, is running a little bit late. So we're going to go ahead and go to item 1.2, which is a discussion about the renewal of the fire EMS services. And so I'm going to turn the time over to our wonderful Fire Chief Mark Sanderson.

Mayor, I appreciate the time. I put together just a 2-page, 3-page sheet here that it's got some bullet points that really define not only our relationship but the services we provide. Second, the back page of that is the current employee staffing and fire station And then I've attached this sheet. It's in reference to NFPA 1710, which is the staffing requirement. So if I can just start at the top, I just want to express how grateful I am for our long-term partnership. Even more impressed over the last 6 years, specifically the last 3, how the relationship has improved from administrative Perspective, partnership. I think the transparency between Brandon and Adam, amazing. The level of trust that we've developed in the last couple of years, I think, is significant to why we are able to make this partnership work every year. Our fire operations, I think one of our highlights with Warm Fire is that We're one of the only departments in the state that actually have operating manuals, how we operate our truck, how we operate our engines. And then we recently developed a command manual. So the benefit we have with our people is when they show up on the call, they just go to work. Most fire departments pull up at the emergency and stage and wait for an assignment from a battalion chief or first arriving captain, where we created seat assignments and actual manuals. Guys get off the engines and ambulances and they go right to work. Letting the county chief know what they're doing, not waiting and delaying further property loss or harm to life. And so very proud of what the guys have accomplished with our manuals. Our critical care program, that next bullet, it is the only one in the state. A lot of companies claim to have critical care programs, but They just don't. It's all tidal. There's 17 different variances that we have on top of all of our operating medical guidelines. That is through a strong partnership with Dr. Borup. He's our medical control doctor in Timpanogos. We run a critical care squad, which is 2— it's basically a helicopter responding in a pickup truck. With helicopter-trained paramedics. And so we're very proud of that. They are the busiest apparatus in the city. They run Linden, Vineyard, and Orleans critical care calls.

Team, kind of like Life Flight in an ambulance.

Some of you know my history, but I flew for Life Flight. I've been nurse manager at Life Flight. My 20 years flying paramedic, I was always so frustrated whether it was a warm uniform or a frozen ground uniform. Couldn't take care of the patients and provide the level of care that I was trained to provide because it was a flight agency versus a municipality. And so we've basically taken the whole flight curriculum and brought it to Our paramedicine program, it's just a nurse. Where there are a couple of registered nurses, I'm included in one of those within our organization, and it just gives our EMS that much more capability. I think one of the biggest things, I mean, this is one of the things that I talk with more than anybody, is the staffing level. I had a fact sheet that is the NFPA 1710. Currently staffing all of our stations with 4 people on a fire engine and 2 people on an ambulance. And so I just left a conversation with Vineyard. We're increasing their staff, and they have the same questions and concerns of, why can't we just— why do we have to go to 5? Why the push for 6? Those fixed costs that 5 or 6. Or Lyndon currently staffs 5 stations. My request is, and last year, a few years ago, Lyndon provided a 5th employee to staff conversations, which was huge to our operations. And then as we're looking to contract, redo our contract, the ask is going to be to move to that 6th position. Um, this fact sheet has some of that background. Really what it does is it allows us to run more than 2 apparatus out of Linden when it's fully staffed. We have the option to run 2 ambulances in the fire engine. One more additional resource that we feel like is higher-level service provided to the community and Part of our partnership and relationship is not doing more for Orange than we'd ever do for Linden and Vineyard. That comes with staffing increased need. And so that's the ask and that's the push. And of course, we run paramedics on our ambulances, and that provides just a parallel of the highest level outside of our critical care. All of our medical calls. That next bullet point, the state-of-the-art training facility. This was something that Orem's been lacking forever, and previous mayor and councils and continued mayor and council with this. We were just about to cut a ribbon on this facility. It's just about done. You'll all get an invite, hopefully this next month, to come and tour this. Facility. It's, it's several different buildings, and it makes up every single configuration that we respond on, whether it's garden style, mid-hall, multiple stories, into these training facilities. We have actually predicted what's currently the responses into lending. We can go train and mimic What we're actually going to respond on versus a lot of the connex type structures that are not interchangeable. We have 16 rooms that we can burn to 1,800 degrees, which is real live fire. Um, this training facility actually puts Salt Lake City and UFA's training center to shame. It's really amazing what we have here.

Hopefully, hopefully you all learned these.

At Bormfest, I was visiting with you guys, was that they can adjust the temperature. This is 1,800 degrees. They can go in and very specific types of fires and situations. So it isn't like you just go in and set something on fire and hope for the best. There's a lot of technology.

There's a lot of thought put into this, so we're super excited about it. I think the biggest Most beneficial thing for taxpayer constituents is just the economy of scale. Everybody's costs in all 3 cities reduced because of our relationship. That's a point that all can speak to. Community that is benefiting. And the one thing, Adam, as we looked to renew our contract is recommend, suggest, fully on board and open to doing it, is checking with other cities. I mean, compare apples to apples what we provide, because what's— services, you could do it cheaper, just wouldn't have the same level of service, the same quality of employee or operations from a medical perspective. And so By being the best, um, holding and having actual tangible manuals, apparatus, training facilities. I'll put us right up there and challenge any department in the state, even the western United States, um, with our operations. Did want to say that the additional benefit to this training facility is we spend $10,000, $20,000, we've spent $30,000 several years sending guys to conferences. They are brought back and helped us develop these engine and truck and command manuals. We're going to be able to now host these conferences in this training facility versus sending our people to it. We have an affiliate, we're affiliated with Fire Nuggets, which is a national organization that most of the large conferences are put on by them. We'll be hosting them here. So it'll be a revenue-generating facility that will just increase the level of expertise of our people. The strong relationship we have with the PD. I love Chief Brower. He's the first one to send me emails on medical calls, fire responses into Lyndon. He points out the relationship with his officers and how our paramedic and firefighters work together. And so she thanks for always providing those commendations. It goes a long way with our guys to know that relationship's so strong. Then, of course, we're currently working through the dispatch. Organizations are linked through dispatch and our prior contract. Just one more aspect, we're trying to reduce costs for both Orem and Lyndon through dispatch negotiations right now. And there's just more power in numbers. And so I'm gonna get that relationship. And then one of the biggest things we do after the Range Fire, which just happened to be my first fire in Orem as the chief, after finishing a 100-mile race, I come around the mountain off the Pony Express Trail and saw the Mountain Home Fire. And I thought, that's a bad fire. I'm afraid that it's something different, but it wasn't. And since then, we have done fuel mitigations. We have a statewide recognized wildland Wildland team that works every year along the East Bench, Linden, Forbes East Bench, Pragmites down in Vineyard. We're doing a ton of required work. We over— we always exceed the small dollar amount mitigation what the state requires above and beyond, just to make sure that all communities are protected. So with that, if you have specific questions, I'm happy to to address? Do you have any questions?

