City Council - Regular Meeting

Chambers. We recognize that we have a full council today. Council Member Newell, Council Member Harrison, Council Member Freeman, Council Member Stallings, Council Member Lockhart, we welcome each of you to the dais. Glad you're here. We also welcome all those who are here joining us in the chamber today.

I remind you this is a pre council meeting, so there won't be public comment today until our meeting tonight a little later at seven. We'll start our meeting today with an invocation that I'll offer, and then we'll go to that point. Our father in heaven, we bow our heads before thee grateful for the opportunity we have to assemble today and to discuss the needs of this great city. We're grateful for the time and sacrifice that goes into these meetings and to these issues and items that will be talked about and discussed this evening. We're grateful for thy guiding hand and and pray that that would continue to help us and guide us in as we work together in providing solutions and providing way ways forward.

We pray heavenly father that that would bless our city with water as we find ourselves in desperate needs that the clouds may open and that we might receive the water that we need as we enter the spring season. We ask a special blessing to be continued with our first responders, that they might be washed over and protected and their families might also have that protection as they, serve the public in, their dire need of of time. Again, we're grateful for the opportunity we have to assemble today and pray that we might do this work with kindness and with a eye forward. And these things we pray for humbly in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Okay. We will start first with item number two. Number one, with presentation of the Park Tax Committee recommendations. And I believe, here we go. How are you? Good.

How are you?

Good. Good to see you. And we'll let you run.

Okay. Plugged in here, hopefully.

Maybe.

This works. What did we do? This last Thursday?

Oh, was it coming? And then I just unplugged it. Sorry. Let's see. Oh, where do I need to do? Because it is a Mac. Do I need to screen share?

Here we go.

Start mirroring? Okay. Okay.

But now where's my stuff? Should I unplug this?

I want to thank you all for the time today. My name is Lindsay Gaiman. I have we can't decide if this is my second or third year serving as the chair on the Park Tax Committee. I have been on the committee since its inception. And I think it's probably one of my most favorite volunteer assignments that I've ever had of any of the boards or commissions that I've served on.

And I said this last year and I will say it again this year, this was really hard. It gets more difficult every year. We get more requests. There's more conversation and more debate that happens around these requests that we get but it really is just a really fun thing to be involved in and I'm really grateful for that so some statistics for you. Assuming it's showing. There we go. Okay. So this year we reviewed applications from 16 different organizations. That's two more than last year. A total of 34 applications submitted.

Seven of those were general fund allocation requests which we'll talk about. Of the remaining applications, organizations requested a combined total of 895,172 That does not include the general fund allocations. That was about $493,000 Our committee of the $600,000 that we were given as budget, we are going to recommend funding of $541,004 in awards leaving about $59,000 in unallocated funds. We had 15 requests or applications that we are going to recommend full funding, four that we're recommending partial, and 15 that we're recommending no funding at all. So before walking through those, I do just want to address council's request for us to look at general fund allocations and potentially using park funds maybe before we fund some of these other requests or can we do it in part and after a lot of deliberation and a lot of conversation the committee is unified in its position that using park funds to cover general fund allocations first before we look at some of these other applications is inconsistent with the intent of the tax when it was presented to Lehigh residents and when it was passed.

This was placed on the ballot. It was communicated as a way to bring new and expanded arts and culture programming to Lehigh, you know, as well as parks and recreation. And so, you know, we feel that that promise, you know, the committee feels that that promise was for growth and new opportunity not just sustaining existing you know organizational budgets that are already being funded through the general fund allocation. That being said obviously there are some funds left over. There is we are just given an estimate of what is available.

So I know there are some additional funds that could be used for some of that. And we respect that it is ultimately counsel's decision. But with our conversation and our recommendation is that it is to look let the park process the grant process work its way through before we look at maybe prioritizing those those general fund allocations. So walk through the recommendations that we have. So these are the recommendations of no funding.

So Futuro Futsal Academy and Utah Floorball Association, we felt did not meet the criteria of a cultural organization nor was the programming or the funds that they were requesting for meet the definition of that arts and culture criteria. There are some organizations that also don't meet the organization itself doesn't meet that criteria but the refunds that they're requesting or the programming that they're requesting to do the committee feels does meet that criteria so that's some additional discussion to have but between the Futsal Hall Academy and floorball, we felt that they the programming or the organization met the criteria. For Wrap the World with Quilts, there was a couple of applications they submitted for help with their Lehigh service events and Lehigh school events. The committee is not recommending funding for those programs. We feel that that is more closely tied to that organization's humanitarian efforts and purpose as opposed to the art of quilt making which is what the committee has felt the last couple of years that they have applied is what something that does qualify them for requesting grant funds.

For the Lehigh Arts Council there's three of their six applications we are not recommending funding for the upright piano, washer dryer, and funfetti machines. These were lower priority items for the Arts Council, so definitely not a reflection of the committee support for them. But just felt that maybe the organization could pursue other funding mechanisms for these particular items. And again, they were lower priority for them. United Angels Foundation, another organization that the organization itself does not necessarily meet the criteria of cultural organization, but some of their programming does.

Their application for the social and life skills activities we did not feel met that criteria. We felt that was more social support. But they did have a couple of other applications that we have some recommendations on. And feel free to ask any questions at any point in time. So partial funding organizations that these were cases that we supported the program's purpose or the purpose of the grant application, but we needed to we felt we needed to draw a line on what we felt was appropriate for park funds to be spent on versus not.

So the Hutchings Museum Museum requested 104,000 for support staff. We are recommending 45,000 of that. That 45,000 is specifically for the educator coordinator position that is tied to programming that the museum puts on. This is a position that was originally funded and created due to Park Funds. With the help of Park Funds, were able to start this position.

And as far as their reporting goes, it is pretty close to being able to sustain itself with the additional programming that they are able to offer at the museum. So the committee felt good continuing to support that position until it can be self sustaining. But the additional request for staff support and professional or staff recognition and professional development the committee felt would be better funded from a different source besides park funds. Lehigh's historical society requested a 106,498 for some of their operating expenses were request 98,748 of that. This is one of those where we kind of went line by line through their application and decided what do we feel meets the criteria or what do we feel like is a good use of park funds versus potentially not.

So $64,000 for staffing includes payment for the part time archivist and the fundraiser with some additional support for their director. 24,748 for office and archive supplies which is central to their mission. Dollars 5,000 for the historical marker unveilings. Dollars 5,000 for Lehigh Heritage Days. We are not recommending funding for the collector pins.

The grant did help that program get up and get started. But we feel like, you know, it should maybe potentially be paying for itself at least to be able to continue that as well as, you know, hopefully raise some funds for the organization as well. We also did not recommend funding for the fourth grade trading card program. We felt like that was a very narrow focus and would like to see how it plays out in the schools if it is something that becomes popular. But again, that's another one that we thought there might be some other potential funding sources since it is more education related for that program.

The committee really is supportive of that fundraiser position as well because again, that's something that with a little bit of help to get started, that's something that could really help Historical Society become more self sustaining and not have to rely on city funds so much. Wrap the world with quilts. Again they requested $161,141 We're recommending about $30,000 to cover again some of those expenses they have that are related to the art of quilt making. So things like their sewing machines and the space that they have where Lehigh residents can come in and volunteer to sew quilts, or they can learn how to sew quilts as well. We felt that, you know, again, that cultural element to that's tied to the art of quilting is important, but not the broader humanitarian mission of the organization.

Thanksgiving Point requested $146,036 for their Grow Tech gardens. The committee is recommending partial funding of $87,000 for that. We landed on this. We feel that 82,000 for the two positions that are needed to operate that program. So a grow tech manager and an assistant manager and then an additional $5,000 for an honorarium to the Dine and Navajo tribes that they partner with for their harvest festival that celebrates that program.

We feel the program itself is strong and culturally meaningful. But again, just want to try to you know, the committee does have concerns about ongoing reliance on these grant funds. You know, for operations, happy to support for programming and pieces and parts of that, but don't necessarily want to become the full funding source for those. Okay. Now the fun part, full funding.

We had about 15 applications that we recommended for full funding. I'm going to start with the organizations that are based in Lehi. As a committee, we do prioritize organizations that are operating in Lehi and providing programming in Lehi. So we'll start with them. Hutchings Museums request 4,500 for storage and This helps them to safeguard and store the exhibits that are not currently in use.

Just for Kids of Utah County requested enhanced production lighting. Again, another organization where the group itself doesn't necessarily fit the definition of cultural organization with their focus on special needs support. But the Curtis Center itself being a city owned building available not only for just for kids productions but for other entities to rent out and use we felt that would be a valuable use of park funds to enhance the lighting there and make it a little bit better not just for their productions but for anyone that that uses that facility. Lehigh Area Music Association requesting 12,500 for operations and growth an additional musical instrument this is an application that always receives unanimous support from the committee even in our first year there or the first year they requested funds and we were not able to give that to them because of requirements. But we've been able to make some changes to the park tax policy itself in the way that we look at volunteer hours and those types of things.

And this is one of those organizations that truly lives up to that standard. They have strong community impact. They involve a lot of people. They entertain a lot of people across Lehigh and across the county. They are very volunteer driven management and so we do recommend funding in full some of those additional musical instruments so that they can add and grow to the Lehigh Silver Band Lehigh Arts Council requested for show rights at cost and rental new mover lights and electricity to the garage.

The Arts Council does a lot in the city of Lehi, and we recognize that, you know, things like show rights and some of those lights and electricity are essential to their operations and their ability to offer programming. And it does represent some pretty core infrastructure that ties directly to the work that they deliver to our community. And last for the Lehigh based organizations is the Roundup Rodeo. This one earned the highest score across our matrix, but also generated the most debate, I think. Just trying to determine, is it cultural?

Is it not? I would love to hear what some of your opinions are. We did receive this afternoon some good news that the Roundup Committee did obtain five zero one(three) charitable organization status. That was obviously the first thing hinging on whether or not we could provide any funds to them or not. But that really wasn't the debate. That was kind of a cut and dry question. But now that they have that, know, is it sport? Is it culture? There was a lot of back and forth and a lot of conversation on this one. And ultimately, we did land on the Roundup Rodeo being part of Lehi's heritage, part of Lehi's culture, part of the American West, which is where we live.

I think if we lived in, you know, New England and somebody was coming for the first time and saying we want to put on a rodeo here, you know, that would have been a different story. But just given the historical aspects and the area that we live in, we do feel that it would be good use of funds to contribute that to the rodeo so that they are able to better work on some of the infrastructure changes that they're going to have to make over the next couple of years. Continuing on, the committee recognizes that some of our strongest applications come from organizations that are based outside of Lehigh. They don't have a Lehigh address. But their work and their efforts do land within our city boundaries and within our community.

And we feel that the cultural value that these programs bring to our residents and the visitors that they, in turn, draw to our city is exactly the kind of impact that the park tax was meant to support. Hobart of Utah County puts on a Hanukkah festival every year. They were doing this in Provo for a number of years. Last year they were able to do it here in Lehi because they outgrew their capacity in Provo. So bringing it to Lehi gives them more options to allow more people to come and celebrate and learn about the culture of Hanukkah and be more involved with the festival.

There was some conversation last year. Again, is this a cultural organization? Well, no, it's a religious one. But the event that they're putting on is based in the culture and not necessarily the religious aspect of the organization. Grassroots Shakespeare Company is they, again, also based out of Lehi, but have a strong commitment to educational programming in Lehi.

They make Shakespeare fun and approachable and understandable. I don't know how many of you totally understood Shakespeare when you read it in high school. I know I definitely didn't. But the committee does recommend full funding for the events that they want to put on contingent on them scheduling events and classes and workshops with our two Lehigh high schools with Sky Ridge and Lehigh. They applied last year and were granted funds with that same contingency. And they understand the impact that that makes and how important that is to the committee. Harrington Center for the Arts requested for both Chalk It Up and the Exploration of New Works. The committee was also in strong support of both of these. Chalk It Up is very family friendly. Event.

