City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it's 5.30. We'll call the meeting to order. Now we'll officially call the meeting to order now that we're streaming?

No, we're not streaming. I just didn't have video on it.

Oh, you're kidding. So to start tonight, I have asked David Johnson, our economic developer, to give us a prayer, and then Councilman Carter-Wilkie will lead us in the pledge.

Our dear Father in heaven, we come before you this evening. We are grateful for the opportunity that we have to come and discuss the business of the city and, more importantly, the business of our community. We're grateful for the time and effort that goes in by our elected officials and staff in trying to be wise stewards of our public dollars. We pray that thou wilt bless our elected officials as they discuss and make decisions that they'll have a sense of direction and that we will continue to have civil and cordial conversations in our public discourse and we are grateful for the opportunity that we have to celebrate our country's 250th anniversary and grateful in how it brings us together as a community. We ask thy spirit to be upon us and we say and ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

Would you please rise and follow me in the pledge? I pledge allegiance

Thank you. Yeah, so Robert called me. He's got youth conference, so he is away tonight.

I'm on my microphone. That's what I would do. Mayor, I would move that we approve the agenda order for this council work meeting. Second.

I have a motion and a second.

Do you want to do all three agendas? We have three agendas before us.

Yes, that was to include the municipal building authority meeting as well as the redevelopment agency meeting. Perfect.

Second. Can you approve the agendas before you're in those meetings?

I'll do whatever you want.

From a technical standpoint. Robert's rules would say no.

Yeah, that's.

But when you go to those other meetings, it doesn't have an area for agenda order approval, so whatever.

Yeah. I know. What would you like me to do, Mayor? We'll accept that motion. Okay, that is to include all three of those meetings, the MBA, the RDA, and the work meeting.

Sounds good. Motion and a second.

Yep.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

That was hard.

I think technically we should be in the meeting before we approve the agenda of the meeting, but it's all right.

We can certainly do that in the future.

I don't think we're going to get that worried, anybody challenging us on it.

And we're going to have to call a pro tem chair for one of those meetings. I know, exactly, exactly.

Oh, yeah. So, no, we don't have any business from us or staff?

I do have... Point of personal privilege, Mayor. Okay. First of all, welcome home. It's nice to have you back in this chair. Thank you.

You did a great job. I watched. You should just move things along fantastically. We hope to hear about your trip at some point.

Yeah, we hope to hear about the trip at some point and how it went and whatnot. I'm afraid for the next month you're going to hear a lot from me about America 250. So I apologize in advance.

Do you want to just have her put as a standing item underneath the agenda so it's just on the agenda?

I want to alert the citizens and council and staff about a couple events coming up next weekend. On June the 12th, we have a large choral and orchestra concert at the university on the lower quad right by the Gerald R. Sherritt Library. It's entitled From Iron County with Pride. And it's a 150-piece choir orchestra doing wonderful numbers. Many of the arrangements come from Mack Wilberg, who many people know do the arrangements for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And it's going to be a great concert, and it's at 7.30 next Friday. And if that wasn't enough, the very next day, on June 13th, in celebration of Flag Day, we're having the America 250 Summer Street Fest. It'll be held in conjunction with the Farmers Market, Cedar City Events, and the Larry H. Miller Summer Games. It'll be on 100 West, where the Farmers Market generally is held. It's from 5 to 10. We're going to have food vendors. We have a large American flag from our fire department, pending no fires, of course. We have 30 historic flags that will be on display and a history of each of those flags and their significance to America. And there's going to be bounce houses and rock climbing walls and there's going to be a beer garden and everything else. So just come out and have fun. Those are both next week. And then lastly, I want to alert citizens now and business owners. We will be celebrating an event coming up called 13 Days Celebration, Stars and Stripes Forever. From June 26th to July 8th, there will be something happening in our communities every single day. And on Sunday, June 28th, We are doing what we're calling let freedom shine. We want businesses, city offices, et cetera, to be lit up in red, white, and blue. And that can be however people want it. There's prizes being offered for residentials with the most red, white, and blue. They'll get a $250 cash prize. I wonder where that $250 came from. But we're encouraging all the businesses across the county for the week of June 28th to July 5th to light up their businesses and homes in red, white, and blue.

You know, there's no surprise that Cedar City and Iron County is pretty much the poster child for the America 250 celebrations this year. Because of this guy and a few other people. It's true.

It's a great committee.

Mayor, if I may, just one quick thing of personal privilege as well. Also, this week, Thursday night of this week, no, not Thursday, Friday night of this week is the opening ceremonies for the Utah Summer Games. So just so that people don't forget, they'll be there. fireworks and a large concert and so sure there'll be tons of people where all the fireworks coming from that's where the fireworks are coming from so hopefully hopefully we'll see their 40th anniversary so i only got one how am i supposed to take my wife Let me bring in two. It's fine.

Is that all right? Is that okay?

Yeah. Yeah. Because they'll have us. The city will be represented in the actual opening ceremony, and they have us walk the track as the officials.

And just so you guys are aware on that note, I will not be there. My son comes home from his mission that day.

Evening, so that's a good excuse.

So yeah Yeah, tell him the fireworks are for him coming home.

So American I had one thing that my daughter my granddaughter comes home next Wednesday at 620 if I could be excused She's coming from we might be done by then Her mission I would like to attend if possible for the first half hour Okay, okay

Fantastic. Then on to our agenda, business agenda. So first one is to consider approval of a septic system for property located at 580 North on Horse Alley.

Is there Mr. Huey here, Bentley?

Nope. Oh, why is that person not here? That is a good question. I don't know. I'm not sure we do want to or not. So I'll let council decide that. If the person is not here, we want to table that to the next meeting.

I'm assuming they were instructed to attend the meeting.

Who did they talk to? Who do they apply with to be here?

It got on the agenda somehow.

Who put it on the agenda? But who asked you to put it on the agenda? Who actually put it on the agenda? I would imagine it came from engineering, but I don't, somewhere up there, building department.

Yeah, in engineering, we had had discussions, and with building, had discussions with the applicant and their representatives about what they're wanting to do, and... Yeah, we know they have the Health Department approval, but that it needs to come to City Council. So it was put on the agenda. I don't know if he was told that he should be here or not. I honestly don't know. I didn't speak to the applicant personally about that.

Yeah, I'm not sure if they would or not, because they were at project review for the one that they will be bringing, and that one definitely needs to be here for it. This one, I'm not sure on that he was.

Do we know, is there an expediency or some sort on this? I mean, if we were to table it until the next work meeting?

I know he's anxious to get started. He didn't quite understand that he had to come to the city council before I'd give him a building permit, and so he's kind of a little anxious. This process has taken him months to get a building. Oh.

Oh. Oh. So this probably isn't good. So do you feel like this is something that we should move forward in discussing without him here?

I think so, personally. Okay.

Well, tell me, so ordinance, as I understand it, if they're within 300 feet, then they do need to connect into our sewer system, correct?

Yeah. Yes, that's correct.

And he obviously is not within that, so he's requesting what can I do in lieu of that. But he's within city limits, correct?

Yeah, he's within city limits. This house is located on, or house. Building. This building, and it's actually, it's weird because it's actually an existing building that pretty much the three exterior walls are still standing. The rest of the building has since fallen down, and he's going in there, and he wants to remodel it and put his business in there.

Is there an existing septic system there?

There's not an existing septic system there. Okay. So he's adding bathrooms and expanding the use. Okay. Councilman Schmidt next.

Okay. First off, what is the water situation on Horse Alley? Is there a water main or is it everybody's on an individual well? How does the water work?

Yeah, there's a water main. He's on city water. City water.

And then is there an ordinance, Ken, that the lot has to be a certain size? Half an acre. As a minimum that it has to be? Correct. And I take it that this lot is that big?

It's about two acres.

Is it the one right where your mouse is?

Yes, this one right here. Why don't you walk us through everything and explain it to us and then maybe we can decide whether we punt or go ahead and approve it now. Would that be a fair thing to do? That's a fair thought. We'll let Carter say his.

Yeah, I was just going to say before we maybe take the time to do that, I mean, Paul, I've sat in this room for eight years. You would know better than I. There's probably, what, 20 properties on that street that have this exact same agreement? Yeah, this isn't a very complicated agreement. Yeah, it's a pretty common thing over there. Okay.

So what details would you like to add, and then council can decide what to do?

