City Council · 2026-07-14

Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Well, we're glad to have you. It's what, like 10 o'clock there or something?

Yeah, yeah, 10:30.

Oh, okay. Well, we'll go ahead and get started. Our first item on our agenda is presentation on the MyOrem update, and it's a 10-minute presentation and then 5-minute Q&A. So I'll turn the time over to our Deputy City Manager, Carrie Rudd. Mayor, um, we're really excited to return and report. We brought to you before we launched MyOrem, the new platform for all residents to interact with the city, and we've got our software development project managers here, McKay Barton and Sarah And they are going to give us an update on how progress is going. And then we also brought council members a sweatshirt for my arm so that we can get our marketing out there. So please wear it out, not on 100-degree weather, but please wear it in the fall to every— so with that, I'll turn it over. Welcome.

Thank you. And I will say those are particularly comfortable sweaters. Not a sweater person, but I was really Enjoying those. So, as a reminder, Carrie mentioned My Orem was the initiative that we launched back in April that helps us unify some of the online services that we're providing to our citizens and anybody who wants to do business with us. Make it a little bit more streamlined, a little bit more nice, a little bit more accessible, so that it isn't as confusing when you're wanting to do business with the City of Orem. We launched on April 27th of this year. And to this point, we've launched with a few applications that are already baked into the ecosystem, that being utilities, landlord licensing, project management, and our boards and commissions site. So if I want to participate in any one of those, these services have now been streamlined as part of MyOrem. Going forward, the next thing that is on the docket to be integrated into the system is a business licensing application and our fitness center applications. All services for the fitness center are going to be running through MoMA in the near future. So—

Sweet.

Just to give you guys, because we've been live for 11 weeks now with MyAurum, just about 11 weeks as of yesterday, just to give you some numbers of what we've seen. We've had 4,600 new MyAurum accounts created by citizens. And this, to give you a little bit of an idea, this is out of about 20,000 total utility customers.

We have.

So we're almost a quarter of our utility customers have migrated over to the MyOrem site. We've processed almost 4,000 payments through the MyOrem site. This is also not including any kind of automatic payments to set up. So this is just MyOrem processed. And we also, as part of the MyOrem platform, integrated a new fancy, very secure payment processor that's helping us be We've had almost 500 new utility applications go through the MyOrem process, processed by our 311 agents. And then just to give you an idea of like the pacing here, things have settled down a little bit. On average over the last 2 weeks, we've had 149 users log in per day and 40 new accounts per day averaged out over the last 2 weeks. So it's being very heavily used right now.

Thank you.

And I just want to give a big shout out to our 311 Help Center agents as well. They've been working super hard and super closely with all of our software engineers, and they've done a really fantastic job of responding to the citizens and helping them through any issues they might have. We've been in constant communication on new features that the developers have been working with 311 to develop and launch. And so it's still growing. And like McKay said, we're going to add Business licensing, we're going to have the fitness center, and it's going to be even more comprehensive in the future. Any questions? I'm so excited about this. This is so cool. Can you tell me, you said a couple more things are coming online, the fitness center and—

Business licensing.

So the business licensing, that's pretty straightforward. What kind of things will residents be able to do with the fitness center?

This is things like I want to apply for a membership or I want to apply for a subscription to a class. The ability right now to manage those things is a little bit fragmented. If anybody's used that app experience, it works. You can definitely get the job done, but it isn't always the neatest thing. We want to do is make sure that's a lot more simplified. So I want to sign up for a cycling class. It should be a very clear and concise way to do that. You should know exactly how to do something like that. And this program is going to help facilitate things like, hey, I want to sign up for a membership because there's a sale going on. We want to make sure that that's advertised and that it is clear what happens when you're actually buying that membership, what it all entails, what's offered to you, the ability to renew or cancel it. Those types of things we want to make sure.

This is great. I'm excited. So until the— I saw the sign, it's what, November when the bill pay shuts down? So November we will cut over because right now we're running both sites. simultaneously to help ease the transition for our users. In November, we will cut over, we will close down the bill pay site, and then we will— all new users will need to migrate to MyOrem. There will still be the ability for if you haven't signed up after November, you can go in, you can link your account. None of the data will be lost, but the bill pay site will be taken down. Yeah, so are there any other questions? It's awesome.

Yeah, I do have a question.

Thank you.

Yeah, Quinn.

Oh, sorry, Quinn.

No worries. I, I can raise my hand if it's useful. I can't tell if people are checking that or not. Otherwise, I'll just jump in. Thanks so much for working on this. I know it's been a huge project. I'm just so excited about its potential. McKay, I'm wondering if maybe you could share some of the bumps in the road that we've hit, some of the things that we hadn't anticipated that you've worked hard to try to resolve, and where you think we still have challenges that need some work before we get to where we want to be? Yeah, definitely. So one of the biggest challenges that we've had in creating this is we are working with data that has been existing for years. This data has been created in such a way That it was really well tailored to what we wanted when we created it, but the needs of the city have shifted over time. And so, as we're creating this new application, we're needing to take all of that information, still use it, make sure that we're not losing citizens' data, and still make it more modern, something that reflects the needs of the city today, but it's also something that's adaptable for the needs of the city going forward. So, the challenge in finding ways to make sure that that is connected smoothly and fluidly has been a very big challenge for us. There were definitely some road bumps that we were hitting right as we were launching MyOrym, and people not being quite sure how that connection worked. We had to do a lot of work with our 311 agents to make sure that they fully understood and could conceptualize how that data was migrating. But we've now settled on a way that we're pretty confident, and we've been seeing a lot of success in making sure that that data migration is happening far smoother now than it was 11 weeks ago. This is not a challenge that is unique to just utilities. When we onboard the fitness center, we're going to run into a lot of the same issues. But thankfully, because of the work we've done, we've been able to figure out, and we have very good guards in place that our team is working on right now to make sure that when we hit those roadblocks, we're able to move around them very agilely, very quickly.

Yeah.

I know that, you know, there have been a number of residents that contacted me who have had challenges migrating over, but I have been impressed that once we get them connected with the right person at 311, that it goes very smoothly when they do hit those challenges. So appreciate you working carefully with 311.

They've done an incredible job. We're really grateful for them, for sure. All right, thank you. Any other questions? All right, thank you so much. I'm excited to get over there, MyOrem. Yeah, because it is— oh, like we were talking about, it's everybody's MyOrem, isn't it? And you've got a sweater now. You got a mic. Yeah, yes, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, the next item on our agenda is our fraud presentation, our fraud risk assessment, uh, from— by our Chief Financial Officer, Brandon Nelson. It's a 5-minute presentation with 5-minute Q&A, so I'll go ahead and turn the time over to Brandon. Thank you, Mayor.

So every year, as part of the State Auditor and their compliance requirements, the financial officer of every entity who is under the state is required to come forward with his fraud risk assessment. And they all have used the same form and try to give you an idea of where we are with it. If there's any questions about it, any things of that nature, I will tell you up front. This fraud risk assessment is really geared towards much smaller entities. That was what prompted this assessment in the first place, was smaller entities who just don't have the same level of depth in relation. relation to their internal control structures and rely upon a much smaller number of people to do a much larger number of things. And so, so what you're going to see that here in a few of the items, you'll notice at the very top our score of 335, where that falls within— low is good, just so we want to go this way, right? So, it has been that score for pretty much ever since we started this fraud risk assessment, since the state started requiring it. You'll notice all everything is checked until we get down to this area.

Oh, it's us.

So, this is why I wanted it. So, there's a couple of reasons why Number 1, the number 4 that you see there. Why is it that we don't necessarily do that? Well, we have such a thing within our policies and procedures. But you'll notice that it— what it specifically says we must do, and we just have never gone to that extreme, if you will, of having you sign a document, physically sign a document indicating Some various things in relation to this every year. It looks like every year, so we haven't felt that that was totally necessary to do so. Number 5, there is training specifically related to finance, the finances of the city, that each and every one of you could go do, and we would then meet That requirement. I will tell you it is somewhat lengthy. And you only have to do it once. In this particular case, you only have to do it once in your 4-year term. And I'm not sure— I've never taken it, of course, but I'm not sure how beneficial it is to you. It may or may not be that beneficial. So Again, that's kind of another one of those where, could we meet that requirement? Certainly could. I just don't know how truly beneficial it is to do so. Last item you'll notice there is number 8, and we do not have a formal internal audit function. We have many internal audit functions. P-cards, for one, uh, petty cash, another. Accounts payable has, uh, control— internal controls related to it. There are several other programs where we have internal controls related to those programs, but this is referring to a separate— someone outside of our organization. Who formally— and it could be inside your organization, but they're separate from the account, the finance department— who performs audit functions for you. Again, we haven't felt like there's a need for that. Our organization is large enough that we don't necessarily feel like you need to bring in an outside entity to perform any of those particular Internal audit functions. So those are the 3 elements that, that we don't, and we'd have to get at least 2 of those in order to go from low to very low. We'd be right with only 1 of those 3, we'd be just right on the border because it's greater than— I notice it's greater than 355. We continue to operate very well from a control— internal control perspective. We have not had any external or internal fraud that we've been noticed or that we have been notified about anything of that nature. This last year, we actually haven't even seen anything where— I think we've only had one, if I remember correctly, where we got something flagged where one of our people kind of just noticed, as we all take our trainings in Know Before, Or in relation to various fraud control risks, and, you know, don't click on this link or don't click on that link. So something kind of like that. That's really all I have in relation to talking about the assessment. Are there any questions about any of the items that are on, on there that, or any of those 3 elements that I discussed that we're currently not meeting?

Any questions, Council? Quinn, do you have any questions? All right, thank you. Um, I'd like to, um, since we've— since we started, welcome council members Gail and Millett who have joined us. Um, our next item is a presentation on firework cancellation follow-up. 10-minute presentation, 5-minute Q&A. So I'll turn the time over to Chief Mark Sanderson, Fire Chief Mark Sanderson.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. It's really my opportunity to publicly thank you all for what was probably historic, the most difficult decision we've made from a fire-related community perspective in taking something away or supporting a statewide ban that was recommended. It was super appreciative, at least from my office and our team, just in entrusting the decision we made that was what we felt was in the best interest of the community. Um, a follow-up to that is that the years '24-'25 resulting from fireworks, we had 24 firework related fire starts within the 3 communities. As a result of the ban, and truly the compliance from our citizenry, we reduced those fires by 90% to 2 firework fire start-related fires. One was in Linden, garbage can. The other one was a grass fire in Vineyard. So not a single fire within Orem city limits. But within our response area, a fire in both the other communities, it was really minor in nature. So, I mean, it was a substantial reduction in the potential. And I feel like overall, publicly, the support within our social media, the numbers I heard, Pete, and if I'm off, please correct me, but it was about a 6 to 1 positive to negative. relationship. And so I think we made the right decision. No question in my mind, it was the right decision. There was just no way to not support the ban and then actually have a fire in the foothills, a structure fire in our community, heaven forbid, have a firefighter injured or killed like we saw with the wildland deployments, and be able to justify that. in any way. And so I think it was very successful and very much appreciated. Last night, Ryan sent me a survey from— I'll make a citizen comment. Thank you. That was just following up to our position, our stance, the overall feeling, the support. They requested to know if we have a wildland team, which we do. Where they deployed and assisted on the other statewide fires. They're gathering all of the information in preparation for the 24th. There is a lot of concern. Just so we're all clear, there's currently a statewide ban on fireworks. Just an authorized period within our statute to shoot them, but it's clearly a ban, and I think we're— I don't see the circumstances changing. It'll be interesting to see how the league takes feedback from all of the members and then presents information to the governor and the state forester to make a decision coming up. I hope they make it sooner than later. But it's definitely on the horizon. And one of the questions, just so that we're all on the same page with them, my answer was they asked, Would we support a similar ban, or would we be against it? And it was strongly support, strongly opposed, and I just stayed neutral because from my perspective is I'm not going to be pro-firework. I'm not going to be against fireworks. We're going to let the state make their decision, the state forester make a decision, and then we'll gather all the information and make a decision if it comes to that. So I didn't want to leverage our organization one way or the other. And so I think it was good. I did also note they asked for any other considerations, and I thought it was very positive. So I shared just a short paragraph that based on the decision to support the state ban, We crafted a letter. Our city attorney reviewed it, and then our wildland— or not our wildland, our fire prevention team delivered what I felt was a very nice gesture to all of our independent fireworks stands that offered them a return on their permit fee, their inspection fee, and 100% recoup of their bond. It's completely at their discretion. There was no pressure applied. The only compliance from our perspective is they would— they needed to cease selling fireworks through the bill which supported the ban. Um, there wasn't a— there wasn't any one of them that took us up on that offer. But I felt like, um, it was at least our show of good faith, doing the best we could for the local business owners that hard time and hard understanding. So I think that was very positive. Talking with Chief Robinson, we had 2 citizens that were issued citations. They were repeat offenders. We initially provided warnings, had to return. Um, I, I would suspect the overall firework violations significantly reduced as far as just calls. Um, but there were at least 40, 40 or so more warnings provided. So I think neighbors did their job in keeping their neighborhood safe. Law enforcement was awesome in responding to those requests and supporting our ban and ultimately 2 citations. I think that also achieves a goal of being supportive of really hard time in our community. So with that, I don't have any other information to report, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

Or any questions, Council?

Um, I do have one this time, if it's okay. Uh, Chief Sanderson, sure appreciate your guidance, uh, on it, and I'm delighted to hear that we had Very low incidences. If this is an appropriate time, would you be willing to share what we're doing to support the wildland fire folks? I just, I'm not sure what kind of support we've been providing for fires around the state.

I think that's the next— is that the next item on the agenda?

Yes.

And both—

I can wait for that. We can actually address that point as part of their presentation, if that's okay.

Sure.

May I ask, was the fire in Linden like the hillside?

What was that?

Yeah, the fire in Linden was actually just a firework placed in a garbage can, and it was isolated to a single can, which is one of the— it's probably the number one cause that leads to structure fires. Happened at my parents' house in Pleasant Grove years ago. You take your burnt fireworks, they're not cooled off, you put them in your garbage, it Wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning with a neighbor pounding on the door because the side of your house is on fire. And so it's— we just avoided all of that. It was amazing. One little grass fire and the— they were just so minimal. It's actually shocking. It just goes to show the request, the concern community-wide in not doing something we all love. So it was very successful. Thank you for your thoughtfulness in offering to return those funds to those business owners. Um, every time you drive by those and you see nothing happening there, it kind of breaks your heart, uh, for their, you know, anticipation and excitement and looking forward to, you know, hopefully a great season. But, uh, I, I think that was a very Kind and thoughtful gesture to, to at least make that offer. And thank you. I did learn today, um, talking with Chief Spencer— he's our city fire marshal— that, um, firework companies love the state of Utah because of the 24th. I mean, we have our own independent state holiday that—

oh, that's too—

so we'll, we'll, we'll just see what the 24th brings. I don't think any predictions. I just know that it is a topic that's a— that's— it's a big deal right now. So taking it serious, of course, we'll utilize all that information and make the best decisions. So thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you for your work in the letter and doing the video. A lot of positive feedback, just the name of the community saying how they appreciate the follow-up from this from you explaining what happened, what the results were. And so thank you.

Pete's team is so awesome. And I'm not— Chief Hurst is our PIO. He does our social media. He's the one that gets interviewed. This was one of those things that made you look good.

He made—

you always question that because you hear your own voice and you're like, I don't sound like that. And then after you're walking down the hall, because it was like Video record, take 1, 20 seconds. She's like, that was pretty good. I'm like, okay.

I walked down the hall, and then I start thinking of all these things.

I could have smiled. I could have been so much nicer in the circumstances of how we're here this historic year.

And that would be a little out of character.

So true.

That's why I didn't do that.

So good. After that, thinking, could have smiled, could have been nicer. She bears responsibility.

Just know that in my office I have a bright red wig, a tie-dyed caftan, and sunglasses if you need to have that alter ego.

That would be out of character, but I'm gonna do it next time. A long time since I had some air. All right, thank you.

Um, our next item on the agenda is a presentation, our wildland team update, 20-minute presentation, 5-minute Q&A, and our presenters are our Assistant Fire Chief Sean Hurst and Fire Captain Mike Hickman. So we'll go ahead and turn the time over to you. Welcome.

Thank you.

Could be. I'm gonna go do it by the clicker. I'll discuss the down version. Well, I'm Assistant Chief Shawn Hurst. I've had the luxury of overseeing the wildland program for the last 9 years. This is Captain Mike Hickman. A little bit of history on the wildland team. I'm gonna do administrative, he'll do operations side.

That's kind of how we structure this.

I don't know if anybody recalls, 2017, the state of Utah was asked to come help California on the Thomas Fire, December of 2017. on what's called an EMAC. I always have to— Emergency Management Assistant Compact. Orem Fire didn't go on that. We weren't ready. We had no business going on that fire. And it was honestly quite embarrassing that our wildland structure or structured firefighting was sound, but our wildland fighting was not. Mike Hickman was a firefighter at the time. He had had significant wildland experience. before coming to Warm Fire, and we supported him along the way for a number of years on trying to maintain that. But that next year, he approached myself and the chief with a program on how to fix that.

And so we're really proud of where we are 9 years later.

Warm Fire is a significant force in the wildland world in the state of Utah. We've developed a program that's what well known or name requested, uh, and Hickman is a big part of this, but we have several other engine bosses that— when Orem's engine is on the task force, Orem engine gets the toughest job. We are known for doing the hard, hard, hard hours, the toughest assignments, and that's how we want the program to run. He'll get in the nuts and bolts of how we accomplish that, but not only the engine, the personnel that we have in this, this city now We have several bosses. We have what's called a task force leader. And years down the road, well, it's— it'll be my kick, but he'll be leading task forces for EMACs out of state. We have 2 people we're developing as part of Type 3 teams that will deploy all over the nation to incident response. Could be hurricanes, tornadoes, floods. Right now they're doing wildland responses. That's what we know. So we want to thank the city, the investment we've had over the last 8 years. You guys have been willing to purchase us 2 brush trucks that are purpose-built for deployment.

We're proud of that.