They were able to line up the dates so that it coincides with Roundup Week. So it just expands the things that are available during Roundup Week to Lehi families and our visitors. The exploration of new works is equally well regarded. It's an opportunity for local writers to gain experience and for local residents to be able to participate in that process and get that entertainment. Nashville and the Rockies, 6,000 for outdoor concerts in Lehi.

This is one of our new organizations that requested funding. We felt it was a modest request and so appropriate to provide that funding. Again, it's going to be contingent on them being able to schedule their concerts and activities. They are looking at Family Park. So something to add to kind of the calendar of events of things that go on in Lehi in the summer would be another great thing to be able to add.

United Angels Foundation, I mentioned them earlier. Two of their applications were for particular programming that we felt did meet that cultural element of the grant. So the sensory friendly Lunar New Year celebration and their spring break mini art camps that they hold at the Legacy Center. So again, bringing more people to Lehi from around the county and providing access to different cultural events for those in the special needs community. And last, Wassapt contemporary dance.

Jill Alger, who's been one of our committee members since the beginning, was able to attend their SABR event that they put on last year and said it was just incredible. It's there's a lot of dance and there's a lot of dance schools and dance performances and competitions that go on but this is unique. They put on very unique programs and performances. They also provide workshops for Lehigh high school aged dancers that exposes them to new types of dance and people outside of you know just their local schools and we feel that that's a good impact and a good use of park tax funds. So for the general fund allocation requests, as I outlined before, our position is that a lot of these provide more baseline operational support and not necessarily new or expanded programming.

And we feel that using park funds to cover those before we look at some of these other opportunities that we have to fund new programming would be inconsistent with what voters approved for this tax to do. Again, ultimately this is council's decision. We're happy to answer any questions that you have. There usually are a little bit of residual funds left over at the end of this. Obviously that is something that could very easily be allocated to one of these organizations or spread across some of these organizations to help ease that burden on the general fund. We do recognize that. And like I said, I know there is some what's the word for it, Matt? The excess?

Fund balance.

Fund balance. Fund balance available that could also be used for that. But again, I think we do need to be careful because those are tax funds designated under a specific park. We do need to make sure that they are going to organizations that meet the qualifications of receiving funds from that grant. I would hate for us to be in violation of any of that and run into some trouble there. With that, if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Is it normal for the park tax to be spent on staffing? Like is that a common practice?

It is. So the very first year of this tax being in place and being on the committee, there was an organization that requested a large amount and our committee vehemently like did not agree with it. But then we learned a little bit afterwards that yes, park tax, you know, the ZAP tax, RAP taxes, things like that, not just across the state of Utah but across the country are typically used for that is a very valid use of these types of funds.

Thank you.

I do have a question. So I thought you said Grassroots Roots Shakespeare is located in Lehigh?

No. They are not located

in Lehigh. I just

But they put on they do they will do workshops for Lehigh High Schools.

I was reading over this guidelines for the park tax. It says that qualifying organizations requesting amounts of 10,000 and $1 or more shall be required to provide financial reports for the organizations prepared by certified public accountant according and it gives it all like complete fiscal year if it's a 100,000 or more. Have you guys received all those? Have you reviewed those?

Yes. Yeah, that's part of so and I probably should have kind of given this overview at the beginning since of you are new to the council. So how it works is we have an application period that opens. Staff,

which

is currently Matt Lee, receives all of those applications in. And they filter through those to decide what fits, what doesn't, who goes where, and he might be able to speak more to that. But yes, part of that full application that they're filling out is providing all of that financial information and that's dependent on the size of grant that they are requesting. And so yes, we receive that. It's reviewed. If they didn't have that information or if it didn't meet the qualifications, then their application would be rejected. I think we would probably give them an opportunity to provide corrections if there was any. But if they didn't meet those qualifications, then we wouldn't be able to. Or we might only be able to partially fund their request. And that's actually what happened with the Lehigh Area Music Association, our very first year.

They operate primarily on volunteer hours. And so their operating budget was very low and we could only give them 50% of their operating budget which was like $600 or something like that. And so that was when we had the committee came back to counsel and asked if we could consider which they did approve adding in volunteer hours. So there's a calculation that is used nationwide as well as by state to determine, okay, if I have a 100 volunteer hours, that's where I think it's like 34, 32 or $34 per hour is the value that that adds to an organization. So if they volunteer hours, they're able to add that into those financials as well.

Just since we're making the final decision, I'd love to have the City Council see those reports prior to making decision in the future. If you guys have seen it would make sense for us to see them also.

Okay. I assume that's something.

Yeah. They they

should have been in

the packet, the two sixty page packet.

Believe you

probably read the

whole packet.

I'm sure

you did.

Yeah. So continue with the rest of the process. The applications come in, staff reviews those, filters out what is and isn't allowed. And then the committee, we get a copy of those. We review those applications. We usually set up a couple of two hour meetings where each applicant is allowed to come in and present to us for about ten or fifteen minutes. It gives us them an opportunity to explain a little bit more. It allows us to ask them some questions. And then we get together for about a three hour meeting where, well, we get a scoring matrix, a spreadsheet that we all use. We score those individually. Matt compiles those scores and then we get together and hash it all out and it's a fun time if you ever want to sit in.

I will make sure you have those. So, I know, I think that I think they came through. So, we'll just double check. Thank you.

Mayor, can I add? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yes. I just want to ask a follow-up question. You said volunteer hours are calculated at how much per hour?

I can't remember the exact amount. It's either 32 or 34 something.

Okay.

I don't know. Thank you. You might know. Did you calculate it?

It's roughly $34

Yeah. And an it's standard like third party calculation that we get from the state.

Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very very much.

You're welcome.

You. Appreciate your input. Okay. We will go item two. Presentation of the budget amendment number four from the finance department. Mister Dean.

Thanks. I'll be quick. There's just so there's three things on this amendment and the amendment's not going forward to council until April 14. We'll have a public hearing that day. And this is kind of a new routine that we're doing to try to maybe talk about them earlier, which would probably make some sense. So I'm just going to go through there's three on here. I actually want to talk about two other things really quickly, and we can add them to this one that goes on the fourteenth or we can wait. We'll do one more budget amendment in June. There's really not urgency to get it done, but it would if it's okay, we'll put it on there as well. So the first first one was we received a COPS grant.

That's a federal grant that allows us to pay pays a portion of police salaries for a period of time. Eventually, we'll absorb that full cost. But so we've seen $70,000 for that grant. We still need it in the budget. In order to spend it, we still need council's authorization to spend it. So that's the first one. The second one is a project on the Oak Hollow Well, which I don't know if we have a public works person here, but I think I can explain it well enough. It's a pressurized irrigation well that is critical to the Traverse area, I believe. It's on the East side over there. And it's just it's struggling.

So they're gonna have a project to reline it and just allow it to go. When Matt was talking to me about that earlier, it was $500,000 He just, I just got this today that the bid's about $630,000 So, that's money that would be paid out of pressurized irrigation, out of water reserve funds. The third one on here is police overtime. So with UVU shooting that happened last year, the state has asked for more police presence on campus. I think they are going to fund some extra police officers over time, but there's been a request for other agencies to fill that staffing need until they can get those hired.

We've had officers over there for a time. I did mention on here that so they're they're paying the They're paying the overtime rate, but they're not covering the Social Security and Medicare taxes and the workers' comp. That's going to be our portion. So that's the $300,000 One thing that I should have had on there that I didn't and I'll and so our our firefighters sometimes they will participate with wildland firefighting. We send crews.

We send equipment out there. We get reimbursed for that. We need reimburse for for the the cost of their wages, the cost to backfill the fact that there aren't people there at the time, and for the cost of equipment. So we've received grants of about $153,000.104 0 of that will go right back to the fire department budget. This is one that I I mentioned.

I forgot to put it on this one. If it's okay, I'll put it on in in in April. If you'd rather, can wait. And then the the difference between that this was adopted last year is that's going to be just committed, kind of set aside to purchase future fire equipment and things like that. So the difference between 153 and 104, so about $50,000 will go into that fund.

The last item that, again, I apologize I wasn't on here, but I learned about it just last week associated with the the cops grant that we received. So our police equipment, by and large, is on a subscription service. We used to buy equipment and then replace it over time. Now you rent it, I guess, along with the software that runs it. So we have about $11,500 in equipment to equip those officers and pay that subscription for them for this year. So, that's on there as well. So, that's it. If it's okay, I will add those to the one that's on the April 15 agenda unless there's concerns. I could do them in the in

the June 1 also. Any questions for Dean? Okay. I think you're good.

Do it in April. Okay.

Thank you. Mister mayor.

Yes. Just one question. Do you want to discuss or I don't know if our fellow council members, do we want to discuss the park items while we're up here or are we good just That moving

was going to be an agenda question. So, thank you for bringing that up.

I am open right now if you want to discuss it right now.

I'm Okay, just want to make sure. Guess I'll go since I brought

it up.

I yield you five minutes.

My brain's on a five second lag time. Really appreciate the committee's diligence with this and thank you Lindsay for presenting the way you did. I know this year is unusual compared to past years and you guys did the best you could with what you had and made solid recommendations. So I appreciate that. And just to note, I think the grants so I think the committee was instructed to have a ceiling of about 600,000.

But the total amount within that category is about 1,100,000.0. And that extra funds that came from leftover from previous years, they cannot be reallocated. It's still within that grant application bucket. So I think, you know, my personal goal for some of these organizations, I mean I love all of what they're doing. I love what Hutchings does.

I think the goal is to strengthen these organizations so they're more self sufficient, but not doing in a way that puts them at risk. And you know there's a large, I think the total amount for some of these are you know two, three, approaching $400,000 total. I think we have to help these organizations maintain some level of funding, but over time become more self sufficient so that there are more opportunities for additional grant applicants down the road. My personal principle on this is not facilitating a permanent subsidy through the park grant program, but rather facilitating opportunity and benefit to the residents. So I think as we look at these and Jason let me know kind of what instruction you would like, and Matt and Lindsay as well.

But those are just my thoughts and I'd like to hear the thoughts of my colleagues.

Well, my understanding with the general fund allocations is that we are trying to have organizations apply and to show a need and instead of just automatically getting the funding. I don't know because I wasn't on the council last year when this decision was made, but that was my understanding. And hopefully that we will they will transition to this isn't an entitlement. This is not a given. This is something that will transition applications show a need.

So I do think that you know there are some that have significant requests and I appreciate the recommendations by the park committee and I agree with most of them. One thing that else that I saw when I was looking through the recommendations for the guidelines for the park was the operating expenses are recommended to only fund half of operating expenses. So for Society, that would actually have it go down to $53,000 They were asking for $106,000 for operating expenses. That's one of the guidelines that we only fund up to 50% of that, which I like the Lehigh Historical Society. So that's not something or historical society, that's something that I would want to do, but that's a guideline there.

And I do see some benefit for some of the general fund allocations as there are many of them are considered cultural would be considered in the cultural organization or cultural aspects request.

I think the thing with the general fund allocation is that as I've looked at other cities, other cities don't have that. Like I reached out to Art, They receive almost 250,000 each year from American Fork through Park. They don't receive anything in general fund and they and I I kind of feel like that when we did the park tax that that's really where those funds should be going through. That said, I think because we flipped it this year, there's been a lot of trepidation about what does that mean that organizations are not going to be funded. But we have to realize this is just the park tax grant portion of it.

And right now there's a cap of 600,000 that we're looking at even though there's some additional funds there. So there's no way to fund of the needs through just this park tax allocation unless we look at some of these other things too. So I know a lot of organizations have had concerns about like that this could be something cut very quickly, but that none of us want to see any of these organizations hurt or go away. We want to make sure they're supported, but we also part of that needs to be that we need to support them in ways that they can become more sustainable themselves. And so, like, I think we all support that as well, that we we love these organizations.