Yeah, so like I said, he is remodeling this building. He'll be running his business out of there. He's adding some bathrooms, and so he has worked with the Southwest Health Department. He actually has a septic permit in place, and he's installing a septic system that's actually just to the west of the building. which is actually not a bad location because in the future when sewer does go down there, he can just cut it off and run straight out. So, yeah, it is required in order to have a septic tank in the city to get the city council approval, and so that's why it's been brought before you.

Okay.

Any questions? I'm interested to know, I know Horace Alley, but where is the sewer system connecting into the new Iron County Correctional Facility?

It goes the other way probably.

It goes around the industrial park down that way?

Out the west side, I believe, across the rail spur.

It cuts up against the junkyard.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Carter?

I mean, to your original question, Mayor, my thought would be we've discussed it. I think it is pretty straightforward. I am one of those that definitely would love to see him here. I would be fine moving it forward as long as he comes next week. I mean, I'd like to see him at one of the two meetings.

Are you okay to reach out to him and invite him to come? Yeah, I'll reach out.

I was going to reach out to him either way.

It feels warm and fuzzy about voting for him.

Yeah, so, I mean, that way if we do have any questions or if he has any other comments, then great.

So with that, would you like to make a motion to move it to an action?

Yeah, I would make a motion to move it to action.

Have a motion?

Second.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

Pitch hitting for Chief Phillips?

Okay.

It says public safety, so you're part of public safety.

Thank you, Mayor, council and staff. Darren Adams with the Police Department. Yeah, a brush fire out on Vandenberg Road, about 7,000 west, moving quickly.

Oh, of course.

Oh, bye. So we have Martha here from Zion Storage that wanted to come up and discuss a donation, and so maybe invite her up to talk about that.

A little bit shorter. You're good.

Just introduce yourself for the record.

I'm Marsha. I'm the site manager for Zion State Storage, which was Cedar Storage and Storage General. So what we want to do is a public safety office award to anyone... that is a first responder at 50% for as long as they want it. They just need to come in with their appropriate IDs or in uniform. And there will be a $100 deposit, which is fully refundable when they move out.

So the reason this is before you, the Public Employees Ethics Act prohibits you and us from accepting gifts that exceed $50. There's exceptions for that. One of the exceptions is that it's made in a public forum and as a public appreciation, and that's what we're trying to fulfill here. So it's disclosed publicly that this is what's going on, and there's no... No hint of impropriety. Thank you.

Sounds great. Any questions? My only question would be, Mayor, is this being offered also to the Iron County Sheriff's Department?

It's offered to any first responder, period.

That's very kind of you. I'll bring you the format.

I've given out flyers to all of them, and then that's when we realized that Randall needed to be involved. Yeah.

Those dig attorneys.

I'm needy. What can I say? So I'll entertain a motion. I would move, Mayor, that we place this on consent for next week.

Yep.

Second.

I have a motion and a second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

No. Thank you so much. So what that means, Marcia, is we vote on it as a block with other things, so it pretty much means that it'll...

I don't think you need to vote on it. It just has to be a public presentation. Oh.

Yeah, so we can call that good. Okay, so we just met the obligation that the law requires us, so you're good to go.

Thank you.

Thanks, Marcia. Thank you. So that won't even appear on next week's agenda.

That's smart.

Even shorter. Even though it was on consent.

Okay, consider a contract with Division of Outdoor Recreation in the amount of $57,2079. Who did that for?

Good evening, everyone. Ken Nelson with Leisure Services. So we received a grant from the Utah Outdoor Rec folks for that amount, $50,000. uh... seven twenty seventy nine for uh... restoration of the cross hollow trail running from wal-mart to uh... silver silo down that direction is that resurfacing resurfacing so this is sixty forty match for iron county So the 40% that we are going to require on our end, we're proposing that we take that to RAP tax. That's in our RAP tax application. So that's why we're coming before you just to make it. Get all your ducks in a row. And then the mayor needs to sign it. So he has that document. We just needed to bring it.

Plus, when we receive a grant that there's going to be a fiscal match, we'll bring it to you so you know if you vote to receive the grant, you pretty much better approve the match.

But to be clear, we're not obligated to pay for it out of the RAP tax. That's the way he's going to propose it. But if you agree to this, then we do have to pay for it somehow. Sure.

The Coal Creek Trail, similar to the Coal Creek Trail last year that we did with RAPTEX.

Yeah. Could you just refresh my memory? Because I know, didn't we make a couple of applications and we didn't get, we didn't receive one of them, which with, I thought it was outdoor rec. Didn't we do another one with outdoor rec for? Two.

So we applied for some funding for Iron West and we applied for Fiddler's Park.

And those two didn't get funded, but this did? Correct. Okay, thank you. Well, I would move that we put this on consent next week to approval this contract.

I have a motion. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. And the opposed? Great. Consider a property purchase agreement with Crimson Cliffs Development.

So Crimson Cliffs has a development out in the South Mountain area. South Mountain shares a very long border with Iron Horse, and currently there's one master plan road connection that connects both of them. It's already built. And that would be the only north-south connection between Westview Drive and the frontage road that's currently built. That's it. So some time ago we were talking with the folks in development team about the possibility of finding another place where we could have another north-south connection. And development team was willing to design their portions over in Iron Horse such that it could facilitate another north-south connection. The developer with Crimson Cliffs said that they would facilitate it, but they would want us to buy a lot from them through which we would put the road, and then they can reconfigure.

Can you show us on a map what he's talking about, Ken? Yeah. I mean, I know right where this is, but I'm still confused.

For a quarter of an acre. Well, I get so confused about north-south out there. Well, I'm sure that's what they're...

Barely a quarter.

So... That's a lot of money for...

This shows... This shows the subdivision as platted. They've platted that subdivision. Last December, when they were going through the subdivision process and trying to figure out where to put the road and they were working with development team, they had their properties appraised and they came to us and they said, this is the value we will accept for the road. If you're still interested, it was $150,000. We came to the city council at that time and asked the city council to amend its budget to include that $150,000 so that we could buy this road once they finally pinned down where it was going to go and how it was going to connect into Iron Horse. And now we're back because the plat's been recorded. They've done the dedication. They've lived up to their part of it, and this is a small agreement to document that we're going to buy that piece of road for them. That's how much we're going to pay for it. We will put in the asphalt and the improvements over there as well. Iron Horse will pick it up. I'm sorry, development team will pick it up north of the border and run it through their project as a normal street. That was the cost we agreed to in order to get another access.

Okay, start with Councilman Phillips.

Can you indicate somewhat where this road is going to and from? The reason I ask that question, I want to make sure, I've had a lot of people in the Cross Hollow Hills subdivision reach out to me. They do not want a connection into their area. Will this make that connection into their area?

No. Cross Hollows Hills may eventually connect through the Iron Horse project, but this road will not be the catalyst for that.

Okay, I just want to know.

One day we might do that.

Yeah, I understand. So kind of where is the planned road to go? Well, look at that little stub. Can you show them, Kent?

Yeah, so where this is stubbed out, there's a phase of the iron horse development that they're proposing in here. This road would come up through and end up tying in in this area right in there.

Okay.

So currently this road here, Eagle Ridge Drive, is the only one that connects. Correct. So this would be that second connection.

Yeah, and I understand that it's very congested already.

Yeah. And just really quick, a comment to that before I have others. This is one that I personally have feelings about. When I get those kind of complaints, and I'm welcome to talk to any citizen about it, there's one that's going to tie into my neighborhood that all of my neighbors would love to not tie in. What's best for the city is to have connection points. Sure. So whether they want it or not, my opinion is still eventually, yes, it should connect into Cross Hollows.

Yeah, and that's a county issue. We'll have to deal with some county on that. But that's how I personally respond to people when they ask me a question. Thank you.

Carter and then Phil. Well, and to that point, I mean, you can't tell me that one day when there's a grocery store right there on Cross Hollows. They're not going to want to go through there. Yeah, they're not going to use that. That's how everybody from there is going to go over there.

Well, that's kind of the point. There's going to be a grocery store and shopping over by Cross Hollows. There's also going to be a high school to the south and an elementary school to the west.

But my actual question, and maybe Paul said this, and I apologize if I missed it. I was looking at something else at the moment. Was there an appraisal done? So do we have an appraisal on this? I mean, we're paying $150,000 for it.

This is the price that the seller agreed to sell it to us at. That's it. That's his price.

