City Council - Regular Meeting

It's like immersive today.

Welcome to our work session today, August 10, 2026, at 4 PM here in the Lehigh City Council Chambers. We have a full council today, Council Member Newell, Council Member Harrison, Council Member Stallings, Council Member Freeman, and Council Member Lockhart. And we welcome our staff and those who are visiting with us in the chamber today. We will start with opening comments and a prayer given by Council Member Harrison.

Our dear Father in heaven, we are grateful to be gathered together this day as a council and mayor and staff to discuss the items to better serve our community and our city. We are grateful for all of those staff members, our public safety officers, and all that they do for our city in keeping us safe and happy and all the service they provide. We ask that thy spirit may be with us, that we may be guided and directed in making the best decisions for the residents. We say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Thank you, Council Member Harrison. Just a reminder, this is a work session, so there won't be any public comment today. But we do appreciate you coming and participating with us. So we'll go start with item 2.1, the hazardous waste disposal discussion. And are you our guy today, Dean? Yes. Well, we'll turn it over to you two for what you have.

Todd knows more about it than I did. So waste management approached us a few weeks ago with a program to let people dispose of things you normally can't put in your dumpster, like paint or electronics. I'll let Todd talk in a second. He'll have better information. The biggest question is Waste Management would like to start this program. I thought Blake from Waste Management was going to be here and maybe he will be if he does and there's time you can decide whether to talk to him. But they would like to have four pilot cities, basically one city in each county to start this program. They come to your door you'd call them and say I have this stuff to that I need to get rid of you put on your front porch and they'd come out and get it the cost would be a dollar a month per Customer so per household so they would charge us a dollar more in their fee and we would charge the resident dollar more so it's really a question is do we feel it's It's worth that. It's great service. I know I probably have 10 cans of paint in my garage that are half full that I never know what to do with. And things like this come up every now and again. But it's really up to the council. Todd, I think, has some better information. So I'll let him go.

Thanks. I probably know just a little bit more than Dean, but it's a service that I understand waste management acquired location, a hazardous facility location, kind of a material handling facility area. And I'm not sure, I think it's somewhere up in Davis County maybe, if I remember correctly. I didn't get much information from Blake. Just a phone call, kind of like what Dean had, and tell me if Blake comes in. But I'm going to wing it in that what I do know is that residents are asking for this type of a service all the time. And what we do is we just kind of refer them to local parts stores like O'Reilly and whatnot to get rid of their oils. We recommend that they open their paint cans and let it dry out and then throw it in the dumpster. which I don't know if that's really even what they're supposed to do or not. It's kind of like, Mayor, when we had that conversation about you wrapping all your recyclables in a plastic bag and throwing it away. You thought you were doing it right, but, you know. So the thing that's nice about it is we've worked with... Nonprofits. One nonprofit out of Boise was a Computers for Kids. They would collect and refurbish electronic waste and they would distribute that to underprivileged kids throughout the state. But they don't come down and do that anymore. They do that once a year and we could come up with quite a bit of waste collection and whatnot. They're not doing that and so we there's there's only one location. We know of in the city Jason did send me some information just recently from the state that they have a kind of a I don't know if it's a service or an opportunity to Put together programs to collect this waste and then find an end You know end goal for it So all of that aside, this then would be a great service for a dollar a month. From what I understand, they come to your door, you call them, you say, I have 10 gallons of paint. James says, I have all this electronic waste that I want to get rid of. And they kind of do an inventory with you of what you have, and then they come to your door. If it's medical waste, they have specialized bags and whatnot that they can collect it in. And so it sounds like a really good service. And like Dean said, there's only, we would be the pilot in Utah County, which is, I guess, kind of nice. But other than that, I don't know. Do you guys have any questions I could maybe try to answer?

May I? So is this an opt-in, resident by resident, or is everyone automatically opted in?

Yeah, I don't know. Dean?

It would have to be everyone. So in other words, for them to make it work for them, everybody needs to pay the dollar a month whether or not you use the service.

And how long is the contract?

He didn't say. I think we could probably negotiate that.

OK. And why Lehigh?

Because Lehigh's cool. Oh, yeah. We're the pioneers.

I guess just from a business perspective, why did they pick us? Is it geography?

I don't know if he has information demographically that predicts he might use it for Lehigh, but I'm sure they wanted one of the larger cities.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

We're pioneers, you know, so.

True.

So can you tell me, for $1 a household per month, how much is that per year we're talking about?

How many households do we have? Is that? Yeah. Yeah.

25,000 times. We have 25,000. Okay. That's what?

202.