We want to see them thrive, but also realize that we can't fund everything with 600,000. But I I do think that this is the appropriate use for when it comes to nonprofit organizations that are not under the city's umbrella, that they should be going through this park tax process. And I would love to see any other cities that do fund. I mean, it's almost half 1,000,000 that Lehigh has funded in past years out of our general fund. Taxpayers are paying for nonprofit donations and subsidies.

And I think we've had some great things in Lehigh because of that, but I don't think it's the proper way and the proper order of the funding and just how it should go. I really want to support our organizations here in Lehigh. I think that's why, you know, it was supported for the arts and culture portion of

the park

tax. But it it we also want to make sure that they're, you know, just like organizations in other cities do have to go out and get other other funding to help support them. It just can't be a complete subsidy from the city. Otherwise, it should be wholly under the city's umbrella if that's the case. So, I just want to put people at ease to know that we are not looking to close any organization or shut any organization down that we were I think we're all very supportive of our culture and arts and but there's just a better methodology to how we allocate funding from the city.

Mayor, may I ask a question of staff?

Yep.

This is for Dean and or Matt. Can you clarify if we are if those the grant fund balance is available to distribute

yes so that fund balance in there I believe it's 568,000 in there so that's built up over the past four or five years. It is available to use. The committee didn't dip into it in consideration but if you choose to use it by all means yeah so it's available.

Is there a reason there's such a high amount in the reserves?

Lindsay touched on it we don't award the full amount every year and sometimes park tax collections come in higher than we anticipate so they just add up over the years.

Okay just adds up there's no specific reason to save it. Okay thank you.

So I Michelle too I know that there's organizations who've received grants and then they didn't fulfill it like Regala did take their $60,000 one so there's some of those too. So

I probably I appreciate the Park Grant Committee for all the work they did. We're going through budgets. It's hard. You want to give everything to everybody. I am going to disagree a little bit about the intent of the Park grant as it was passed by voters.

The the language on the ballot proposition specifically states that the sales and use tax would be to help fund recreational amenities, park facilities, and cultural arts facilities and organizations in Lehigh City. So when we look at the criteria, I know the park committee has gone through and developed that over time, but the two criteria that I'm going look at the most is the original ballot language that was approved by voters. That made it possible and so I think that's important to look at and especially when it says organizations in Lehi City. Actually, I had a call from a previous city council member who was on the council when this was voted on and approved and the language was developed. And I asked him about the intent.

And he said it was for these nonprofits that are here in Lehi that used to be under the city but now were separated out. So the intent, according to him and I'm thinking the language in the ballot proposition as well is that the intent is to fund those organizations here in Lehigh City. They're longstanding organizations, and we value them a lot. And the other criteria that I'm looking at is also in state code, which is also pretty explicit that a cultural organization means a private nonprofit organization or institution having as its primary purpose the advancement and preservation of natural history, art, music, theater, dance, or cultural arts, including literature, motion picture, or storytelling. So there's a lot of good organizations asking for funding.

Their purposes are noble, but I don't believe that their primary purpose is cultural, as defined in state code. And I made sure to look them up. I looked at IRS nine ninety forms where they have to state their purpose there to see what their primary purpose were. I feel that there's a lot of things that were approved that doesn't necessarily fit under state code as far as park grants go. So my thoughts and recommendations are to fund, one, those that their primary purpose is cultural, and two, that they are located in Lehigh City.

So that would take out a lot of organizations, but I think there might be room to fund them if we feel they're important, maybe through the general fund if we want to go that way. But I, you know, we've got a lot of applicants this time around where, you know, you can argue just about anything is cultural, sports activities or humanitarian things. So I just think going forward, we just need to be clear and clean on abiding by what that definition is. I strongly feel that we should fully fund the organizations that meet that criteria. And so that will include the Arts Council and the Hutchings Museum and the Historical Society and others.

I have talked with the Hutchings Museum, and we have been working towards getting them to be more self sufficient. We've been on that path for a while since I've been given the assignment to be a liaison with them. And they are working diligently towards that. And I appreciate their efforts. And I know their ask this time around was quite large and I know that caused some concern for some of the other council members.

So I reached out to staff and asked them what do you need to stay afloat, to stay open. And so they were willing to go down with the general fund allocation down to $200,000 And they were good with the security at $4,500 and the staffing at $45,000 So they were willing to give up almost $100,000 to make it a little easier to vote for. And they have the understanding, clear understanding, that going forward, next time around will be a little less. I'm just concerned if we cut their funding that will put a museum out of business and we don't want to do that. So as they work towards the goal of being more self sustaining, I think we need to exercise a little patience on their part.

And they've been through some rough things, and they're dealing with a lot of challenges. So I hope we can support them and continue to fund their needs as they work towards their goal of standing on their own feet. So that's my opinion.

Well, really appreciate all the thoughts shared by my colleagues up here. This is my first time on the council doing a park tax allocation, so I'm learning a lot and I'm actually very open to having my thought process challenged on this. I think a lot about how what we're faced with this year as we've sat through budget meetings we have a you know a limited amount of funds that we can use to fund some of the priorities department by department and those are you know a lot of those priorities are essential services and they don't get to double dip in an additional tax and so I'm struggling to understand why we would allow nonprofit organizations to not only receive park tax funding but also general fund and so as I think through it, I think about what the general fund is for and I think about what the park tax is for and trying to make it fair for all who receive funding from Lehigh. So, And as it sits right now, I do like the idea of keeping kind of this new concept, I guess, of having park tax fund these things and the general fund being not a default but something that would actually be spent more on essential services and again it goes back to those who are coming to us asking for our surplus in that arena don't have the opportunity to double dip and those are essential services that the community relies on and I also strongly believe that arts and recreation have made a massive impact in my life and my community.

I'm fully supportive of that. But I want to find want to find a way to treat everyone somewhat the same. And so like I said, my first time being through it, I'm completely open to having my thoughts challenged on this. I'm not, you know, I'm moldable in understanding and maybe it's a multi year progression to that outcome. But I'm so grateful for those of you in the room that are from these organizations.

Thank you for all that you do for Lehigh and thank you for what the benefit you provide. I want to be supportive to that, but I'm looking for ways to provide fairness for all who receive funding from Lehigh and a tax benefit from Lehigh and I don't know if giving the general fund allocation and allowing the double dip is giving fairness to our essential services as well. So anyway, as we continue down this path, like I ask my colleagues to feel free to challenge my thoughts. And I'm open to debate and look forward to funding all that we can in support of the arts and recreation. May

I make a So point of I'm not sure what you mean by double dipping, but to clarify and we've been through this last year the intent was to move what was normally a general fund allocation to some of these nonprofit organizations, to move that from the general fund to the park grant to free up general fund monies to provide for city services, essential city services. So this is part of that transition to be less dependent on the cities and more self reliant. This is one step in that process. So there isn't if we fund what is, I guess, listed here as general fund allocations. It was in the past a general fund contribution, but we were moving it towards the park grant.

That was a recommendation of city administration and staff. I've talked to the organizations I'm involved with, and they were willing to do that. It's a lot more work for them, and it's also kind of unknown if they would actually get funded or not. So I appreciate them doing what was asked of them and kind of taking this leap of faith. So I hope we'll honor that path forward and fund these organizations through the Park grant as intended.

I think I'll just add, you know, I

think I like the direction we've moved in freeing up general funds. I think that's a very positive direction because like Councilmember Lockhart and Soling said, we need to use the general fund for essential government services. And so I like that these organizations are now in the park process. It's also a competitive right where it resets every year and it's evaluated year by year. And so I think if we want to I guess at least give direction I assume Jason this will come up for a vote at some point in the next few meetings.

So I mean I like and thank you Councilmember Stallings for being the liaison with Hutchings because I think we could especially with the extra funds in the account. We can fund the $2.50 with the understanding that this is going to come down over time as they strengthen their marketing and their operations to be to kind of close that margin between costs and revenue. So at least with Hutchings, I think that's a good path forward. I'm very comfortable using that excess grant money because I don't know, I mean there's no other use for it. It's just kind of sitting there and growing, which rather put it back into the community.

But I don't know if there's any other line items that we should discuss before we give direction to staff to put it up for a vote at a future meeting.

I mean, do you just want to go line by line by line? Start with Chabad?

Do you want us to put it up on the screen? Would that be helpful or?

We can do this however you want.

One thing I have a question about is for the Chalk It Up event, is that something that Lehigh Roundup asks them, requests them to participate in? Is that just some when I something that Harrington Center does? Is that is that a Lehigh City we're asking them to do that?

I missed that. Was pulling this up. Sorry.

No. You're fine. You're fine. A couple of years ago, I last year was the first year that the Chalk It Up Festival aligned with Roundup Days, and Harrington did go through the process of getting it approved by the Roundup Committee as an official Roundup event. So it's not just that they do it in the same week. It is now an official Roundup event.

Any other questions or we want to go line by line? Think

think it'd be If we went line by line at least for so that we can vote on it the next meeting if that's okay with everyone.

I have a question just this was like put on the agenda as a presentation but not as a working discussion item if there are any of these organizations who would want to be here for us working through the numbers would we need to like be very clear that we're going to have a working discussion item. I just don't want to have any of these organizations miss the opportunity to engage at this level when the agenda only says it was presentation.

Have they

engaged in pre I guess in previous years for Heather and Michelle? It's just.

There's no public comment at this time. Okay.

I I engage with the park

I

would appreciate the opportunity to ask them some questions as well but if we want to have this today that's fine thought I'm gonna get the acronym wrong it's the dyslexia the CBGG. Yes that funding. Whatever that acronym is that one they when they came and engaged with us at that level I felt like that was very productive and while the park tax committee does this in their own right now that we're you know taking a bit of a different approach this year we might find value there. Again I'm happy to do this today. I just want to make sure these organizations have had an opportunity to also engage with the council if we're going to go this route. But I mean, it's up to you guys.

I'm just

calling attention to something.

Yeah, think this is a discussion item where we can put numbers to things and then kind of look at it. And then, we're not voting on this tonight. So, I think it's an exercise to go through and look at each one, see where everyone's feeling, see what we need to do. We'll give you an opportunity to reach out before they're voted upon. So, I'm okay to continue discussion.

So, let's start with line item one. You want me to start and lead this? So, the Shabbat of Utah County recommended amount was 10,000. How's the council feeling about that?

I have a question though. It might be useful. Useful. I wonder if we look at it holistically because it's not just the Hutchings Museum that received contributions. We have a number of organizations that received quite a lot.

So I wonder if we need to decide if that's something we pursue because if we want to do that and it might change that how we fund all the others and again, personally, I would like to stick to the language in state law that we stick to those that have a primary purpose being arts and culture. But others might think otherwise. Does that make sense? If we start here and like, oh yeah, 10,000 is fine, we might by the end not have enough to fund those what would normally come from the general fund.

Think we would if I think if we're aligned on two fifty for Hutchings I think the total amount for all former general fund allocations is 493,000, but we would be taking some of that off of at least Hutchings. So I think with the excess funds that we have, I think it still all fits. So it's just a matter of whether we think they qualify or not.

Okay, since there's larger amounts at the end, why don't we start at the end and go backwards? Is that okay, Mary?

No. Yes. Okay.

Do you want to start with the general fund?

Sure. Yep.

Okay.

You have natural curiosity. I saw there was an agreement between Lehigh City and Thanksgiving Point for this in the past. It is not binding agreement. I don't think that it fits within what is considered a cultural organization or cultural cultural or art or anything like that. So unfortunately, I would say no to that.

Let

me ask a quick question before we proceed, and this might help answer your question. So all those recommendations are zero. Is there any on that that would be a recommend yes that came out of the park? And I think maybe we start there. And obviously I've heard a little bit about the Hutchings Museum. That may be where we start. Would there be any other there that would, remember now we're going to pull into the reserve pot, but are there any other there that that that we want to discuss? So, Councilmember Freeman brings up the two. I think we start with the Hutchings. Obviously, that's the main one we're we're discussing first. So, let's start there. Is there any other ones that we need to look at?