And the previous council apparently talked about and agreed to.

Which you were a member of.

Which you were a member of at the time.

I don't know if we knew it was only a quarter of an acre. I mean, I think the conversation then was. To buy the road. Yeah, we have to buy a road. That's the road.

That's the right-of-way.

It just happens to be a quarter of an acre.

So the developer lost one lot, and that was essentially the value of that lot. So there were, in this area right here, there were three lots in his original plot. And by us needing to get a road through there, he could no longer fit three lots. That's why we're paying the amount we're paying. He lost a lot.

So just a question, if I may. Councilman Schmidt first, had his finger up first, Waldo, then you.

I'm feeling privileged. The road is already roughed in. I don't think this drawing... Well, this is old, yeah. Yeah, this is old. There is a road. It's already been pioneered down.

There was a utility corridor to the west of this that was roughed in, and there was some storm drain utility and some sewer utility that was ran through that initially. That was all we could get from the prior developer of this property as far as interconnection between the two developments. He would not agree to any sort of roadway. And the city on our part removed an interconnecting roadway off our master plan to facilitate those folks down there not having to give us a road. If we would have stuck to our guns in the first place and kept another connection point in there, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But we didn't. So here we are. The one that you know is roughed into the west of that is a utility connection, and it's not going to be the road. Those utilities will be abandoned. Those utilities will be relocated through the road.

I don't think it's too old. They might have pioneered the road coming down to this.

Anyway, I think we actually had the same conversation.

Kent and I had a... A little discussion just the other day with the Active Transportation Committee about tying in 900 all the way through. I agree with you. There are certain roads. The public's not going to be overly crazy about it. However, for public safety and access, we need to do it. So I'm all for this.

Waldo and then back to Carter. Put your finger down.

I know you're next. That's fine.

Just a simple question. So 150 gives us the quarter acre. And then you said, Paul, that we are going to then develop the road. So how much more is it going to cost us in addition to the 150?

Do you know that cost, Kent?

I do not.

We have not calculated it.

You're going to write about $1,000 a foot.

I don't have it off the top of my head, but I know there was proposals in your next fiscal year budget to include that money.

It's already in there? Okay.

It'll be about 1,000 lineal foot, roughly.

So had this been a master-planned road, we wouldn't even be paying to put it in. They would be paying to put it in, correct?

Correct. And they would have been paying to put in the underground utilities, which we're now going to have to put in. sewer and water. They would have paid for a whole bunch of stuff. So master plans are important.

Don't look at me. I'm just kidding. And we changed the ordinance, too, to also give engineering more teeth to not have this happen in the future.

Didn't we just change this where we have to provide an interconnect?

Yeah, if this hadn't come through before the change was made that you approved here fairly recently, we could have, we would have had, I mean, with what we have now on the books, we would have the ability to require that. We did not at the time that this came through.

Okay, that was my last question.

All right, good. Lesson learned there.

Okay, I'll entertain. I have one last question. Okay. Is the pilot map we're looking at, is this a current map?

This is the current in terms of what is recorded for properties out there. The aerial is out of date. Those roads are pretty much built.

They recorded the current phase showing the road in its location three weeks ago, two, three weeks ago.

So we're going to go up here. We're going to make this right-hand turn to go up the thing rather than move that piece of property over and take the road straight up.

That's where both developments and all their engineers thought the best place for the road.

It goes up the side of that hill.

So it discourages traffic unless it's like... Well, there are some slope issues out there. It's not flat.

It's going in the right place.

All right. Okay, I'll entertain a motion.

Well, okay. Question first. Our process, can we do this without getting an appraisal? Do we just, hey, this is what they want, so we just give them what they want?

When we sell property, we have to get fair market value for it. When we purchase property, if we want the property, we're going to pay the seller what they want for it. Okay. Normally you get appraisals. Yes, I don't disagree. This is probably the most abnormal transaction I've brought to you in a long time.

Not saying something.

All right, Mayor, I'll make a motion that we move this agreement with Crimson Cliff Development to action for next week.

Action or consent?

I'm fine with consent. I'll move it to consent. We kind of talked about it.

Motion to move to consent agenda. Do I have a second?

Sure. Second.

And a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Great. Budget. just to be aware we'll still allow people if they want to talk to us tonight about it to visit about budget but technically the public hearing will go next week because there was a slight miss on timing in the way we did the posting for this public hearing So we'll end up having the public hearing next week. Still can vote next week after it, but we will not hold the public hearing tonight. It'll be next week.

And just for clarity, Mayor, we have approved the tentative budget already. This is through the final fiscal year budget, correct?

Yes. Thank you. So let's talk. I'll talk about the first one just to get one off the list. So I brought up my dislike for having prime commercial property down by the New South interchange being detention ponds and asked to get an idea of what it would cost to get that water moved down to the large detention basin and be able to have that property be viable for commercial use. In conversations with UDOT, the process to do that would delay the overall interchange by a couple of years because once you're dealing with the federal government, they've had to go through all of this environmental studies and water is part of that. That if we change the way we're going to deal with that water right now, then it would delay the whole South Interchange project. So State Road was not particularly interested in doing that. But the good news is that it won't alleviate our ability to do it later. So if in the future we decide to be able to pipe that and then use that land for...

That's the 500,000.

That's the 500,000 under the storm drain, yeah.

So that'll come up later because that would be very difficult to do.

What would be?

To put a ditch down through there, a pipe with the existing ditch. There's actually quite a few things that need to be done.

Yeah, but we won't lose that opportunity, I guess is what I'm saying now, and it's not probably feasible. So that one I think we could just scratch off the list.

Okay. I just wanted to at least echo, Mayor, though, my support for the notion that long term in our major commercial quarter there we should have commercial property down the line. But I understand the dilemma we're in right now. But we just saved ourselves $500,000.

And I personally have the commitment to myself that we'll still work towards that in the future. And so we can still get tax revenue off of that property.

I say we just start at the top and go through these capital things. And maybe whoever kind of brought it up could be the one that... takes the lead or the department head or whoever it's under.

So if you have questions, we'd be happy to, the staff would be happy to answer them. At this point, you have adopted a tentative budget.

Correct.

To change that tentative budget for the final budget, it will take at least three of you to agree to add something.

Correct.

So we should probably go through these in order, and if there's any others that need to be brought up, bring them up and see if there's support to add them or not.

That was kind of each one. Yeah, that's how I thought it would be.

Yeah, almost take a vote and see if there's support to add that or not. Okay, let's start at the grant writer.

So this one's one that I've thought of. Phil brought it up as well. I'm still somewhat torn on it from a salaried employee versus trying to figure out how to do it on a contract basis. My personal opinion is if we go the employee route, I would make part of that decision a very strict contract that we set it on a performance-based level that yearly gets evaluated and we can fire them. I'm sorry, you're talking about the grant writer? The grant writer, yeah. So if we do do it as an employee, I think it's one that's very easy to measure. Did you get grants? Did you didn't? And we would want to set that contract in a very – It's a pretty easy ROI to calculate. And if they aren't covering themselves, they're not making the city money, then eliminate the position automatically. And I didn't get to talk to Natasha. She wasn't here today to verify if we can even do that in a contract with HR and government.

So you should probably just outsource it and let them be an independent contractor. Yeah. That would probably be the cleanest way to do it. So that they took their fees based on whatever grant fees they bring in. They can have a percentage of them. Well, we had that discussion. Not even have them as an employee.

That's the way I personally like it better, but.

We have a lot of departments that are involved in writing and obtaining grants already, and my concern is if we don't have somebody that is actually on the payroll coordinating all of that as an outside person, maybe that will diminish the effectiveness.

We've had payroll grant writers in the past, and those departments that were writing grants were still writing grants.

Well, so many of the departments have relationships with a lot of places, and they know the people, and that is to their advantage. I guess my question along your lines, Waldo, I'm sorry, I did not put my finger in the air, is that, you know, what is the structure? Who do they answer to? What department are they in? Who oversees them?

Et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, because the idea would be to funnel all grants to a central area, regardless of you know initially who is continuing with the contacts and so forth but eventually we make this this position kind of a center of excellence. I mean, they're constantly getting money for the different areas in the city.