Yes, you mentioned Ida B. Wells, Binghamton, Lyndon Forum creates this kind of economy of scale, or trifecta, I like to call it. Have other communities ever asked, or would you anticipate you to provide services? And would you consider it, or do you consider the area you cover now your ideal?

I think we would always be open to providing a higher level of service to communities at a reduced cost to the taxpayer. Sure. And I think that— I mean, we haven't had a discussion, but there's lots of rumors right now because I just hired 3 paramedics from Pleasant Grove. So, of course, there's some talk that taking over Pleasant Grove, which there hasn't been any conversation about that. Um, or numbers provided, but I feel like contractual basis, relationship basis would make sense. I live in Pleasant Grove, and I wished my wife would move to Warm because of the level of service we've got here, or Linden or Vineyard. I just can't get her to move. So I'm hoping, I'm hoping over the next few years, especially in my age, step up.

Pleasant Grove might— well, there's been conversations. I don't know how—

I'm just curious. No, I think the benefits we all recognize, value and economy scale, levels of service. So I don't think— I don't want to put in your mouth, Brenda, would be open to entertain any event. Really, it's the higher level of service.

Not speaking for Pleasant Grove, just— I understand a couple conversations about questions.

I would just emphasize that whatever we do, we wouldn't want any single city to be subsidized by the others or feel the perception of subsidized. So Chief said, um, they'd have to be willing to want to come up to our service that we provide. And then also, we're not interested in, in service provider and customer relationships.

We're interested in partnerships.

Chief talked about 3 years ago, we wanted to proactively show our desire for partnership. Uh, and level footing partnership by adding the names of Vineyard and Linder to our badge and to all of our, all of our uniforms and trucks and ambulances and stuff.

And now it's not just for show. That's a true partnership. We wanted to come across genuine.

We want to be the best together.

Well, I was just going to— just an example of your level of service. I have a good friend who had a Widowmaker heart attack, and your guys were there in 21 minutes. So that's the level of service. That's the reward, the saving of the lives and the ability that these men have, all the training, all that they go through. To be there in that moment to make that difference for that family. And we've had stories, you know, people come before the city council, lots of different experiences like that. And I am so amazed. It's like you're watching the TV show, right? But this is real life. This is not a TV show. And you guys are at that level. So I just wanted to kind of, you know, mention that and say, when we talk about supporting our police and our fire and the costs, personnel costs, they are worth every dime, in my opinion, because of the, the lives that you save and the influence you have on our community. So thank you.

Thank you. It is true, a single— Linden and Vineyard, who have one station in their community, as soon as that station's out, without an increased level of staff, you wouldn't need to take them all. Take 4 of the 6 and leave an ambulance behind, because statistically 75% of our calls are EMS. Makes sense to have another ambulance readily available. But then the same level of service when that Linden station is busy, Warren's coming in to back that call versus Pleasant Grove, who doesn't provide a critical care paramedic program at the same level. And so anytime we are all on the same page with the levels of service we provide, I think it's Wise, much more wise.

Thank you. I do appreciate Councilmember's comment because Chief and I maybe get a little bit too bureaucratic talking about level of service. It really genuinely is about saving lives.

Very— we significantly reduced property damage because of our response and our aggressive firefighting. And engine and truck manuals. The guys just go to work. Every minute, the size of the fire doubles, and it doesn't take long to fully engulf an entire house. 6, 10, 12 minutes and burn the whole thing down. And we are historically, at least the last 2 years, we're having those fires out in that timeframe because of our operations. Very seldom are we ever on scene of a structure fire over 60 minutes, and that's start to finish cleanup, back in service. There's a lot of jurisdictions that spend hours on single-story residential fires.

Which, because of your— once again, you know, shout out— because of your level of service, we are just so close to getting a designation that allows each of our property owners to get a discount on their insurance on their homes. We're just this close to getting that.

So, yeah, an ISO rating that's higher— lower, actually. Um, it's like golf, the lower score, the better. Um, I always have hesitated to talk ISO when it comes to insurance rates because it could reduce your insurance. And if there's anywhere from 6 to 12% on a homeowner or a business, But it all depends on the individual insurance company. They all use it differently. But if we have— if we secure the numbers, I think it's one of those major components. Training facilities, another component. Locations of departments or of stations makes a difference. We'll reduce our ISO rating next evaluation by at least 2 numbers. I don't know if the value to go to a Level 1 ISO rating, which is Salt Lake City, A couple of departments in the state, very few. Um, I don't know if the dollars worth getting there is worth the return on investment. Uh, that's what we're— what we're reviewing right now. To go to a 2, there should be no reason why we can't be an ISO rating 2. It's really impressive. Thanks for bringing that up, Lonnie.

Can I just— Mayor and leading council members, I want to express, and staff, My appreciation for the trust you have in us as Orem, because I know, I know that you care very deeply about your community and you trust, and the trust you have in Orem to help provide these crucial services to your residents as well. And so we're grateful, very grateful for the partnership that we have with you. So I just want to express my appreciation. If there's not anything else, Carrie has arrived, and so we'll go back to Item 1.1, a discussion about dispatch provider overview. So we'll turn the time over to Adam Cowie and Carrie Walsh.

Take the lead now?

Yes. So currently our city's jointly contract with Provo City through the Metro Emergency Communications there in the dispatch center. Recently, the, the cities were delivered a notice of significant increase in fees, and so we started looking at some alternative options, uh, just to see what was available. That, um, Central 911, which is a, a central regional provider of, of dispatch services for all of Utah and GWEB counties, and then Serves about 29 other cities. Some of the things that we've looked at as we're moving through this process of just evaluating options at a high level, at least, is certainly costs, but also partnership is a big issue. We've had this prior discussion about our partnership between the cities. That's something that we're hoping for as we look at these dispatch services, that we have a seat at the table as a voting member of the interlocal agreement in some fashion. And so we have a follow-up meeting actually tomorrow with Provo City that will be discussing more of this with them. Some other issues there. It looks like right now, if we were to make a shift to central, It would save both cities financially several hundred thousands per year. And so that's a big decision that we would push out further and then bring to the council for a final decision. Anything else that you wanted to add?