I think the butterfly bias fair. I think that that is natural history. When you look at the definition of natural history, Lehigh Arts Council, Lehigh Historical Society and Archives, the Lehigh Area Music Association. To me those are all cultural organizations or meet the definition of what is cultural has an impact with natural history art music theater, dance, and cultural arts.

Yeah. Excuse me. I'd agree with that. And also, I hate to remind you that the Hutchins Museum said they would go down to 200,000 if needed. I'm sure they would love that extra 60,000. So but if it gets tight, they're willing to make that sacrifice even though it might be rough for them.

I think that I would think it is appropriate to fund them $200,000

not And just to clarify not out of the general fund or out of the general fund?

So this is not general fund this is park

with Okay I guess what I'm looking at is general fund allocation.

It's the

prior previously.

Right, right, right, and I just wanted to make sure that you're saying yes fund at the 200,000 but from the park tax. Correct. Okay, that's I just want to make

sure that's what I Sure,

200,000 in this category plus the other two items which would bring it up to $2.50 is that what we're saying? So the two

Then it would be 45 for the the other Yeah 45 plus 4,500.

Yeah.

And I think that my impression is that we would do it this year, but in the future years they're gonna need to make applications for any funding, not just the blanket general fund allocation. I would like to see like what we're talking about staff support, if we're talking about storage, what are we talking about here? I think that would be appropriate just so it can fit in the same category so we don't have this vague general fund allocation.

And I think in their applications they kind of spelled that out but I think that's a good point.

It does say operating support but if we're looking at that then it says that we can only fund up to 50% of their operating expenses so.

Hutchings would be 200 in this line item.

Yes.

I guess out of the rest of them, the only question I have, I guess, is the Butterfly Biosphere and the Museum of Natural Curiosity. In my mind, the museum seems a little closer to something like Hutchings with natural history. But I'm happy to debate that, just because I think my wife would know far more about this than I would.

Yeah, funny. To me, the Museum of Natural Curiosity, very fun place, to me it's more of a STEM kind of thing and it's been a while since I've been there. Yeah. The Butterfly Museum, I could totally see that as a natural history ish kind of museum.

Yeah, butterfly, I mean, it's all about bugs and butterflies, which is natural history. So I think that's for me a given.

And I'd be supportive of the biosphere. I don't think I would be supportive of the Museum of Natural Curiosity.

I'd be supportive of both just because of the organization also that there's a commitment there. I would rather see this go through the park tax grant rather than be pushed into the general fund. I think they're very closely aligned with what we're doing with Hutchings, but I would rather see it there, rather than put it through funding to do that especially considering how much Thanksgiving Point contributes to Lehigh and our economy especially when you're considering the amount that they do, the size of it, the impact that they have on the area versus, you know, some of the smaller ones that do take a larger funding source.

Do we have a commitment there? Thought.

We don't.

That was clarified that. Well, was an agreement. It's not binding but there was agreement made for twenty years for $50.00 per year to the Museum of Natural Curiosity for capital improvements for the museum. But it's not binding?

Neither one of those are.

Yeah and again with Hadjes Museum we've dug into some documents and there's some language there that could be viewed as providing funding but it it doesn't bind the council to that and I'm very cautious of that kind of thing. I don't want to hold future councils to these kind of commitments. So, yeah, does it fit? Yeah.

I agree with I'm reading over their application. They say it's for the waterworks area, which if we look at that would be considered with like geology or kind of some of that things when they go their kids are playing and trying to trying to show the direction that they can have water go and how it influences things. So I mean that does fall under natural history. But I do see lots of people from Thanksgiving Point here, so they can

answer You're that for us right, I see arguments both ways so I'm not firm on that.

Do you take a straw poll on each one of these and discuss if we need to discuss?

I have an idea. What we could do is have the council each get a copy of this excel spreadsheet. They put in their own numbers, staff compiles it, and we look next meeting, we can see everyone's numbers next to each other. I think that would go a lot faster and help us visualize everyone's priorities. What we're doing right now line by line is going to take a lot of time where if if staff puts all of our collective efforts up we could we could see everyone all at once if that makes sense. Yeah. It would just require next meeting but this isn't this is

a presentation anyway not a work item. I do like hearing the arguments and I my mind can change on things so I like the discussion if we need to save it for another time that's okay

well I think we can all agree with Lehigh area music association arts council yes the high historical society yes. Does anyone object to any

of those? No. That's good.

So the only ones we need to decide on are the two Thanksgiving point?

Well I think we agreed on the butterfly biosphere. Unless there's objections to that.

I don't have objections to that.

I mean can see where

we're at too and come back to it one way or another.

That's true.

I I can see an argument for it. So appreciate that. So what? So? You.

Put it there. We're debating. And our brain sucks.

So you could put the 50 on the on the natural curiosity.

I thought we're debating them.

And both. Like there's three of that are that are pretty good. I think that's there. Again, we'll come back and vote. So I think there's consensus there.

Any comments on just for kids Utah County?

I'm looking up their application.

Really like my idea of doing this on our own, compiling it, looking at it and having a productive discussion line by line after we've all kind of put our thoughts down. It'll go a lot faster. Yeah.

I think, yeah, I think I've already kind of done this since we we got the package. So, I'm ready to go but I don't think we have to to discuss every line item. So. Are we

Council Member you good with the discussion that's been had to move forward if they send if staff sends this out based on the conversation that we've had with these park tax and the reserves moving forward are you comfortable is there any other questions or comments that we can answer or discussion items that you feel like we've maybe missed on?

So just Commissioner or Councilmember Lockhart suggest give our thoughts to staff and then come back?

So, my yeah. Well, you can do that or they'll send this out. We can then pull it and look through it, review with staff, review with council, and then come back.

There would be a column for Michelle, a column for Emily, Heather, James, Rachel and then at our next meeting we pull it up and we all can see very clearly where we're all at, have discussions on differences and make this an hour instead of more than that.

Matt is, well I'm ready to go I know what I support and don't but is there a time we have to deadline to approve this because

we intentionally moved this up to get it before the budget because you wanted to look at it before the budget so there's not a tight deadline the goal is to have these kind of finalized by next council meeting but if it takes two we can do that too.

Can I just can I ask the rest of us up here do we have any intent of moving any those bottom items back into the regular budget? I personally don't.

No. The only one possibly might be just for kids. It doesn't qualify.

Yeah, is there a

That's the only one I want to really look at their grant go through.

That's right. I'd want to see any paperwork the city has between us and them. For the city and the

Mayor also maybe this might be helpful too if we move in that direction. Maybe we could have some kind of parameters and guidelines. Do we where there's, like, 550,000 extra, do we want to say, like, Okay, maybe aim for 100,200 thousand dollars that we might want to take from that? But also know that as we kind of progress through this, it's going to take some time for these organizations to probably adjust and for us to be able to help support them with other funding sources. Do we want to put a limit on that?

Do we also want to I don't know how everybody feels about the idea of focusing only on those who have a Lehigh residence or Lehigh address. Do or do you just wanna open it up and each council member doesn't really have perimeters and they know it could be anywhere from 600 to $11,000,000 in allocations. Is there any guidelines we want to put?

I'm those are my guidelines that I I'm going to respect that but if you guys feel differently and you can.

I would suggest not spending all of the reserves especially as we're helping some organizations come out of the general fund there might be benefit to have some of those reserves next year and things like that so maybe we say half

that's what I'm thinking too like if we're working with Hutchings I would love to see what's being done with Hutchings how they can be better supported and what's being done to help them become more sustainable. And maybe that's what we see from these organizations that are receiving large amounts of money of having them do presentations, making sure that they have the right people and tools in place to be able to help them become that way because I know this has been talked about for years. So I wanna be very careful with how we're cutting Hutchings if they're, you know but it does need to be this kind of gradual step with making sure that it's never to the point that they they can't survive. So it's like, yeah.

Well, if we if we if we have a healthy debate on the rest of the recommendations, I like the vast majority of em. There's a few that I don't agree with as far as the recommended funding amount for those. So I'm good to do whatever. I prefer not to prolong this more than, you know, to I think maybe next session if possible we can close this out but I'm fine discussing however.

I'm looking at the time we've got some big things to discuss before a regular session so I'm fine tabling it till next time and having each of us send our opinions or is that what you want?

It's fine with me. I can do however you want to look at it if you want to do a quick working session next but also vote on it in the regular session if you want to do that, if you're okay with that, or if you want to vote on it the following one. Either is fine. You just let me know. But I can send it out.

Yeah, I think my suggestion would be, yeah, maybe use the different columns for different council members where there's a disagreement, then we can discuss. And I think some of these we may all agree on. So it'll save time.

Councilmember Freeman, you had a thought? Are you good?

I'm good. Yes. To get it done.

You good. Council Member Stallings, you're good. Okay. So, Matt, if you will put together that and send it to each of our council members, they can fill it out as to what they think. We can gather that data. That way then send that data back out and we can have a discussion at the next city council meeting.

Okay, sounds good.

Thank you. Alright, our working discussion items. Item number one, discussion of Thanksgiving Point Participation Agreement. Come on up. Welcome back. Thank you.

Good afternoon, mayor, council members. Ryan Thomas with Stack Real Estate and excited to be here to talk about our participation agreement. Just to recap where we left off in our last meeting, we heard loud and clear that this council does not want to entertain a development agreement. We were asked to come back with a vanilla simple no frills participation agreement and that's exactly what we did. What we captured in this agreement is everything that's been approved to date from the HTRZ to the project details and kept it as simple as possible.

So I don't have much of a presentation. I have some slides if it's at all helpful as we talk through things. But I think maybe a question and answer format might be the most productive so I'll hand it off and we can go from there.

Great thank you any questions for Mr. Thomas?

Are we just going over the agreement? With the agreement I just want clarify. Let's see on item 4.7. It talks about new taxes. Yes. Basically, what I get from that is if there are property taxes raised citywide, it will also affect the HTRZ zone. Yes? My second sentence that appears to say that.

Yeah I might defer to the city attorney Ryan Wood. Do you have any comment on that there? I my understanding would be as taxes go up the capture remains the same at 80%.

Okay. That

seems to be what the language says is if like Lehi City raises property taxes then that would also apply the HTRZ.

Okay

and then on line item six fifty five it talks about early termination by participant then participant may anytime elect to terminate this agreement so I'm just a little concerned that that might leave us with an unfinished building.

Yeah, we wouldn't do that I can't really see an event that would lead us to terminate this participation agreement here. We intend for it to run the full length of the HTRZ.

Yeah, the way I say that is it's an incentive but it's not a guarantee.

Project gets completed. Yeah and I can expand on that if at all helpful. When we finance these projects with the bank we'll have completion guarantees, personal guarantees, all that stuff. So there's many, many parties that will be involved in these projects being completed, us included.

Keep going 7.4.

It

talks about, you know, basically delaying time, extending time. Now you have twenty five years to begin this project you have forty five years to complete the project.

I would say the twenty five year window are the phases those tranches phases whatever nomenclature you'd like to use there but the full htrz runs for forty five years so phases you know can start at the beginning run for twenty five years each but we couldn't start a phase in year forty and get twenty five years out of it we'd only get the five years because that is the full window of the HTRZ.

Okay but you have forty five years where most of us will probably not be here anymore.

Right yeah.

I understand that there are things that are considered that would qualify to delay this and maybe need time. Things listed are war, insurrection, strikes, lockouts, riots, floods, acts of God, acts of public enemy, epidemics, things that we can't control. And then there are things that we can remedy a little easier, like lack of transportation or labor, materials, or tools. Maybe they're going to be more expensive, but to me those aren't in the same category as acts of God. And I think that this is reminding me of some of these insurance things, no offense to the mayor bins, but some things that I read maybe I you know buy a piece of furniture and it says we insure your furniture except for all these things and then you think well then what's the point of the insurance because there's all these exceptions.