The problem is they don't speak police, they don't speak fire, they don't speak airport. They don't know any of those processes. By the time you catch them up to where our existing staff is that's actually writing the current grants and then bringing those grants in. You've wasted a couple of years catching them up to work through those bureaucracies that they have to work through in order to get grants. That's been our experience in the past with in-house grant writers is they were very ineffective at moving any of the burden off of our existing employees, whether it was police, fire, engineering, public works.

So I have a couple of thoughts on this. And grant writing was one of the things that I studied from SEU and part of my master's program. And so I've written some successful grants. And I think there's a couple things at play here. One was one thing that Mr. Johnson had brought up, which is very true. A lot of those grants, they will ask you, is this person who wrote the grant receiving a commission or is part of their salary based off of how much? So that can actually lose you on grants. So, I mean, that's why going to a salaried position is almost, you know, we've talked about that, haven't it, both ways. So there is a benefit to that. Going to Councilman Gallant's point, I think there would be a benefit to having somebody who just knows the grant process and maybe have part of their job being assisting those within those departments, kind of double-checking the grants, working on them and all their grants to make that process better. I'm at this point, though, right now, I mean, I like the idea, but for a vote that we have to make on next week, I mean, this is always something we can add in a... in an adjustment, in a budget adjustment down the line, I mean, I wonder if we maybe need to have Mr. Johnson or somebody go out and, okay, really what are our options? What kind of, whether it be a private party that we contract with or that, and just come back to us with, here's the different options you guys would have before we try to just throw the money at it and make a decision.

Phil first and then Scott.

I'd like Ken and Darren to come up if you would. I've got a couple of questions. You guys do the grants. Would a grant person be able to assist you or help lighten your load or proceed to move these grants forward? Is there a benefit for you or not?

Ken Nelson with Leisure Services. I would lean more towards the outsourcing for our department. We deal a lot with outdoor recreation for some of those big grant numbers. I think there's people that are associated with those. that you use to benefit yourself because they have ties to those organizations. The grants that I handle through Iron County, I would just as soon keep that in-house and do it myself because of the relationships with those folks. So our big ask is always those outdoor events. recreation ones for a million, million and a half, those kind of things for our facilities. And I would just, I think there's people out there that have a connection on what they feel works for those people and that group that I think we could tie in. Speaks their language.

So can I ask a follow-up to that? And then, Darren, you can answer both Phil's and I's the same. So if there was, to outsource, to get a consultant to help you, would then be any benefit to have some money you could access to get those consultants? So is there any financial budgetary line item that we should still consider adding to allow that outsourcing to happen easier?

I don't think so. I think if you did the percentage, I think that would work. Example is this year I had... Brent Drew's daughter, Caitlin, if you know Brent, his daughter, does those grants for outdoor rec. And she asked. We were already almost done, but she was willing to help with those kind of things. And I think there's those people that I think you could just pay on the percentage and be fine. Okay.

Thank you. Darren? Darren?

Darren Adams with the Police Department. So similar to Ken, most of our grants are smaller, and we write those ourselves. It's just easier because, like Paul said, we know the lingo, we know the process, and we've been obtaining those annually for many years. And it's more of a formality to check the box to go through and utilize that process. Years ago, we had one that was a federal grant that was half a million. 100,000 a year for five years and that required somebody to manage that and so we had an employee that ran our youth coalition and She was paid out of the grant to run that as you know with federal grants They're pretty hefty and this one was required a lot of time and effort and then to the mayor's question Not knowing because we haven't done that I think if you're going to outsource that to have some funding to to pay somebody to do that would be helpful There's a lot of grants out there for public safety that are much larger than what we're taking advantage of that We haven't because we're limited in what we can do and that takes a lot of time and effort so in that regard body cam grants and taser grants and a host of things through police one THAT IF WE HAD SOMEBODY THAT KNEW THE GRANT PROCESS AND COULD JUST MEET WITH US AND SAY THIS IS WHAT WE NEED AND THEN THEY COULD DO THE LEG WORK WOULD BE HELPFUL. THAT WOULD HELP.

OKAY.

THANK YOU, CHIEF. I'M OKAY IF THERE'S OTHER DEPARTMENT HEADS HERE. WE ASKED HIM TO COME UP.

DAVID JOHNSON, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. A few different things. One, my department, our grants that we manage are mostly through the state directly, and we as staff are the only ones that they give logins and those kinds of things. Of course, we could work with a consultant or another staff member. But for clarification on the commission side, what you can do, I would be in favor of what Paul was saying, is having a consultant or outsourcing it as opposed to internal, because nobody's going to apply for a job where they know they could be fired any time for not bringing enough funds, because grants are hard to get in. But what you can do, rather than commission basis, the council could say, every year we're going to set aside, and I'm just making up a number, every year we're going to set aside $30,000. We may not spend $30,000, but if we need a consultant to go after, then we just pay them their hourly rate. So they're being paid an hourly rate. They're not being paid a commissioned portion of the grant. which would then meet the smell test for the grant. That's what I would suggest as an easier way. And then it's on an as-need basis. And if police need, they're going after a grant and they want to bring in a consultant who knows their world in grant writing, then they're hiring a consultant that knows their world in grant writing. rather than, like Mr. Bittman said, trying to catch someone up internally. So those are some of the nuances, and that's just kind of my off-the-cuff thoughts, and also trying to create clarity on the commission side. If you just set aside a fund, you maybe always set a budget $30,000, but maybe some years you spend only $2,000 of it, and other years maybe you've got to... Maybe you've got somebody that finds one worth $5 million, and we've got to spend another $5,000. Exactly. Maybe another year it's $35,000, and you amend the budget, so... Those are my thoughts. I don't know if you have any other questions. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Follow-up? Ken? I'll go here and then Waldo.

We're here? Yes. Okay, sorry. I just wanted to say that, you know, I'm torn on this one because I see the real value of grant writing, and I lived in it for 40 years, but I also understand what Paul was saying. The universities deal with it all the time. They're dealing with development officers that are trying to write grants for the library, writing one for a performing arts center. They're writing grants for the athletic department. They're writing grants for And so they have to know the nuances as well. So a good grant writer, whoever he or she might be, their expertise is going to be in the research side. They're going to be sitting at that computer looking for places and opportunities and say, aha, this might work for our public safety. And then they reach out to that public safety and say, hey, we have an opportunity to get this here. Is this something that would be valued to you? Then let's sit down and talk about it and see what we can do. So I'm kind of torn on it.

I think there's value in having somebody in-house But I also get the outsourcing thing Waldo, so this is where I am maybe my lack of experience and in dealing with city business and so forth but from all the conversations that I've heard and Participated in there's a lot of money that's being left out on the side everybody in their departments are going for the money that they know it's there and they're writing those grants the best of their abilities and within the resources that they have available uh... they can't spend all day writing grants and chasing grants because they have to catch bad people and do other things. So my thought was along the lines of what you're saying. We need somebody in the city that identifies the whole scope of what's available from a federal perspective, from a state perspective, even for private enterprises so that we can then supplement what's already being done because we're limited by the capacity of the organization that we have.

I like your train of thought. Would this meet that same need, though, if we set aside a pool of money and we then told all of our departments, you go find a consultant, a grant writer that specializes in your area and engage them? And then as they find grants that they're specialized in, that they know that industry, they vet them on their ability to get them, they're comfortable with them being competent in that area, then they just come to the fund and pay them out of the fund.

Mayor, I think that that's probably a way to do it. My question is, why aren't we doing that already?

Because we haven't told them that they could do it. Really? We've got to budget it and tell them they have the money to go do it.

Are you guys shaking your heads? Because you're the only ones here, so whatever decision we make, it's on the three of you.

But if the city gave you a pool of money and said, you go find a consultant that specializes in your area, would you then go find somebody and try to seek new ones?

Do they have the time to do that?

That's what I mean. They don't then have to fill the time. They just have to find the people. Yeah, but if they can look at it and say, I spent a little time to find a person that can go get me millions of bucks, they'll probably prioritize that.

I like that idea. As long as they commit to work it and not just kind of say, okay, the money's there. When I have time, I'll look for the person. I believe that we're leaving a ton of money on the table. So if this helps us, go ahead.

If I have Kenny go first and then we'll go Phil and then Scott.

I just want to reiterate in our world, it also requires a heavy lift by engineering. Because to do those grants, you have to have figures and it all planned out. You can't say, hey, we want to build a park, give us some money. They want to know exactly what it looks like, all the infrastructure. We have to have that thing verbatim to the numbers. So it's a heavy lift sometimes for engineering to hurry up and say, hey, Jonathan or Bill or whoever, you guys got to, we're applying for a grant and here's all the things that we need. So please take that in account because I don't want to put the...