Yeah, the only thing that I would add is that when we decided to merge with Provo, at the time, We entered into an agreement in 2022 to become an inter— to work towards an interlocal agreement where we would have equal power as a board and that the dispatch employees would be employees of Metro Dispatch. During that time, there was a lot of turnover between Orem and Provo administration, so that was lost in translation. And Provo has said they're not interested in an interlocal. They will meet with us tomorrow and then See whether or not they are more inclined to go in that direction. But I, I'm not really confident that we will be moving that way. So, um, not having the ability and the control over necessary items is concerning for us. If we continue down this path, we are more of a customer of Provo rather than equal partners in that.

Right. If I just add— can I just add one point on dispatch? Sure.

Um, and then Quinn.

Yeah, I had the conversation with Adam, and it's regarding could Linden go to Central to save the money if we were to stay. And we're so tied in with our fire contract, it'll be impossible to dispatch the same fire department out of 2 systems. And so I feel like that's why this relationship's so important, that we're on the same page to reduce the overall cost our taxpayers, but, but also receive the level of dispatch service that should be part of it. So relationship's strong just because of that need with the split of police and fire in Lyndon.

Uh, Adam and Carrie, just a couple of follow-up questions. Uh, one, what's on the agenda meeting with Provo? And what does a successful meeting look like? To what have they said in terms of justification for the significant fee increase? And I guess, third, what are the implications for being treated like a customer rather than a partner? And how does that impact us negatively?

Okay, all right, starting with number 1, remind me what that is.

Agenda tomorrow. The agenda tomorrow.

Tomorrow it is just an ad hoc meeting with the board to discuss. We asked Provo to come back with any other kind of recommendations that they would have to continue the partnership. And so we're waiting to hear from them. They know where we stand. They would prefer that we're just a customer. The biggest issue we see in that is that they get to control the entire budget. They get to control how many channels we have. Right now, Mark was on the buyer channel, and it was in their budgetary process, but was cut, and we didn't have any say in their budget process whether or not we got that extra channel. We don't get to control how much they pay their staff or what kind of policies they have in place to manage their staff. So those are some of the biggest issues that we have. The reason why they came back to us with a big increase is that they said that they weren't charging us correctly for their administrative overhead. So, and Brandon, maybe you could give a little more insight to that, but it was like IT expenses, HR, some equipment expenses that they hadn't accounted for previously. Would you add anything to that, Brandon? I mean, it was primarily IT-related. And at the time, Sergeant, at the time when they brought that to us, I said, this is a big significant increase. Are we still moving towards an interlocal? Because that was our understanding. And I'm okay with one year with that increase if we're still moving towards an interlocal, because then we would have greater control later. And I said, is there any way that we could prorate this for this first year? Because it was a mid-year adjustment that we didn't budget for. And there was not really much of an interest on the county side to make those changes. I would say, though, when we did meet in our last meeting, the mayor of Provo was very, very kind, understood the situation that we were in. Neither city wanted to disrupt any positive momentum we have with our neighboring city, and we all understood that this was just a financial decision.

So if you move to central, would we have— would it be more of an interlocal partnership? Would you have say over budget? Like, what would that look like?

Yes. So if we do move to central, we promised provost that we'd give them a year's non-set date. So our intent would be, unless we can move towards an interlocal, that date would be June 30th, 2027, and we would move to central. And they would have a say on the board. Every city that is part of Central is on the managing board. All the employees of Central would have a say.

So assuming— this is just a general assumption— but assuming that the effectiveness of coverage, timing of response, that all of that would still remain at the same level that it is currently, or possibly better than where we're at now?

Yeah, I would, I would defer to the chiefs. They have more experience with Central.

I, I can just—

I would be happy with the level of service that I'm anticipating.

Same thing.

I'll just, I'll just add There, we've learned that some of the dispatchers that used to be ORM dispatchers are now at Central.

Yes, 9 of the dispatchers— oh, sorry, Brad. 9 of the dispatchers, including their dispatch managers, their over-dispatch, are former PROVO dispatchers. I mean, ORM.

I would just add that Central Dispatch uses ProQA, which is a national system, a verified system to dispatch medical and fire units. Standard questions that are utilized, and Provo uses a different version of that that doesn't reach the same level of expectation as we had. Long-haul dispatchers, when we had our dispatch center, because it's a system that's half the cost. And it's not providing the level of service for EMS and fire that we need.

Having been familiar with the 911 centers, the EOCs around the state, affiliated with, installed all of the EOC 911 dispatch centers throughout the state. Central, very familiar with, also probably when they went in there. They're probably— Central is one of the highest As far as what they do to maintain their serviceability and interactions with their local agencies. That's probably a better tier above what we're currently getting. And if it's cheaper, I know just from my personal experience being in their dispatch centers, helping our teams install a lot of that. We— anyway. I have a question.

Oh, I thought you were raising your water bottle.

Okay, cheers to that one. 2 questions.

Um, if I'm remembering, when we did this, uh, Provo had just opened their city hall. They had their new facility. Did we add any infrastructure to that facility?

We did pay some capital costs. Brandon, do you remember?

And is it— they recognizing that? Are we— is that not— I thought that was part of our interlocal. I understand you're saying that didn't turn out as we had. But we also—

we did get them some equip— some dispatch equipment as well, some stations. So we did buy into the center somewhat. So they were really unaware of the agreement until our— for the most part until our last meeting. And so I think that they wanted to go back and review everything. Where they came back to us.

My next question is kind of a silly one, but it was a big deal. And it was, you know, our dispatchers that we had in Orem, when they would call for whatever it was, there would be some service that would— Big example would be for Jeff, probably, who was on the council back then, was the dog issue at Nelson's Grove. That was a big issue for the neighbors in that area, and we had to kind of train the Provo dispatch to say, To have a different culture, you know, to be a culture of service when our residents called. And understanding, of course, that our animal control was— if it was after 5, they weren't necessarily there. But then our police would be so happy to help if they weren't doing other more important things. But my question is, in the central, do we— will we have that same control over cultural trainings? The dispatchers there?