So to me I think we need to go through this a little bit more carefully. I don't consider maybe newly enacted government restrictions or lack of transportation equal to a war or riots. So basically from where it says lack of transportation and then inability to secure necessary labor material or tools blah blah blah until NC I would strike that.

Yeah or can we connect those things to the beginning of the list? In other words if the lack of transportation or the you know those things are caused because of the prior list, are you comfortable with that? And that's kind of the intent. This is typical force majeure language. This is a little bit more extensive than what I'm used to seeing. But I think that's the concern is like some of these themes like yeah out of our control some of them maybe not.

Sure.

Are we okay if we take the language and say okay as long as that second few things is tied to an event that happens in the first or I mean that was an idea something.

Like Yeah, I guess what I would say is we have been at this for a long time and we want to develop this project. So I don't see too many delays market conditions of course will be a delay as you know the cyclical nature of real estate happens. But our HTRZ will be triggered as soon as we start our first phase. So we will be incentivized to move this thing along of course. And this is our day job we develop. So we will have every incentive to go out and build the project as well. So, I don't see that as a big issue but we're happy to look at it if that would be helpful.

Yeah, I just think that some of those things are, you know, we like you could tie them to or whatnot but I mean lack of transportation you have forty five years so yeah I think you got it.

And I think the intent there was probably just if something happened and we didn't have access to the property it's hard to lease it up if you can't get your residence in and out. Just very good point kind of standard protections in there much like an insurance document I guess.

For the affordability housing aspect of this, how is that enforced when these are all rental units?

The actual mechanism I think would kind of be determined by the city. I know Goyo is involved with that as well. But we have to maintain that compliance or we don't get the tax increment. So that's fully understood that we have to maintain that and manage to that as well right the income restrictions the rent restrictions all of that to get this incentive.

And what's that formula that GOIO and

the state would or the city would set forth? It's determined by HUD kind of national HUD they set it based off area median income and whether that falls within Utah County you know what we know it as is 9% of our units will be at 80 AMI, 3% of the units will be at 60% AMI. And when we had this approved in 2023, the requirement for the legislation was only 10% of the units had to be at 80%. So we went above and beyond that with the 60% AMI as well and spreading those out throughout the project. So there's not just one affordable housing project.

It's spread throughout the community as well. So however, that is governed from the city side. I mean it's going to be GOIO involvement as well too and the numbers will be determined by HUD publications that you can find online.

Yeah that to me is I think needs to be defined especially if we enter into this a local agreement I know at least the standard or the methodology needs to be defined because that you know if we sign it then it kind of leaves it up to interpretation and it may change as time goes along.

And I think in the agreement the participation agreement it does tie it to the units will be need to be affordable as long as the participation agreement or increment is flowing through the project so there are those restrictions but if you're talking a formulaic approach certainly we can address that as well too.

To build on that council member I think it may be similar and you know Jason helped me he get there but I think it's like the same way that we verify that businesses are paying the correct sales tax right they've report to us the sales that they've had and then I believe it's Dean that kind of goes through and make sure and his team make sure that that is reflective of the sales tax rate so I just I'm guessing but I agree with you it'd be great if we put it into this I guess that the same thing would happen they would report to us what you know what they've rented and what income you know who's paying what and then we would compare that to what would be expected which is what we do for sales tax as well. So I don't think it's beyond. Yeah. Like I think my concern is growing government to do this but I think what's already a mechanism that we do when it comes to sales tax. That's me, you know, Jason, does that sound right?

Yeah. Okay. Because it's a reimbursement.

Right.

We have to make sure that they're following the terms of the agreement before that it's remitted back to them. So. Okay. Yeah.

But I I I think it'd be great if we put it, you know, something like that in there. Makes sense to me too.

Yeah I think I guess just my very honest opinion I think the entire HTRZ is bad for Lehi. I think this council is a very council than that than the one that approved it. But just speaking for myself, the HRZ again was passed in 2023. I think it was 2018 when the units were approved 1800?

That's when the first conversations on this project started.

Yeah, even without an HTRZ, you're fully entitled to build according to the zone. I think I need more time to dive into this agreement further. I think it's been a busy couple months with four new people up here. I would prefer to go through it in a little more detail to see how it can benefit the city more. This is not a very popular thing in public's eyes.

I don't think when I think of affordable housing, I know rent does apply. I think it's far more effective if it's for purchase, but that's not what this development is. So my personal preference is that we table this. I'd like a lot more time with Ryan to go through this in more detail line by line to see what is required what is optional and how we can make it better for the city since obviously the HTRZ is already approved.

Understood. The only thing I'd say is that is part of the reason we're here today is to answer any questions you may have. So more than happy to workshop thoughts and ideas. I think we first came on February 9 or around there. We tried to get this into the city as quickly as we can here and we don't plan to actually have a formal city council until April 14, I believe. So we do have some time, I think, between now and then. And of course, us as a team, Gardner, Stack, Thanksgiving Point, we're always more than happy to host anyone at our office for any you know informal question and answer as well too. So I've thrown that out a few times we're happy to do that.

Did you have more?

I have more. I just calculated what 60% of the AMI would be and I could be wrong but is I believe if we're basing it on Lehi's which has a higher median income of about 120,000 it would approximately we want to spend about I think 30% of that on housing per month so that would be approximately $1,800 per month for 60% AMI. And that would be total costs including mortgage, utilities, HOA if those units are 60% and then you do the same for

And it gets you're spot on you're headed down the right path where it gets a little complicated is it's based off how many occupants are in a unit which is determined formulaically by HUD as well too but you're right utilities rent all those other income items application fees are captured in that and I think the number that we had been running with was slightly lower than that but because I know there's some sticker shock when you hear that number but utilities are expensive as well too and everything that's included in there so I would expect it to be somewhat less than that.

Around there, okay. One question I had is I saw in the interlocal agreement that it said the maximum, see it's one a taxing entities consent page two. It says the taxing entity share entity share payable to the agency shall not exceed $152,680,962 so and according to the original agreement which was in HRZ agreement meeting from 11/13/2023. It said that it would be a 122,000,000 of tax increment and that is 30,000,000 and a little bit more than that from two years ago. So I'm wondering where it's extra 30,000,000 is.

That number was from a projection provided by Piper Sandler, an investment bank that kind of looks into this from the bonding perspective. So they put all those projections together. That was part of our original submission to GOYO reviewed by Zions Public Finance as well to make sure everything was in line with expectations. The $152,000,000 number was the total increment produced from the project. So that is where that became the cap there. As far as why has that changed, maybe it's an interpretation between how it was interpreted then and then now and of course there's always growth rates as well too with assessed values and.

So you're seeing the values increase. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. I just

wanted to ask a question about So to clarify, it's the cap has increased since your HTRZ proposal was approved?

There was no cap implemented at our approval. There was just a projection put together by Piper Sandler and I have the approval and I think we included that with our submission to the city as an attachment so there was no cap approved it was 80% of all of the increment generated within the HTRZ.

Anyone else jump in? Sorry. Just want to clarify.

Yeah.

Are you done? You can

keep going. Okay. I got a lot of questions. Some of these are for staff. Are you well versed in this agreement? So some of my concerns is that this it talks about additional land that they can add additional land but if that wasn't in the HCRZ proposal that was approved can do that and how does that affect the number of affordable housing units they're required to have?

Yeah, we had the Marlin and I had this conversation. Where is Marlin? Oh, that's fantastic.

On your own.

I'm trying to remember that I I thought that the additional land was still within the originally approved, but you don't necessarily own it all or something like that. But it wouldn't be additional land approved outside the original that were part of your application.

And just to add a little color to that, we would have to amend our HTRZ and again the HTRZ comes from Lehi City. So we would have to come to you, the council, and say hey we want to amend our HTRZ to expand the footprint of it to capture this parcel here. You would then have to approve that and then allow us to resubmit or submit yourselves with our support to Goyo to amend the HTRZ. So, I would say you control the keys to that decision.

Well then I'd like language in this agreement to clarify that that it would have to go through amendment process.

It Happy to add that. I I think it you know that that's process.

Yeah, it's

what I would say.

Yeah, and I it's spelled out. It's usually better. Sure. My experience. Okay, so amend that. And 's you're not limited to the three phases with the new legislation.

Correct.

Just the forty five years. And then, Ryan, looking at some of the other HCRZ agreements, some cities have like reporting requirements or monitoring requirements. As I understand that tax increment is supposed to go to specific purposes like the parking infrastructure and I

may be

wrong but the the electric infrastructures, the power infrastructure as well. How do we make sure that that's where the money goes, that it's being built and that sort of thing.

I think what the legislation says especially with the new edits but what we were approved under was it can go towards income targeted housing cost structured parking enhanced development cost and then horizontal vertical construction cost and property acquisition.

Okay that's right. I remember the vertical.

Yeah. Those are what I would say is pretty all encompassing what it takes to build these projects here. I know we've always intended the majority of this money will go to structured parking and then fall well short of covering all of that because every structured parking stall is about 25 to $30,000 so.

So it would go to the structured parking?

That is that was the original intent with the money there but I think when you wrap in vertical construction cost, horizontal construction cost for power infrastructure upgrades as well. It's kind of all encompassing and I think we need that ability like the legislation.

Right, I just want to

make sure that parking structure is built and that's not used for other things. Yeah. And again, there's new legislation but as as far as I know or as I understand it, we're supposed to enter into this agreement to make sure that the to implement the approved proposal. So, I'm just wondering that we can get some language in there that

Because can be sent to those it's reimbursement, right? Like the county collects the taxes, it'll come to the city then to the RDA but there'll be a verification like they'll have to submit invoices.

To who?

To the RDA. RDA.

Okay.

Right? In order for the expenses to be reimbursed. So I don't know the exact mechanism. Don't know who on the city side will do that, but because that's the nature of the transaction that it's they don't get the money and then go spend it. They spend money and get reimbursed that there'll be an invoice verification process before we cut them a check.

Okay. Is there any way that we can make sure that the money goes towards the parking structure?

Just wouldn't reimburse

Yeah, I mean I don't know that the agreement limits it to that, right? There's a list of expenses that are allowed by the statute. And so we haven't negotiated an agreement that says you must spend it on just this one thing. It's any of those expenses that are allowed to be reimbursed by the

by the proposal that they got approved.

By the statute.

Yes. I don't is that I don't know if that's different but my understanding is by the statute but I haven't read the the proposal.

Okay. That's something I'd like into.

One thing that as you guys review this because it sounds like you're going to spend some time to do that what would be really helpful is if you're very familiar with htrz legislation and the approval because what you told us last time was I don't want to approve anything more or less than was already approved and we've done our darndest to make sure that this is like right in line with the statute and the approval so if there's things that you guys bring to the table and say here's the statute and here's your approval and this is different than that that's what we we absolutely want to know so that we can fix that for you

well and I said at the last meeting I want you to hold you to what is and was approved in the HCRZ proposal because you promised some things or trail connections there was certain square footage of commercial and that sort of thing. That's what you presented to the state committee. That's what got approved. And that's what we're beholden to, even though we'd rather not do this whole mess. I'd rather have that tax money go to our school district.

So we need to make sure that you're getting a lot of money from this. We need to make sure that you are held to that agreement, what you presented to them. So that's where I'm at. There's a lot of language in here about the area plan, but I would reference back to the what was approved in your HTRG proposal. See if I have more. There's a few other things. Yeah. I, that's my main point. That's my main concern.

I just want to say thank you for taking out the PID.

You're welcome.

I really appreciate that and I think that's made this a lot more easy for myself. At least I can speak for myself in saying I appreciate that that is not in there and just want to clarify for the public those listening that that is not part of this agreement any longer. So thank you for doing that. Yep.

Any other questions or cancel here?