Most of our grants, whether they're parks or Most of the grants we can apply for that involve any sort of infrastructure are the same way. You can't just say, hey, I have a dream to build something. You have to show them an engineer's set of drawings, stamped by an engineer, ready to go, ready to develop before they'll even let you in the door.

But this is where priorities come in, and if there's money available for something, I'm just going to choose a park for lack of a better project, Kent. If there's something that we know that it's going to be a benefit to the city and so forth, then we set the time aside and prioritize like we do with anything else. But I'm just thinking that we... We're kind of saying we're doing the best we can. This is the way we've done it. And I think this is the way we should continue to do it. And we're not getting there.

Phil and then Scott. I'll be quiet. I think we have a good thing going here. I don't believe we've come to the exact right conclusion yet. But, Kent, if you could just give us a few thoughts, as you already heard what everybody said, and then a lot of this falls back on engineering. What kind of thoughts do you have on this?

Well, on, you know, Kenny mentioned with the recreation grants and some of those kinds of things, when they need something, they're going to need our help, whether we have a grant writer or an outside grant writing consultant or whoever it is. We're still going to have the same level of involvement. So I don't know that it makes a big difference for us there. I will mention there are some of the grants that we chase. We get help from the outside without paying for it. When we go after a grant for federal highway funding for a project, there are plenty of engineering consultants out there that are more than happy as part of that relationship building with us as potential client, more than happy to help us put those together. And they're doing them for other cities. They know exactly what they're doing. They do it efficiently. They help us with that. When we turned in our grant application for that roadway project to connect Providence Center Drive to South Mountain Drive, that we had a consultant help us with that and we did not pay for that. And so there are those kinds of opportunities available as well that we don't necessarily need to pay anyone for some of the grants that we chase.

The only thing I was going to say, Mayor, was that I'm a little worried going after six or seven different consultants. The airport has one and public safety has one. There are firms, and I've worked with them in Salt Lake City, who are very capable of saying, I know who to go to for arts, entertainment, and medicine. I know who to go to for public safety, education, and education. Aeronautics.

So they can be a few.

Yeah, because that's what they specialize in, is just in fundraising. I don't think you need to find the right one if you're going to go outsourcing, but I don't think you need to go to six different people.

So maybe it's not necessarily that we're asking each department to go find them, but from our perspective, if we just put a bucket of money and then turn to our staff and say, we expect you to go figure out how to get more grants, and here's a bucket of money to help you do that,

Or you hire somebody outsourced and say, we're going to hire firm XYZ as a consultant, just like an airport consultant. But that could be the way that... And their responsibility is to help raise funds for Cedar City, for our departments that have needs, and they will communicate.

But to a degree, my thought is allow the staff then to have that discussion, and maybe it's one, maybe it's two or three that can meet the needs of everybody.

Well, the firm may say, oh, we're going to bring in our guy who's an expert on medicine. Because some of these firms have six, seven, eight, nine people on staff.

There's more of giving them the bucket of money and the direction to do it.

Correct. It's kind of like hiring a consultant, having no consultants to do our transportation master plan.

So this is like music to my ears, Councilman, because I was not aware that there are firms that have that flexibility and that focus, right? I mean, these people, that's what they do. That's what they do. And you're absolutely right, Mayor. We go through staff with an RFQ. We kind of lay out the scope of what we envision they can do for us and have them quote us. then we can put them to work.

And so for now, it's more of just put a number in the budget that we're comfortable of using.

Well, we're guessing because we don't know what these companies charge. But it's a placeholder.

Yeah. I do. Okay. Okay. Councilman Schmidt.

Where have you been all my life?

Raising money. If we do that just to kind of help time-wise, if we could set up something that maybe we have a pool or two or three, but we don't have to go through a contract every single time. No. that we have something that they're agreeable or that this is an agreeable group and if they can handle it. I just don't want to have them come, okay, here's a proposal. I don't want to go through a bid on every single one of these. That's a good thought.

Now, how these firms work, if you – and so – now, the downside of this is, you know, it's like Avenue Consultants or Allen, Luce, and Hanson and the rest of them. If you want to get a good, qualified person to work for the city and all its departments – It's going to cost you $100,000 a year.

Yeah, it's going to be a retainer.

So you've got about the same amount of money. So the question is, do you want a full-time employee or do you want to hire an outside source?

I'd rather outsource. Because you can fire them tomorrow if they suck. And it's impossible to get rid of a second employee.

Well, that was just said. And we don't have room for another employee. Okay.

And it gives you more flexibility because you can also do what Phil said and have maybe multiple ones in a pool. So I think it gives you more flexibility.

Yeah, I like it.

I was going to add to that what Councilman Golan said was in other cities that I've been in, not just for grant writing but for other services, we've done a request for services and we pre-approved five different ones that we could rotate through.

Yeah, that's in concept. Perfect. So to me, it's more of I'd entertain a motion of how much we want to add in that line item and to be able to use for outsourcing grant writing.

I'd make a motion that we go with this number, whether we use it or not, but at least we have a number to go with and kind of see how it goes.

Okay.

It's a placeholder, so I second that.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Do I have all in favor?

Aye.

Aye. I'll say yes on this one. Okay. Sure. All right, so you got three on that one. I'll have to figure it out. That was the first line.

It's not even an official vote.

Could we still have to go to our...

But at least for our purposes, we know there's at least three we want to move forward.

Yeah, these are just like feelings of how to put it for next week. I hope the rest of them don't take quite that long.

Okay.

Mayor, you were iron leaders.

Yep, I was iron leaders. This is just one I feel like has huge value in continuing to get people connected in the community.

Do we have anybody from the city going this cohort?

Not without you telling me that we can.

Yeah, I think we should approve the funds on this one.

So maybe I'll do it this way. It's easier. Well, that's three. Any objection to it? No. Okay, great. That'll be a little faster.

So it would be really helpful if you just remember to repeat the dollar amount forever.

$2,800. $2,800 iron liters. That we'll send an employee from the city to. Next one.

Is the hospitality of Dallas Councilman Galan? $2,800.

No, the way I'm going to do it is just if they don't have an objection, then we'll assume that we're okay to move forward with it. Yeah, this one was Councilman Golan, right?

Yeah. That was just to have an amount of money. I'm fine for this. I think it's $2,000. I'm fine with it.

Okay, okay, so no objection to that one objection.

Let's talk about the cost of the gym Geo bond Yep, so this was the number that we got back from The county had given us some had given us this number of what it would cost to essentially add if we were decided to add the gym or anything, any bond on the ballot, that's roughly what the cost would be to have it on there. So there's been some discussions this week on some other possible funding sources for the gym. I mean, again, this is a small enough amount we could add it in later if we decide to. Yeah. So, I mean, I think there's still a massive discussion we need to have about the gym and if this is a possibility or which way we're going to go.

I personally don't feel like we'd. We're not in a place to get it on the ballot anyway this year. I think there's enough other discussions and other things that, to me, I agree with that.

I think we need to at least explore other avenues other than a bond before we go that way.

So that's fine. We don't need it on there.

Okay. So that one, is there any objection to remove? Is there any objection to removing that one?

Nope. Nope. I'd be fine.

Okay. So that 11,000 will be just for staffs.

What do you want us to bring it back for a work meeting? What do you want us to do with it?

I think what we want to do, well, I don't want to speak for Councilman Wilkie because he brought it up, but I think we get to the end of this, and let's talk about seeing if there's an opportunity to move some money forward into a fund that's already there, either this year or next year.

Or do you want to do that right now? No, we don't need to do that right now. And I think to Mr. Bittman's point, during some meeting, we've had some discussions this week with Ken and stuff. I mean, at some point in the next while, I would think it would be nice to have leisure or rec come to us with, hey, here's how we think we should go about this, and we'll just kind of take it. I mean, there may still be discussions in today's meeting about putting more money towards the sinking fund that we already have for the gym, but to your point, Mr. Bittman, as far as what is the plan for the gym, yes, that's a much larger follow-up discussion to happen.

So are you saying just let Kenny kind of keep working what he's doing, and when you're ready to have a discussion, just let him come back?

Are you okay with that, Ken? Take it off. Take it off.

I think to take off the $11,000, but I think that before...