We didn't really have a vehicle that was good to take out. We are under contract on a wildland engine. We're going to take delivery next summer that is going to be fully funded by wildland revenue brought back by these members to the city. So, About that revenue, when we started this program, it wasn't about dollars, and honestly, the dollars weren't there. It was about developing a program that protect, orient better, and develop our personnel. And now, over the years, the state has recognized that they can't function without us. We're what's called a cooperator, and Hickman will get into kind of the guts of that, but they've kind of sweetened the pot. And so, we are going to fund that That engine all offered revenue. So right now we're at $1.4 million gross brought into the city, and the lion's share of that goes to our employees in overtime. But we've been able to run this program in the black. We're starting to buy our own equipment, buy our own PPE, buy a fire engine next year. So we're pretty excited about that. So before I introduce Mike Hickman, everybody saw the smoke 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago. Prior to that, the state, um, red flag warnings, everybody familiar with that? We have fire conditions that we know if a fire sparks, it's going to grow immensely. Um, and they forecasted that the state built some task forces, sent them all over the, all over the state.

Our units were part of a task force stationed in Provo.

They were spun up just a couple days before that fire, and they were ready to go for the Iron Fire. The night of June 20th, I've had a lot of calls from Mike over the years that we had a busy day, we had a close call. But the night of the 20th and watching that plume of smoke, hearing the evacuation of Eureka, and knowing that these guys were on the flaming front of that fire was a little different when they're right in the backyard. There was a structure team that was mostly volunteer firefighters in Eureka that night. Task Force Actual and Mike Hickman saw the need. They were able to talk the IC into what's called going direct on that flaming front. They rolled into town with flame lengths 30, 40, maybe 50 feet on the ridge and were a big part of saving Eureka that night. So Hickman will get into the kind of the guts of that, but the beauty of it is they've been there before. They've been on the Dixie Fire for scale. Dixie Fire burnt just under 1 million acres, so roughly 75% of Utah County would have been burnt in the Dixie Fire in California. And they were out saving homes and properties in that fire several years before, so they were ready for this. So I want to turn the time over to Mike Hickman. I'm really proud of where he is in this, his career and where he is in the Wildland Division right now. And he'll get into the operations and what it's like out there in the field and what it was like Yeah, not in Eureka.

So thanks, Chief.

I appreciate the opportunity to present to you guys. Um, some of you guys that have been on the council for a little bit, I've presented similar things before, just kind of talking about our program, letting you guys stay up to date on what it is that we're doing, because we just, we really appreciate your guys' support and the opportunity to represent the City of Orem all across the country. Um, it's been a, been a great success. So Maybe the best thing about these presentations is Mike puts together slideshow, he adds music, and it's awesome. Yeah, it's not Pete's team. I thought you were going there. But it's a fireman's version. Okay, you'll have to bear with me there. So our wildland team currently, it's made up of 17 individuals. We're spread out amongst the The 3 shifts as well as we have 4 members in the office that participate in the team as well. We have different positions within the team like a saw boss, a supply cash manager, communications specialist, a WUI coordinator, the wildland urban interface. So we try and cover all these different things as subject matter experts within the department on this wildland team. We have myself qualified as a task force leader, strike team leader, and IC Type 4. We have 3 engine bosses, including myself, 3 IC Type 5s, and 5 firefighter Type 1s. Those are our current qualifications. IC stands for incident commander? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So the incident command system, it was really, it was born from the wildland world. It was originally called Firescope. It came out of California, and they were just really good at running large-scale incidents. 9/11 happens and nobody knew how to run an incident that big. And a fun fact about 9/11, a bunch of wildland dudes with beards and green pants showed up and helped the FDNY run that large scale of an incident. And that's where NIMS and ICS was born, was out of the 9/11 incident where the National Response Framework was built and kind of was all born from wildland industry. So the way they run it is a Type 5 incident is the smallest incident that we have as far as typing goes. A Type 4, and that's something that it's done and over in a single operational period. So that's like a car wreck on State Street, that's a medical call, that's a single lightning strike, one tree's on fire, small incident. Type 4 incident, large scale. There's going to be a lot more people there. It's more of a complex thing. A Type 3 incident, now you're going to start bringing in— these are the kinds of probably classes you guys have taken where there's a finance section chief and a logistics section chief and all these type things. And then there's ultimately a complex incident management team. They used to split it between 1 and 2, but that's kind of splitting hairs. So that's where we're at. We've got a— myself as a Type 4 IC, and then I've got 3 Type 5 incident commanders that have to go through task books and get signed off having real-world experience doing those things. Hey Mike, where did the Timpanogos Fire categorize? The range fire ended up being a Type 3 incident. So I was able, I just had my first child, he was like 10 days old, and I get a phone call saying, hey Mike, the mountain's on fire. I live here in town. I was like, yep, I can see that. Sounds like you guys are gonna have a fun day. That'll be cool. No, Mike, I need you to come in. I'm like, I'm on FMLA. I don't know. Sorry, I got a newborn. No, Mike, it started in the shooting range. I need you to come in. So I was a Type 4 IC trainee that got to run a Type 3 fire for the first couple days. So got just thrown into the deep end and figured out how to swim. One more thing too. Not that anybody needs to toot your horn because you're amazing, but explain to them the role you play as the task force leader in comparison to other departments and how that looks like for the state. So as a task force leader, I'm able to— in the wildland world, there's engine bosses, is usually going to be like your engine captain, right? But in the wildland world, there's a lot more than just engines. There's hand crews like hotshot crews that you guys are used to. They're led by a crew boss. There's heavy equipment, so like dozers and masticators and big machinery. So they have a heavy equipment boss. There's firing bosses. There's all these different levels of supervisors. And then a task force leader can take all different types. So this task force that I was able to supervise just barely with the state, we had a dozer, a water tender, Type 4 engines, Type 3 engines, and Type 6 engines. And as a task force leader, I'm able to supervise all those different types of resources all at the same time. So.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's really significant. It really is what puts, like Chief Hurst said, Orem on the map with our capabilities. All stemming from one individual that saw the need and where it's expanded.

So. Yeah.

So when we started in 2018, it was a 9-person team. I was the one and only engine boss on the— for the program, and everybody else was at that firefighter type 2 level. And now we've got 5 firefighter 1s, 3 engine bosses, and like Chief was saying, myself as a task force leader. So kind of a little bit of a timeline. Chief Hurst kind of touched on this a little bit. We pitched the program in 2017. This presentation's not about me, but I started wildland fire in 2009. I did it right outta high school. So that was kind of my background coming into Orem Fire in 2014. A few years in, I was able to team up with Chief Hurst, who was my battalion chief at the time, and we pitched this program. At the time, the only people that held their wildland fire certifications were those that had it through their part-time employment, that they worked somewhere else and that's where they got it. Orem Fire, for the longest time, the mentality was, hey, our job is structures, our job isn't wildland, so we're gonna call the guys with the green pants to come and take care of that, right? I was able to meet with our leadership team and explain to them it actually is a little more complicated than that. If the fire starts in Orem and goes into state or federal property, that is Orem's problem. So we have a lot of WUI or wildland urban interface all across that East Bench, obviously, that if a fire starts in our backyards and goes up the hill, we enter into what's called a cost share with the federal government at that point because ultimately that fire is kind of our fault. It happened, started in our city, right? By participating in the state's MOU program, the It's a contract that we enter in with them every year and the cost share agreement that we enter into with them. It's essentially insurance that we get through the state of Utah by playing the game, playing by their rules. When we have a large fire happen in the city of Orem, the state of Utah picks up the bill because we go and help when the state of Utah needs help in other instances. So I don't know all the specifics behind it, but I know that a bill was issued to the city of Orem after the Range Fire. We were able to highlight that contract and send it back and not have to pay a giant bill for the range fire. So paid off, paid off big for us that day. And by doing these deployments, that helps us. But then also with the cost share stuff, we do mitigation projects every year for all 3 cities where we go around and we reduce our wildland fire risk up to a certain dollar amount that the state says, hey, you need to do this much work, which we do more than what they request every year. So spring of 2019, the team had been formed. 2020, like Chief Hurst said, we purchased our first deployment-ready Type 6 engine. This is our first Type 6 that we ordered right here. First one was a single cab Ford. It's very cozy riding with 3 dudes all the way to Ventura, California in a single cab.

Yeah.

High school days. That's right. We were able to, uh, to really get to know each other being 3 deep all the way to Ventura and being 3 deep for 14 days in the West Desert of, of Utah here. So we were able to get this truck, which has been a great workhorse for us. So we've been really happy with this. Um, in 2025, we were able to purchase a sister engine to this. It's another 4-door Dodge just like it. Uh, so engine 632 and 634. are our Type 6 fire trucks that go out on these wildland deployments. So just for some perspective, these are Type 6 engines. It's a Ram 5500. And then Type 1 engines are what we normally have driving around here in the streets of Warm that you guys see all the time. So we currently have a Type 3 engine that's on order that'll be coming. So it just sits right there in the middle between those 2. So it's a larger engine, not as big as our normal Type 1s. It still has 4-wheel drive capabilities, but it has a larger pump, carries more water and things like that. So it can pump longer hose lays on these wildland fires. So what's the benefit to the city outside of that cost share agreement and that insurance? There's a lot of things that this program brings back to the city. For me, the number one point that I brought was the safety aspect for our first responders. We go on a lot of specialty calls. As first responders, we're kind of that, hey, I got a problem, I'm going to call and the fire department's going to figure it out. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff we get called for to help people out on. But wildland fire is one of those specialties that we go on pretty regularly. You just heard Chief Sanderson say every year we go on brush fires, and that's just ones related to the 4th of July. So we go on these wildland fires every single year. And typically, I'm not going to sell you guys war stories. We're not going on the Range Fire here in Orem's jurisdiction every year, but it is a special type of firefighting. It's not in a box. Structure fires are in a box and we just got to put it out as fast as we can and hopefully keep it to that box. A wildland fire, the earth is its box, right? So there's some specialty training that comes with that. And now we're 100% certified top to bottom, the entire fire department from Chief Sanderson down to our newest hire. Everybody is a certified wildland firefighter now. That comes from the support from Chief Sanderson. He came in at the time we were going through, we were just going to do it through attrition, that everybody 5 years and under was required to, and we were going to slowly get to 100%. And Chief Sanderson saw the benefit and just said, no, we're going to make that 100%. And it's been, we've seen the benefits from that. We talked about the cost insurance, that positive PR that when we had the Palisade Fire in Los Angeles in January last year, Again, being a citizen of Warren, being able to talk to my neighbors and the sense of pride that they had that, hey, yeah, my fire department is out there and helping the citizens of Los Angeles in their extreme national historic event. We're there helping. And that to me is a really cool opportunity to represent our city and do that. The revenue that was talked about with Chief Hurst and— The morale. Like, the guys are able to get overtime at no financial burden to the city because while we're on these fires, we're able to bill our hours directly to the incident and give guys the opportunity to make a little bit of overtime, and the fire's paying for paying that bill. So we talked about the safety aspect a little bit. You see here a 747 dropping retardant. This is the reason I put up this photo. is because, I don't know if you guys heard, in 2018, Battalion Chief Matt Burchett, he died on one of these deployments. He's from Draper City Fire Department. He was actually my captain when I was a fire intern fresh out of the recruit academy. And he went on this deployment to California and he was working around these large aircraft. And it was a tragic incident, and he actually died because of a retardant drop, hit a tree, and the tree came down and crushed him. So I can't stress enough the importance of the safety aspect that comes with knowing what you're doing on these wildland incidents. He was dialed, and he ended up in a situation that he was because he was trying to make sure that his men weren't on the line when that came through. But because we have members of the department that have experience talking to these aircraft, knowing how far away they need to be, knowing what they need to do, we're going to operate in a much safer manner. And we've got, we've got these subject matter experts now, right? Another huge point to me is the working relationships that we're able to establish with our partners at the State of Utah. Just this last deployment, it was made up primarily of people from the state of Utah, from the Division of Natural Resources, Forestry, Fire, and State Lands. And we've entered into agreements with them in the past where they've put on chainsaw classes for us. They've helped us gain these experiences that we need. And in return, we're able to, if they have seasonal firefighters that want to become career structural firefighters, We now have that relationship and they can come here and we know that they're good, hardworking people that have strong work ethic and they're going to fit in well with our culture. So over the last 8 seasons, we've been able to deploy all over the western United States and even one all the way over to Kansas, as you can see. And that number's just going to continue to grow. We've gone on over 25 deployments. Like I said, we've gained lots of qualifications. And it's just been really cool to see the Western United States to help on these things and represent the City of Orem in that capacity. So I'll talk lastly just about this most recent task force. Like Chief Hurst said, they stood this up because of the significant wildland threat that the State of Utah has right now. You guys might look at a juniper tree and think that that's just a desert pine tree, and I look at it as lightning in a bottle. Those things Are ready to burn. And when they burn, it is a show. The oil that's in those things, it's like a house is on fire, but it's a tree. And the embers that it throws, it's wild out there this year. I'll say that. So they stood up this task force. We did one day of staging in Provo, waiting for a large enough incident that local resources weren't able to tackle it. And after a single day, we got the phone call and we went to the Iron Fire just outside of—

Orem.

Eureka. We were some of the first resources there within the first couple hours of it starting. And like Chief Hurst said, in that first operational period is when the city of Eureka was getting evacuated and we were able to tactically reposition ourselves to that side of the fire. And I was in a very unique situation where I come from the structure world, but I was there in a wildland capacity. I had my wildland radio and I had my structure radio. So I was able to talk to the volunteer fire departments and I was able to talk to our federal partners and kind of act as that liaison and kind of herd the cats, if you will, and make some things happen. And I'm confident that this group of individuals right here is the reason why we didn't lose homes in the town of Eureka that night. So it was a really cool experience, really humbling to To be able to see that kind of force of nature come down and see these firemen make a stand, it was really cool. We had 40-mile-an-hour winds switching directions on us, and we threw a Hail Mary and we poured fire in people's backyards and it worked. Firemen starting fires. That's what they love to do.

Yeah.

It works. It works. And I've got a video here that I'm going to show you guys. It's just a couple minutes. Just highlighting some of the efforts of the men on that deployment. And then if you guys have any questions for me.

Thank you.

We got to get— we got to have Captain Hickman's angry music.

It's amazing.

We know how to get the sound going. It's one of the hardest parts is picking the right song. That's the tunnel.

Set them up and just build it on the audio.

I'll step back. I'm just a fireman. You have a song going through your head while you're out there doing this, so you're like, okay, those songs can't be put in this council. Rage Against the Machine, all those kind of— I was talking very—

Extra protective.

That's right.

Hi-ho, hi-ho.

Want to do the external one?

Yeah, just put it on the computer so you can sing the song that's supposed to go with this.

Yeah, it's a lot of instruments. Last year was fun. No, we want it, but better. Yeah, you want to go. Awesome. Thanks for your time. I appreciate again your guys' support and being able to come in here and just advocate for the work you guys do out there. And, uh, uh, we just really appreciate, uh, the opportunity to represent Orem out there.

Thanks.

You guys have any questions for me or for Chief Hurst?

So I have a question, but first I want to say, yeah, impressive, right? I mean, I'm like, you're walking towards that thing. Rest of us are running away. So thank you so much. I, when I grew up, there were 2 up in Heber. A neighbor of mine was a firefighter that was killed in a wildland fire. So it was, I just, every time I I hear of these fires, I think of you guys. So thank you for that risk that you put yourselves in for property, really, for people's valuables. But anyway, so my question, I'm kind of curious, that big equipment, where does that come from? How do you get that?

The state of Utah owns and operates that dozer specifically. But there's a— the wildland world is full of— so it's kind of tiered. There's federal, there's state, there's cooperators, which is us, and then there's contractors. So the feds and the state have a lot of heavy equipment that they purchase specifically for wildland firefighting. There are some cities that offer up their heavy equipment. I've actually spoken with Director Shirkey about us potentially getting into that in the future. utilizing our heavy equipment to assist on these type of things, but a lot of it is primarily done by contractors. So people that own like an excavation business, they sign a contract with the federal government to utilize their equipment in building these wildland fire control lines.

Yeah. I just, I wanna say thank you, but I feel like that doesn't Convey what the appreciation that I think we have. I said one of my earliest childhood memories around wildland fires growing up in a canyon outside of Santa Barbara, California, and watching my dad on the roof with the hose and going up the road and seeing the half of the ravines on fire, just on all these different things. We, we had actually moved by the time the fire actually burned down the house that we, we lived in. But yes, there's just— thank you. Thank you for putting your life, literally lives on the line to help protect our communities. And I appreciate what you do. Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate your support.

We're just proud of you. We're really proud of you. And Chief Sanderson had sent some of those videos via email, and I had to call my sons in and say, you guys, come look at this. And they were proud of you, and we're proud that you're representing Lawrence.

Yes, yes, multiple meetings I've talked with Bren about budget expansion requests because I see it coming. One of those helicopters hovering over structures, dumping that load of water, fires out.

As long as the mayor can push the button, drop the water, right? Go ahead and keep requesting, Chief. You're allowed to want.

That's right. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Thanks, you guys. All right, next item on the agenda.

Now, this is for the next one.

Okay, so we're doing the canal update next.

Yeah, we're doing the canal update next. I don't have a slideshow because I killed it and sent it to the fire department. They lifted my music from it. That would be the only thing that'd make the canal more interesting is that music.

Music.

So, the canal. So, as you know, the canal, uh, we have, uh, gotten a grant from MAG, and we have now issued a contract to Methods Studio, and they're helping us go through it. We have our first meeting with them tomorrow, will be the scoping tomorrow where we'll set out the agenda and timeframes and things like that. So I know you're getting lots of questions. I know you're getting lots of emails. So we wanted to come in and quickly give you that little heads up about where we are. Once we have a schedule and we're looking at things, we'll come back and let you know the schedule of how we'll go about it. Just to clarify, You said Method Studios. Oh, it's Method Studios, which is planning for Method Studios, our architect on this building.

Yes. I thought, wow.

Okay. Yeah, I just—

thank you.

We have water features, elevator. It is a water feature.

No.

So, so then, as residents have questions at this point, it would still be appropriate to send them to you until Method is going.

Until we get them going, one of the major things and what we want to focus on primarily at the beginning is outreach. And we've had lots of people contact us. Thank you for forwarding emails to you. We're keeping track of all of those people. We want to work with the residents as much as possible, especially those who abut The canal. And I've talked to many, many people. And, you know, no surprise, the farther away from the canal you are, the more in favor of it you tend to be. The closer to the canal, the greater your level of uncomfortableness and the questions that you have. So we're trying to look at getting some really good public information out. Rather than just anecdotally what we have, because I've, I've heard everything from, this is the greatest thing that could ever happen to Orem, of course we should do it, to, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to Orem, of course we shouldn't, and everything in between. So we're excited, and, uh, we'll keep Method Studio away and we'll just work with them.