That's a great question. That's something we haven't discussed with, with Central, so I don't want to overpromise. But I know that they're very excited to have us on board. We would be the biggest agency part of Central. And so I do think that we have some power in helping create that culture. And again, their dispatch manager He is our former manager over dispatch here. So—

That's an ask that I would put out there because there was an incident just, uh, 2, 3 weeks ago where someone had called the dispatch about one of our sprinklers that was— it was a weekend and it was watering the pavement and broken, had been already going for 12 hours. And they— this was on a Friday, Saturday night, something like that. And they were told to wait till Monday. And something like that we would really want passed on to our public works because were so responsive when we knew about it. So I would kind of like to have those types of issues part of this agreement, if we can figure out how to route some of those non-emergency issues so they can be taken care of 24/7, or, you know, maybe not 24/7, but you know what I'm saying, responsive.

I've added that to the list, and then when we go into the negotiation for our agreement, we'll make sure that it's I think just to be fair to Heather and Becky, who work in the dispatch center, very supportive and very responsive. Just like BJ and I, they work for an administration. And so some of the things we ask for, they could and would be willing to do, but they can't because of leadership. And so it's not necessarily the managers of the dispatch center themselves. Just the system. I've been very happy with those 2. I think just— I think to summarize, our intent and seeing is an opportunity for good, better, best. When we did dispatch in Orem, I think it was good. I think we've done things better with Provo, but we have an opportunity here to get the best, to have an even higher level of service. at a less expensive cost.

I think, I think we have a good enough relationship with Berkeley to go about this in a way where it won't harm the relationship with them, and that there will be other ways to partner and interact and work together as well. So, so far, we're really optimistic. One, one example to Councilmember Quinn-Meekum's point about cost and how we might save. In our partnership with Lynden for fire and EMS, we look at the difference every year between what we budget versus what our actual expenses come in. And there's always a difference there, right? And we look at that and then we provide a credit on that difference the following year. Well, so that's the difference between customer and partnership. Right? And we haven't heard interest in Provost to provide that same kind of level of partnership that we think Central would be willing to consider.

Do we know how many cities are on Central right now? I mean, and does each city have one board member regardless of their size? Yes. So, or we'll get 1 board member. Lyndon, we get a board member. Okay.

All right, any other questions? All right, thank you. And we'll go to item 1.3, our wastewater— excuse me, wastewater treatment facility upgrades and future costs. So I'll turn the time over to Public Utilities Director Reed Price.

This is where the people that have computers sit. So I'm going to come by Jason. Moving you around. Short legs.

You go for it, Terry. Okay, to continue our, uh, the common theme of partnerships, uh, we are partners in our— the Orem Water Reclamation Facility. Orem treats, uh, 100% of Lyndon's flow. Um, we get about 9 million gallons per day that comes through our facility, and a portion of that About 13% of it is, is Lindens. Um, and, uh, we, we produce an excellent water quality, uh, through our treatment process. Uh, our flow goes through Powell Slough and eventually makes its way to, to Utah Lake. Many of you were involved in the ribbon cutting that we had down there for the tertiary treatment plant where we Phosphorus from the waste stream as directed by the, um, by the state of, state of Utah. The reason I'm here is to talk about our capital facilities plan. We completed a review of all of the assets and equipment that we have in our water reclamation facility, started Oh, in early 2020, 2021, and finalize it in 2022. And the reason we did that, or the results of that, to quote from it, it's very engineering speak. So, these projects are driven by aging equipment and facilities, failure of older structures to meet current building and safety code requirements, inadequate process performance with respect to permitted effluent requirements, Classification of biosolids for land application. So, as partners, we get to make sure that we address these in a timely fashion, because this is a facility that we don't want. Uh, this facilities plan again was completed in 2022. Orem incorporated it into their sewer master plan, which looked at the collection system in 2025. It is a 20-year plan, and it goes over 4— it's set at 4 phases. 2022 was at $160 million total. As we've looked at it closer, see that Phase 1 was originally expected to cost $58 million, and current estimates put it at about $88.8 million. This is largely due to inflationary pressures that we've experienced over the years. It's also some shuffling of projects where we bumped a Phase 2 up and one down. So it's, it's not a true apples-to-apples comparison. However, it does give you a good idea that, yeah, these costs to make the improvements that are needed at this facility. Phase 1, this is what we're looking at in the next 5 years. You can see that we've got 10 Projects that are prioritized here, and they total— the construction cost, as the estimate is, $88.8 million. We've got another $6.6 million in engineering fees that we will need to pay, totaling $95.4 million in the next 5 years.

Can I ask a question on that? How much of that is because of government, of the federal regulation?

There's a portion of it. If I was to guess, I would put it at 25 to 30%. We have an old— older facilities, and there are improvements that are needed. So that's just a guess though. Thank you. It's— we like to blame regulations, and that is a reason for many of it, but it's just like our cars get old at some point. Thank you. So the cost distribution for this, and looking at the overall cost including engineering, contractually we have, we have an agreement. Our partnership establishes a cost share. Bren mentioned that at the end of the year we go through a reconciliation of other services that we are partners in. We do the same thing here. We just split the cost to run the facility with You with Linden and also with Vineyard. Orem's portion is 85.68%, Linden's 12.24%, and Vineyard's 2.08%. So the price tag, the expected price tag for Orem is $81.8 million. Linden will need to pay $11.7 million and Vineyard almost $2 million of that price tag. How do we pay for that? Well, Forum, our plan is we need to finance it. We don't— believe it or not, we don't have $80 million sitting in the bank. Mm-hmm. We have been increasing rates slowly over the past 3 years to help pay for this and to help pay for a payment toward financing that we will have. So we will be using a combination of financing and savings that we have on hand, fund balance, And savings based on these rate increases that we have put in place over the past 2 years. For Linden, you guys get to make this decision. As we've talked with, with Adam and Juan in the past, options are that you can, you can pay upfront. You did this for the tertiary treatment plant. The tertiary treatment process. He said, what, how much is it going to cost? It was $21 million. And so we gave you a bill for 12 point, whatever that percentage was, 12.28%. And that was paid, paid in full.

That's the water, the tertiary plants, the water reuse.

Water reuse and phosphorus. Um, and so this is a much larger price tag. I, I doubt Adam has not said, oh, don't worry, we can cover that.

So, um, On the card.

I wish you would, Adam.

So, uh, another, another thing that you could do is, is to finance, uh, and you could go out on your own and, uh, get a bond and then make payments to us as the projects proceed. So I don't think that's a very, uh, efficient way to do things. Um, Adam has approached us. This is a way that we could just join in this bond and make payments to Orem and We have agreed that that would be acceptable to just make payments on any financing that we receive. This was the model that was undertaken in 2012 when we had an expansion. Lyndon currently makes an annual payment to us to pay off a loan that we received through the state of Utah.