I have one more question for staff. If we have some changes we'd like to see, would we work with Marlin on that or you?

Marlin, not yet.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So, go ahead.

That was going to be our next question is steps forward from here. As it sounds like we need to get changes that the council has funneled to you

and then to us so that we can review this.

So what we'll do is we'll send our questions and concerns to Mr. Wood and Mr. And then we'll get they'll be in contact with you and then we'll work through the contract period and then read back and then they'll get copies of them we'll go from there.

Do you guys have a time frame that you can commit to on getting comments to staff so we can set expectations on our side?

I would like to vote on this in on the April meeting. This has been a two year process and multiple councils for them to deal with. What I see I'm so grateful for the callouts today I think those are things we can implement but my major concerns have been addressed with a situation I may not be happy with but have to live with due to another council's decision and so out of respect to the applicant who has spent years now trying to get here I would like us to put this on the April agenda and move forward and allow them to to develop their land

and just to clarify staff and the developers were working on this for years but it's just recently come to the city council for our input. So, I'm I understand you want to get moving on this and I you know, we do have a deadline, I guess. If we don't get it done, then, we'll have to report to the state and explain why. So, I'm okay moving forward with it but I think the council ought to have some input. This is kind of a huge thing. So, it's sometimes worth taking time for that.

Yeah and in no way, shape, or form did I say the council shouldn't have input. I actually extended an appreciation for the thoughts given and I hope that you continue to give your thoughts to staff but these applicants have been through a lot and they've been respectful and met this council's needs of removing the pit and things and so it's time to get out of the way and remove the red tape and and do continue to provide back but let's let's allow them to develop the land now.

So, let me interject. That gives us three weeks. So, our next meeting would be April 14 which gives us three weeks. Is that correct, Tisha? Are you okay with, I know, go ahead, Councilman, Council Member Harrison.

I mean, if if I feel comfortable with it, great. Yeah. If I don't and it comes before the council for a vote, I will vote

a hard no. Right. So. Councilmember Newell, you're okay to we'll do some homework here in the next three weeks with Marlin and mister Wood and head down that road. Okay. Councilmember Freeman, you're good there?

Sure. Can I have ask another question? Yep. Okay. For the soccer agreement page four, and it talks about an J, what is that? I don't even know. J, four four point one J. It talks about three tax increment collection periods but then it says that they're not applicable. Can you explain that to me?

That just has to do with when our legislation was approved in 2023 and the latest amendments to that legislation lock in your approval to the legislation at the time it was approved. So there was no cap on phases at that time. So that's how this one would be governed.

Okay. There was no cap on phases at the time, but now there is cap on phases?

I believe so, yes. Any

other questions? Okay, just looking at April, we'll have meeting on April 14, we'll also have a meeting on April 28. So we'll work towards those dates. I'm sure someone will be in contact with you as we move forward. So we appreciate your coming tonight and walk through this, answering our questions, and we'll definitely be in contact as we move forward.

Thank you. Thank you all.

Okay,

item two, discussion of proposal to conduct a feasible study for an ice center. I know Marlon was going to do this.

He had to step out. So, I don't know if the council wants to have a discussion. Yes. But we can push it off until the work session or don't know something in between.

I think we can discuss. Okay.

It's open for discussion. How do we have? We have time.

Go ahead. Yeah. You're good. Alright. I mean personally I love the idea of an ice rink. I know my kids do. I'm relatively new fan of hockey. I think it'd be incredible personally. I think it'd be a value add to the community. However, with that said, have some concerns that would prevent me from even supporting a feasibility study.

The first is, you know, based on my own research, based on the research of several of us up here, several residents in Lehi who have also helped research this. I think profitability is very, very rare for ice rinks. You know, even in areas in the North in Minnesota, Michigan, Vermont, most of them are still subsidized. And I think the only possible way to even have a chance at being profitable would be a very, very large facility. Three ice rinks plus extra multi use space.

And I don't know if we're in a position right now with a $100,000,000 in bond debt to commit to something like that when we have other priorities like our legacy center, like our parks. We have promised parks like Miller Roads that are not yet complete because a lot of those funds had to be used for another park. The second thing I'm concerned about is, you know, if this is profitable, if we're very confident that it would be profitable, why doesn't a private organization do it? I think private organizations run on what's profitable, what brings in revenue. And I would love to see a private organization run something like this.

And I think the city could go above and beyond in supporting a private organization that would build this. I know the county is pushing very hard on it and the county has every right to build it themselves and fund it themselves and they're not doing that. They're choosing not to, likely because it won't make money. And personally, as a conservative person myself, I am very careful about how much we overextend and use taxpayer money. Things like the Legacy Center, they benefit the entire community.

Parks benefit the entire community. This would benefit parts of the community, but not the entire community. And I get, you know, it could boost economic development around hotels, hotel taxes is great revenue for the city. But with that said, it's still theoretical. And the last thing directly related to this item is that this feasibility study is by Babcock Design.

They are not economists. They're not telling us if this is going to make sense from a government run perspective, right? It's a design company that has a very specific interest in seeing this approved so that they can potentially contract to design it. These are not economists. I would trust a PhD candidate and BYU or the U to go through this and see it from a much less biased perspective.

I think even with, if I can find it within their letter to Marlin, Babcock designed in the first paragraph, it's praising Utah mammoth, NHL franchise, hockey is growing at unprecedented rates with this growth. The demand for public ice rinks is also very high. And there's a significant shortage of ice rinks like right there off the bat. It's not an unbiased study. I would not feel comfortable spending $33,000 on a study that is already designed to tell us to put in an ice rink and use data, selectively use data to do that.

So again, like for the study itself, I disagree that this would even be, you know, a comprehensive unbiased study to tell us if it's worth it. And beyond that, I don't think it's our role at this position, at this period of time in Lehigh to fund something like this through bonding. Those are my thoughts.

Other thoughts on a feasibility study?

You know me, I like data. I like information to make good decisions. But I also think that for many of us, this is our first budget season. And I would really like to get through that with all of the asks that we have before even considering extending ourselves for something else, especially the research I've done. Like again, I know Marlon sent out some research he had done, some other things that it would be difficult to have it be profitable.

And I am concerned about getting a bond basically in other people's names, in our taxpayers names for potentially, you know, tens of millions of dollars. It talks about how we would most likely need to look at land purchasing also and things like that. And I just don't think it's appropriate time. I don't feel comfortable with it as a new council member with my lack of experience with doing our just general budget and seeing the needs there. I know that when I was elected, I was elected based on my conservative on my fiscal conservative I can't even say it.

I'm being conservative in all the ways, including fiscally. And there was there have been criticisms of some of the purchases and buildings and things like that that the city has made recently and those are things like the city hall. I mean we're talking about something like that versus an ice rink. So for me, I don't think it's appropriate at this time.

Yeah. I'm in the mind I want data. I don't know if it is a good thing. I don't know if it isn't. It's just all opinions that I'm hearing now. So I I yeah. It's hard when there's, you know, 7 to 12,000,000 out there towards this. A lot of partners, a lot of partners that could come forward. I just don't know what I don't know. So that's where I would seek data.

We went through the school district split. We sought a lot of data to be able to make a good decision on this. I don't think I'd be in that same position if there wasn't partners already there before there's even a feasibility study. Yeah, maybe it goes to another city, maybe another city benefits from it and maybe some council members are okay with that. But I do think that this is something where we I don't want to get it wrong.

I don't have the information that I need to make a good decision on that. And also just to speak, like, with Babcock Design, I wish Marlon was here because I think he can speak a lot better than any of us can to this. They're doing the design, but they would they also have consultants that would be outsourced for doing the things that they're not experts in when it comes to the economic analysis. I'd also want to know the profit loss statement on it. There's a lot of information I would want to know from it. But yeah, I I wanna operate from a place of good data from reliable export sources to be able to make good decisions for Lehi.

Council member Stallings.

Yeah, I've kind of said how I feel about this whole thing last meeting but I do want to point out this fee proposal that we're, you know, asked to look at and sign. It it's more about designing an ice skating, a complex rather than looking at the economic feasibility of it. It's not, I mean, I look at the what is proposing to offer us floor plans, elevations, overall site plans, you know, they're offering to come to city council meetings and sell it to the public kind of thing. So, I think this more is more about designing a product rather than looking at really if it's feasible economically and financially for the city. So, I I I am concerned.

It it was presented to us as a as as a feasibility study and as a way to get that data but looking at what this actually is, it's not that. I don't think we would get data from them. And as Councilmember Harrison pointed out, it's certainly not unbiased data. So whoever they hire as a consultant, I'm sure, would have a very subjective opinion. So yeah, I don't like this.

I mean, if we want true data, then we need to get financial advisors, not architects and interior designers. The other thing is promises of revenue flowing into the general fund. I did a lot of research on if this actually works. I looked here in Utah, looked at the ones that Marlon presented to us, especially the ones that had a profit a couple million very rare never not one of them did it actually did that revenue the profit go to the general fund it was they were operated enterprise fund They stayed within the facility. It went back the profit that was generated went back into capital improvement, which is probably why they're successful, to be promises on return of investment because I'm not seeing that happened.

I would be happy if it broke even but a lot of them don't even do that. So again, as was pointed out, I also ran as being fiscally conservative. I believe we need to be responsible with taxpayers money. As I sit through the budget discussions and hear all the needs throughout the departments in the city, there's no way I could support this. We've got parks we need to finish, parks we need to even start.

We we took on a a county park that we need to put a lot of money towards. We have our first responders who need competitive wages. We need to staff our police department. Our fleet is getting older. There are things in the city that are so old that we don't have replacement parts for them. So to me, just going down this road with the lure of promises of profits it's probably not a wise decision. Let's take care of the needs we have now before we venture into something like this.

Councilmember Lockhart.

Okay, bear with me as I spoke with residents. I committed to asking some questions and so I'm going to go through some of that respect to the commitment I made to the residents today on this item. I want to make sure that they know I heard them and asked the questions they asked me to ask unfortunately Marlon isn't here but I did speak with him prior to this meeting and got some of these questions answered so when it comes to the design company building a facility like this like council member Harrison mentioned really could be successful at a large scale my understanding is that the reason why the design company is involved is to offer us costs at a different type of scale how could we possibly even talk about economic impact if we haven't talked about the cost of these facilities at different sizes so for a feasibility study to be accurate not only do we need the economic impact but components of that economic impact are the scale and design of these facilities this particular company just recently did the South Jordan SEG facility so not only do they have costs but they have costs in Utah within the last twelve months so they would be providing us the most accurate information of cost which then allows us to have the greater economic opportunity or not so much opportunity conversation but if you don't have the design components we wouldn't know the costs and so I think it is a false argument to say that we can't have a design company get involved when we wouldn't know what to even we can't talk about cost without design they're married I also know that they are partnering with other entities to fill the gaps if they can't give us the economic studies and I'm sure there's you know we could maybe ask for an economist with a PhD to be involved but that would be you know our prerogative as the council and a lot of you guys I don't think the public even knows but I was actually involved in the initial conversations over the school district split I was in those initial meetings I actually called them and got the councils together pieces of the councils together and we did not choose an option that was presented to us in those studies in fact all the councils got that data and did something that wasn't even recommended what did the feasibility study provide a launching point a conversation piece something to come around and talk about but it was not an excuse to stop the work I believe that this feasibility study would be a launching point into more conversations more analysis, and critical thinking.

It wouldn't stop at what they tell us would work. Instead, we would do it the Lehigh way and we would get to work. We would pioneer a way that was successful. I believe we can. And even if we couldn't, I would love to be able to go to the residents and say, this is why we couldn't.