What's your timeline? Of the complete—

I'm hoping to have something by the end of this year that the council can review this year to add information back, especially the public outreach, because part of this, uh, if, if there's— if early on, uh, the community support is just, let's say, overwhelming, that can really shape how and what we would do from there. If the community, uh, was overwhelmingly against something like this and it just wasn't going to happen. The sooner we can find that out, the better, um, in, in going through. Lots of people are very interested in this.

Okay, so I'm sorry, I need to clarify this then. By the end of the year, we'll have the completed report, or by the end of the year you want to be finished with the community outreach?

Uh, certainly by the end of the year we'll be finished with community outreach, and we will have a good draft of a I don't know that it'd be final, and there still may be some tweaking to do on it. But at least by the end of the year, I want to be able to give the council as much information as we can on the support, the issues, the things that the community is concerned about, and what we can or cannot do with some of these. things. It's, it's a very complicated deal. There are property issues, there's feasibility issues, there's just the, the desire to have it, whether or not issues.

So. When the Murdock Canal Trail went in, was there a lot of community hesitation on building of that, or was there Pretty good support. I don't remember what that was like.

I remember I was in Lehigh at the time, and there was a lot of concern.

So I'm wondering if reaching out to people who backed the Murdoch Canal Trail and having their, their perspective of what the trail has been like can be helpful.

For those who are facing the possibility of that in the backyard, I guess.

Yeah, the Murdoch Canal and not being in Orem at the time, and Chris was, and he can jump in here in a second. Usually on projects like this, the farther away from the canal, the less of a direct impact it has on you. So it tends to be a little easier for people to rally around doing something. As you're right next to the canal, there's a personal impact to your property, and that, that can be a difficult thing and a lot of concerns. Uh, I think also underlying the canal issue, uh, the property issues were a little different than what we're facing now.

That was what I was going to say, is that the pipe— the canal was going to be piped anyway. That was— that was going to be done. The issue ended up being what's going to be— what's going to happen on top of the— where the pipe is. And so I say, Chris, I remember there was some opposition to it, and then there was also a lot of support. There was a lot of uncertainty.

So the Murdoch Canal has a typical right-of-way cross-section of about 100 feet.

And there was a—

it was federally owned, and there was a title transfer that took place around 15 years ago or so. And as a result, they put in a pipe that was 110-inch diameter to be able to provide, I think, 600 CFS of flow there. The major concerns from the property owners— there were a couple different ones. One was right-of-way lines. Some people had improvements that weren't on their property. So those all had to be resolved. And so they had to clearly define where those were. There are some property line boundary line adjustments, but also, as you look at the cross section from east to west, the west side in many cases is much lower than the east side. And then you could actually visit, or you could actually see down and view what's going on in the neighbor's yard, or looking in the window right from the trail. So there's a lot of privacy concerns. There were concerns about, by neighbors of just noise, general activation of that area. It was, it was no trespassing signs were everywhere on that prior to that point, but now they opened it up and programmed it to recreational activity. So some were okay with it, some were not. Generally, I think there was probably some pretty positive support, in part because it was so wide. The right-of-way was so wide. Provo Bench Canal and North Union Canal, the right-of-way is anywhere from maybe 6 feet to 20 feet in width. So it's much tighter.

So the trail in Highland, Sierra Hills and Highland, which trail? Narrow, right? Which one is it? The Murdoch Canal Trail that continues, that goes to the Jordan River? Yes. So how would our— can we look at how comparatively those neighbors, to Crystal's point, The reception. And, and I mean, that's been 35 years, right? 30 years that they—

The canal is 2015-ish.

The, the ones going through where they continued it through Highland and Cedar Hills.

I think the width through there is similar to here, maybe 20 or so. I biked that route a number of times. The only place where it kind of goes away is when you get to Highland Glen Park. Once you come down into that little valley, the trail just— it's not really on the canal anymore. You have to wind your way through and then back on city streets.

Yeah, and I stand corrected.

You're right.

It was when the Murdoch Canal Trail went— when they were doing all that, that— I mean, didn't Highland embrace that? And they actually put it through subdivisions.

Yeah.

Wanted it to weave through homes, through neighborhoods, and kind of have that connectivity. What was the— I'd just be curious to know how that all ended up, you know, the perception, the, the how people feel. I think there's a lot of fear of the unknown, and if we can help answer some of that for some residents to say, okay, here's where it's been done before and how it turned out, it could be helpful.

One of the reasons we picked Methods is, uh, in their, uh, response to the request for proposals, they list people and qualifications or experience in dealing with these issues. And a couple of them were very involved with the Murdock Canal and have a real good history and, and worked on it quite a bit. And we thought that experience would be invaluable for us here since we'll be facing similar type of issues. One of them actually led the project, Murdock Canal project, so. The most significant difference is that Murdoch Canal right-of-way was owned by that private association. So I think that's wonderful. And I think, I think Method's going to do a great job. I think it shouldn't be too difficult to ask them if there's other narrower canals and share Examples of how that's turned out to be well used and activated and low crime and, and a, you know, an overall benefit to the cities where those are located. Just, I think we do a really good job of showing comparative analysis. And Murdoch Canal is obviously a great data point, but probably a couple others we could find around the state that, that could ease concerns. And one of the reasons for bringing this to you tonight, even though we're having the scoping meeting tomorrow, is so that we can relay to them the concerns that the council's hearing and the ideas that we should keep in mind as we go through the process. So this is very helpful for me. And one thing that we hear a lot of too is There's already activity in the canal now. There always has been. But concern of what's happening there now and the fear being that that's just going to escalate if that's opened up to a trail. I remember when we put the pickleball courts at Sharon Park and how crime went down significantly. And so I'm wondering if there's any data that could be found that would compare, you know, just this dead space with no eyes on it to a public trail where people are coming and going. And if that, in fact, would have a positive effect on— Yeah, that's a great idea. All of these are great ideas that I'll make sure We talk about in our meeting tomorrow. Because things like that, that's one of the things I hear, and I completely understand people's concern. Now, from my chain-link fence in my backyard, there's going to be a whole bunch of people. What does that mean for me? And how is that going to work? And concerns, and they're real and legitimate. Cast a wide net to find examples and answers.

Thank you.

Right, you're up for the next item for the next 15 minutes on our detached accessory dwelling units update.

Okay, detached accessory dwelling units. Probably saying, why are we doing this?

State law.

It's making us do this. The state passed a new law, and by October 1st, we have to have an ordinance that allows detached accessory dwelling units on at least lots that are 11,000 square feet or larger. So we have to go through this process. Our timeline is fairly short. State law has a few things that we have to do. It says— it tells us some things that we can't do. And then it's silent on some regulations that we think we ought to put in. And so this just shows you, we're taking this to Planning Commission July 15th. They also have a meeting on August 5th. I want to be done with Planning Commission and have told them this is their deadline. to make any recommendations to the council, because now it gives the council August 11th, September 8th, and September 22nd to look at and deal with an ordinance.

Oh, go ahead.

Oh, no, go ahead.

The council— the Utah League of Cities and Towns is doing a webinar tomorrow on this. Just so you know, did everyone get that emailed link from— I didn't know, because you're talking about dates, and that's And then talking about tomorrow and that webinar's tomorrow.

So, okay, tomorrow at noon.

So I don't know if you want to tune in and—

I don't know. I haven't. It's probably on my calendar. I have half the time no idea what's on my calendar.

I do what my calendar says. So anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt.

No. And so what we've done is, since if we do nothing, then we have a state law that says we have to allow things, and an applicant could come in and say, you have to do this. And then there might be areas that we could put in. For instance, what are the setbacks? State law is silent on that. So what we're doing is I had the planning division, we sat down and kind of looked at it and said, okay, what's the bare minimum That we need to have in here in the ordinance. And then it's certainly something— it's just a place to start for the council and the planning commission. But if the setbacks are not enough that we put in the draft ordinance, then, then, you know, we need to increase those. But we put in what we thought the minimum absolutely should be. So there's a few things like that. So, in this, we have to— they have to comply with building codes, all of that. We have to allow, say, somebody has a detached garage. We have to allow that to be converted in, but only if it meets the right codes and setbacks and things like that.

Yeah, can I just say, I had one near me they found that When someone bought property that someone had put people in a detached garage and put the sewer in the ground, just dug a hole. So we're going to be inspecting all these.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Tight control, right?

Yep. And, and we're going to put in— we— so, what we can't do so well on this, we have to allow it. Somebody's got a detached garage and it meets other issues. We would have to allow that. One thing that we can't do is we can't make it go through a conditional use process. State law says we can't do that. Um, the second one, this requires setbacks from property lines or from a detached dwelling that make it unreasonably difficult. And I hate language like that because I don't necessarily know what unreasonably— so we're trying to look at things where we can have good common sense. regulation that protects existing neighborhoods while meeting state law requirements. And we can't require more than 2 onsite parking spots for an ADU that's 650 square feet or bigger. And we can't require more than 1 onsite for one that's less than 650 square feet. And we have— we can't— the state law requirements, we talked a little bit about those when we dealt with the building height and the new building envelope within which you can build. There are certain elements state law will not allow us to regulate. Those same requirements apply to these detached ADUs. And, uh, but what we can is, uh, we can require that they comply with our lot coverage and things like that. That's, that's why the state says you have to allow it on 11,000 square feet. We don't think we— even though the state law would allow us to go less than that, we don't think we should. We think we ought to start with 11,000. square foot lots, keep it on that and see how this goes. We want to be very careful and cautious in our approach and incremental. Um, and we can require it to be consistent with the main dwelling unit, and, uh, we can require that it, uh, not be larger than the primary dwelling unit, uh, or these, uh, Or in easements, things like that that would really interfere with existing easements and things that we do a lot. We are not going to allow them in the front yard. They're going to have to be packed behind the front yard setback, and they cannot be— we don't want them to be rented for less than 90 consecutive days. That if these are accessory dwelling units, they are not short-term rentals. And we want to make that really clear in the ordinance. Whereas if we do nothing and don't create an ordinance, there is an argument that somebody could say, oh, if you allow short-term rentals, I could use this as a short-term rental. And, uh, we can go in and if they take out parking to put it in, they have to replace the parking. You've got to have adequate utilities. We'll be looking at that. On a case-by-case basis. They have to hook up and have the capacity for location utilities, and there's only one, whether it's detached or it's attached in the home. You don't end up with 3 units. I think that's it. That's it. So this is just to— I know some of you are very familiar with this. We do have a short timeframe. If we were doing this, if we didn't have the short timeframe that was mandated by state law putting these requirements on us, we would approach this very differently. We'd have—

Yeah.

A different conversation up here and take more time to really talk about things and think about it and go through the process. But we're kind of under the gun with this. So just be aware, um, I'm not necessarily tonight looking for a lot of feedback. This is just an introduction, and Jared sent out to you last week a copy of the ordinance. So you're probably wondering, why the heck do I have this ordinance? And this is now to give you that context why you have it, what's going on with it. And be thinking about it so that as we come in later on in, in August and September, that we can have those conversations. And I would imagine we'll want to have another work session where we can go over maybe in more detail exactly how this works and what an ordinance would do and not do. We want to make sure you Really understand and go into it with your eyes wide open on this.

Appreciate it. Um, it's kind of the heads-up introduction as the Planning Commission will be tackling this tomorrow.

Yes, and they'll be looking at it tomorrow. And again, I've told them we want Planning Commission's work to be done by August 5th so that the council has plenty of time to come in and think about this and look at it. Gary, asking for a friend, if I wanted to construct a detached catio, can I do that? Is that possible? Oh, absolutely. Just do it.

Being the friend, well, I guess dwelling is for people, so I guess. Okay. Okay. I don't know, but that's—

that's—

some people feel like their cats are like people.

Is your lot over 11,000?

It might be close. Mine's over 11,000, so. Oh, no, I, I just appreciate you and staff jumping on this super quickly.

Thank you.

It's been coming quickly and fast and heavy and a lot from the state. So the fact that you put this much together is really impressive.

Thank you.

Just a quick question. I mean, we have no idea what the response is going to be to this, but people actually doing it, but does that cause you any heartburn, Chris, with infrastructure and pipes? And it's a small impact on utilities for single-family dwelling. If we have lots of them popping up all over, I mean, if we double the number of units throughout the city, then that would be a concern. We don't see that happening. Probably don't ever happen. Lots this size in Oregon, the rest of them are 8,000 or smaller.

Yeah.

And with the 11,000 square feet, and just looking at a kind of a normal size home on 10,000 or 11,000 square feet, it would be hard to situate a 650, 700 square foot detached unit and still have a functioning area. And when you get down to 8,000 square feet, boy, that's really difficult. I know some communities have come in and they're embracing this type of thing, and I'm not suggesting we do this, but if the community wanted to do something, what they are doing or thinking about doing is they have Kind of a standard off-the-shelf couple of plans that if you come in and do it, it's very easy. It's been pre-looked at by Public Works, pre-looked at by building inspection, and it helps people quickly go through that process. It gets sited in an appropriate place. And if we were to do anything like that again, you know, that Planning— half of planning is the law of unintended consequences. You come in and you do something. I like the approach of let's see how many people come in on 11,000-square-foot lots, see what the impact is, see what the issues are, and then we can have a conversation later on whether it makes sense to do something different.

So the draft ordinance that you sent us, because it's not in the packet, right? So, but on July 8th, Has that changed since where you are today? No, these are all the same.

Yes, these, these are all the same. It hasn't changed. So you're, you're seeing what Planning Commission's seeing. You're all seeing it together. Planning Commission, any changes that they'll get, we'll make sure that you know what's different from— and that's why we want to have several meetings. I think this is such an important issue, I'd like to have, you know, at least 1, if not 2, work meetings before it's on any sort of action meeting so that we can go through it, really understand it. And again, as staff, what we've tried to do is take what state law is mandating that we do, put it into ordinance form, and then where it's silent, but we think that silence creates a problem for us, put in a standard that we think is the bare minimum that we should have as a city. We wouldn't want to see anything less. And the best example of that would be the setbacks. To have those setbacks, you could go less. I would suggest you don't. But the council could.

Thank you. Will you express our appreciation to the Planning Commission for them, to them for looking at this and giving us recommendations.

I will not. I don't want them getting big hats.

So, are they—

should we send them the webinar for ULCT, or— I don't know what their background is. Yeah, that would be a good idea.

We can send that out.

All new, right? So, I think they're barely even learning land use.

So, we can get that sent out to them. And one thing I am going to be proposing And, and I— and Quinn's not here. He's online, I think, is I would suggest it's about time that we have a council, a joint meeting of council and planning commission to kind of talk about, you know, what the council's vision is for things and how planning commission can support that.

And let's do it.

That would be something, and I apologize to Quinn that I haven't.

He's hearing—

No, I'm very supportive of that, Gary. Uh, Mayor, if we have time for a question, I do have, have one for Gary on this issue. Uh, one thing that's important to me, because there's a fair amount of uncertainty as to what the impacts are going to look like, how many people want to do this, um, you know, how it will affect neighborhoods. Uh, we have a number of cities in the state that have quite a bit of experience with it. I think, Gary, specifically in Salt Lake County, quite a A few cities have experience with it. I think Logan also does, and it would be really helpful for Planning Commission, I think, to learn from those cities that have ordinances that allow detached ADUs in advance of this state requirement, so that we have a better sense of how many we might get and how conservative we might need to be with respect to demand. So I would just encourage us to, uh, to learn from other cities' experiences before we make too many assumptions. No, that's, that's a great idea. We can have someone contact those places to get information. It's in planning— you, if somebody's already done something similar to this, it just pays to go find out what their experience is. So we'll do the same thing.

Can I just ask, so I wasn't able to watch the— I know you watched the one last week from ULCT. Were there highlights here? You know, I appreciate that ULCT is always one size misfits all, right? That's kind of their scope that they look at things. And I just want to kind of ask, is that the way they're approaching this? At this point, it's already a mandate by the state. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying from our ability to legislate additional, 'cause like he says, that's webinars probably.

Yeah, bare bones.

Right now, talk about it already, though. What did they talk about? They've been pushing for cities to just make sure you're looking at that, make sure you're getting that awareness, this grace period.

No suggestions yet, just suggestions yet, other than don't be caught unawares come October 1st when that comes into play.

That's what they've been pushing, in my opinion. Great.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. All right, it is 5 o'clock, and before we go to the next item, I would like us to be able to go. I think dinner's ready. Just a couple of things. You'll see, council, that your seat assignments have changed in the council chambers. I use the highly technical random number generator because that— to do that, except Councilmember Lamson has to sit next to me because he's the mayor pro tem. So you—

I'm sorry.

You have no— but where you're sitting is where the computer gods put you for this 6 months. And, and so, um, just let you know that. And then I've asked Councilmember Muelstein if she would offer a blessing on the food. Our dear Heavenly Father, we're grateful for the opportunity we have to meet together, City Council and staff, to discuss the needs of Oregon City. Spirit with us, please bless this food, help it to give us strength and energy, to all have clear minds as we continue with our meeting. Say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

Items for— in our— in this section, it's a presentation on property tax calculator. Um, Jenica Jones, our Strategy and Innovation Director, and Pete Wilkie, our Engagement Director, for the next 35 minutes.

Okay, thank you, Rainer. So, we wanted to come before you and share some of the resources that we've been working on to help the community and our employees understand the proposal that's before you for the property tax at the end of August. And so the way we've structured the website is basically, if you're interested in just an elevator pitch, you can get that. If you want the 5-minute version, you can get that. If you want to get down into the resources, That as well. So at the very surface level, basically what we're saying is 4 quarters, 2 COPS, 1 stapler, or 1 stapler. And so if people are contacting you, if they're having questions about this, you can point them to this website, and URL is forum.gov/tnt, TNT standing for Truth in Taxation. That's what this whole website is kind of built to do, is follow that process that we've been through all these meetings showing state law. You have to be completely transparent and transparent when you're considering property tax increase. And so the website is just built out simply at first, and then, as I mentioned, gets into more detail. So answers some of the basic questions, people come in the context and the background, gives them the quick fair points here. If people just needed a quick 5-minute version of everything that we've been talking about for the last month, We can do that. Also built out with the help of some of our IT staff, this calculator tool where you can actually go in, put in your market value, your assessed market value, and it will break down your tax bill. And that's what Jennica is going to talk about, and then we can look a little bit deeper into the website if you're interested.