Um, not only would it be inefficient, but Orem has had a triple utility fund bond rating, and so you can't get any better than that, and you can't get better interest rates than that.

Good point. Uh, and then the last, uh, so we're bonding, you could pay for your portion of that bond. We're also paying cash on hand that we have. You could pay us back for, uh, what we've saved. Basically, essentially have the Bank of Orem where you would pay Orem back for their initial investment into this. So those are, those are what we have dreamed up. The whole purpose of this discussion is, is to make you aware that our wastewater treatment plant is aging. There are federal regulations. We're partners, and there is a significant price price tag coming as these projects begin. We are— we have about $40 million, $45 million, about half of it already designed, ready to go. We're just waiting to pull the trigger on financing. And so this is starting this year.

Questions?

I do. With this infrastructure, you're obviously building capacity for all of our projected buildout, correct?

Actually, we, uh, we already have the capacity that the facility needs when you're speaking hydraulically speaking. So we can treat up to 15 million gallons per day, and we currently have received about 9. So The tanks that we have, the processes that we have are sized for buildout, but there are other— it's largely replacement and regulations.

So another question I have is the life of this infrastructure. Is it 50 years that you're investing in?

Yeah, so some of the major improvements that we're doing were constructed in the '80s. We're not replacing them, we're re-outfitting them. So yeah, most of the improvements that we're doing are going to be 50-year-plus improvements.

So, quick question. I noticed there's a, you know, Vineyards right now, you're basing it off of accounts served, or are you basing it off of Gallons coming into the system. When you determine—

Adam might be— weigh in if you think I'm misspeaking. My understanding is that build-out conditions were—

I mean, there's just a huge disparity. I mean, Lyndon's build-out is maybe 17,000 population. We're going to be there, you know, it's minimal, but Vineyards is exponential, but they're Their participation in this—

point of clarification, Vineyard, we only treat from our 400 south. There's a small section. Oh, okay. The rest of it goes to the special service. So really, they are close to build out in the area that you serve, area that we serve. Right.

Did you have— yes, I just want to add, it's based on the capacity that the plant Is designed for it. He says this is 15 million. Of the 15 million, Lyndon City owns 1.6 million gallons. Okay, so we're— so it's based on the flow that we are allocating, that we anticipate that we'll grow into and occupy.

Okay, that was helpful. Negotiated 15 or 20 years ago, both cities jointly looked at their build-out numbers. and accommodated that plant upgrade at that time for those build-out numbers.

We went from 1.2 million gallons to 1.6 million gallons to, uh, to address that additional growth that we're going to have.

And that's part of that bond payment that we mentioned that we're making each year is to pay off those improvements that were made back then. Thank you. Just, just to back up a little bit, the Bank of Orem Aspect of that, we have talked about an interest rate that we apply to that similar to the PTIF.

I think that's a really generous offer by the forum. If we do that, and so we would be paying some interest back to the city, where it's your savings that you're paying for stuff up front, and we realize that. And so it wouldn't be a free 0% loan, but still very generous is what we think. Thank you.

Anything else? Thank you, Reed. Appreciate the update. Uh, next item, 1.4, discussion on 4000 North and 1200 South Road maintenance, and turn it over to, um, John, our Public Services Director.

Okay, here to talk about the shared boundaries that we have up on 2,000 South and 1,600 North, 6,600 South. I'm passing around kind of a draft agreement that I was told you might have seen already. Taking you back to the '80s. This is what you have in front of you. This will be replacing at the end of— it has that 1980 agreement. And as I read through both, there's very little technical information. It basically says we'll take care of repair and maintenance, and each city will their parts. It's pretty simple. Going forward, the boundary we share, and I'll do a graphical representation of this, but we have that 1000 West Linden Park Drive is the Linden section, 2000 North West State Street, and then 2000 Northeast of State Street. To show that, basically, This yellow line here, you see my house? Here's the boundary. And in the '80s, it was established that Lindenwood maintained this section and this section up to that park drive. I don't know if it was there, but freeway off-ramp. And then Orem would take care of everything in this blue. Um, then 2019, both entities did a jurisdictional transfer and gave that portion to UDOT. So the section that Lyndon was maintaining is gone, and the section that Orem was on its own, it's now UDOT's. So going forward, the agreement shows that— and I'm not privy to this, and you might know this already, but I was told that Lyndon is in the middle of reconstructing this section of roadway. Um, to be done by the end of the year. And that's kind of one of the— it's written into the agreement that Lyndon will finish that, that section here between State Street. And this is about 1,000 yards to Orem. Yeah, and this yellow is the city boundary. Going forward, the plan in that document is to have Orem maintain the entire section from This shared boundary, um, comes at the Skyline Drive, and it would be a 50/50 split in those costs. We would do the standard maintenance and repair. I didn't detail them out here, but in your packets, sections 2.1 to 2.11, it really detailed about what that means. This is what we mean by standard repair and maintenance, standard maintenance. Obligation and responsibility, reimburse all 50% of those costs. And I believe you have a— update your road project plan on 2000. 2031. And so part of that agreement mentions, do you have any utility work down in that area? Do it with any— we're ahead of time and work with you guys all the time, so we can figure that out. But before we have this major reconstruct and overlay, we want utilities to be synced. And the discussion we can have items 5 to about 17 on is just the recitals Just—

oh, is it just the legal—

legal and finance and your late and how you pay us? So I didn't go through all of those deep details here. You can stand, and some of you might have stood already for questions.

This is draft form. So this is a draft. Comments since probably this back to Chris, and Chris isn't here today, I understand. So Um, we have a pending— some details out.

So he sent it to me last Friday, so I don't know how recent the change is in there, but I did reset those a week and a half or 2 weeks ago.

Weeks ago.

Maybe they're in there, maybe they're not. But any questions?

No, I just wanted to say that, uh, sending comments to, to Chris and trying to schedule another meeting with Sit down.

And I think some of the areas we talked a little bit about, I believe, very appropriate about soft costs, about staff, because our staff can typically design. We don't pay out for design, so we don't know how that will get reimbursed. That's— I don't think that's really a question of it. There's a soft cost element of staff's time. To split that we haven't. Okay, we'll keep looking. More questions?