Sorry, Scott. Waldo first. I'm so sorry. Just a question for Mr. Bittman, because is there a procedural issue that you wanted to bring up when you started to ask your question about whether we wanted to have this on an agenda or something?

I just wanted to know how you wanted us to bring it back. It's not a budget item. Right. If at the end of this two-week discussion there's no more money to put in that budget, how do you want us to bring it back? What do you want us to do with it? That was my question. Sometimes we get in these meetings and we focus on the budgetary Aspects of things and and those items that are relegated to well, we'll deal with that later They don't get dealt with they just Fade away till the next year and then we bring them back up in the budget again and could we wait?

Could we wait till the bottom of the council's? Recommended things and then come back to that question tonight before we leave

Yeah, but I think the general consensus was we won't try to bond for it this year. Yeah, that was the consensus.

But that doesn't mean that we won't come back for some other source of funding in this budget year.

Yes, I'll table that second part at the end. So we're getting rid of the $11,000. We're getting rid of the $11,000. but then we'll still circle back on if we do want to add any budgetary dollars to that.

I think there is one addition that Councilman Schmidt wanted to bring up, and we think it belongs under administration, but maybe this is not the right place for it.

We had our ATC meeting last Monday, and there is a...

Active Transportation Committee.

I'm sorry.

Look at you.

You're already in the acronym lingo.

When I grow up, I want to be just like him.

Anyway, there is an active bike committee meeting up in Salt Lake, and they were asking if we could help support three individuals, and we're looking somewhere between maybe 2,000 or so, maybe 2,500. Councilman Phillips was there, and he's been on one of these. They're very helpful. Very helpful and very impactful, and I will say, The Active Transportation Committee, which is bikes and trails and helping and walking and all that, they actually do quite a bit.

They're very active, aren't they? They just don't have a budget.

They do not have a budget, and so they were asking if we could possibly put in, and then they would pay their registration and their hotel.

And if you want to hear the side story behind that, it comes back to our grant writer.

I was going to ask that question. So have they gone before? They have gone before. How have they paid for that in the past?

We've had grants awarded to us by the Highway Public Safety Grants. And for the last three years, I have written that grant. I have managed that grant. I have done the reporting on that grant. And I said I can't keep doing it. And we were awarded it this year, but nobody would take on the reporting and the following through, so we had to turn the money back.

Oh, wow. So that's, I think, an interesting piece to that discussion.

We can get it. You just killed it. No, the point is I just couldn't do it.

How much was the grant? That's why we need that person.

That's how we bought bike helmets and different things, you know, so I Think it's a worthy thing for $2,500 and I would support adding it to the budget Is that something Paul that needs to go I like as a budget thing or is can that just be?

Since that's a committee that has when you have committees that need to incur a cost that have no official budget Where does that usually come from? it's the They don't? They don't.

Your committees are set up to be advisory. They're not necessarily set up to spend things. That's the way we've done business. That doesn't mean that's how we have to do it in the future. If you guys want to allocate money to send committee members to conferences or or other trade shows and trainings or whatever, you're free to do that. That's okay. We can do that. Just please allocate some money and we'll make sure that you're ready to go.

Well, I'm wondering now if this should, and Ken, you can respond, but maybe we do allocate whatever the money is for the active transportation, but it's under leisure services.

It's a line item in their budgets, his active transportation. That's actually what I was thinking about instead of the administration putting it under.

Is there kind of an advisory committee through your department?

And he is the staff liaison to that committee. Yeah. So what if we went ahead and just gave, through his budget, what if we went ahead and added $3,000 or $4,000 a year that could be used for that and maybe a couple other little things?

They only asked for $25,000.

Okay. But put it under active transportation.

Yeah, yeah, but it would be under tractors. as a line item. But they also help in things that I think sometimes, you know, they might need, they want to assist in a slow roll or something. They do. They could use, you know, a few hundred dollars here or there to do some things.

They have several things. That conversation could also happen with... I think you've got to...

But I think you've got to be really careful when you have these volunteer boards spending money on stuff. They don't know our... They have to go through staff. We have to keep it in line with our financial policies and how we spend money. Just because the group says, hey, it's a great idea, let's go buy a bunch of stuff and give it away, that's not necessarily in line with how we can do business.

Right. Well, part of this grant, you had to say so much had to be for education. You had to report on what you did with those funds. You had to do so many in-services in the schools, which we did, but you had to report all of that, and you know that.

Yeah, I think it would be just as simple to keep it clean in Terry's world that we have a travel and training line item. Just let Terry put it in that, and we can... finagle that on our end to keep it clean.

Do you see value for this committee to have people go to this with taxpayer dollars?

To this one, yes. But I think that they need to present, as Scott says, present what they're doing and what they get out of it.

They would have, but Ken was out of town when we had our meeting, so he didn't make that one.

I think the line item is there for travel and training.

It is. This would be a one-time thing. Sorry, Carter. Oh, I'm sorry.

Well, I was just going to say I was just getting ready to make a motion. So if he wants to talk before I make a motion.

Yeah, I think it would be just a one-time thing because if we get back to writing the grant.

Yeah, but it still needs to be in their budget.

No, of course, but we would get the money through the grant, and it would be used partly for that.

There's some other things. I would move that we just add $2,500 to his travel budget.

I would second that. Any opposed? No. All right. Let's move on to animal control. Parks and leisure. Yeah. Travel and training. Okay. Animal control.

I'm fine. Now, the only question on this one is the Connex. Was it another department that we did give? No 7,500 for a connex.

No they asked somebody somebody looked at the price.

We look at each other Yeah, so this is just the minimizing it from correct from 10 to 75 given them down great. They're the only ones okay Well then yeah, I say we I'm trying all objections.

I'm good on either of those okay, so those are both fine for animal control. That's 89 65 for additional part-time and down to 7,500 for a connex container and Economic development. That was great.

I'm good with this. This is me. I just wanted to have those extra hours with the understanding that we've got to get some results out of it and report back what those connections are and what we're getting from it.

Business plan. No.

No, we don't have that.

Hey, you got your money. Sit down. Push it. The note is that I went through the job description and that position on the current 10 hours is only able to fulfill probably 60% of what's on the job description. So we'll get it up to 100% and we'll get it. That's the idea.

That means you don't need to double it. You only need eight grand.

No. So I'm making the motion. I'm making the motion right here. We just need to know if anybody's disagreeing. A second. Nobody disagrees.

Nobody disagrees with that one, so add it. Under engineering, so these were ones that I added. I didn't intend necessarily to do both of those in a year. To me, I think we need to tackle the zoning component, get that in ordinance, and then reevaluate our master plan with the framework of the change in zoning.

So it's a quick question, and I'm going to let you go.

So is that the right order? I mean, I've been noodling this.

Fix your zoning. Definitely the best.

Thank you.

In the zoning update, is that also going to include the setbacks? I'm getting a lot of feedback.

Some of those things we can work on immediately. The zoning is more of an overall look at how we currently do our zoning, is R1, R2, R3, central commercial, industrial. Is there a way that we look at that differently? and then that changes ordinances if we do, and then you go to the master plan.

Yeah, and the setbacks are getting to be a big deal. Sorry, Carter. Sorry.

No, no, it's actually to your point, you know. The way I would look at it, and I think this is what the mayor intends to do, is essentially the first part would be what are our zones that we want and define those zones, and then the second part is you take those new definitions and you plug them into the map.

Yeah, and once you have the definitions, you also are going to have some other ordinances affected by it, right? So it's kind of a pretty big ordinance overhaul.

We're going to adjust the map.

Yeah, and then you go to the map after. So I'm going to only direct this question to Mr. Bittman, not because I don't think you don't know the answer, Mayor.

No offense taken, Waldo.

It's okay. Just trying to be nice. You don't know nothing. Mr. Bittman, how long would that first phase one take to get us to be able to look at data and discuss it and vote on it?

with the extent of what i've heard that people want to change you're going to take the next fiscal year doing that yeah i agree here it's a big lift or more and then your general plan we always have uh we always go into a general plan update with a lofty goal of having it done in eight months or six months and a year and a half later we're still here frustrated.

So what's the process? And I'm sorry, I need to educate myself so I can wrap my little brain around it. Maybe Kent can talk to that. What is the process? Is there a cadence?

There's a lot of public input. There's a lot of public involvement.

On all of it, yeah.