Okay, so the tool is— we've tried to keep it simple. We don't want people to have to Go and look for a lot of information, but we do want them to see, you know, this website and everything we've structured has been around the average. What's the impact on the average Orem homeowner? What's the total impact? But when it comes down to it, residents want to know, how is this going to affect me based on my property value? Um, so this is meant to help them see where their property tax dollars go, and then what's the impact of the proposed Orem increase on Their specific property value. So we'll start with the average market value in Orem. We'll slide over here because I can't see. Uh, so it kind of puts this here, the $520,000. That's the average property market assessed value in Orem City, Crozer County for 2026. But obviously they can tailor that to whatever they want. If they want to look up their specific property, we link them to the county website where they can input their address. And search for their actual property value. They can also use Zillow as an estimate, won't be completely accurate, but say their value is actually the exact average, $520,000. So the first thing it will do is show them the market value of their home and then 45% residential exemption for Utah. So taxable value of their home is just this 55%. So once they click this button, uh, we'll kind of come back to this because this is the correct, uh, This rule, showing them how it affects their property taxes. But down here, it kind of outlines how their property tax bill is structured. Um, for these other entities, I will note that we are using their 2025 rates. We don't have access to their 2026 rates broken down this way, and we wanted this to really focus on the impact of the city tax increase. We don't want to factor in any changes that they're considering. That just muddies the waters. We want them to focus on You know, what's the Orem impact to my bill? So we highlight here, this is how it's broken down. So this is our 2026 rate. If we— our certified rate, if we don't do an increase, would be this $0.000590. This is how much they would pay in city property tax for that line item versus what's the proposed increase, $0.000631, $180 in this scenario. And then the bond is separate and that remains The same in both scenarios. So there's also these info boxes that pop up and kind of highlight different things like why, why is this general now zero? And so just again, more education about why it's being proposed, uh, the new line item that would appear on their notice that they'll be sent out. So for the schools, the county, and special districts, those amounts will remain the same in both scenarios. So really they'll see the total property tax, $2,273 estimate, Okay. Without the increase, and then $2,285 with the increase. Again, the actual amounts will likely be different, depends on what these, these final rates end up being. But, um, what is accurate is the form impact. So, you know, without the increase, I would pay $212 total to the city, and that covers the, uh, public safety and the bond, or the general and the bond in that case. And then with the increase, I pay $223. These are rounded amounts, so that's why it's slightly And then break it down for annual and monthly so they can see, you know, okay, this is less than $1 a month for me. And then at the bottom here, we've also broken it down to show them where is this money actually going. So they're paying $150 into this line item for the public safety fund in this scenario. So where's that going? $104 is going to the police department. $77 is going to the fire department. And then breaking it down for personnel, operations, and capital to align with our budget. And you can kind of see, like—

I think you've got those numbers backwards.

Numbers don't lie. Maybe next year. So they can hover over and see, like, what's included in this. So for fire, there's the 104 sworn firefighters. It covers their wages. So they can see exactly where their money is going and hopefully be able to see and feel the impact of that. Okay, yeah, I'm paying $180. I know exactly where it's going and why. So, and again, I'll just plug in, like, say maybe my property is worth $800,000. And so I'm gonna have to recalculate. So for a property of that value, their impact would be about $18 a year or $1.50 a month. So, Really, it's not a complex thing. We want it to be simple to understand, and we're open to feedback if there's things that you feel are missing or have questions about. Definitely make adjustments to this. First of all, I think this is fabulous.

So great.

And I think our residents will appreciate it. And maybe you showed this and I didn't see it. Is there a place that we could at least have some representation of what percent Orem's taxes are relative to their total? Yeah, we don't have it in a chart format. The only thing we have right now is like in 2025, about 9.5% went to the city, but we could definitely add that if that's something that would be valuable, like whether it's a chart or even percentage-wise. Yeah, I think it'd be cool for them to just quickly see, oh, this is like, you know, a very pretty small percentage of the overall plan. Yeah, and that's what we try to emphasize both on the website and here, um, that this This increase only affects the city portion, so we're not talking about an increase of this 7% to your entire property tax bill. It's only to that set, or that 9.5% of your property tax bill. Yeah, I support that too. I like that idea.

If I could mention one thing, not to name any cities out there, but there is one city that's proposing an increase that's larger than Right now.

With that, Carrie, someone in this room may want to move. The presenter's coming in. So when does this go— is this live now?

This is available.

We haven't pushed it out because we wanted to show it to you first, maintain your feedback before we start advertising that this is a resource for people.

Yeah, we want it to be a tool that you can use as you have questions from residents. Um, whoever provides it.

Well, we have some videos. Yeah, and we can jump back into the website and I'll show you some of the other stuff we've worked on.

Yeah, one thing I do want to mention here with this, we used our in-house developers that created MyORM. They created this from the ground up. And so I think that this also shows why We do in-house developing, so you sell it to other cities that are— I mean, so, you know, actually, yeah, my intern had found an example of another city that had a software, and it's like a platform that this isn't what they advertise that they do. And we're like, we can do that. Why not? And then so we're able to turn it around really quickly. Our development team.

Um.

Maybe you already mentioned this, but would it be possible to have this in our presentation to me as part of the presentation?

Yeah, I don't know, like what—

I just like, I, I like the way that it's so easy to understand. It's a clear picture. I don't want to get anyone into water if we're not supposed to do that.

They were designed.

Okay, like they were designed.

Any other comments on the tool itself, the calculator?

Very cool.

Pete, I love it. I think it's an awesome tool. One thing that I do think is very helpful for people to understand, and I don't know if it makes sense to put it in or adjacent to the calculator, but just how our overall tax burden compares to other cities that they're familiar with. I think that helps them understand how lean and mean we are. You should mention that. I'm glad you mentioned that, because right here in the quick facts, we have a little chart, and you've seen this in the budget book before, but it shows you how we compare to sister cities, other cities in Utah, close-by cities. You can see the average is at 14% or 0.14%. Or I'm staying here. And that does include—

That's with our— that's our proposed increase. And this is other cities' existing 2025 rates. And so we know that several of them are considering increases as well.

Well, we know that it's not going to remain at 0.14%.

Yeah.

Any little asterisk that clarifies that point that this is our—

For sure. Like, when will we have other cities?

I mean, we can get there. great proposal. We just obviously— they have the same timeline as us as far as when they— Yeah, well, and something we could add to this, we have it— I have it on another chart that we put in our citizens budget, but like, what does that mean annually? So like, if you have the same— this value of home in this city, what does that, uh, burden look like? Because that helps them too. Like, okay, this rate doesn't mean a lot, but if we add— if I'm looking at a $520,000 home, what does that mean that I'm paying in Vineyards compared to Orem?

Yeah, even more. Exactly.

That's right.

I mean, even with the property tax increase that's proposed, we'll still be tied for last. We have that there in the quick facts. Uh, we talk about Orem's track record, you know, in the last 48 years there's only been one property tax increase. I think last time we did it was 2 quarters per house. I love the idea.

So the 2012 one?

Well, I don't remember that.

Like half of— How much will those water zone transfers be?

Um, so yeah, so we, we kind of put that in there. We explain a little bit about the dedicated public safety fund. If that ends up going through, then people can learn about that. Um, and then we talk about the scope and the sustainability, why we're doing it. There's some just notices about the tax notice that you may receive that you see 100% increase. That kind of explains that it's not— your taxes aren't going up 100%. It's just that this fund is being funded for the first time Therefore, that's how it's being noted.

That needs to be bolded.

Right here?

Unless you're going left.

Okay, I'll bold that. Here we just have a set of notices and resources. So letting people know that the final, you know, the decision will be made on August 27th at 6 PM, part of our Truth in Taxation public hearing. We have the legal notices that were sent out. People can comment in public form, and then based on the law, they'll also have the chance to comment Virtually on that August 27th meeting, which is something we've never had before. So this will be— this will be interesting. But that's part of the new law. We have all the financial documents that are related to this decision. We have the sustainability plan, the interim budgets. So people— these are for people who want to really get into it. Here's the property tax calculator again, linked for people. And then you've probably seen these videos, but The league has put together a series of 8 or 9 videos that really explain how Utah property taxes work. And this is maybe one of the biggest challenges we face with property tax education is it's different in every other state. Utah is very unique in the way that they do it with the exemption. And then, you know, cities don't get any more money based on increasing valuations. You know, it's just kind of capped at whatever the, you know, the amount is. And so that's just not intuitive to people. You know, who maybe have experience with other states. So from that point, so these— this is all like the quick stuff that people can click on.

Can I make a comment?

Yes, please do.

So let's see, public comment form. Right there.

Participate in the hearing virtually.

Can we have a link that gives a little more information and opportunity for them to do that?

Yeah, so what this will— yeah, so what we'll do is pull it off of here, put it in here, and then they'll be able to essentially enter the queue.

Yeah, just kind of make it easier.

Yeah.

Okay. And then from this point, just start talking about the reasons why we feel like we have to do this. And one of the first things that we put in here is just how up to this point over the years, the forum has really done everything we feel like we can do to stretch the money that we have. And so once again, it references the 1 property tax increase since 1978. We did the efficiency study a few years back. The department restructurings to save, you know, the million dollars. This kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier, how even when you take the fees and the taxes and add them all together, Lorem is right at the bottom of what it costs to live in, you know, this area. And then shout out to Jenica's team, you know, $17, almost $18 million in grants since 2023, just showing people that, you know, Asking for a tax increase or property tax increase is not the default. We've gone through all these different things to try to not do this, but we only asked because we feel like it's fine. It's finally necessary. The next point is how public safety costs have been impacted by inflation. And these are just 2 data points that we've pulled. How, you know, this is what it costs to do a patrol vehicle in 2016. This is what it costs to do it now. This one is the most shocking to me, where, you know, this is just in 2020, 5, 6 years ago, how much the engine cost. This is how much it costs, you know, the most recent one that we ordered. Is it helicopter cheap?

Already checked.

And the vehicles are the big lift. Can I just say, this is apples to apples. So this isn't a small fire engine compared to a ladder truck. This is tiller to tiller cost. And I think people, residents will understand this because we've all felt this. Everything is so much more expensive than it was just years ago. And then this is the 3rd point is, you know, Orem has grown in different ways. Our people that sleep here, that hasn't increased that much over the last 10 years, maybe 1% a year or something. But the daily percentage, the daytime population of Orem is off the charts, higher than it's ever been. Between the UVU students and all the visitors that come here for shopping and working and sports and, you know, whatever else coming to Orem for, that population is taking off. In the last several years, we estimate there's about 42 million visitors to Orem. That's not unique visitors, but people who don't live in Orem. There's 42 million trips to Orem every single year. You know, half of them are probably at the farmers market. But that, you know, that population, we also need help on the police side too, right, Chief? You know, you'll see this video here we have with Lieutenant. Lieutenant Fenn. You'll see this in the next meeting, but he basically explains Orem Fest and all the effort and time and resources that go into making a safe event happen. And, you know, our events have gotten more popular the last several years, and, you know, an extra police presence is just part of the cost, really, of making those events great and safe for everybody. And then, you know, we have maybe a dozen frequently asked questions, things that people have already asked. Both parts answer in a succinct way. You've probably gotten emails, questions, phone calls about it. And so we've tried to take everything we've heard thus far and some of the other things that we haven't heard, but we intend— we anticipate we will hear and answer those through here. And so that is kind of the website in a nutshell as it stands. Any feedback on where we're at? The information that's available. Anything like that.

So awesome. When can we share it?

If everyone's good with where it stands, we can share it now. So what we'll do is build our— not our campaign, but like our informational— informational campaign off of this. So if we like where this is at, then we can start doing smaller pieces, educating people maybe on social media or in the newsletter. Aaron looks good. Yeah, feeling good.

Thank you. Did she stretch?

Did you stretch?

No.

Officer Langs, she's a sergeant now, I guess, though.

All right, any other questions, comments, counsel?

Thank you for doing that.

Thank you.

That's very important. And as you hear from people, just let us know because this is so easy to update. The questions that haven't been answered, we'd love to do the research and figure it out.

Glad it's easy for you guys, because it isn't for me.

Again, some of the feedback that you and/or residents may have is just to highlight things differently or turn words into visuals. So we're just— we're open to all of that. What kind of things have you been hearing? I mean, I've seen— I've talked to people. I've seen what's on social media. What are people saying to you guys? Uh, why?

Why?

I mean, that's really the thing, and it's in the 4 quarters through COPPS, and an easy explanation.

I'm getting the why because it's not a lot. It's $450,000. They say, can't you find that somewhere else? I'm sorry I interrupted you.

I thought you were talking. No, I just, I love the simple, elegant pitch of this is why, and This is where it's going, and I have not had anyone at this point express any concern with that. The people I've talked to, it's been like, you know, they're, they're quite alarmed at first, but then as you explain it, you know, everyone's been cool about it.

All right, thank you. All right, the next item we have, City Council reports. And so Council Member Kilpack, you're up.

Thank you.

Well, it's, it's always a pleasure to participate in all of the events and the things that happen within the City of Warham. This year I've been assigned to work with the PD chief, and those are reports that you've seen. We have that $300,000 extra put into there.

Capital funds.

But I sit on that committee to help make sure those funds go where they go and just be up to speed to represent all of the other. I also, um, I'm on the board of directors of the Swarm Scholarship Project. I've been involved with those, uh, exciting, wonderful, talented youth Wonderful scholarship and other things like that. That's come, and now that's over till next year. Remember the Neighborhood Advisory Commission?

It's—

they meet every other month, and, uh, this consists of the 9 districts within the city. And there are 2 members, so there's 18 individuals that sit on that commission. There's, uh, right now we're trying to fill 3 vacancies, so it's fine.

So we'll be presenting—

do what she wishes with all of us, but I'm sure we're aware of that. And then, um, I serve on the, uh, Youth Council with, uh, Councilor Mielstein also, uh, and that's, you know, we're just gearing up again now for the next school year. That finished off last spring, and now we're kicking it off again. And then we have been involved with the UVU Business Resource Center and helping with that as we integrate and interface with the resource center to help businesses flourish. Those are the, the main areas that I focus on with my assignments. Um, probably the one that has the most impact Lately has been the Neighborhood Commission with all of the changes with the STRs, neighborhood enforcement team, the NIT team. We've had several presentations there. We also have been involved in initiatives on the unified through unification awards, other events such as that, and then heavily involved in As we all were in the past, participated in assistance neighborhoods. So just standing on the shoulders of those— this commission in the past, we're striving to just meet the needs of the citizens that have a resource for them. Any questions? You're all familiar with this as you've done it I met the new BRC, Resource Center director today.

Yes, the Orange Business Alliance. They got some exciting things planned as far as they go forward, in addition to add some programming to what they're doing right now. Thank you. I appreciate your, your report. All right, Council, our agenda this evening is I'm not going to jinx or anything. Just, it's here.

We have it here.

And we've got 3, uh, or 5 items. Do we know who's doing the, uh, communication inspirational thought?

So Brad Sorensen and Michelle Sorensen. Michelle Sorensen is one of the members of our new school district. Okay, Michelle and Brad.

Okay, great. Then we have, uh, Report items. It looks like they're all related to Orem Fest or events on that. Personal appearances. And then our consent item this evening is to approve meeting minutes. And 3 different sets of minutes there from— You have a couple of scheduled items, both planning related, both public hearings, one amending the Appendix 00 of the Orem City Code. By altering the existing concept plan for the PD-53 zone. 1890 North States, the old Allen's grocery store there. And then the other public hearing is to change the zone property, that city-owned property at 360 West, 1500 South, from public facilities to R-12. And Teresa is handing out— we've received some emails from people who are not able to attend the meeting, and they, they wanted to make sure that we had copies of what their, their comments are. And so you should be receiving those. Um, Teresa's passing those around right now, so we'll have that public hearing.

Yes, it's being rezoned to R-8 from 12. From public—

I'm sorry, public facilities and R-12 to R-8. Thank you. Yes, 6 acres. We're going to want all of it. Um, the request is to have it all go to R8. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. Then we have our financial items. Um, it's in the packet. Turn the time over to Brynn for city manager items, and then we do have a closed-door session after. And so at that point, at the end of the meeting, and I would need a motion to adjourn from our regular council meeting and reconvene To a closed-door session to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation, the character or professional competence of an individual, or the purchase or lease of real property. So that is our agenda this evening. Questions at this point? All right, well, y'all got 19 minutes to do something before we go. Dance party.

It works.

Oh yeah, usually.

Oh, okay. So we'll make a motion. We're going to be stuck here till—

Second.

Motion and second. All right, there, you make it work.

Quinn, we've switched rooms.

Can you hear us, Quinn?

I can hear you.

Thank you.

Okay, excellent.

We've got connection. Good evening to the Orem City Council meeting. 6 o'clock, and we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. We have our invocation. Inspirational thought will be given by Brad Sorensen, and our Pledge of Allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Michelle Sorensen, who is a member of the Timpanogos School District Board.

Our Father in Heaven, we are so grateful to be gathered here this evening. We are thankful for this country and the freedoms that it offers us and the opportunity we have to celebrate those, especially at this time of year. We're thankful for those who have volunteered to serve and to lead in our community. We're grateful, especially for our first responders, and pray that they might be watched over and protected in their efforts. Father, we pray that thy Spirit might accompany us this evening, that, that this council might be blessed with wisdom and integrity and discernment as they consider the matters before them this evening. We're grateful for all that we have. We pray for thy blessings on our community and all those who reside here. And these things we ask in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please stand.

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. All right, thank you for, for the prayer and for the Pledge of Allegiance. We have 3 items under the mayor's report. Next items will be a presentation on the Orm Fest follow-up, and I'll turn the time over to Kenice Whitaker, our events manager. I also have Sydney Wong-Bailey with me, as well as Cammie Burgess. From our Events Commission. We're excited to be able to present to you on Orem Fest and feel really grateful for all of the time and effort that was put in by our Events Commission as well as Orem staff to be able to pull off a really successful and fun Orem Fest this year. As you know, we've been celebrating America 250 this year, and our Orem Fest was Laced with fun activities culminating this celebration of America 250.

We surveyed residents of Orem, and these are the results from the survey of the favorite activities and ones that we should repeat in the future.

And you guys can see there the, the top 10 in order.

Okay, fireworks number 1, grand parade number 2, drone show 3, food and vendors 4, animal exhibits 5, boutique 6, carnival 7, concerts 8, children's crafts, and then number 10 at competitions.

Okay, so we just wanted to highlight a couple of the events at WarrenFest, not everything, because there's, there's a lot But we'll start with the car show, which is always our kickoff event. This was rated 4.75 stars. That is from the Orem Fest survey. So, you know, it was out of 5 too, not out of 10. And we'll, you know, we're grateful for the input of everybody that submitted their feedback. And so this event had 238 amazing cars. As you can see, that's a drone. And it was very full and so much fun. This is like a benefit car show. We've done that and we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But we were able to raise $9,236.90 for the American Legion. And then we had just under 6,000 attendees there and it was a great night. We're super grateful also for Walker Sanderson. They help us so much with this event and for their support towards American Legion. And it was a great kickoff.