No, it's a draft. I think we cleaned up well during temple, so there might be extra if we want some.

What did you end up with extra? 6 or 8.

No, no, no, I'm on the other side.

I'm very late. All right, our next item is a discussion on the Linden Hall drainage agreement and joint maintenance of waterway and wetlands. So turn over to Juan. Thank you, Mayor.

I'm just gonna bring a visual of what we're talking about. This section right here.

Okay, so I'm Juan Garrido, Public Works Director. I've been working on this project with Mayor Lundberg, was very, very helpful in finding us an ARPA grant, uh, the '21-'22 era, and it was related to, uh, the Utah Lake water quality, uh, program.

So what we have is right here on this line, this is where we collect a lot of the effluent— uh, not effluent, but, uh, stormwater runoff from, uh, Orem, Pleasant Grove, and Linden. There's a local agreement where Orem is responsible for about 51% of the flow. Pleasant Grove, through one of the drainages that comes right through the middle of Linden, is responsible for about 17%, and then Linden is pretty much responsible for the remainder. Uh, City limits for Orem don't quite go into, into this area, and neither does Pleasant Grove.

So Lyndon pretty much has taken the lead on maintaining the channel, overseeing the flows, and we kind of get tasked with water quality.

There was a study made in the '90s, or late, or late '90s or early 2000s, where the They were studying the water quality of Utah Lake, and they put up quite a few sensors or a few gauges through here, and there was high E. coli, high turbidity. That was some of the main, the main factors. With this ARPA grant, we, we are looking at rebuilding the channel. Here has been eroding as well as the water travels too fast. There's not enough time for sediments to drop. The existing or the base flow capacity of this, uh, this channel, it's about 3 to 5 CFS. But when we have a pretty big storm, it swells up to 200 CFS. It's been causing some erosion.

Thank you.

It's kind of been neglected for a little bit. So, as where we have our heritage trail going also through there, we, we're also trying to not only improve water quality, but also do beautification of the area. So it's more attractive to people going by there.

The original grant that we got from the state was about $700,000 with a 20% match. So that made it that this— will have to come up with about $200,000 and some to do the 20% match. Then of that, Orem will pay the 51%, Pleasant Grove the 17%, and Linden the remainder.

I have been in contact with Chris Shirkey in that regard to, uh, to make sure he's budgeting ahead of time and, um, handling that that way. Recently We had some visitors from the state coming to check on the program.

They were pretty happy with what they saw, and they added an additional $300,000 to— $300,000 to the project.

So we can actually finish clear from Geneva Road, the bridge that crosses into the wetlands. And then we'll work on an interlocal— part of the interlocal agreement, how to Do better maintenance of the noxious weeds and a few other things that require attention.

Then eventually we will keep working on that at our local so this place doesn't fall in disrepair again. We'll just keep it on a, on an annual basis of spraying, which—

Taking care of cleaning debris and all of those.

Any questions? For the benefit of the Orem Council, you, you all noticed as we were going through our budgeting process, there was a little bit higher of an increase percentage-wise in our storm drain than some of our other utilities. And so it was in part in anticipation of some of these types of increasing costs.

But in obtaining that now cumulative $1 million, and, and funding that helps offset all of our costs. And the thing that's really wonderful is if you do go down the trail once it's complete, part of why we were awarded the funding was because we're trying to do these— fancy word is riparian, uh, reconstruction. So for the water, animals, the fish, and there's some great fishing along this canal, by the way, that people We'll be able to do it. And so it's, it's going to be very beautiful, very beautiful walkway.

Can I ask a question along those lines? I did not know there was a trail there. So where does that trail go to? Where does that lead?

It goes all the way to the lake, to our Linden Marina.

And it goes all the way past the temple to the foothill. So it's—

so it intersects the Murdock Canal and then comes through all of the central part of Linden. So it's the first Lake Tonopah Trail in the valley.

I'm just trying to figure out how to ride my bike to American Fork.

Just answered that question.

You can see this trail goes here all the way to 1200 East to the foothill. Then it just kind of goes— Luke and Jacobs can give you a tour of that. That's the east side. So it does connect to the Murdock Trail right here. And it keeps going south and then comes out this cul-de-sac, and then it follows Center Street.

Perfect.

And from Center Street all the way to Geneva Road, goes underneath State Street here through a tunnel.

Oh, I can't see the north.

That's all right. Goes through the city center park. Yeah.

Through the city center park anyways. Today, were you able to mitigate the erosion that occurred from the high flow and heavy rains and waters? A permanent solution to that by—

Yes, we will be. Uh, what's happening is it's so steep that the velocities are just—

yeah.

So we're going to raise the bottom of the, of the channel. Then we're going to cut back the top of it, and then we're going to lay it back. So it's not actually, uh, Canyon, it's going to be— people can, can get in there and fish.

And you said normal flow is like 3 CFS, and then how high does it get when it's 100 to 200 CFS? I thought I heard, yeah, 3 to 200. Yeah, that's why that would have gotten the power.

Does this mean we can rebrand the marina to the Lyndon and Orem Marina?

Just wanted to annex part of Florida.

Yes, can you go back to just the, the first map you showed? If we can find it. I, I'm just trying to understand where the water ends up. Um, it looks like— I can't tell what that is. Is that a live section?

So this is a wetland.

It's a wetland that is Always wet?

Yes.

And then there's an egress that goes out to the lake as well?

Yes. So it gets— comes into this wetland area. It then leaves on a small channel. We have our trail going right next to it. At this point, it crosses Pioneer Lane right behind the power plant. And then our trail now continues this way, and then it crosses right here, and then it goes to the marina. The water continues up This way through the other wetlands by the power plant.

This is, uh, 2,000 west, 200 south, and then it crosses right through here and it goes right south of the transfer station.

Have you ever been to the solid waste, the wetlands? You see that little channel? That is it.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Are those wetlands big enough that they attract wildlife?

Some.

Um, so Be yours for sure.

Yeah, you may not be aware, Orem jointly owns this wetland area with Linden and Pleasant Grove based on the percentages that's in our agreement. So, so that was purchased a number of years ago when Anderson Geneva was developing. They were interested in filling that entire thing and just leaving the channel. And because of such the amount of stormwater that comes through there, this is a natural detention basin. That's really benefiting our city. So we jointly purchased that land. And so that is public open space. It was actually put under a conservation easement at that same time. And so it cannot be developed in the future. So you are a joint owner in that land.