But instead, when the residents who have expressed interest in this come and ask us why don't we know these answers, I have to say because this council wouldn't even ask the questions. And that's frustrating. So another question I have, and I want to be very clear, I do not think that using RDA funds for economic opportunities is fiscally irresponsible. And I get I take issue with this concept that anyone who would think of using funds that are designated and restricted this way appropriately is therefore fiscally irresponsible I am fiscally responsible and a part of that fiscal responsibility is to diversify the type of revenue that Lehigh City is getting or what will happen is my residents will see a drastic increase in property taxes because we won't be able to meet the needs due to inflation and the demand on services. And I do not want to see that happening.

So it is fiscally responsible of this council to look for opportunities and ways to find more options for revenue. I prefer the sales tax revenue because it is use based. Property taxes you can't opt out of. Sales tax you can. If you don't want to participate in the Whole Foods RDA, don't shop there.

If you don't want to participate in the ice rink, don't go. But if we can't, we won't be able to offer them anything if we don't know the answers to these questions. And we are accountable to them to know these answers and we have a mechanism of getting there. But I won't be able to give those answers to my residents and that's frustrating. Ultimately, I think every resident in Lehi wants us to make data driven decisions.

Not sit in a place of principles but instead apply our principles with data and make the right decisions. I'm frustrated that I can't get the data that would be used as a launching pad for more conversations. This data we could take to private organizations and ask for help. Hey, this is what it says. What is your private area expertise? What do you think? Could you contribute? We have no idea where this could go. And guess what? We never will because the council's decided not to ask the questions.

Thank you, Council Member Lockhart. I I think at this point in time, we have three. We have a majority that is not willing to move forward on the feasibility study at this time. My recommendation and I would look for some head nods up here is that we put this on the shelf for a time until a later date to discuss. That may be years from now, which is okay. But, I'm looking at those of you I know two of you would probably be a yes. Know three of you are rather a no. So, I think at this point in time, have a majority that we won't seek the feasibility study at this point in time. So, we'll if everybody's based on what I know and what I've heard, I think that's the road we'll move down. Okay.

Discussion of updates updates to to the the power power standards standards manual. Manual. Brent? Brent?

Welcome. Thank you. Again, my name is Brent Thomas with the power department. And thank you for taking a minute to review this. And we are looking to update the power standards specifically related to power quality and customer owned equipment.

This is an effort to clarify the customer's responsibility with protection of their own equipment versus the city's responsibility. In the last year or so, we've had several claims of damages to electronic equipment in their homes that falls under the responsibility of of the homeowner or the customer. And we were in an attempt to try and clarify that. That's what the update to this standard is. This follows the update from 2020 in the National Electric Code that required surge protection for homes.

And then again, they expanded that in 2023 for surge protection for all occupancies. And so this is just expanding our standard to encompass that and to clarify it for homeowners. It also includes an update for single phase protection, which doesn't apply to homeowners. It's only for three phase customers, which usually applies to commercial customers. So that is the of the summary of what we're trying to accomplish with this, to not only clarify what is the responsibility of the customer, but to also limit the liability of the city under normal operating procedures in in a power system.

So any questions with that?

Any questions for Brent from the council? Looks like we're good, Brent. Looks like you answered all the questions.

You. Three questions. Thank you.

Kim, item four is the discussion of mixed use zoning requirements. I I believe you're leading that discussion. In a spirit of time and a bio break and a closed session that we need to hold here real quick, would you be opposed if we added that to the end of our city council meeting?

No. Not at all. Happy to do that. Yep. We postpone it. And if the meeting goes late, we can put it on the next meeting. Whatever you're yep. There's no urgency on our part. I think it was just something.

Council, would you be okay if we move that to the backside of the council meeting?

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay. Okay. Any any questions on the council meeting tonight? There's currently four items now five but

We're just talking about the regular agenda items, right?

Yep, regular agenda items that will be on the agenda this evening.

I'll have questions that come up as we go along. Awesome.

Okay, let's we'll do an administrative report. Jason, anything on the administrative report? Mayor and council reports. Any reports from the council that you want to report?

Yeah. We can

start over here. I, you know, some of us had the opportunity to go out to Washington DC. The youth group went also. I I'm strange and I enjoy those kind of things and listening to federal legislation. Especially excited about the Basics Act where they're proposing a federal transportation money could come directly to MPOs and not through the state. So, I don't know if it'll pass but that I think might benefit us in some ways and some other good legislation federally. Always fun to take tours of the capital and that sort of thing.

I guess I'm to the left as well.

Yep, you're good. Go ahead.

Well, Councilmember Freeman and I I don't want to steal your thunder or but we had the opportunity while you guys were in DC to attend the two thousand one hundred North Freeway groundbreaking. And I was told that I was the most excited about that road of anyone who was there.

Anyway She was in the excavator or whatever you call it.

Yes. First. I think I got the third and fourth scoop. I wasn't first but anyway. No, we are so excited and a huge thank you to UDOT and all of those you know who sacrificed including our staff and everyone made that road possible and so anyway, it was a really fun opportunity and I'm glad we were there.

Council Member Freeman.

Alright. Going this way.

I'm making Council Member Newell last.

Oh, okay. Okay. Nothing to report from my committees. Yeah, 2100 North Groundbreaking was wonderful and I am grateful I was there, able to listen to a lot of people of our legislators speak. And I was able also to do a little training with the police, which you guys missed with trying to be a SWAT team lead team lead which was quite the experience so here there's a video about it I'm looking forward to it.

Just to piggyback on what council member Stalling said, DC trip was we had a few I guess a few reasons for it. The National League of Cities Conference that was very useful. Sometimes we try to recreate the wheel thinking that we live in a vacuum. But it's interesting to hear what other cities are doing, what they're concerned about. And it's very strange to see you know people on the far left end of the spectrum politically all the way to the far right all applaud Rand Paul as he gives a speech about local control and federalism.

So that was very insightful and interesting. And then, of course, meeting with our lawmakers pushing things that are important to the region. I saw Mayor Binn's support, Mayor Karn out in Saratoga Springs helping them promote their legislation to get a post office which literally requires an act of Congress to get a post office which helps them, it helps us, it helps Main Street traffic stay a little better. And so that was a great experience. And then I don't want to steal your thunder.

Oh I can mention if you want yeah. Fire. Oh fired?

Unveiling. I forgot to mention that. Yeah. Heather can take that. You do it James.

But we had the honor of going to the the fire department awards banquet last week which was really cool to see. So many incredible first responders in that room. Chief Craft is a world class leader. I think we have a lot to learn from him and how he leads his department. So hopefully we can support his department in the same way he supports the residents of the city. And also a shout out to neighboring cities who filled in in all of our fire stations to allow our firefighters to be in that banquet with their spouses and significant others so thank you Chief for hosting that.

Yeah, really busy week. I thought it was really cool that Chief said that was the first time you've had all council members and mayor attend. So it was awesome that our schedules all lined up that we could be there and just let you know how much we appreciate you. And it was amazing to be there and and hear those who had won awards and what they and their service. So that was really special. I think we just had a really busy, fun week. I love DC and being able to get to know more of the council mayor on more of, like, a personal level too instead of sitting behind here all the time. It was amazing to be out there at the Youth Council. We have incredible youth. I was with the Youth Council during the tour of the Capitol, and that was fun.

Although I heard that with being with Congressman Kennedy is the way to be because he just pushes buttons and goes wherever he wants. So I'm just like, I need to make sure that that happens. But senator Curtis said he wanted to take the youth council, so I thought I better stick with with them. We did the Hall unveiling on Saturday, and sister Eubanks was there to speak, and she was incredible. It was a really special event to have her there.

I've just I love seeing these community events. There was, like, 125 people that came to this. It seems to just be growing more and more, and the historical society continues to receive praise from all sources talking about that no one West Of The Mississippi is doing what our Lehigh Historical Society is doing. That they are the model and so I think that's just an amazing thing for us to be able to have them here in our city and be able to to benefit from what they're doing but yeah, it's been a great week.

Thanks. Just one thing to add. Chief Craft sent me an Email today. Our fire department was founded 02/28/1901. So they are officially 125. We have passed that information on. We are working on a future resolution that will be put forth in a future meeting in the next one or two. Chief Craft, as I text you today, so that is now being worked on. But I think it's important that we celebrate one hundred and twenty five years of Lehigh fire. It's been a busy couple weeks.

It's been awesome. And there's a lot going on in Lehigh with everything that's happening. So the other thing that's happened is we have a permit to occupy the building next to us. I know staff is already working on some dates for a future open house. And also, potentially, let me lay hard on that word, potentially, this could be our last meeting in this room of this style.

So interesting as I've thought about that this week, I thought, boy, if those walls could talk, what would they tell me? And I'm sure I'd have to sit down with a pen and paper to listen to what the walls would tell me. But there's been a lot of great things that have happened in this room. And so as you exit tonight after our City Council meeting, remember that potentially this is the last City Council meeting that will be held here. The history and the things that have happened here are remarkable.

When you look at how city government runs, the remarkable nature of what happens. So, thank you. I would consider a motion to enter into a closed session for a specific purpose allowed under the Open and Public Meetings Act, Utah Code 50 two-four-two zero five, including to discuss the purpose of lease or sale of real property.

So moved.

I have

the first by Council Member Stallings. Second. Second by Council Member Harrison. Any questions on that motion? All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Any

opposed? Nope. We'll go to closed session. Held here at Lehigh City Hall in the Council Chambers at 7PM. We recognize our full council tonight, Council Member Newell, Council Member Harrison, Council Member Freeman, Council Member Stallings, Council Member Lockhart.

We appreciate that they're here and that have a full council tonight. And we welcome each of you and we're glad that you're here. First we'll start, we ask all to rise as we participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. Councilmember Harrison will lead us in that. Thank you, Council Member Harrison.

Okay, I don't believe we have any presentations or reports tonight, and so we'll get through there. So we'll first start off tonight with citizen input. And let me maybe give you some ground rules for citizen input. If you look at our agenda, you look online at the agenda, and the item that you came to speak about is not on the agenda, we're going to open it up for public comment. You have three minutes. We yield you each three minutes to speak what's on your mind, and what's going on. We would invite you that when you do come to the microphone, that you would state your name. Do have your name. At the end of the three minutes, you'll see a red light go off. If you'll finish your comments when that red light goes off with the buzzer, that would help us.

If you don't, then we will help you end your comment. But, we'd like to do it in a professional way. So, you will have a light. You will have you'll kind of know that three minutes is there, and we appreciate that. So, with that, at 07:13, we open the microphone for public comment.

Hi, there. My name is Eileen Miller. I'm with the Utah Valley Home Builders and the Parade of Homes. And I came to distribute the list of the Parade of Homes this year. We've had to limit it to 40 homes because we had more homes that wanted to participate in the parade than we have space for.

The parade will be from the June 4 to the June 20. And I just wanted to invite everybody to be there. I have a copy, a list of the homes, the addresses and the towns that they're in. And we have a couple of very expensive homes this year. One of them is near $40,000,000 so it's record for caught the price of a home.

We had one home last year that was a $20,000,000 remodel that was in the parade. So anyway, just thought I would let you all know, invite you all to come and share a wonderful time with us at the Parade of Homes this year. Thanks for having me. I'll give this to the Planning Director, and maybe he can pass

it around.

Thank you, Mrs. Miller. Good to see you.

Thank you very much.

I don't have a copy of the agenda but I was told that one of the topics is the Willow Park Pond over by the Willow Park or whatever it's called Willow Creek Pond over by the Jordan River. Is that in discussion tonight?

No, so you can go ahead and make comment. Go ahead.

Oh, okay. So, my wife and I live right on the pond. Give us your name. Glenn Rimkes.

Thank you.

And we live right on the pond. We're in one of those houses that's on the East side of the pond. We lived there for eight years. I understand you're proposing a paved walkway around the pond or a blacktop walkway around the pond. There's already a road around the pond that's road it's compacted gravel.

It's road based. It's very smooth. I'm here to argue against spending money for that paved thing that has been proposed because I think that Lehi should have pockets that maintain the rural feel of what Lehi used to look like. And I don't see why Lehi, like every open space in Lehi, has to be developed into what looks like an overdeveloped inner city park. I think that would ruin the whole rural feel of it.