Yes, the consultant will take all that public input and all that public involvement and they'll go back to wherever they're from and they'll start generating some sort of document. They'll run it through our engineering department multiple times to get our feedback and our input into that product. And it takes time. It just does.

And the public input and so forth, does that take place in this chamber, or is there another mechanism?

Sometimes we do it in here. Sometimes we do it over at Festival Hall. Lots of times we have online stuff. In today's world, I'm assuming we'll have a QR code that people can scan and go take a survey and tell us what they want to change.

It'll literally be, here's a giant map, grab your color sharpie, and we sit there with maps. You do a wide range of... Okay.

I'm excited already. Let's go.

So my proposal would be is we eliminate the general plan update in this year's budget. That likely becomes next year's. Ken had his hand up.

I was just going to say, I do think this is the right order. We do the zoning ordinance update. It is going to take some time, but we were planning... Next year to be requesting money for the general plan update anyway We do this zoning now if it's perfectly into what our plans already were so any objection to that nope nope, okay?

So scratch the general plan for 125 and leave in the zoning consultant Did we get this hundred fifty number who pulled that number out of where? so I Okay Here's Jonathan

Yeah, I think it came from me maybe in discussion.

It lined up with some that I checked too, so.

Yeah, I talked to Don Pedro as well, and that's what we kind of came up with. We figured it was going to be a little bit more than doing the general plan. That zoning ordinance change is going to be a pretty heavy lift. It will be.

Yeah, that'll be a bigger lift.

A lot of detail, a lot of detail. It actually doesn't seem like a lot of money for the kind of job we're talking about.

You work for Ford Corporation, don't you? We get it. And obviously, if we can do it for less, we will. Yeah. Sure.

Okay.

Thunderbird Gardens. All right. Yeah. Everyone understood what this one was?

Yeah. I think everybody understood. We had a nice meeting on this, and we understand that things change, and the BLM on a federal level changed its components of our memorandum of understanding. But We have between 60,000 and 70,000 people use this on a yearly basis. So this number, we are told from Leisure Service, is going to help us have the ability to open up the restrooms and clean them and then take care of the road a couple of times a year so visitors can get in and out of the trailhead. So I would propose it.

Any concerns with this one?

No.

Is this enough, Ken?

He gave us the number.

He gave us the number.

I would potentially just look at that from, you know, I think I mentioned this to you, the golf course is a lot closer, so they may be able to run up and do it.

So you'll probably see some of that money go to parks and some of it will go to streets. Is that the whole number, Kenny, to do the road?

Yeah, it had the road in there.

Yeah, the grading. The road grading is Eric's folks They do it a couple times. They would need a couple times a year. We this is Venturing into something. We're not accustomed to because we don't deal with we deal with restrooms that are in our system This is septic. You know this is totally different than we don't know what we're getting into with that on how how it's required to pump it here to any of that so

It's not a hard learning curve. No, obviously. I mean, I'm assuming you'll outsource the emptying portion of it. We don't have the machines.

We're not buying a truck.

Well, I mean, we technically do have machines that would do it.

I don't think we want to run that truck up that dirt road. Yeah, I don't think so.

As far as guys running to do the trash and have you, that's doable.

I think this is great to put on here.

So no objection. We'll leave that one in. Yep.

Okay.

For 31630. Okay. Then our weed abatement for city property and streets. Thank you, Councilman Schmidt.

I think this is, you know, everybody we've talked to would like the city to look nicer. I've looked at all the sites. You know, everybody goes, well, it's a private yard. Well, there's a lot of sidewalks, curb gutter that's just city.

Yep.

And a lot of these are overgrown. I think this is a great shot to try.

Any objection to this one or comment?

So does this 30,000, I mean, I'm assuming obviously some of it's product and a little bit of equipment and then the time, this is an addition to, I mean, we're adding, we're already adding two employees.

We're trying to bolster their ability to do the weekends. So it'll take material time.

I think it's good. It's fine.

Okay, so no objection to it? No.

No.

Okay, so leave that one in, 30,000. And then the downtown angled parking on 100 West.

That was me, and I think the reason, well, the reason is I think we need to create the appropriate bulb outs. I mean, we just can't paint it. I mean, we are nearing accidents here, and The reason I brought it forward is because we talked about wanting to focus on downtown in this next fiscal year as one of our priory goals, and we really haven't budgeted anything for downtown to do anything about it. I didn't know the number, but this number was given. This can do a great deal to fix, enhance, and make safer our angle parking on 101.

So the basic scope of the project would be on all of the drive approaches leading to 100. you'd put a bulb out so that the person exiting the parking lot can pull out past the angled parking cars and get a good view of traffic. And then you would have to come, so you would do those in concrete, a little curbing, and then you'd have to come and re-stripe. That's the basic scope of that project.

And some kind of landscaping in there.

As part of this, I want to make sure that we also still have the discussion. We did take this to downtown parking authority. I think they would agree with this idea. There was this discussion there, but we've also discussed making some of those entrances one way.

I think that's fine. This is really about the safety. Yeah, I'm just saying it all kind of comes in.

So we can include that in the discussion. Yeah, make sure we include figuring out which ones go in, which ones go out.

And I assume the dollar figure came from engineering. Yes, sir.

Is this angled on both sides? You can only fit it on one, so the one closest to this.

It's on the east side of the street, yeah. And is this only Harding to center, or does this go up higher?

Center to 200. Yeah, center to 200 north.

All the way to 200 north? Do we have angled parking there now?

Well, we kind of stop right before Maverick.

I was going to say, we don't do it in front of Maverick.

Yeah, we stop right before Maverick.

Probably those little businesses right in front.

I thought we were going to look at expanding it up to behind the Hampton Inn.

Yeah, I'd like to see it go south past Center Street if we can. I was not aware of that.

Oh, I thought I brought that up when I discussed this, that we were going to look at taking it up to the old El Rey Motel. I mean, including.

You didn't say that in the discussion.

Including. Because then we get into neighborhoods.

If we can afford it for that price, we'll do it, but we'll.

I mean, that only adds.

Well, we might be able to. Who knows? This is an estimated number. Because really, the bulb outs are the expensive part.

Well, there are only a few there that you'd have even room to with the driveways that are close together. So you. You probably only add one, maybe two more bull bouts.

Yeah, I guess we can certainly take that. Look at that anyway. Look at that. Yeah, we will definitely take a look at that. And, you know, we can either, as we get into that and we see what that would take, we can either prioritize the $200,000 or come back and ask you for a little more money.

Wasn't Utah looking at doing some of that bull bout on the one side already?

At the intersection of Center Street, yes.

Yeah. Councilman Schmidt on that Kent would just to help keep costs in control The curb going out by those driveways Can we just pour a little a curb and just attach it right to the asphalt instead of digging it all out? Is that a possibility or would you want to take it down?

I think the biggest challenge we would have is getting that to be permanent, where it's not just knocked off. And there are ways to anchor that in. How successful that is depends a lot on the condition of that asphalt and the smoothness of that asphalt. I think we would be better off to... Just to dig them in.

Dig them in, yeah.

Okay, any objection to that? No.

Not an objection, but is this something... And maybe this is a moot point, but Kent, is this something that we should maybe do in conjunction with when that street gets, it's on the schedule at the same time as all of Eric's stuff? I mean, would it do us harm to do this and then next year have that street be on his list of, oh, let's redo 100 West? Should those kind of be in conjunction with each other?

I don't know that the sequencing there makes a big difference. Okay. But if we can get in and do it this year, then whenever he's scheduled for his next surface treatment, it'll already be done and he can match up to it, which would probably be a good thing.

Okay.

It would be good to get it in before the next time he does it.

Okay.

Okay. Renovation. Okay, so this was the big one. This is mine. This is the renovation fund for the Heritage Theater. I know there has been a great deal of discussion about wanting to try and increase the revenues for that facility, which I totally agree with. 27 years ago, 25 years ago, whenever this facility was built, it was built... with the notion of trying to have a place for outside entities to come in and use and also to be a community theater for all of the performing arts groups in the city that didn't have a home to perform in because they were being pushed out of the Randall Jones and the auditorium facility and the recital hall. Now the new music building is going to help that a great deal and hopefully I've talked to Jason who is here tonight with us that this might open up some more dates for us to fill in with some revenue generating things when they move some of their recitals and some of their other things back to the music building. So the proposal...

The new building at SUU?