Awesome.

Okay, next we had our pool party on Tuesday, and it is rated by the public 4.77 stars. There's a little quote on here that came from that survey saying that the pool party is always a slam dunk. There were 698 attendees, free ice cream, dancing, prizes. You can see the royalty got really involved here. It was a really fantastic evening, and, um, if ever you can tell, everyone had such a great time.

Um, Orem Fest Orchard Jam was rated 4.73 stars. This had disco, um, what do you call it, karaoke dance. Yeah, disco silent dance, a children's farmers market, and a foam party. This was a huge hit as Well, people are return attendees for this with just under 2,000.

Alrighty. So the Carnival Days, of course, and stage entertainment, that is always a big hit. 3.88 stars for the Carnival. But we did have 82,400 attendees overall in the park that week. So that's obviously a huge number. We had several We had several stage entertainments throughout the week, a lot of talented performers, a lot of comp— we did a hot dog eating competition as always, and we had our 10th annual Orem's Got Talent where we featured a lot of talented people in Orem, and it was a very fun week and successful. We had a new event this year that was run by our Orem Fire Department, and they did a fun run where they had invited Participants to run up and down the parade route. There were 112 participants, which we're really proud about for this first year. They raised over $2,000 for the Orem Fire Department's PPFO to restore Engine Number 1 and other charitable efforts that the PPFO does for our community. The grand parade, fireworks, and drone shows are Always a hit. We had the drone show that rated 4.87, and I'm thinking whoever didn't rate it 5 stars was not there.

Yes.

It was amazing. And the fireworks show is also at the top of the charts. Um, the parade is 4.12 stars, and we had 85 entries. We had a lot of marching bands and extra fun things this year. Crowds and finding the right seats and candy fighting are always among the things that we can improve on. But we overall feel really pleased with a successful event. And I think that's it. So we just wanted to, yeah, shout out everybody. We have an awesome team and we're grateful for all of you, for all of your support during that week. Thank you. Have you caught up on your sleep by now? Yeah, by now. It's been a little over a month. Okay, Council, any questions or comments? Okay. Oh, down. Okay. I just want to say thank you to all of you and the Events Commission.

They put in so much hard work to make Aurum Fest happen, and it was a blast.

You guys did a great job, and I had a great time participating in it.

So thank you for all of your hard work and for the Events Commission.

Thank you. Yes, thank you. It was, it was wonderful. It was really a lot of fun. So, right, thanks. And I guess you— oh, Council Member Gale. I just wanted to say thank you again.

You guys do such a good job, and not just you but all of the staff.

I mean, they're working 12, 18-hour days, you know, working with the public, working with our facilities. And when it's all over, we go to that fireworks show when we think how great it is, and we all go home, and at 6 o'clock the next morning, you guys are there cleaning up. So just props to you, and thank you. Right, thank you. And you— looks like you've got the next item as well. So we have a presentation, our car show fundraiser for the American Legion. So, um, Kanice, we'll have you continue. We just want to invite the American Legion representatives up here We have Rodney Gardner and Kelly Kilpack who will be receiving the check for us. We're excited to present it to them. And yeah, we'll just have them join us. Oh, there's a— oh, there's not a flattering picture of me. Turn that unflattering picture on. We don't need that for posterity. Pull this picture there.

Where you're in now, Rod.

All right, here we go. 1, 2, 3. All right, thanks.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

All right, thank you and congratulations. The next item is a presentation on events safety, and Lieutenant Blake Flint Finn from our Orem Police Department will be the presenter.

You want to play it first?

You want to do that first?

Yeah, let's play it first.

That's right. Hope you might not know, know about Orem Fest is that planning that happens between all the different departments, especially with the police department, happens months and months and months before the event, and we're so grateful for the work that the police department does to make this event safe and fun and friendly for everyone.

Anybody want a ball?

Yeah, sweet.

We got some stickers and bookmarks too if you want. And swim team, is that what it is?

Awesome, very cool. So in order to put together an event like Wormfest, it takes an entire team.

Got a whole board of people that Work all year long to make this come together. On the police side, we schedule overtime for the park, have multiple officers in the park, uh, at all hours making sure everyone's safe and having a good time. Rock, paper, scissors, who wins? All right, there you go, true champion.

Right now, morning time, we have about 7 officers working.

The afternoon, when things start to get More busy, we'll have 10 to 12 officers in the park. Our number one priority is everybody's safety. Favorite thing about Autumnfest is honestly the community engagement. It's super fun to just interact with the kids and the people and just have fun with them. My least favorite thing is wearing this uniform and just sweating. Oh, I'm sorry. Can I talk from this one? I won't fit in those chairs. I'm going to give public speaking a 1-star review. Thanks, Chief. So yeah, I was asked to just kind of go over event security. Every event in Orem is evaluated from a safety perspective. We want to provide a safe environment for everyone to enjoy the event. Events are evaluated by their location, the type of event, the typical number of attendees from years prior. The priorities and logistical needs are then brought up to the plan— brought up through the planning process. And sometimes the planning process can begin months in advance, like for Orem Fest or National Night Out. Sometimes it's a few days in advance if we, if we have a smaller event. Um, Day-to-day in police work, we manage crime scenes and events as they occur. So advance notice is always a welcome, welcome notice. Smaller events, we can usually staff with a handful of officers. That got really loud, Pete. Smaller events, we can usually staff with a handful of officers. The extra police presence is usually sufficient to meet those needs. The larger events are a bit more complicated. With these events, there's usually a board of personnel, like I noted in that video, that include Denise and Sydney, their whole team, police, fire, our emergency services, parks, and just, I mean, everybody from the city. It's a joint effort to make it all come together. Typically, for most event— most events, the question is usually, How many officers are adequate for Orem Fest? Every employee is used. We, with very few exceptions, we have assignments throughout the week, especially Saturday with the parade and the park events going on. Officers are both needed as a visible presence and, and officers that are out of sight for contingency scenarios.

Scenarios.

When we put on a big event, there's a lot of questions that we ask in regards to the action plan. Do we need drones? Do we need camera trailers? What kind of security do we need inside the park or inside the event, outside the event? The coverage of overtime with signup sheets for Wormfest, we staff that park 24 hours a day. We have 2 officers at night on a graveyard shift just to make sure the vendors' items are safe, the food trucks are safe, the carnival stuff is safe, and nobody's in there vandalizing anything. We have— we go over protocols for lost children, lost property. We incorporate crossing guards to help people navigate the streets safely because there's a lot of traffic and a lot of pedestrians around that area. Um, a logistical improvement that we're looking at for next year, next year's Orem Fest, and yes, it's already in the process in my mind of getting going for 2027, is our events are growing so much and we're adding things. Just having a better command presence in regards to someone in command over at the park specifically, the parade specifically, and just allowing a better span and control of, of all of our resources. There's a lot of, a lot of effort and time that's put into making Orem events enjoyable and safe. And as I noted, we're, we're already planning ahead for, for several events, and Orem Fest 2027 is, is on our mind. So with that, that's all I got.

All right, thank you. Any questions? Council, thank you for that. I appreciate what you and the, and the other officers do. That's a lot of, that's a lot of time when we're on that parade route. Every intersection has either got an officer or volunteer or somebody there, and then in the park. So thank you for all your work. Councilmember Miller, did you have a comment? Yeah, I just wanted to say, um, you know, kudos to finding the lost child. Because that family, I talked to a couple of them, and finding the stolen diaper bag, you know, all of these unfortunate things sometimes happen, and you guys were there. You were delivering, you were comforting, um, and protecting. So thank you for all of that, the compassion side and the protection side. You do such a great job.

Not a problem. We're 100% on lost kids, so let's keep that streak going. You didn't get all the property, but Uh, back, but it's, uh, it's been booked and waiting for somebody to come and claim it.

So, all right, thank you. Um, Councilmember Lamson.

Just also, just to echo a quick thank you. Um, you know, honestly, as I look back over these events, I don't think there's ever been a time where I've ever felt unsafe because you're there. And, um, I was mentioning in our committee meeting, our follow-up meeting, that one of my favorite memories of this year's Orem Fest was kind of later in the evening when things had kind of calmed down, but the carnival where the teenagers were was bumping. I mean, it was just—

there were—

that place was wall-to-wall kids, teenagers.

Packed.

And the, the, just the vibe of that whole gathering of young people was amazing to just walk through. Not that you would ever not feel safe with them, but I think it says a lot about you and about the citizens of Orem. And, you know, these are good kids out having good clean fun. But I know there are a lot of places where you wouldn't feel safe being in a situation like that, and it wasn't even a hint of a concern or a worry. So thank you, and we just appreciate all that you do to keep us safe.

Problem.

It's a team effort. Appreciate it.

All right, thank you. All right, before we go to personal appearances, I neglected to acknowledge that council— oh, let's do that. Yes, thank you. I neglected to mention that Council Member Quinn Meekum is joining us online. So, are you— Council Member Meekum, are you there?

I am there.

Thank you. All right, he is there. All right, we're glad to have you here. Okay, we now have time for— excuse me— 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 will have signed up ahead of time and Those wishing to speak are also encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. So looking at the number of people we have, I think we can go ahead and, um, if you could limit your comments to 3 minutes or less. Uh, we've got, we got our time. We have a timer now if you haven't been here for a bit, we have a clock that comes up and will remind you of, of that. So we're going to go ahead and get started. And so our first resident who would like to, to participate in personal appearances is Aaron Larson. Welcome. And next will be Lisa Lesser.

Yeah, I know you're short on time, so I'll get to it. So last week I actually I actually attended a national conference where a keynote speaker discovered— discussed the Harvard-Baylor research on human flourishing. Flourishing means more than simply avoiding problems. It means creating the relationships, institutions, freedoms, and conditions that allow people and communities to thrive. One of the central dimensions is financial and material stability. We have a housing affordability crisis in Orem. Councilwoman Millett has mentioned more than once how she wishes her daughter could afford to live in Orem instead of Springville. In the next couple of weeks, you'll be voting on a detached ADU ordinance. Right now, the ordinance is written in a way that almost 75% of Orem will be excluded from being part of the solution. So I'd encourage maximum flexibility so that all Orem homeowners can be part of the solution. Instead of waiting for the government to solve, to solve the affordability crisis for my family, I chose to build a multi- Generational home. The home that I learned through a grandma request prompted this council to pass Orem's first home building ordinance that limits freedom in nearly 20 years. Tonight, in your closed-door litigation session, Mr. Earl will likely update you on my petition in the Fourth District Court challenging that ordinance. As you listen— as you listen to him, I'd ask you to weigh 3 things. First, Utah law expressly protects roof pitch as a residential building design element that cities may not regulate. Yet Orem's ordinance uses roof pitch as the trigger that determines how tall a homeowner may build. Second, for over 100 years, the Utah Supreme Court has consistently held that government may not do indirectly what the law forbids it from doing directly. Government may not do indirectly what the law forbids it from doing directly. Third, the legislature that I've been in contact with has been clear. If the city prevails on a technicality, the legislature convenes in January, and a 3-word amendment, directly or indirectly, will then make the lawsuit moot and a complete waste of Orem taxpayers' money. So the real issue is lost opportunity cost. The city has hired outside counsel and has already expended a significant amount of tax dollars and staff time over one multi-generational home, one that I am building for my family with my own two hands. Every one of those tax dollars and hours is a dollar and an hour not spent putting Harvard's flourishing research to work in Orem. I have intentionally not served the city with this suit to give the city's lawyers time to show me that the Utah courts have allowed other cities to ignore the intent of the state law and to do indirectly what the city is prohibited from doing directly. So far, they've come up with nothing. As a taxpayer, I'm asking you to direct the city to amend the ordinance so that it does not go against state law, and to do this before I serve the city And our tax dollars get used to pay for outside counsel. This will allow you to redirect these resources towards, towards making Orem not just Family City USA, but Family City USA where everyone flourishes. So thank you.

Thank you. All right, Lisa Lesser, and then after Ms. Lesser, we have Barry Flint. Hi, I've spoken before, so I will be short tonight.

Our numbers of children are shrinking in our churches and our schools because normal turnover in affordable housing is going to vacation rentals. Within 2 blocks of my home are 7 short-term rentals. Those are places I could have neighbors and friends, but I do not.

Homes are for residents.

Not for weekend visitors. Vacationers get the keys and locals get the boot. Please, please do not open the floodgates in our city to short-term rentals, because if you do, you won't be able to close that— those gates again. Thank you.

Thank you. Hey, Barry Flint, and after Mr. Flint, Jordan Coway. Hi.

Okay, I'm just gonna read from my notes so I don't—

Okay.

I know I don't have much time. So, uh, my name is Barry Flint, live in Orem. I've moved here alone from North Carolina 32 years ago. Never been out here, just decided I want to get out here. I was supposed to be out here for a year. That was 32 years ago. Never left. I fell in love with not just with the beauty and the outdoor recreation, but also the people, because they were so accepting of me, especially with me knowing no one out here when I moved. Just, I want to state that I do not own an Airbnb. I'm not planning on buying one and have no financial interest in them. I've traveled for work for Mark for, uh, for up to the last year. All over the country. We were staying— our group was staying in Airbnbs. We had anywhere from 5 to 15 people in an Airbnb.

It was like, for us, it was a home away from home.

We'd be away from our families for usually weeks or sometimes months at a time. We would come back from a long day, fix dinner, and have long conversations about the day and how it went and help support each other. We were told by our bosses that if we didn't take care of these places and respected the neighbors, then they would no longer do this for us. We never had any issues. We were only there at night and on Sundays after working long days, 6 days a week. I've also stayed in a couple in Orem a couple years ago when I temporarily was staying down in St. George. I had to finish up some work here, and there's a lapse on where I was staying. So I stayed There's no way I could afford a hotel for 3 weeks, so I ended up staying in an Airbnb, renting a room in a couple different places in Orem.

It was awesome.

Everybody was really cool, nice, friendly, respectful. When families come to visit from out of town, Airbnbs are the perfect solution. My girlfriend's family and I have used them all over. From what I understand, they're being considered to no longer be approved here. I've heard complaints on social media, but nothing specific. I've heard fears of them driving up house prices, turning our neighborhoods into Airbnbs, and eliminate families. I understand these fears, and there's a way to resolve them. Make them legal here like they have been, to be able to continue to use them. The city would have that information. Taxes would have to be paid on the income from them, and if they're a legitimate complaints, it would make it much easier to deal with them. The property owner's first priority is to make sure the neighbors are respected or they could lose their businesses. A fear of them taking over your neighborhood is a fear without facts. It's basically impossible to go out and buy a home now here for that purpose and actually make any money at all on it. And then, oh, I got a little bit more. But anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that They're very much needed here. Make them legal without a ton of restrictions. It's better for all of us, and let's be the community that welcomes others, just like it was when I moved here.

Thank you. All right, Jordan Callaway, and then after Ms. Callaway, we have Shawna Steinkopf. Can I give these to— okay, give it to Theresa. Good evening, Mayor and council members.

My name is Jordan Kawai, and, um, I have—

I'm passing out— it's a petition that we, uh, have been, uh, going around, and we have over 600 people on there that are in favor of total prohibition, and, um, as well as some very informative op-eds pieces from concerned residents from around Orem. I'm asking you to protect Orem's residential neighborhoods. The dictionary defines residential as designed for people to live in it.

It doesn't say designed for businesses. It doesn't say designed for hotels. It simply means a place where people make their homes.

The issue comes down to one simple question: why should short-term rentals receive an exception that no other business gets? If someone bought a single-family home and announced that they plan to open a restaurant or retail store, an auto repair shop, or any other business in the middle of a residential neighborhood, the city would never allow it. We have zoning laws for a reason. They separate commercial uses from residential ones to protect the people who live there.

Yet when someone purchases a home with the primary intent of operating it as a nightly rental business, somehow we're asked to pretend it isn't a business. If a property is being advertised on booking platforms rented nightly to Paying customers, generating business income, and occupied by a revolving door of guests, that is a commercial enterprise. Calling it a home doesn't change the fact that it's being operated as a business. Property rights are important, but they've never meant someone can ignore zoning laws.

Owning a home doesn't give someone the right to open a hotel, a restaurant, or a retail store in a single-family neighborhood. Why should a short-term rental business be treated any differently?

Residential neighborhoods should be for residents, For people who live there, know their neighbors, and invest in the community.

They should not become commercial lodging districts one house at a time.

I ask you to uphold the purpose of residential zoning and apply the same standard to short-term rental businesses that you would apply to every other business.

If no other commercial businesses would be allowed to buy a single-family home for the purpose of operating a business there, short-term rentals should not receive a special exception.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Ms. Steinkopf. And after, after Ms. Steinkopf, we have Toni Kretschmer. Welcome.

Thank you.

I wanted to start by thanking each of you for the service that you give to our community.

My name is Shanna, and I am a resident and a homeowner here in Orem. I am an active voter, And a contributing member of this city. I plan to be a resident here long term. As you are discussing the potential of rezoning our residential neighborhoods to legalize short-term, short-term rental businesses, I want to share how short-term rentals are already negatively impacting me and my family. Councilman Kilpatrick, Councilman Meekum, and Councilwoman Gale, Respectfully, I hope that you specifically hear my concerns today.

This year, because of declining enrollment, Alpine School District has taken away funding for 2 full-time teachers at our elementary school.

My child, along with many others, are being put into a class with one teacher teaching multiple grades— grade levels in what is being called a split class.

To add a little context, school funding and school allocations are tied directly to student enrollment counts. When enrollment drops, the school is allotted fewer state and district funds.

This results in fewer teachers the school can afford to hire, larger class sizes, and even, like in our case, multiple grade levels sharing one teacher to compensate for these loss of funds. I took a closer look at numbers again today, and you may be just as shocked and concerned As I am. According to Airbnb and VRBO, there are 525 unique short-term rental dwellings within our city. The Alpine School District website lists 11 elementary schools in Orem. That is an average of 48 homes per school with a 0% chance of students enrolling Directly contributing to the declining enrollment. This is not hypothetical. This is actually impacting your constituents, and short-term rentals aren't even legal yet.

I recognize short-term rentals are not the only contributing factor of declining enrollment, but they are detrimental nonetheless.

For the sake of our community, how to effectively enforce the current policies should be the discussions on the table, not legalizing them or grandfathering them in.

525 homes dedicated to businesses with rotating doors contributing little to nothing to our community.