Any other questions?

It's tucked away in the middle of industrial operations. So it's Anyway, I'm just going to ask it navigation. So if I'm riding my bike and I'm going past the wetlands, where do I join back in across the street there? See that Trinity Express? Do I go through their parking lot?

So you come right to this point, then there is a new trail that connects right along this fence. Okay, so I'll see it.

And then where do I connect at Geneva Road? I saw them on the west side, but where?

Okay, so we've got just west of the rail line. There's a dedicated trail.

Oh, okay. I see it. Yeah, it goes.

So it goes north right here at Center Street.

Not Center Street.

It crosses from here to here.

Yeah. Okay.

So nice. That 6-foot-wide asphalt when it's in—

okay.

It's kind of a glorified sidewalk in some parts of Winnipeg. It is, uh, 8.

It drops down. That's awesome.

Okay, I know what I'm going to be doing.

It's wonderful.

All right, thank you. Appreciate it. Our next item on our agenda is 1.6, discussion legislative interests in common between the cities. And so I'm going to turn the time over to Adam and Brian.

Yeah, many of you have at least some good awareness of interacting with the Utah League of Cities and Towns and their regular legislative policy committee meetings. And so you get maybe broader and additional subjects that we as cities can kind of team up with legislatively in our lobbying and relationship-building efforts with with state legislators. So I think of particular interest to Lyndon and Orem over the next year or so, I think we'll want to team up with and stay in communication as it relates to protecting our water sourcing rights and decision-making and control. And then Another item that we're becoming increasingly interested in, and would love to hear any thoughts on this in particular, is in relation to e-bike and e-scooter regulations. Obviously, the state started to provide some guardrails, so to speak, but I think it's a, it's a growing concern, and we're trying to grapple with— on the one hand, it's good to get our kids out. and out of— away from their screens. On the other hand, some of these e-bikes can go quite quick. And so we have in recent months gotten on a committee with the county to look at how we, as cities, can regulate. Especially where we have bordering and connecting trails, and more particularly the Murdock Canal Trail, we want to make sure that whatever regulations and enforcement we start doing, that we're not on an island and doing something different than you guys and the other cities to the north. So anyway, that's something that, you know, of course, our respective staffs will want to communicate on and work on. And if you're not on that Utah County committee, then You know, we can pass along some of that information as well. But, um, yeah.

I think other items is really, uh, focuses in my mind on just local control and things that the state is continually looking at pulling away from cities. Property tax, we're expecting legislation that's going to continue tightening the ability of cities to use property taxes as a financing mechanism. And so that's a big issue that we would encourage you as elected officials to talk to your legislators and try to protect that local control. Land use and housing are the other big things that we're seeing a lot of pressure from the state to make changes locally, and some of that's been forced upon us. And so maintaining that local control is a big concern. They have helped recently with transportation funding where the legislature approved The TUF, it's the Transportation Utility Fee option for cities to look at as a possible funding mechanism of street maintenance. So that's been a positive thing. Yeah, local control on issues.

One size misfits all.

All right, thank you.

Anything else? All right, our final item in this section is, uh, North Union Irrigation Company dissolution and possible canal trail. So let's turn it over to Warren Carey.

I want to invite, uh, Reed because he's also the chair—

uh, and Reed, okay, vice chair of the North Union and probably I take a hat off, a different one on for this.

So, you'll—

well, oh, there you go. You have a presentation. He has a small one. Yeah, right.

Sit down there. I'm not just winging this. Thank you. North Union Canal, Provo Bench North Union Canal. Here's just a big overview so that you're familiar with it. The red ends up going up into Pleasant Grove, almost American Fork. That's the length of it, and Reed can talk a little bit about Here in a minute, the plans of the canal company, where they're at, and frankly abandoning delivering water. And we can talk a little bit about what that means practically for the canal and some of the unique things that the state law— The position it puts us in. In Orem, We are looking at the canal as a possible utility corridor, trail corridor. And we were looking at an area. You can see there comes from about 200 south on Palisade, and it comes up to the border on 2000 north with Linden, and you can see On the southern end, you can see how broad that canal can be in some areas. And then as you get farther north, it really gets more narrow. And we are in the process of— we've gone out for requests for proposals. We've had 2 back. Methods and Landmark have come in with bids, and we'll be reviewing those next week. What we're doing is hiring a consultant to help us do a couple of major things, one being public outreach. As you can imagine, this canal passes by a lot of people. And to give you an example, here in Orem, it's a little over 5 miles. And it goes through a lot of residential zones, and these residential zones are our 8,000-square-foot lot, 7,500. And it basically in that area within walking distance of the canals, over 14,000 people. And it goes— the canal goes by schools, parks, churches, all along there. So. You can see a lot of people are very interested. So back to the RFPs that we're looking at, 2 main things. One, kind of public outreach along the canal corridor to gauge people's interests in the canal and what happens with it. I, I get a lot of phone calls on this. And the mayor, she Forwards me lots of emails that we're already getting, and, and I'll tell you, they range from everything from— On one side, people saying, uh, I want the property in my yard. I don't want anything that the city has anywhere near it. We've had people out claiming to themselves canal property. Behind their houses and in a case or two behind their neighbor's house. So, and all the way to people saying, I live on the canal, I would love this to be a trail. And so, and we hear everything in between. And then I have some people saying, I don't really want the canal, but I know my neighbor is throwing all their yard waste into it. We've got kids back there playing, and it's a corridor for crime and, and all of those things. So it really ranges all over the place. So number 1 is to kind of gauge community input. Number 2 is to analyze this as a utility corridor. We currently do have stormwater that gets put into the canal. We are working on Some plans, and I think we talked earlier about, we basically have our own engineering firm in-house. And we have been working on getting some of our stormwater out, but we want to look at, well, what if we keep stormwater in? But what about other utilities? We have, as you can see through Orem, this major corridor that could be used for utilities as it goes through the community. So we want to analyze those types of things. We've even talked about a shell aquifer recharge system and, and if that could be helpful to us or not. So that's kind of where we stand with this. And Reed, if you want to—

Sure.

Jump in about the company.

Yeah, so the company, as I presume all of you are aware, that the Provo Bench Canal and Irrigation Company, which Goes from the mouth of the canyon down, circles around about 400 South and Orem, back to the north, terminating— kind of terminating— the end of that company, the end of the canal that the Provo Bench Canal Company operated is at 800 North, and the canal just continues. It switches companies to the North Union Canal Company. It elected back in November of last year to to stop delivering water. Um, the forum is a bit— was a major shareholder, the major shareholder in the Provo Bench Company. Lyndon was the major shareholder in North Union. We also owned shares. Um, but, uh, because Lyndon will be taking their water out of the, uh, the, uh, the—

Aqueduct.