So I'm just here to point that out. I think it's and it's so smooth, my wife walks our grandkids around it in a double stroller. And it's perfectly smooth. You don't need a blacktop way around that thing. I think it'd be much smarter to spend that money on planting some trees where they were ripped out years ago and just trying to beautify that pond, maybe get rid of some of the frag mites that are grown completely around the shore of that pond.

Because that pond used to be beautiful and it's not anymore. And as long as we're talking about the pond, a year or two ago, you guys or someone started putting catfish in that pond. Like a truck full of catfish from Arkansas came. That destroyed the fishery in that pond. It destroyed it. About six years ago, they trucked wild bass and bluegill from Steinacher Reservoir and put them in that pond. And they spawned and they lay eggs. And there used to be fantastic bluegill and bass fishing in there. The catfish are bottom feeders. Well, they feed all over, but they are bottom feeders.

They eat all the eggs of bluegills, and the bass. I don't think there's a single bluegill left in that pond. And the kids used to love to catch bluegills and bass. I haven't seen a bass in a while either. But there are no bluegills left. Between the pelicans that come and the catfish that eat the eggs, there's none left. So please, who's ever ordering these catfish, can you stop? And just, like, even if it's a Utah DWR, you can tell them no, because you're Lehigh City. You can say, we don't want those. Please, we don't want those.

There's catfish in the Jordan River. Right next to it, there's catfish in Utah Lake. The Jordan River catfish get three feet long, and the kids know how to catch them. Okay? So I'm just here to say that, you know, I wish Lehigh City could do some things to beautify that pond instead of just making it look worse, which it has over the eight years eight and a half years we've lived there. Sorry if I sound a little sour about this, but we've watched it all happen. We've watched drug busts happen back at that pond. We've called police on what we think is a drug deal going down, and it was. My wife and I are the only ones who pick up litter on that pond also. We love it.

We spent $30,000 more for that lot because it's on the pond, and we love it. But please consider what I've said, if you would. Thank you. Thank you. And thank

you for coming to talk. We appreciate it. No salty. You're good.

My

name is Susie Rimkas. That is my husband. Not my mother, my husband. I'm nervous with this microphone. So he introduced us. We do pick it up later, and we are more than glad to do that. We are so glad doesn't have a bathroom on a pond, doesn't have a trash can there because that would be more work for us to remove the trash and put it out. And most people don't put in the trash. They just put there. But we are okay, we clean, we have pelicans there, we have how many varieties of ducks we have, Glenn?

Pelicans. We have some fish that eat the I don't know. It has a bunch of things that and we just love looking there. I just want to make I want to say thank you to Lehi City. They're always so nice to me. I go there with my two grandchildren, pushing them, and they are collecting the fishing lines because those are very hard for my fingers and my husband. They removed that and they have put some things in the fragments, but they are coming back. So they need to keep doing that. So that's all. The cat fish is a problem.

But that's okay. He already said. I have one thing that I want to tell you. The ponder liner fabric is visible in a lot of places. When used to be closed, the liner, the fiber come

all the

way up and we have big rocks to keep them. As you know, if you go around, they all vandalized the kids, adults, and others, adolescents, they throw those big rocks inside the pond so you can see all that line going down. So if you could collect from the pond and put the rocks, I don't do that because it's too heavy and can be slim to me too. I had three falls there doing that. But or just buy new ones and put there. But I think over all, we are doing okay except for that catfish and maybe some trees. I would like to see the trees back. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. It appears there are no other comments. So I'll close the public comment at 07:20 and bring it back to the dais. We'll move on to item 10, the consent agenda. Any questions on the consent agenda?

Yeah, was wondering if you could clarify we could clarify what the fleet items were or were for. What that meant, fleet surplus. Is that ones that we don't need? Is that surplus? Is that ones that we need to buy? Is that and what are

these for?

Surplusing old vehicles. So, they no longer have useful usefulness to us. So, we put them to auction but they have to be voted on by the council.

Yeah. So, above a certain value, any any personal property that the city wants to get rid of, you have to declare a surplus before we can sell it or give it away or auction it off or anything like that.

Mayor, were there some items removed from the agenda that were on the consent agenda?

Yes, so in an email earlier there were item number three and item number five and item number one were all removed. Any other questions? Council member Stallings?

Okay. Okay. I did have question on number five. If it's been removed from the consent agenda, but I believe the start date is for April 1, is that going to cause a problem? Are we just pushing back the start date?

I think Cameron had to leave but I think earlier he said it now wasn't until April 20 anyway. Okay.

Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't going to cause an operational issue. Thank you.

Any other questions to the consent agenda? I would honor, I would entertain a motion.

So, mayor, I move that we approve the consent agenda removing items one, three, and five as presented.

Do I have a second?

I can second that.

I have a second from Council Member Lockhart. Any questions on that motion? So, we'll take a vote. We'll start with you. Council Member Newell? Yes. Council Member Harrison? Yes. Council Member Freeman? Yes. Council Member Stallings? Yes. Council Member Lockhart?

Yes.

Okay, that approves. Thank you very much. Okay, moving to the regular agenda. We'll start with item one. Consideration of ordinance ten-twenty 26 approving a development code amendment adding Chapter 12 D flood damage prevention in compliance with FEMA. I believe Kim, is this your item or was come up. Yeah, go ahead and tell us who you are and walk through this.

My name is Shelby Brewer, and I'm the stormwater management plan engineer for Lehigh City. And this is a flood ordinance that we're required implement from FEMA because Lehigh City is a member of the National Flood Insurance Program. And because we follow FEMA's minimum standards, residents within Lehigh City are able to purchase flood insurance. And FEMA recently did a new flood study on both the Provo River and Utah Lake. And they remapped it using a new mapping method, which changed it to a flood zone V, which required us to update our ordinance to implement that. So that is what this ordinance is doing. It's meeting FEMA's minimum standards to keep Lehigh in good standing with the National Flood Insurance Program.

So with that, we'll open it up. Is there anyone in the audience who is here to speak to this? Okay, no. So, we'll close public comment. Any, we'll bring it back to the dice. Any questions on this? Happy to entertain a motion.

Mister mayor, I move to approve ordinance number 10 dash twenty twenty six. A development code amendment adding chapter 12 dash D, flood damage prevention in compliance with FEMA. So, I have

a motion from council member Harrison. Do I have a second?

I second that.

Council member Freeman with a second. Any questions on this motion? Council Member Harrison will start with you. Yes. Council Member Freeman? Yes. Council Member Stallings? Yes. Council Member Lockhart? Yes. Council Member Newell?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Now, go to item three, consideration of ordinance 12 dash twenty twenty six approving the Vivian Estates phase five zone change on 11. 58 acres located approximately 2125 North, 600 East, changing the zoning from TH5 transitional holding to RA1 residentialagriculture. Is there anyone here from

hold on. Sorry. Mayor. I think we're skipping an item. Did I print? Did I print the wrong?

No, we skipped two but you could come back.

Oh, okay.

Oh, I did skip two, didn't I? Excuse.

Thank you.

Was excited about three. Alright. Well. Just tap me on the shoulder at this point next

time. Alright.

Never mind. We're going to start with we'll go back to item number two. Thank you. Consideration of ordinance 11 dash twenty twenty six, approving a development code amendment to chapter 27, removing the exception for a maximum setback if there's a module of parking allowed. Kim, are you gonna speak to this? Yes. Yeah. I almost skipped you. I apologize.

Oh, no. That's okay. I don't don't mind. So this, we're trying to clean up what we've noticed is an ongoing exception that's needed. So in we have certain design standard districts, and they have requirements for setbacks and and whether or not parking is allowed in front of the building or not.

So in these two districts that we're proposing to amend tonight, they do allow for certain uses like probably the best example is an office warehouse building where you where we do allow parking between the street and the building, but then there's still this maximum setback of 50 feet. So we see time and time again projects that come in and they're allowed the parking, but then that almost automatically puts their building out of compliance for that setback because a module of parking, by the way, is one full parking stall, an aisle, and then another parking stall. So they're allowed quite a bit of space. That's usually about 62 feet. So we're just trying to fix this constant need for an exception on that so that if the parking is allowed based on the type of building, then they automatically get a, I guess, an exception.

Well, it wouldn't be an exception. They would not have to meet the 50 foot building setback. So, we're just trying to clean that up.

Is anybody here in the audience who's came to speak to this item? Okay, so we'll close that. So, we'll bring it back to the dais. Any questions for Kim on this?

I don't I don't don't have questions. I just was looking at the figures, and it looks like there is some redundancy there. Just figure 78 is same as figure one nineteen for 79, same as one twenty, 80 same as one twenty one, 81 same as one twenty two. So I just think for simplifications, they could be nice to just have four figures instead of eight when there's redundancy. But otherwise, no questions.

Any other comments? I'm happy to entertain a motion.

Do you want to make the motion with your corrections?

I don't know how

I would do that. The redundancy. I can

speak to that. We are working on an overhaul of the entire chapter because if there are similar standards, each district, we've tried to put all of the standards. And so we are going with that approach. We haven't gotten the draft put together yet, but we do want to simplify it. There is a lot of repetitive things in there.

What we were after, the original draft, whatever district you're located in, we just wanted all the standards so that you didn't you know, if you're you're in one district and it said see figure here, we tried to put each one so it was stand alone, but we agree. It just gets really lengthy and we don't we're gonna try and compile all or compress all that into a shorter version. So we're working on that, but we're happy to take whatever.

Well, sometimes you can do it where the reference where the figures are at the end of the chapter. So then they just look and they can reference all the figures of them. But anyways. Good idea. Yep. I think it's fine written as it is. It's just yeah. Yeah.

I'll make a motion.

Mayor, I move move that we approve ordinance 12 dash twenty twenty six approve that's not it. Sorry. We're on number two. See, I was ahead too. Okay, I move that we approve ordinance number eleven twenty twenty six, approving development code amendment to chapter 37, removing the exception for the maximum setback if there is a module of parking allowed.

So, I have a first from Council Member Stallings. Do I have a second?

A second, ma'am.

Second from Council Member Freeman. Any questions? Council Freeman, Council Member Freeman will start with you.

Yes.

Council Member Stallings? Yes. Council Member Lockhart?

Yes.

Council Member Newell? Yes. Council Member Harrison? Yes. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Now to three. You've heard it before but you're going hear it again. Item number three, consideration of ordinance 12 dash twenty twenty six approving the Vivian Estate Phase five zone change on 11.58 acres located at approximately 2125 North 600 East, changing the zoning from TH5 transitional holding to an RA1 residential agriculture. Is there someone from developer who would like to speak? Welcome.

Thank you. Name is Austin Cooper with JDH. We yeah. So this is the last phase of of Vivian. We've done phase one, two. I think we're actually working through phase two, b, and three right now with the city. And this is just in preparation to do the development phase five, get it from transition into a zone that we can work with. So

pretty straightforward. Is anyone from the general public here to make comment on this item? Okay, so we'll close that. Any questions from the council?

Mister Mayor, if

it's

okay, I do. Do, have you gotten the water rights that you need for this development?

In the process of of doing that, yeah. We're the there's the family that owns the the land. They have several water shares, and we're trying to figure out exactly how much they have compared to how much we need, and then figure out the difference.

So

Okay. And do you feel like you'll be able to meet the standards of the zone with the water shares that you need?

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Other questions, comments? Happy to entertain a motion.

I moved to approve ordinance number 12 dash twenty twenty six. A zone district designation amendment and zoning district map amendment located approximately 2125 North, 6 hundred East. Change the zoning from TH five to RA one including all the RC comments.

So, have a first from Council Member Freeman. I have a second.

Second.

Second from Council Member Newell. Any questions? Okay, we'll start with you. Council Member Stallings.

Yes.

Council Member Lockhart?