This directly affects the Orem residents who have entrusted you to represent them.

I ask you to please stand up to protect our communities.

Thank you.

And I hope I said your last name right.

Is it Kretschmer?

Kretschmer. And then Kathy Young, you'll be after Mr. Kretschmer.

Hi, I'm Tony Kretschmer.

I have been an Orem resident for over 30 years. My wife has been an Orem resident for over 50 years. When we first married, we moved to my home state of Illinois.

And after a year and a half, um, we were blessed with my daughter, actually just 9 months and 2 days after we were married. But I quickly realized I did not want to raise my daughter in the same environment that I grew up in.

So we moved and chose to live in Orem. We lived in Orem and rented for 7 years. Before we bought our house back in 1999.

My oldest daughter married 10 years ago.

She and her husband went to school at Utah State.

They rented.

They moved down to Orem.

They rented.

They could not find a house that they could afford in Orem.

They ended up buying a townhouse in Spanish Fork, living there for 3 years.

Thank goodness they got enough equity. They were able to move back to the city where we raised our 8 kids. My second oldest daughter has been married for about 6 years, 7 years, 6 years. She has 2 boys. Up until a year ago, 5 of my 6 grandchildren lived in Orem. A year ago, My daughter's family had to move to Texas because they could not find affordable housing in Orem. Now, I don't care what anybody says about how short-term rentals may or may not affect the cost of housing.

The fact is there's up to and over 500 short-term rentals. Most of these single dwelling family houses that are not on the market.

Guess how many houses are for sale in Orem between $220,000 and $260,000? Half as much.

There are twice as much illegal operating short-term rentals in Orem as there are houses for sale.

My daughter's plan is to live in Texas for the next 5 or 10 years, and I will not see my grandsons that often because of that.

But they're planning on moving back here after they've earned the money because the cost of housing is so much cheaper there.

You need to ask yourselves, as you decide whether or not to allow short-term rentals, are you willing to give up having your grandkids live in our city so that property owners, many of which who don't even live here, can continue with their short-term rentals.

Thank you.

Thank you. Right. Um, Ms. Young, and then after Ms. Young, Milo O, is that right?

Milo Ott.

Oh, Ott. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I probably wrote that wrong. Thank you. Anyways, um, Mayor and Council, my name is Kathy Young. Orem is Family City USA. I love that, but your vote on this short-term rental ordinance will tell us whether it still means anything. Ask yourself, do short-term rentals help families thrive? Strangers coming and going every few days, nobody knowing who's next door, parking problems, noise, constant turnover, parents thinking twice about whether they should even let their kids play in the yard or walk to school. That is not a neighborhood. That's a hotel district. Families bought their homes here because Orem zoning code promised them neighbors, not strangers coming and going. Orem families and homeowners kept their end of the deal. Don't rewrite the rules on them now. 20 years from now, nobody will remember the short-term rental operators who have been pushing this so hard, but every family in Orem will live with your vote every single day right next door. Family City USA wasn't a slogan when, when we bought our homes. It was a promise. Vote no and show this city you keep your promises.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, Mr. Ott, and then Stephen Astle.

Excuse me.

Good evening.

Um, I live near Sleepy Ridge Golf Course. I own a home there. I also own a Townhome that with long-term rental renters in it. In our neighborhood, we have experienced several issues with STRs, or single— so short-term rentals, STRs, such as noise, parking strains, fast traffic, unknown neighbors every few days, and reduced security.

Thank you.

reduced social togetherness. We also have owner-occupied units who rent out their basement with considerable success. In that sense, owner-occupied makes all the difference. But when you have a company or individual who, who does not even reside in the area or even in the country— as, as I know in my neighborhood, there's one owner who spends most of his time outside the country who owns 6 homes Uh, one of which is short—

used for short-term rentals. So when they are—

that happens, becomes a recipe for disasters or problems. For example, the following illegal activities have been found to use short-term rentals for their business according to the FBI, Airbnb, VRBO, etc. Human sex trafficking, drug dealing, prostitution, party rentals with vandalism, and unauthorized subletting. This does not mean that short-term rentals are involved or the owners are, but it does because it's decentralized and the private nature makes them attractive to criminals compared to places like hotels with more staff and cameras. My point is, why would we even want to risk bringing these illicit activities into the most valuable heart of our city, our residential neighborhoods. Also, in regards to housing supply and affordability pressures— per affordability pressures, per a study done by the Gardner Institute in Utah County, STRs and investor ownership reduce units available for owner occupants or long-term families. So certainly long-term families are the ideal. Vineyard did not curb their STR proliferation or investor conversions, and they are suffering for that now, although they've, they've tightened things up. Provo, along with some other neighboring cities, have much tighter restrictions on STRs, such as being heavily restricted and prohibited in residential and agriculture zones, and generally require owner occupancy with commercial mixed-use areas with conditional permits. If Orem does not tighten up restrictions, then investors, operators, and developers will gravitate toward a more permissive spot like Orem. We did not move to Orem for STRs. We moved here because it is a family city. Please, we need to work to keep it that way. Let's be at least as strict as Provo when it, um, when it comes to STRs. Thank you.

Thank you. Hey, Mr. Astle, and then Virginia. Okay, you'll be up after Mr. Astle. Welcome.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. Thank you for your time and your service to our community. I'm here tonight because I care deeply about Orem and the neighborhoods that have made this city such a wonderful place to raise families. My wife and I have lived here since 1979. I graduated from Orem High School in 1978. Our residential neighbors were— neighborhoods were built to be communities, not collections of short-term rentals. When homes became investment properties used primarily for short-term lodgings, the character of a neighborhood began to change. Permanent neighbors are replaced by a revolving door of visitors.

I've got it in my neighborhood.

It becomes harder to build relationships, look out for one another, and create a sense of community that makes neighborhoods safe and welcoming.

Thank you.

I'm also concerned about housing affordability. That was a big issue this last election. Many residents believed the goal was to create more affordable housing for people who actually live and work in Orem. Yet every home that becomes a short-term rental is one less home available for a family, a first-time homebuyer, or someone who wants to become part of our community. That puts additional pressure on housing prices and makes homeownership more difficult. I ask the council to consider whether current policy truly reflects the vision of family-friendly, city. Orem has long been known as a place where families can put down roots. We did, raised our children here. Children can grow up with neighbors they know, and residents invest in their community for the long term. I encourage you to strengthen protection for residential neighborhoods carefully, limit the expansion of short-term rentals in family neighborhoods, and continue pursuing housing solutions that serve permanent residents rather than temporary visitors. As you make these decisions, I hope you'll remember that a neighborhood is more than a collection of houses. It's where people raise children, care for aging parents, build friendships, invest in the future of the city. Please help preserve that vision of Warren.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Virginia, and Virginia, I know I've met you. I just, I'm afraid to, I would just slaughter your last name. Sokolowski. Okay. And then after Virginia, Becky Smith. Welcome.

Thank you.

Last time I did this, I think I only had 2 minutes, so this feels really luxurious to me. Well, regarding short-term rentals, you know, I know you've kind of inherited this problem of short-term rentals. I don't know how it was created. I guess somebody at Orem was telling people it was okay to have STRs, but the fact is that, um, they've been illegal, um, in Orem since 2002 as per Orem City Code 22-19-1. Um, and I, I just don't really feel like short-term rentals benefit the overall citizenry of Orem. Rather, I think they benefit a minority of people, and there's a kind of a sense of commercializing our neighborhoods. If you put the question of short-term rentals to a vote in Orem, I'm sure that it wouldn't pass. I mean, the majority would not be in favor of legalizing short-term rentals. And I don't see the logic of creating single-family residential zones and then violating those zones by allowing people to run small hotels in those same zones. And the small hotels are short-term rentals. Um, A residential zone is designated for human habitation rather than commercial or industrial activities. Short-term rentals are commercial businesses regardless of whether the owners live there or not. And there also is a clear link between STRs and increased crime rates because they disrupt the social fabric.

of the neighborhoods.

And I think it's ironic that Orem might be willing to legalize short-term rentals when they have been shown to contribute to rising crime rates. And at the same time, they proposed a tax increase because Orem needs 2 more policemen. So that seems kind of ironical. Are ironic to me. So I hope everyone understands that you can't protect residential neighborhoods and still allow short-term rentals of any kind. And I feel like Orem is kind of different. We have these cohesive neighborhoods. I just like it to stay that way. This might work in San Diego, but I don't think it works for Orem.

Thank you.

So thank you very much. Thank you. Hey, welcome, Becky. And after Ms. Smith, we'll have Ethan Stouffer. I hope I got that right. Welcome.

Thank you. My name is Becky Smith, and I have lived in Orem for 24 years. I moved into my neighborhood. It's a quiet, wonderful neighborhood I love my neighbors. I want to tell you the experience I've had with a short-term rental. About 2 years ago, a man from Texas bought the house right across the street from me. As neighbors, he told us that this home was going to be a vacation home for his family, but his real plan was to be— was for it to be an Airbnb.

We have had—

we have a school, an elementary school, right across the street from the backyard of this home. We have had school buses drive up and empty out many people. We've had a tour bus drive up. We've had Members that have rented this place, 2 o'clock in the morning, we hear them in the hot tub. I realize, and I agree with the man who said it was so nice and welcoming to take his family to an Airbnb. I take my family to Airbnbs when we go on vacation. But there are a lot of restrictions in those Airbnbs about noise, about parking, about respecting the neighborhood. And that has not been my experience with the Airbnb across the street from me. I feel like a person that buys a house that lives out of state has a little less respect for the quiet neighborhood that we enjoy. Parking is an issue. At this moment, there are 3 12-person vans in front of that house right now. 36 people in one house.

I think as you're thinking about some of the restrictions and some of the rules that will, will happen in the Airbnbs, I think that's—

That's something to consider. Parking, numbers of people, um, and it has been stated already, noise that needs to be restricted.

Um, so that's what I would encourage.

I love Airbnbs myself, but we need to make sure that the rules are fair to the neighborhoods, that we have neighborhoods that remain quiet and safe. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, welcome. Hi, my name is Ethan Stauffer. I am not here to speak on the short-term rentals right now. I'm here to speak on flock cameras. And I have a lot to say about them, so I will try to go quickly because I know I only have 3 minutes. For those who are unfamiliar with Flock as a company, this is a private company that makes contracts with cities to put up cameras on different streets to watch and register cars as they drive past, recording their license plates, recording people who may be in the car, and all of this other information in this private database. Now, they often partner with police stations to allow the police to search this database, but these searches do not require a warrant. Additionally, these searches barely require a reason. There are thousands of searches that are logged under the reason of test, and the subject of these searches can be anyone from maybe someone that the police are investigating to exes of police officers or people that these officers are just personally interested in watching. I know that a crowdsourced database of Flock cameras in Orem has found at least 12 already in the city. I don't know if there are more. This is a crowdsourced system. Flock does not disclose where it places cameras, nor does the city, and I find this highly concerning. Additionally, this database is not only open to Orem City officers. So even if you trust every officer within the city of Orem, do you trust every Do you trust every officer in San Diego? Do you trust every officer in Houston? Do you trust every officer in New York City? Because every single police station across the country can access the Flock database, and I find this highly concerning. CEO of Flock and people who support Flock will say that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about these cameras. I disagree. If I send a letter to you, I put it in an envelope. Is that because the letter has something to hide, or is it because we have a right to privacy. If I send you a package, am I forced to put it in a see-through and plastic container so that everyone knows what I'm mailing you? I simply am not required to do that, and I don't see why the motion of Orem citizens is something that needs to be logged by these block cameras. There's even one I noticed across the street from the Sarah Theater. This is a theater where many families come and they bring their children, and I don't see any reason that this private database needs to record every family driving to and from this theater and needs to know the motions of everyone who visits? I find these block cameras not only an insane violation of privacy of the citizens of Orem, I also think they raise big questions about search and seizure rights. Is it legal for them to record all this information and then give it to officers without needing a warrant? That's just something I think I would like all of you to think about. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, that concludes our, our personal appearances this evening. Thank you to each of you who've come this evening to, to express your thoughts. Right, Council, the next item on our agenda is our consent item, and it's the approval of the meeting minutes of June 9th, June 15th, and the joint meeting with Linden City, with That's June 15th, and then on June 23rd, 2026. So I would look for a motion to— on that item. I move to approve the consent items. Right, we have a motion. Is there a second?

Second.

Right, thank you. Um, we'll start with Councilmember Meekum on voting on that.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Right.

Motion carries. Thank you. All right, now it's time for us to go to our scheduled items. First is a public hearing, and it's an ordinance amending Appendix 00 of the Orem City Code by altering the existing concept plan for the PD-53 zone located generally at 1890 North State Street. And for those who aren't Familiar with where that is, that's the old Allen's grocery store and the property around there. So turn the time over to our planning director, Jared Hall. Is the applicant here this evening? Okay, well, you'll have a chance after, after Mr. Hall to come up and speak.

Thank you. As you said, this is an amendment of the text of Appendix 00. We have all these great appendices in our In our code. Um, the Nieders North Orem is kind of what we called this project at 1890 to 1990 North State. This was, um, the PD-50 through 53, uh, planned development zone was approved just back in 2024 in February. Um, and the original, um, concept plan, um, I'm gonna go to this slide to show you something. Well, I want to not forget that the Planning Commission recently heard this on July 1st. They did recommend approval. Approval of this change to the council. Um, because it's a little bit different, I just want to explain really quickly that there are 2 parts to these PD zones so that the public understands. I think you guys have seen enough to know how these PD zones work, but we want to make sure that folks that don't— that aren't as familiar with it are aware of how this works. In a planned development zone, there are 2 portions. There's a code portion, a text portion, and there's a concept plan that's always attached to that. And for whatever weird reason, We make them— they're located in different parts of ordinance. So the code part of this, the text part, has not been changed. The only amendment is the concept plan being updated. So that's why it's amending Appendix OO. Just wanted to make sure that was understandable. Okay. This gives me an opportunity to show you, though, that this is the original concept plan that was approved. That's part of Appendix OO right now, includes all of the same properties. We're not— we're not adding additional property or changing Uh, we're simply changing a portion right in here where there were these planned 2, um, a pair of 3-story office buildings that will now be replaced in this new concept plan. You can see them right there by about 31,000 square feet of a home. It's called Homebuilt. It's a new concept in home, uh, in, in home goods stores, uh, that, that kind of thing. A lot of other things about the plan stay basically the same. There's some rearrangement of parking lots. Arrangement of the parking. They were able to get actually more parking out of the, uh, out of the new plan. It does make a couple of changes, though, that are significant or worth noting. It moves— this building is closer to the backside than these 2 office buildings were, although it is less height overall. The heights that are allowed in the PD-53 zone, again, none of that text has changed. So this new concept plan, conforms to those existing parameters. Heights within 100 feet of the residential zone are limited. Uh, 48 is the overall height that's allowed, but you have to be 35 or less if you're within 100 feet of residential. So, back here, you have this birthday caking of the planned, uh, home-built building. Uh, so, back here, we're just under— I think we're at 30, 32 feet, just about 32 feet back here, uh, or actually less than that here, 32 feet right here. Uh, so, it's significantly shorter than the office buildings, although it is a little bit closer. It's got the dock down. Um, so it's got a submerged dock. So we have less sound violations, things like that. It's required to put up, uh, fencing like we would, uh, masonry fence to, to buffer the residential as well. Those are all things that are part of it, part of that text that hasn't been changed, and the new plan does conform to all those requirements. Um, as we said, the parking has gone up just a little bit. We're able to provide on this new plan 277 spaces. Uh, there was some question about whether that was, was accurate or not in the Planning Commission hearing, so I vowed to Count those. I recounted them. It actually came up with 279, but my eyes were a little crossed out by the time I got to that number. So we're going to take 277, leave it. I have not updated that number, but there are a lot of parking stalls in there. Um, this— the parking requirement in PD-53 is slightly, slightly less than the C-2 zoning. 250 is our normal number. It's 255 in this, in this PD zone. Uh, well over parked for it shouldn't be an issue. Uh, Uh, this is just an image of the, of the building itself, what it will look like. We have state street standards for building. You have to have so much glass, et cetera. It's, uh, it's got a lot of glass for the building, a lot of, a lot of sort of relation to the streets. A nice building with good rooflines should look good there. Um, so we have, uh, one more thing to show you. Just, well, if you have any questions, the only thing again that's significantly changing is this building goes away, the Allen's grocery store. So, Um, if, if, if that's, um, that's one of the outcomes that will be part of this, it won't be 2 office buildings anymore. There will be space for more retail up here and outparcel for some restaurant, et cetera. But then this would be home goods or a home goods store instead of the 3-story office building pairs. Any questions about this change of the concept plan?

Council, do you have any questions for Mr. Hall? I have one question. As I look at this image here, the building labeled 1950, How do the setbacks against that back fence compare to what is now being suggested for the new?

They're very close right now. I don't know exactly how much closer they are, but they're closer.

So essentially, you're basically just replacing this building with a newer updated one is the gist of it.

That's a way of seeing it. Yeah.

Thank you.

Right.

Anyone else? Seeing none, I'll invite the applicants to come up if you'd like to add anything to what Mr. Hall has said. If you come up and introduce yourself. Appreciate it.

My name is Dave Vincent. I'm with Nieders Bakery. We are very excited to redevelop this area of the land, uh, for them. It's, uh, something that I think will help the community immensely. Um, we've been working on trying to get this plan to go for the last several years and have found that this is a much better option, um, for us to get the project going and moving along. We found a great partner with Homebuilt, um, and we're very excited to have them be part of the community as well. I think one of the big questions would be around who Homebuilt is and what they're trying to accomplish. So if that's okay, I'll turn the time over to Patrick from Homebuilt so he can explain their concept.

Thank you, Dave.