The aqueduct. The Provo River Act. Thank you. The Provo River Aqueduct. They don't need the canal. Forum has never put water in the canal, but we've always paid our assessments as part of that, part of that company. So, because Lyndon was pulling it out of the more efficient Provo River Aqueduct, the volume of water didn't exist. It could not operate as a canal with the few shareholders that would— that remained. So we felt as a company. We felt that it was best to just disband and give everybody their— give everyone the opportunity to either sell their interest in the company or retain that in the form of water rights. And that process is close to being finalized. We hope to have that done this week. In fact, I— viewing our calendar, we noticed that we have a meeting tomorrow morning with the company's attorney. who will direct— hopefully direct us to go ahead and process the paperwork that conveys all the water rights to that. That said, the company is close to needing to make a decision of when to abandon its prescriptive easement that it has right now. The only reason that people haven't gobbled up land is because the company still asserts that it has the right to use this to convey Water, but it's not doing that. So the time is coming soon. That's why Orem's going through this process to determine what can be done. How can we use this as an amenity that's a little beyond the intention of what it's been used for the past 100-plus years? So, um, from the company's perspective, And we— Juan and I, as the, as the president and vice president, we can control how quickly this happens in working with our attorney, but he will be advising us on what the company should do, because as long as we hold that, we're still liable for things that happen in that canal. And, uh, as a company, we're not really interested, uh, in taking on that liability. So. Hopefully we can come to a solution soon. Um, it will be quite the effort, I believe, as we reach out to the public to see, to gauge the interest and, and what, how, how we could use this differently. Um, so anyway, my company— Just informing both city councils that decisions need to be made relatively quickly. We anticipate The full closure of the company soon, and with that full closure comes an abandonment of that prescriptive easement. Fish, I think it takes 90 days or something after we do that where the company just walks away, has no more responsibility for that corridor, and the legal battle begins to determine who gets to continue to use it.

Can a new company be created With the idea that this is for the stormwater. Yes, or to retain that prescriptive easement.

This gets into the legal arguments that I, I know, Steve, you've been looking, you've been looking at it, but I don't, I can't speak authoritatively.

It's a great question. Let's make sure that we can get our respective city attorneys and staff to share notes and see how we can approach it.

And are you balancing the official dissolution to give us time?

That's because we said we are the president and vice president. We have directed our attorney to— we're not going to jump right in and do this. We do have time, but We, as a company, we are all— Linden and Orem are still liable for that canal because we are the major shareholders of both of them.

So is it consistent that many of the adjacent property owners, they show this canal on their plat map as part of their parcel, or are there some sections where it's wholly the company's?

Company owns nothing. So, yes, there are, there are areas of, of no man's land where the parcels don't really match up on the county parcel map. And that's up for—

stake a claim.

The company does not assert that it owns any property. So, it—

we're researching that.

Okay, one of our board members is also Central Utah. Uh, water, and they have already expressed to our attorney to keep the easement for water for a possible aquifer recharge where it—

From the Broad River, and then their office is right adjacent to it.

So they're looking at claiming that part of the easement for that purpose, which is still water conveyance. And that's where they have a Part of that gray area too. So the purpose, going back to what Gary was talking, the purpose of this study is to look at what are all the claims, including ours as respective cities and adjacent property owners, and then compare and contrast those claims and the strength of them, and also the timing of that, because I would submit to you all that You know, this is a corridor that is more opportunity than challenge, and once it's gone, it's gone. So now's our time to look at it and look at it from all angles. So uses and the legalities, and let's try to work together to find out the best use of it. And if the president and vice president of the Canal Company could be sure to communicate with our public utilities director and—

Sometimes, sometimes that's a challenge.

Okay. So, Carrie, I'm sorry, just to clarify, because, you know, I take notes here, but RFP Public outreach. And what was the second?

Yeah, sorry. Uh, a technical analysis of using it as a utility corridor, which could be an aquifer recharge, or frankly, other types of utilities. If there's a need for a corridor through the community, and this ends up being one that could be less expensive than maybe digging up roads or sidewalks and things like that, that could be a good way to get utilities through the community.

And Gary, we're, we're doing this study in cooperation with Mountainland Association of Governments.

Yes, they've, uh, we've gotten a grant from MAG, and so we're working with them. They will run the technical aspects of the grant and the other.

So, is there, I guess, just point of clarification. So, is there still water Whether it be stormwater or other water that could be moved through that canal. But back to your point, there are different leadership ownership capacity.

We'd have to take a look.

That's going to be part of the study.

That'll be a part of what we're going to be looking at, whether we do it under the study or independently. We'll figure that out. But absent the canal, there is water The canal company, there is water going into the canal.

No, the company— there's no—

I mean, stormwater is coming into the canal. The canal company is not moving water through. But right now there are private properties who their stormwater goes into the canal. And that's one of the things we need to think about is if that canal does go away. Now, you got to remember, when the canal company walks away, They're literally going to wash their hands and walk away and say, congratulations, Ormond, Linden, you have a canal through your, your community. Good luck dealing with it. And so, uh, if stormwater from private properties is going into that canal, what does that mean? And, uh, if people start blocking off the canal and one person wants to take it over and fill it in, and the next-door neighbor doesn't do that, Where does that stormwater go? What happens to it?

What's the name?

Yeah, hopefully not, but that— but we need to ensure that, because if it does, you will be the ones getting the phone call, not the canal company.

Yeah. All right, any other questions? Mayor McKellis had to step out for our 2 o'clock meeting.

So, very much for that presentation. Well, you've been very good crowd again.

Are there any other issues, council members, that come to mind before we adjourn?

Thanks for being with us. We sure appreciate it.

Yes, Mayor McCallum and I thought first of the year, he said this would be really great, um, to just get together. Our cities are— we're sister cities and our relationship is wonderful and, um, I would love to do this periodically.

Hopefully sooner next time, so we don't have a list quite so big. I know it's been—

I think it's been like 5, 6 years. That's not— maybe at least once a year, or anyway. That would be great. That's noted, staff.

Okay.

And I guess we leave you with a little dessert.

Sure. So many to pick. Hey. Hi.