Yes, uh-huh, correct. Because for the last two years, two years, right, Jason? Several years. Okay. They've been using the Heritage Theatre for a lot of the recitals and orchestra concerts and choral concerts.

Jason Clark, manager of the Heritage Theatre. The University Music Department has been using our facility for over a decade for their larger ensembles and an occasional smaller ensemble. But now they have a large concert hall over there. That would change a lot.

How much revenue are we going to lose because of that?

We will lose some, but that was part of the whole discussion before, is that we have a gap between revenue and operation. And the council expressed a desire to narrow that gap, and we believe we can. That will be a work in process. We don't believe it can be done overnight. We also don't believe it will ever completely close. But we know we can narrow that. I have made a good faith effort. I've come to the council on five different occasions to have rates increased without actually ever being asked to do that because I felt that was incumbent upon my position. In retrospect, maybe I should have raised those rates more frequently or in higher amounts. I think so. That's history, but we can look forward to increasing the rates, but we also don't want to create a shock in the system. Many of our local arts organizations plan a year or two out in advance. If we were to have a significant increase all in one go, we could create a crippling kind of effect for some of our arts organizations that have come to depend on the theater.

So my proposal back to the council for consideration is I have shared this with Mr. Clark that I want to raise the rates of the stage and the Grand Lobby by $100 a day more than what we're currently considered to be a fee to help raise some revenue. Maybe it needs to be raised even more than that. I'm not sure. But in lieu of that, I would also like to recommend that we put $500,000 in into the renovation fund. I know there's not an appetite, I don't believe, for the full million, but I want to tell you why. There's about a million two in that fund right now. We just redid the roof, and I think it's complete or is it?

The roof should be completed in the next two or three weeks. We originally put a half million dollars in with the caveat that if we needed to replace the roof before we got to the major renovation that we would tap into that, which we have. The roof is approximately a quarter million dollars. And so we have about a million and a quarter still in the renovation fund.

Correct. Now everybody wants to do that we need new seats back in the facility, they want carpeting, we need to fix some of the unevenness in the Grand Lobby, we need to paint, but those are all cosmetic. The thing that I'm concerned about, if we don't put some money in there and renovate our lighting and sound system, we run the risk of not being able to use the facility. Because if our dimmer racks go out and they are past their life and they are very expensive, they're gonna be three or $400,000 to do all of that, we can't run a show. Well, we can run a show. We'll turn the light switch on and you'll get rehearsal lights and that's it. So that is my request to this council to at least consider a half a million dollars to that sinking fund.

So you say for this number here you want a half a million more?

No, no, no. Instead of a million, 500,000.

No, I'm reducing it. Trying to be a good guy.

And that would put the numbers with taking off the 500 for the south interchange still at roughly that 1.2 that we have as a

An amount carried over from last year to use so yeah, so just a couple of comments clearly we cannot increase our fees to balanced Financial equation that would be just absolutely undoable and we would price ourselves out of a potential market so That pressure shouldn't be there on you. We do need to increase some and you're already making a proposal and I think that's fine. The other side of the equation is if strategically we need to be looking at what kinds of space are being made available because of the new building at SUU. and we need to be aggressively and strategically looking for tenants for those openings that are hopefully not necessarily the same, you know, the STP, the same 10 people that always come in and use money we give them through wrap tax to pay for the thing. I want fresh capital going into that building so that we can begin to be more profitable, I guess, and absorbing the costs and the operations and probably making it more viable to do more of the repairs. That was the second point. The third point What if we keep the million? What else would we do with the other half million?

Well, there's backstage work. We've got to increase the height of the loading dock area because there's a certain amount of scenery that can't move in because the opening is too small. I mean, this was all part of the consideration that the folks did. I remember the whole study. We've gone through, and I've identified, and I've had a consultation with Jason and Dallin and with Lisa, our stage manager, and I've identified about $3.5 million of stuff that I think we need to do in totality to get it to be the kind of place that we could have road shows stop and things like that. We're always going to be limited by our fly system because we never built... the theater high enough to fly scenery fully in and out. But there's still a lot we can do to attract a lot of other paying kinds of things in there if we can get the right kinds of theatrics done. We've got a problem in our follow spot areas. We've got some safety issues up in the balcony and things of that nature.

Council Member, if you do put the whole million in and you don't spend it, it stays there. in that savings account so that we can add more to it to hopefully do the full renovation that we want.

And that's why, you know, and I'm glad you said that, Mr. Bittman. I think that... To me, this is an important part of our city and what we offer to the public and to ourselves as Festival City. And we've gotten to a point where we're in danger of having to turn off the lights and walk away. So I would rather give you both and the committees that work on this, the flexibility to prioritize in addition to the sound and lights, which is a got to have, a couple of other things that maybe could be fit. Maybe you don't spend a million, but we get a little bit more flexibility.

Yeah, our restaurants are in desperate need of some renovation.

Councilman Wilkie.

So your proposal, Councilman Phillips, if we move this forward, I just have a couple of questions. One, do we go ahead and do the lights and stuff now, or do you just want to have the money there so when it happens, is the goal to keep building until we do the big massive renovation all at once, or is it, hey, let's go ahead and do the lights now, let's get those things fixed before they go out? What are you proposing there?

Well, I'll let Jason speak to that for a minute, but I would say that the plan was always that we would have this closing date and reopening date, and that's what we've been working towards. Now, that's not to say that it can't be done, but you've got to find the right window because this is something that can't be done overnight. It's going to take weeks to do this because they've got to run conduit and wires and all kinds of things.

Yeah, but if it went off tomorrow, if it broke down tomorrow, we'd have to close down. Yeah, absolutely. Then you don't have a choice. We'll let Jason answer that one.

There is a lot of unknowns out there. And prior councils and administrations had a kind of a pay as you go approach. The previous administration said, well, why are we just dribbling this all out? Let's do it right. Let's do it all at once. And so we have changed our approach. That was part of the whole consulting. Let's get it all done. Yes, we'll be closed. We are working with the universities, schools, and churches to try to take up some of the slack during that closure period. To just give an example, if we do it all at once, we can do things like we can remove all the seats, we can rip out the carpeting, we can erect scaffolding for painting, for rigging sound and lights. Then we just reverse the process. And there's an efficiency of scale if we do it all at once. Also to speak to Paul Bittman's mention, This money, giving us this money this year, we're not spending it this year. The whole process of we're going to have to put this out to contract and bid, when we decided the roof would no longer last, I had to come back to you to council and ask you to move from that special savings account to actual active account. And so our concern is if we don't at least fund some of this, We're going to come back to you with an even larger sum, and that's going to be a heavier lift. So what we're saying is let's keep putting in the piggy bank, you know, not that this is insignificant amount of money, but I would rather ask for a million this year and a million next year as opposed to two million in two years' time.

One other question that I have, it doesn't have necessarily to do with the renovation, but it is part of this bigger picture and the revenue which will definitely help with the renovation. Do you have a marketing budget for the theater and upstairs? The reason I ask that is just as one small example, the county went in and redid at the Fair Park. And every day on the radio, I hear their advertisement for bring your birthday parties here, bring your family reunions here, bring your. So, I mean, I kind of wonder if, again, that's a much bigger discussion, but I want to make sure that you have the money to be able to advertise the space that you have to get the people.

As for the theater, we're basically at capacity. There used to be a time where I used to put out ads and menus and everywhere, but I basically have all that I can handle in the theater turning over one event to the next. Okay, so about Festival Hall. Festival Hall is a little interesting because that's a joint project with the county, and there are things we probably could do and expand, but we ought to partner with the county on that. But we get all the revenue. Yeah, technically they own the building, so there is, you know, we want to... We want to make sure that the city uses a certain function amount of time. The police is in there. The county uses it. I would like to have a discussion with them before we do a great big ad campaign and suddenly they can't get in, we can't get in for the things that we're doing.

Mayor, do you want to speak to that?

I just feel that's a place we're leaving a lot of revenue.

A lot of revenue. So that's an interesting... We manage it. We pay to maintain it. If they need it, we've let them use it, but we should be filling every stinking minute of it without otherwise. I agree. I don't think that's another discussion that needs to happen. That's part of the agreement. We can fill it any times that they don't want it. We don't need to leave it vacant waiting for them to come and ask us to use it.

Agreed.

Just if I may, Councilman Phillips, I'm still going to go ahead and push for the million dollars right now.