Yeah, so good morning or good evening. My name is Patrick. I'm here on behalf of Homebuilt Hardware and Design. I know that you had mentioned it's kind of a home goods store. It's more of a hardware and design center. It's a hardware store that also has an accessible design center that that's more appropriately priced for, I'd say, everyday members versus a high-end design center. Homebuilt's the newest concept from the Clyde Companies. The Clyde Companies is a family-owned business based right here in Orem and has been in the area building, you know, the state of Utah for the last 100 years. This is a project that we've been working on for the last 16 months. I've been a part of it, of planning really what this could be, what the offering would be, and how it would meet the needs that don't really exist in the market right now. As it stands in hardware, you have big box chains that take an hour to get in and out of, and rarely you find what you're actually looking for, or you have really small places that you don't necessarily know, are they going to have what you need? This is looking to combine skilled people that can help solve your problems while you're shopping with an elevated experience. If you think about what Trader Joe's did at grocery, that's what we're looking to do with hardware. It's making an elevated experience that is really fun to shop at. I know that we were able to cover a lot of the questions that we've heard in the past and in some of these meetings in the community meeting. Just a few other points that in case anyone else has these questions, the height of the building is 39 feet at the front. It's 23 feet at the back. There's a 46-foot— 45-foot-6-inch, sorry, setback from the back, which I do believe is further than the current Allen's building. There'll be a 7-foot masonry wall along with the code that we have, and lighting we're still working on, but it has come up from the community members, and it's something we're committed to working on them with to make sure that it's addressing any concerns they have with, you know, the setbacks being somewhat close to the houses behind. But this is something that we're really excited about. We're based right here in Orem. This is the first of 3 that we're going to open next year, ideally with your permission, and it's really going to be the flagship store that we have for this home build idea.

All right, thank you. Council members, do you have any questions? All right, seeing none—

Mayor, I have one if that's okay.

Okay, I hear a voice.

Yeah, scared me.

Hey, Councilmember Meekum, I apologize.

Yeah, no worries.

Go ahead.

I know this has come up at Planning Commission and others, but because it is near a residential zone, I'm just wondering if you could specify a little bit more of what you plan to do to mitigate noise and light. I think those are 2 issues that Yeah, of course. So for mitigating noise, as you mentioned, we have a depressed loading dock. We've also put a concrete or masonry wall between the loading dock and the building so that it's going to go into a depressed tunnel almost. That's going to have a masonry wall in addition to another masonry wall at the back of the building, which will really help. And evidence points to a bunch of retailers that do this, that it really helps mitigate noise. Additionally, We're going to have an indoor area for pickup where if you go to Home Depot, trucks are parked outside. We're going to have a drive-through where a garage door opens and we'll load your truck for you. And then a garage door opens on the backside and you drive out. So really trying to make sure that we are good stewards of the community that we're entering and really take into consideration how do we minimize noise. As it comes to lighting, we are open to any measures that you all recommend, whether it's downlighting or cutoffs, whatever's in line with the code. And that would help satisfy the neighbors that we have behind us.

Okay, thank you. And so I would assume that the staff—

I would—

we would leave that to the— our community development staff.

It's a good moment to insert the thing I forgot to say. I never leave you with everything at once.

I like to leave us in suspense. Yes, thank you.

You wanted more. This will go— if it's approved for the change, This is the concept plan, but it has to match a site plan that gets approved through the planning division for the planning commission's process. So things like photometric plans and things have to be part of those submittals. So we'll use cutoff lighting or down-directed lighting to make sure there's zero bleed at property lines and glare and all that stuff.

So, thank you. Part of that site plan. Jared, will you pull up the concept plan? Oh, if you would, for the screen. Yeah. The site.

Um, let me get to the big one.

There's a big version, right? Well, there's that version.

That's— there we go.

Probably that one.

Yeah, thank you. And— oh, you don't have any questions?

You just—

you want—

I just wanted to— I thought this is a better representation of what we're talking about. Oh, okay. I thought you had a question. The prior zone and now the new one that you're asking for is on the right with a different concept. All right, thank you.

And one thing I'll note, and I should probably not offer more information than asked, but if you see the dotted line behind Uh, the orange building, that is the current line of the Allen's building. So it is a bit more— I don't have the exact number.

Oh, okay. Yeah, great. Thank you. And thank you for eliminating that suspense, Mr. Hall. It is a public hearing, and so I would like to open the public hearing. If there's anyone who would like to speak to this item on the agenda, I invite you to come forward and introduce yourself. Please introduce yourself and you'll have up to 3 minutes. Good evening, Council and Mayor McCandless. I'm Marion Baxter, and I really— I was unaware of this on the agenda this evening. I would like to thank Homebuilt and the proposal that's coming up for light pollution mitigation And noise mitigation. What he just described, I have never really seen other than at Harmon's grocery store where you can pull through and be loaded, your groceries loaded. So I'm very grateful for that. Light pollution is— we have growth going around a very tight area from the mountains to where Utah Lake sits. So we get to deal with some density issues throughout Utah County that are very unique. And with the growth of Provo Airport, we literally have issues with how do you manage the wildlife. We don't want to decimate them all, you know, the birds, the ecosystems. So everything that deals— we are living in a very integrated landscape, and the light matters, and the noise matters, and the pollution matters for even the human beings. So I also, because I had a moment here, I did not get here in time to sign up for the public comment initially, and I would like to draw some attention to our police officers and the outreach that they're doing in public, coming to the public parks. I was honored to attend the Cherry Hill Park gathering, and we had wild window wind, and several of the council members and the mayor were there, and the police officers, and we all stayed safe even with the elements going kind of wild that night. I would like to comment on Pete's or Peter's, um, outreach. And I did not know until that evening that we can send texts to Orem City, and we're spreading the word. And I'd like to see a higher profile that when you see something, uh, buckled sidewalk or a pothole or even a positive thing happening, you can send a text now. Hallelujah! That's a great use of technology. So thank you for being able to do a mixed message here. Hope it was clear. And, um, Homebuilt, good luck. I hope it goes well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak? To this. Welcome, and please introduce yourself, and you'll have up to 3 minutes.

Keith Walker, and I live behind this property. Um, a couple questions. I'll just share a couple thoughts. It was 2 years and 3 months ago. He said it was in February, but it was for the city council in April that we were here for this same piece of property. And why are we here now again? They walked out happy as can be and they went down the road. Now we're back again for the same thing. The only reason we're here that this is going to succeed is because WW Clyde has stepped in and been a part of this project. As I met with Jaron Hall 2 weeks ago, he was under the impression that WW Clyde had purchased this property. My understanding and comments to them and to Homebuilt, that is not the case. So we still have the problem with Needers owning the property that's gone on for a long period of time. Question in the planning meeting that they approved the DOT approval on the access on State Street. Also a question for the council to consider, and I know it probably doesn't fall into this, but 2 years ago the city council made Adjustments in this property to allow these guys for more parking. They needed 347 parking places originally, and now they— and I know you said this different—

they—

this is less than it was, which is fine, but they made counts, they made adjustments on State Street to do the setbacks on State Street for allow this to go through. It might not apply to you, but just to think, do you want to allow those setbacks still to be in place. Handicapped on this property, there's 9. On the property that's presented on the drawing, there's 9 handicapped stalls. I don't know what the regulation is. I'm not in favor, but I just question if that's the right amount. The other thing I'd like to draw your attention to on this plan is on the north end of the plan— on the south end of the plan, I'm sorry. On the south End of the plan, the one drive-through goes to I Drive property, and that's been in existence the whole time. It's had to be there. They have positioned this restaurant and drive-through in that entranceway to the drive to go to north to I Drive. That part of that restaurant and that curb out at the front, that first curb with green, is in half or better of that driveway through. I don't think that's a good. Good situation. That's just my thought on that to improve it. The other one is on the north end of the property. They put a drive, a drive-through lane on that building on the north, on the north side of that. The way that looks, they've got a place for roughly 2 cars, maybe 3 at the very most, in that drive-through lane. If not, they're going to back up into that entrance in the property. I don't know what they plan on putting there, but I don't I don't think a 2-car drive-up is enough unless it was something, you know, a dry cleaner or something that was very light. And they've talked about that once. So that's another question I have on the plan. The other one was, uh, we've talked about, uh, rodent control. I was told tonight just briefly that it was going to be started, tore down tomorrow. And we've asked repeatedly for that to happen. I know you, some of you are involved with Storm High School, and it was a disaster to the neighbors when that tore down. And I just asked for your encouragement. We're not necessarily opposed to it. We're grateful for W.W. Clyde to step in and do something with it, as the city wants it. Still, we're still nervous what Nieders will do with the rest of it, though. Thank you.

Thank you. So, question, um, I'm going to ask— well, I'm going to ask Mr. Hall a couple questions, and then I'm going to ask you about rodents. Um, and so, can you put the concept plan back up? Um, what I'm curious, what, uh, what items on this concept plan, um, the items that were brought up, talk about the different drive-throughs and the number of the parking and some of those things.

Will that—

will those be looked at more closely at site plan? The things this gentleman—

They can be. Um, site plans, the site plan will be reviewed more meticulously than the concept plan, but because we have access to more information, better, uh, better civils from, from the other side, from the developer side. However, the concept plan in this case is pretty complete. We've looked at some of those drive accesses, so a lot of those would stay in the same place.

Okay.

Um, the one question about the— and these have been approved before. By UDOT. So we're expecting them to receive their UDOT permit as part of that process. But again, drive-throughs like this exiting, if I'm understanding correctly, this is the concern is there's not a lot of space to stack.

Yeah, there. Yeah, right there.

Um, yeah, so those, we'll look at those for certain. We have transportation engineering folks that'll look at them.

Okay, we don't want— yeah, because we don't want it to back out on into the, into the road. All right, thank you. And would you mind addressing, as you proceed with demolition, about the— how, how to, uh, help the neighbors, as, as there might be some current residents in those— that building that will be looking for a new home?

Yeah, and I, I totally understand his fear. I've heard about the— what he's referencing. So Dave and team have been in there clearing out that building for the last better part of a month, I believe, and they have not seen anything. I don't want to speak for you, but I believe that's correct. In fact, we're working with Gramercy to tear down the building, and we'll work with them on any remediation efforts if anything is seen in the building until it really comes. Unfortunately, I don't know there's much that we could do until we actually see something.

Yeah, that makes sense.

But we're open.

I mean, just being in communication with him as far as that. I just remember when the orchards near my home were We, we had a lot of new residents, little tiny little furry guys, cute little furry friends arrive.

We, as I've said before, our goal is to be a very good member of this community, and we have no intention of letting critters escape.

And I'm not implying that your building has critters right now. Yeah, please know that. It's just, that's a concern, I think, for when, when one does redevelopment. or development is that animal impact on the neighbor.

Yeah, I've heard the concern from him, and I've heard of, you know, the stories from before, and Dave and the rest of my team here knew about this to make sure that we're on top of it last week.

Thank you. Yes. So what is your timeline for construction? You say you're going to— demolition is pending.

Demolition is scheduled for 3 PM tomorrow, if anyone's interested. Uh, to start, and then construction, and then construction is— we are already going through the process. Once this is submitted, we are already ready to go through the site plan, um, submission process and building process. Our goal is to open this as soon as physically possible.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um, is there anybody else? I guess the public hearing is still open. Is there anyone else who would like— okay, if you please come up and introduce yourself.

Thank you, City Council members. I'm Wayne Barney. Um, lived here in this neighborhood for 33 years, um, lived directly behind it. Uh, grateful for the Clyde Company to come up because we have been through this for probably 20-plus years trying to figure out what was going to go on. Uh, the I-Drive people have been good neighbors. We've appreciated that. Uh, the one thing is, and I was showing the gentleman here That are with Needers. Currently, there are probably 3 to 4 foot of grass that's out there. And those little neighbors that you're talking about, 2 things. One, they'll come from that. But 2, I'm worried about the fire danger because I think in the last 2 years they've not cut the grass at all.

But right now—

and I—

they were very good. I was just talking with them and showed them and said, hey, before you start that demolition tomorrow, let's, let's do some preparation here. In the back alley, it's full of garbage. Homeless people have been living back there. Trees are are overgrown into the neighbor's trees. If you start ripping that building down— my dad was the fire chief of Provo City for a long time, and, uh, there is a lot of danger out there. And it goes right up to our fences, and there's wood fences. Those fences go right up to our homes. I don't think they should be able to start ripping it down unless they've done some preparation. Clean the fields out, get, get a weed eater in there, clean everything out. That back lobby or that back alleyway that's just directly behind Keith Walker's home is filled with trash and tents and homeless stuff that comes there every year. And in order to be able to do that and to be safe, I think they actually just need to do that. And those rodents that you're talking about, they're living in that back alley, believe me. We had chickens out there, and so we would set traps and they would come along the fences, and there's a lot of rodents out there. So 2 things. One, fire mitigation. Okay, it's very important. They shouldn't start this process as they have buildings going down and sparks flying because they're cutting things until they're prepared. And so, Just learned it was 3 o'clock tomorrow. They were very good to talk with, and I said, please, please, please don't do this without some thought. We've lived there, we've raised our family there for the last 31 years. We want to be good neighbors, but we want them, and we'll hold them accountable to being good neighbors too. Believe me, we're going to have some problems with rodents, but more importantly, I would like them to be prepared. I know the fire marshal's over here, and if you went and looked at— I was showing him pictures. There are weeds that are above my waist. And they go right up to the fence, and, uh, I could throw a match out there and that whole field would go tomorrow. Obviously don't want to do that. Grateful that we didn't have fireworks this year, everybody, even though I love fireworks. I thought that was a smart thing to do. But, um, I think everything else other than that, they've done a pretty good job coming back with this program. But please, uh, let's be safe. And I was going to ask the fire marshal, who I called to be able to have them come look at it before they start doing it, because it is a fire hazard. Right now, and it's dead and dry. And I just asked them to consider that.

Thank you.

So, sir, it sounds like you've got maybe something on your to-do list before— from 7 AM to 2:45 PM tomorrow. You got that down? Okay, so you'll be in Connect contact to work on— to work on that because— yeah, thank you. Anybody else like to speak to this item? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring this back to the city council for your discussion or, and/or action. Go ahead. What's your plan for that drive-through business on the south? Yeah.

Uh, on the south end, uh, along State Street, we were— uh, we don't have any definitive plans, but we were looking for some type of a restaurant to be there. Um, the drive-through was designed such that it could hold— I think when we did the count, it was 10 to 15 cars before it spills into any of the exterior parking. So the restaurant concept is our plan for that.

So I had a resident ask me to ask you. To, um, that we would love to have an In-N-Out at the north end of Orem. And I think that south In-N-Out could, could do with some help.

That would be amazing, but I think that would cause more issues as far as parking and backed up drive-throughs than anything else we've talked about.

I did ask, though, right? Okay. All right, council, is there any other discussion? Yes, Councilmember Lamson.

I, I just want to, to thank the applicant and Jared and staff for presenting this so, so well. Um, and also, uh, the residents, Mr. Walker and Mr. Barney, uh, always appreciate your extra insights. Um, looking at things with a, with a very fine detail and a fine-tooth comb, and I just appreciate your Continual, uh, just being involved.

Thank you. All right, thank you. Anyone else? What would you like to do? Would you like to take some action on this, Council? Councilmember Kilpatrick?

So, a 10-1.

Yep.

So, as we look at that, then I may— I move that we amend through ordinance, amending Appendix 0000 of the Orem City Code by altering the existing concept plan for the PD-53 zone located generally at 890 North State Street.

Thank you.

I have a motion. Is there a second?

Second.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Lamson. Any further discussion? All right, we'll start with you, Councilmember Gale.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And Quinn?

Aye.

I know it's the middle of the night. Thank you. All right, motion passes. Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is another public hearing, and it's 10.2, amending Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zone of the properties located generally at 360 West, 1500 South from PF, public facilities, to R-12, single-family residential. I did almost do it again. So they're, they're currently Currently, PF public facilities and R-12 to rezone those all to R-8 single-family residential, and it's approximately 5.93 acres. And we'll turn the time over to Mr. Hall.

Thank you. Um, so yeah, this is— it's 5.45 acres. Like, 5.93 is a misprint. I apologize. 5.45 acres. We had another project that was recently on that was 5.93. We probably pasted that number badly, but this has brought back that 2253A amending the map that you all know and love, that number 2253A. So these properties that are part of the, the project are in 2 different zones, as you mentioned, Mayor, the PF public facilities and the R-12 zone. Um, the Planning Commission held a hearing. Um, they had an earlier hearing, was continued to June 3rd, where they did finally make a decision and vote. 6 to 0 to recommend approval of the change of zoning to R-8 for all of those different properties. Um, this is an outline of the properties that are involved, and as I said, they're in 2 different zones, but they are all in the same land use designation in the general plan. Uh, it's all in the, in the R— sorry, in the low density residential designation. Um, this is the zoning maps. You can see the, the different— the PF zone is the portion owned by the city, and this is the R-12 portion here. Uh, this part is necessary to be part of the subdivision, um, to get to the city-owned property and, and, uh, included in that subdivision. Um, it makes it work better with the road, uh, coming through. If those are R-8 lots, they're larger than 8,000 square feet, but it works better than the 12. Um, this is a concept, so it's— I apologize, it's flipped on its side there a little bit, but you can still see that basic shape. So this is that road, 1600 South, coming up, and then it would curve through. It could either go through or it could cul-de-sac. We've illustrated the cul-de-sac version here. It seemed to be the most popular at the neighborhood meeting. We did hold a neighborhood meeting as required by the code for this. That was held back in February. I'm trying to remember. It's been a long time since February, but I believe it was February. A couple of things to note about the concept. Subdivision that we've prepared. It does allow for 18 single-family lots in that R-8 zone. It could be cul-de-sac or go-through. Um, it allows some connections of sewer and water, um, and then access for abutting properties to the east. We've held out a larger easement that would allow access for the properties on the east side, uh, to access their properties and/or develop in the future, uh, if they'd like to. This, this— Concept, um, plan. This one is to illustrate the outline of the property, because I think it's hard to see in our other concept plans. So this one, though, shows you better the detail. This would be an easement that would allow us to connect those utilities, um, from 1600 South to the north. Uh, it helps with sewer problems and issues that we have in this area connecting that sewer, uh, loops the water lines. Um, we could also provide pedestrian access. If this were cul-de-sac, we could still provide pedestrian access out to the north. Uh, as well. So that, that helps out a lot as well. Um, are there other questions that you might have about this property?

I have a couple of questions. And so, uh, one, one I've talked to Councilmember Millett about, but I, I'm going to ask somebody else besides— no offense, but somebody, a staff member, to give the same— to give me the answer. Well, I asked the other question is why, Why was it zoned PF? But the first question I'm going to ask is, because I've asked Mr. Hall this before, is, uh, what, what was the zoning of this, of the city-owned property before it became PF zoned?

It was zoned R— I was about to say R-8, but I think it was either R-8 or R-12.

It was R-8 or R-12, so it was already a low-density residential zone.

Residential single-family zone.

Okay, another question I have is, The city, the applicant— I'm looking, were we the applicant on behalf of the other— is the other property owner here?

Mr. Lichty.

Okay, okay. I didn't know if you wanted to add anything. Okay, you don't have— I'm not going to make you. I just want to give you the opportunity to that. Okay, so I come back and ask, what was the reason why this property was zoned PF? For my time. So I'll give a—

I'll give, uh, at least an initial summary answer, and then Steve and Gary can add to if, if there's anything I'm, I'm missing. So, at the time that we, uh, added that public facility zone, uh, we did it for all of the, uh, uh, publicly owned, uh, properties within the city. Um, and, and from my recollection, the main, uh, purpose of that was to preserve all The open space within the city to the best we can, and/or make sure that the city was part of— that the city was more involved, had a greater voice, that there would be sort of greater kind of public input in the event that there was any change in the development or the zone from there.

Like, like what we're having right now.

Correct. Okay.

So, uh, thank you. Question, uh, in an R-8 zone, are parks allowed in an R-8 and an R-12 zone?

Yes.

So, so those are permitted uses as well.

Uses in this, in that zoning and in the PF zone as well.

And in the PF zone as well.

Change of zoning doesn't impact that, whether it could be a park or development as a park would not be impacted by this particular change of zoning.

Okay, because I know the city's looked at the possibilities of that. And anyway, council, I don't mean to be hoggish with questions, but if you have any questions for Mr. Hall, he's also the applicant. So, okay, we don't have any questions. So we're going to go ahead and, um, I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. Um, just as a note, we did receive some emails from some individuals who were not able to attend this evening who wanted to give feedback, and the City Council received those emails in their work session. And so I don't know if anybody who emailed in before our meeting is listening, but we did receive those and had a chance to review those. So I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing, and if there's anyone here this evening who would like to speak, To this issue, I invite you to come up and introduce yourself, and you have up to 3 minutes to, to share your thoughts with us. Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, Steve Salmon. I have property adjacent on the east side of the city property. We own a house, a barn, and the lot that are just right next to each other. Um, my only question is, one of the previous meetings you mentioned, if it does become a park, the parking lot, um, you said there's— the easement is going to be taken care of so that we have access to those properties on that east side.

Right.

There's a large easement. I just— you mentioned in the previous meeting that the city doesn't always give access from a parking lot in a park situation. Yeah, not, not always. It's not impossible. Okay. That's really my only concern is we just want— we have the barn, we have the lot, we would like to develop it sometime. And so we just want to make sure we get an easement for—

That is in the event that if it becomes a park.

Yeah, if it becomes a neighborhood, I don't think it's an issue.

Okay.

But you had mentioned that before and I just remembered.

Yeah.

So that's my only thing is we just want to have an easement.

For, for—

thank you. Okay.

Thank you.

Is anyone else who'd like to speak to this? All right, you come up, introduce yourself, and you'll have up to 3 minutes to share your thoughts. Welcome.

Um, Joseph Creer. We are the property owners that are exactly north of the development. We are landlocked in between the dead-end street, 1450 South, and the condominiums. And so we're hoping to get access to the 2 full acres that, that are right there. We have no sewer connection. We've been working with the city for 2 years this June. We are planning, hoping that the street name is called Sunflower Dunes, if you guys can see it on your map. But we are trying to put in what would be 4 homes. For my siblings and myself. My parents live on that street. They've been there for 50 years. This is one of those legacy, I guess, projects. But we want to thank Jared, all the city council members, the civil engineers, everybody who have worked so hard to help us to develop. We're in favor of the R-8 zone change. Of course, we prefer the cul-de-sac over the through street due to all the constraints on 1400 South. It's a very bumpy, narrow road. We don't think that the through street would ever work there. But we want to thank everybody for all of their efforts in making this development happen.

Thank you, guys.

All right, thank you. Anybody else would like to speak to this? All right, seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Oh, we got one more. Okay, Marion, you'd introduce yourself again, and you've got up to 3 minutes. And I really am looking forward to this property being settled, um, to being dealt with. Our home is right on 1600 South, 325 West, and we're neighbors to Jay and Amy Lichty. And the sewer and connection for all of that parcel going north and the stability of Residential, and if it truly was to become a park, that can fulfill a purpose also. But the connections for water and infrastructure and sewer lines are wonderful, and I will give you some hands-on feedback about the development.

Arcadia?

Arcadia, Jared?

Arcadia.

Arcadia. The road is now open and it is dispersing traffic already. We raised our family in 466 West 1600 South, 1640 South, and we know many of those neighbors. And I literally was able to start asking them, have you started seeing an increase? Now granted, the homes aren't all built in, but I I will tell you the engineering and traffic information that more connectivity adds to more dispersal and better access. It's true, it works quite well. So we're, we're very grateful that this is going forward. And Jared, the question I have for you is, have the, the test holes been done? I didn't quite hear that, and I might have stepped out for just a moment.

I don't have an update on those.

Okay, we just aren't sure how much is hidden underneath there.

And yes, we, we went in and we had, uh, an engineering firm come and, uh, do some test pits and everywhere. That gave us enough— this was very early on— that gave us enough confidence to take the next step forward. One of the things then, as we've gone on, We, in cooperation with Public Works, and I'm sad I missed the day, we went out there and we dug test pits on every potential lot in the buildable areas.

Wow.

Where homes would be. And we didn't find anything that scared us. So we think there is some things there, but we're— right now, at least, we feel confident moving forward. So it may be viable, and we're very happy to hear that also.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, look, Marion, you started a trend. All right, welcome.

I'm Marcus Jones. I'm one of the properties that's near the park as well. It's 1645 South 300 West. I guess for me, I feel like we're talking about, like, the plans of all these and what the layout is and everything, and the proposed plan. But that plan has homes on it. It has lots that are being proposed, I guess, is the thing. And I feel like that's telling me already that it's not gonna move into a park direction. And with that, I think it kind of changes my mindset of, okay, well, sure, there may be a park that's included in this R-8 zoning and stuff, but highly it's gonna go to a developer and get developed, I guess. Even with that though, whether we build a park or not, the infrastructure would Would still come in because you still need bathrooms and stuff though. So I think protecting the green space like we talked about, right? Like, this is, this is a high dense area. There's buildings that are right just north of that too, of apartment buildings. If you go to the west, even though it looks like there's a big green lot there and stuff, that's all been developed out now too into homes as well. But, you know, I think, I think for me, it's— this is a public facilities property, and I don't think we're thinking about it like that right now. We're thinking about it as how can we get this off our books so then we can develop it, I guess, though. And I think bringing it back to, well, what can we actually build here that would help the community out instead should be the priority instead, without significant I guess, benefit to the community. I don't see why we would rezone.

But thanks.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate your thoughts. All right. Is there anyone else? Welcome. If you introduce yourself and you got up to 3 minutes.

Yeah, I'm Jay Lake. I should say something. So I really want— we live in a city. And we need to get along with the neighbors. I really want the sewer to go through and the neighbors to be happy. I, you know, being an outdoors person, I prefer the trees, but if we can have a few trees left when we do houses, I guess it'll be all right. But my concern is I don't want the street going through. So I know this issue's not about that at all, so, but if that— I prefer the cul-de-sac way. And many of the neighbors swear up and down there's hundreds of loads of concrete Maybe the city didn't discover it. Hopefully they don't, but it's possible where they're going to put the sewer line, maybe they'll run into some issues. But if they have their own equipment, they can just keep digging and digging and haul it out. And then some of us own property on the east side of the city property. And if you looked at the picture, there's a small dirt road that runs north and south.

They had—

my concern is I still want access through there. It's the only way I can get into my lower level of my property. In the wintertime, the road's really slick. You can't go up the hill. And they've been cooperative. They said we'd work something out. We just have to get a way to get a fire truck to turn in and out. So I'm pretty easygoing, but we want a betterment of the community. But I would be happier, or as an alternative, just to get the neighbor's sewer and just to keep it vacant land and trees. and, and do something. And I know that's a far-fetched possibility, but being one of the only forests left in the city and the Wasatch Front, it's something to think about.

Thank you.

Thank you. If I remember correctly, this property— the city did not purchase this property. It was given to the city. Is that correct? Is it only given to the city by UDOT? As part of another project.

That's what the, the county records show.

They show that this property was conveyed to the city in 1976 by UDOT.

And, uh, I don't think we have any records, but my suspicion is that we didn't pay anything for that. They just conveyed it to us as surplus property.

Okay. And then remind— if someone can remind me the size of the city-owned piece of the city-owned property. So if it's 5.43 minus The city-owned portion is—

I circled it here— 3.8 acres.

So 3.8 acres is what it looks like UDOT conveyed to the city.

It was actually a much larger parcel that UDOT conveyed. I'm not sure what happened to the rest of it, but this is what's left. It was actually—

if you look at the deed, it actually says it was something like 24 acres that they They convey to us.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So, wow. All right, I digress. Well, the public hearing's open. Anyone else would like to speak to this? Seeing no one who would like to, um, speak, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the council for discussion. Let's discuss. Can I ask some questions? Okay, Council Member Millett. Okay, so as was indicated, we received some emails right before this meeting. So if we could— and I know this has been discussed at different times, but let's just make sure we're clear on what's happening here and what the implications are. So they had— these neighbors who live next to this property have significant concerns regarding access, and I believe that's the rear, you know, what they've talked about. Would you kind of address that one first?

Uh, to the access to the north is the career career family. Um, that's the Sunflower Dunes project that needs sewer connection of some kind. There's a difficulty in, uh, accessing or providing facilities serving this property that the careers own. Um, a street coming up into here and development of this property would run a sewer line, allow us to connect that out here and then serve them with sewer and other properties in here. There's a lot of properties on the east that Also on septic that can be served with sewer as well.

Can I give you an address without—

1554 South 325 West. Okay, that's the individual who has this concern. Okay, so is this—

the concern is about access or about access, safety, and infrastructure?

So I think we've answered most of these, but the access is going to be to the rear of his property. Safety's the fire chief's, you know, access there.

I'm—

and then the Infrastructures, the sewer water, maybe just review all those briefly so we can indicate we've received these and we want to really address their concerns.

That's a great— that's great. Let me do that. Let me do it this, this way, probably. So, in terms of access, what we're able to do, you can see Jay referred to that dirt road that runs along the east kind of spine of this property. That's this area here, and you can see that dashed— those dashed lines, those would all be easements. Uh, that we can allow access for these folks to get to their properties if they need to across the back of these others. Um, these are, these are large enough to be R-8 properties and still provide that kind of easement. Uh, they could— these folks could get to their properties when they need it. We could provide sewer to their properties. Um, it's here in the road, but it could run through those utility easements and let them be sewered finally after the years of being on septic, if should they choose to do that. Um, there's even enough land that we could provide a roadway or some sort of private road for them to serve flag lots if they wanted to. A lot of those properties are large. They could develop in the future if they wanted to. That would, of course, be up to them. We would just provide the easement as part of our subdivision. That's a commitment that we made during the neighborhood meeting. And then please show the fire access. Okay. And fire access—

I don't know what happened to ours. So my screen's blank right now.

Those folks are all at these properties. Um, let me go back to this. So these properties, fire would be fought on those properties from this road here, not from the backside. Um, so I'm not sure about the fire access question unless they were to develop Flaglock for the subdivision, the new subdivision. Yeah. And the subdivision fire access for the subdivision would go up into the— this is a standard cul-de-sac. It's not too long. It meets all of our normal emergency access for that. So there's, there's no question on, on the subdivision that we're Sort of in concept proposing for fire access or emergency services, that's all well served. It is steep, that's for sure. Coming up this hill right here, this would be fairly steep, but those grades all get approved as part of the subdivision process. We have to look at all of that and that corner. The chief loves 90-degree angles wherever we can get them. I know. Um, but, uh, we'll put that through its paces. It has to meet all of our standards.

One thing with this, if we can go back to the map, the—

Do you want the subdivision map, Gary, or the area subdivision map? I'm on the subdivision map, but we gotta—

Yeah, we keep it. There we go. That utility access between Lot C6 and Lot C5 that goes up there, if you can see that. No, no, no, no, no, off the bulb of the cul-de-sac.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, right there. That, that's where some water sewer can come down, and that's how we can get sewer from people who are on septic north of this area. It would provide a way for them to hook into the city system also. But that, uh, access that we're talking about would also be a pedestrian access that in emergency situations, emergency vehicles would be able to get through there and provide more safety to the neighborhood, uh, with that. So while there would not be routine cars driving through that, it still would provide connections between the neighborhoods for pedestrians, bicyclists, but it also would be something we would work with public safety That in a very, very rare emergency, they could use that area somehow.

Perfect. And then just kind of to the infrastructure, addressing the community benefit of this, helping people connect to city sewer.

Sure.

Versus the septic.

So that's a big benefit. And I gather it's been sort of a promise that was made that at some point we would provide that kind Access to city sewer. And then just in terms of it, this is the, this is the best way to provide that because it allows us some, some way to help pay for that as well, honestly. So, I don't know, do you want to say more about that? I'm not sure what else to—

I just, and I appreciate that you're kind of being repetitive here.

I can appreciate that.

I'm just trying to make sure that as I'm reading these emails that we are kind of addressing those People, you know, individuals aren't able to be here.

So, yeah, no, I understand. Thank you.

All right, council, any other discussion? I have a question. Is, uh, how long ago was this zoned PF zone?

I believe in 2022.

So it was residential from whenever, from way back to 2022. Yep. And so, and it's been public facilities, and that was— that, that action was taken as, as I recall, a blanket, just rezone every piece of property that the city owns.

Yes.

Within its city limits.

Yes.

To PF.

Yes.

So there wasn't a direct, like, saying we're going to rezone this piece. It was just—

Correct.

Yeah, it wasn't that, hey, we're zoning this PF for a specific purpose at that time. It was a blanket, all city property and school property, wasn't it? School district property too. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. I remember reading about that.

Yes.

So, okay. Thank you. Uh, Mr. McGinn, did you have a comment?

Yes, someone, uh, I can't remember who made a comment, something about, uh, this could be possibly a park and change, and what's the city benefit? As we've looked at this area, this city property has been listed in the 2021 parks master plan as a possibility of a park there. But it also acknowledges that in this southwest area, this neighborhood is served by, you know, several parks. You've got Nelson's Grove just to the south, Cherry Hill, and another park in the area. And the nature of the property, as you're probably aware, makes it difficult to really be a usable park. And so with that in mind, you know, what could we do to make this a park? What might the cost be to create a park and the usefulness of the wider community? And one of the driving forces behind this in my mind was If we could take this property, not spend the money that would go into building a frankly marginal park— it is a beautiful piece of ground, but it is difficult to build and maintain— and we could develop it because it's our, our property and have the infrastructure in and then sell the lots off to be homes, you would have homes that could strengthen a neighborhood, bringing in individual owners. And as a city, since it's our property, we've talked with residents that we could do things and think about ensuring that they are owner-occupied and possibly doing deed restrictions and things like that to, to ensure that one, they have owner occupancy in the area. By doing this and building the infrastructure, we can work with like the careers and the people to the east and those who are on septic. Now we have a vehicle to put in the infrastructure where careers could develop, uh, neighbors could get on septic system, uh, a property owners to the east could cooperate with us in some sort of cost-sharing way, be able to develop the backside of their property. And then as we've looked at it, a developer at the end of the day wants to make a profit. We don't want to make a profit. We want it to work and function, and then we want to give that money that would happen and the council would have And one of our suggestions would be now take this money and where can we in the Southwest area, which has one of our greatest needs for parks as it's developing, can we leverage that into a more usable park in a more— in a better area from the standpoint of being more easily accessible to the community at large? So I think those are some of the community Community benefits that we see by doing this rather than just merely a park there, that the community as a whole really can benefit on many, many levels because of this action.

All right, thank you. Thank you for the explanation. All right, council, any other discussion?

Mayor.

I hear a voice. Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate Gary sharing that, and I just want to say that I do support the rezone on this. I think that there's clear benefit in helping connect people to the sewer. I think particularly if we can have deed restrictions that limit these homes to owner-occupied homes, that it helps us with our housing affordability questions. And I'm fully supportive of the idea that as we potentially make profit from selling some of those lots, that we put that into open space and parks in the city to benefit the community.

Thanks.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Meekum. All right, council, if there's no further discussion, would you like to take some, some sort of action?

I can make a motion.

Um, I move that by ordinance we amend Article 2253A And the zoning map of the city of Orem by changing the zone of the properties located generally at 360 West, 1500 South from PF public facilities to R-8 single-family residential with the intent of— I'm not sure how to say this, but financing another park in Orem. How do you say that, Steve? Do you want to include the R-12 in there?

Oh, and the—

and, um, R-12 single-family residential. So your motion includes— so just to make sure, you want me to read that again? Located— yeah, you can read again. Located generally at 360 West, 1500 South, from PF public facilities and R-12 single-family residential to R-8 single-family residential, with the approximately 5.45 acres. with the intent of creating another park elsewhere in Orem. Is that something— is that— can we include that direction on what the proceeds—

Sure.

Okay. All right, we have a motion. Thank you, Councilmember Millett. Is there a second?

I second.

Okay, Councilmember Gale seconded, right? Okay, because we had a tie here. All right, is there any further discussion? All right, Councilmember Lamson, how do you vote?

Aye.

I vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Councilmember Meekum?

Aye.

Aye.

All right, motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And then the next item on our agenda is, uh, this is financial items. Council members, you'll find the financial statement in your city council meeting packet. And so item number 12 is an opportunity for city manager to impart information upon us.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Just one quick item. You'll notice on your calendar there is an event coming up towards the end of the month. It's a collaboration between our Arts Council and the World, uh, World Folk Fest, or organization, and it'll take place on a Wednesday during our very popular farmers market. Something new that we're adding as an opportunity for you, since you are all wonderfully social, people-loving people, we will— we are adding a tent wherein you can come and interact with the public. And in this case, you know, there will be representatives and performers from 9 different countries around the world. So that's just something we want you to be aware of as we— as the popularity of our events continues. We want to make sure you have an opportunity to interact with people and answer their questions and listen to, you know, any feedback they have for us as a city.

So this is the all things Orem that like we did at Summer Forum? Oh, Oh, here goes another babble. Okay, Orm Fest.

He needs to write on the chalkboard again.

I have to go back. Okay, the whiteboard and I are gonna— yes. Is this like we did?

It's, it's along that same vein in that same space.

Yes. Yes. Well, well, we— while we have our closed-door meeting, I will be spending my time at the whiteboard. All right, and that concludes this This portion of the meeting, council, I would look for 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 and lease or lease of real property.

So moved.

Right. Thank you, Councilmember Kilpatrick. Is there a second?

Second.

Right. Thank you. Okay, and so I'll go ahead and I'll vote aye. Councilmember Millett?

Aye.

Aye.

Councilmember Meekum?

Aye.

Aye.

And you already voted aye. All right.