And really, our garbage fund, it's essentially we bring in enough money to pay the contractors. It's not really a service we do with city employees. It's all contracted out. So if we raise a dollar, if we pay another dollar, we need to raise a dollar. The garbage rate would go up a dollar.

But what I understand from looking at the slideshow is they're paying this, but then to utilize it, they have to basically reach out to waste management for them to come pick it up. It's not like a given every week sort of thing. It's like, as needed, you have this waste, let us know, and we'll make arrangements with you to come get it.

Yeah, it's not something you would use every month, probably. It's maybe something you use once or twice a year. And so they wouldn't go to every home every week. They would just go based on the calls.

Based on, yeah, when you called and asked for a service, which is kind of nice, too. I mean, there would be people, I'm assuming, would be calling all the time. I mean, I don't know.

There might be some that don't use it at all, and then there's people who.

That's the main thing, is there are people who would pay the dollar. Mm-hmm.

Well, I got Montanet here. He's on our committee. You want to come up and give your perspective? Because I know that he was concerned about a couple of items as far as whether this is just ghost recycling or is that what Angie was calling it?

That was Angie's concern, right? If we're going to pay for a service where we have recycling as part of it, we want to know that it's actually being recycled. So ideally we would have had them here to be able to speak to that, but they chose not to show up. Hopefully maybe they will. I'll just say, I mean, I understand where you're coming from, Rachel, as far as it's something that not everybody opts into. But, you know, for me, when I do kind of the back of the napkin math, you know, to call somebody out, a junk service or something, to pick up those kinds of things, I'm going to spend $80 to $150 to do that. So if I amortize the $12 a year over 10 years, I have to use the service once. Right. And, you know, I understand people have a hard time sometimes amortizing things over those periods of time, but it's a really good value when you then also start to consider how much time it takes you and I to look for the right place to take the right thing, the time to take it there, the time to, you know, do all that is time that I can't spend running my business, doing my job, spending time with my kids. So I think there's a great possibility that this is a great service. Because you can just drop it off outside your house. If you're home or not, it doesn't matter. My understanding is it's just as long as it's sitting out at the appointment, they'll come get it. So it's a great service. I think there's a few questions that we should ask to make sure it's worth imposing it on people because, I mean, but homeowners need it for sure. And I'd rather, from an environmental perspective, get those paint cans out of the house and disposed of correctly, electronics disposed of correctly, and then potentially recycled and go back into the supply chain.

And I think even if you go to the landfill, you're still paying – I can't remember what the fee is, $10, $20. I can't really remember. So that itself, if you go once a year, it already pays itself off, it sounds like. Does this apply to businesses in the city as well, where only –

so I mean it did carve out specifically that you weren't supposed to use business waste right well and I think remember we only provide residential service so we're not charging businesses for garbage so I would say it's probably it's probably not available to them unless it's home yeah home based business like I guess if you have a city account where you pay garbage it's available to you

Yeah, but they did specifically call out even demo from remodeling. They don't want that kind of stuff. But if it's personal use stuff, they were

So do you guys have a list of what they accept and what they don't? I mean, you talked about appliances, right? Which I do know that there are people that will pick it up for free. Right. And again, there's opportunities like just running errands. You could take your glass to places or your electronics to places. So I do have a kind of an issue of requiring this of everybody, whether they utilize it or not. I've never had a problem disposing, finding a place to dispose, you know. But do you have a list of what they accept and what they don't?

Yeah, in that PowerPoint presentation that they sent you?

Did you guys see any of his PowerPoint that he sent?

Did you get anything at all?

Okay. Well, I do have something, but...

Who, Senate?

Why don't I just forward it to you, and you can look at it.

And this would have to come to a regular session to be voted on. Will you please let them know that if they're not present at that to answer our questions? I would be voting no just by the fact that they're not here.

Yeah, maybe they should come back another time. Maybe we can try for another. I don't know what happened.

I've been talking to him. I've been emailing him, and I thought he would be here. So I don't know. Maybe he got confused on the date. I mean, things happen. I understand. But maybe I can just tell him, try again next month or something.

I agree. I think there's no rush. Let's get him in. Let's have a conversation. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'll forward what I have to the council.

And do we, you said residents want this. Do we have hard data that shows that, that there's a demand for this? Or, like, I would be interested to know how many actually want this versus how many would rather not just take care of it on their own.

I was in the meeting, so I heard a lot of the questions. You have a lot of the questions from the ESC about this too, so I know we want to get those answered. The questions I have is I want to know how convenient it is. I don't want to call and talk to a person. Because I'm just not going to do that. So if I can text, there's an app or something, I want to know what the process is for customers to do it. I want to have monthly reporting. To Michelle's point, if we have data showing that it is something that our residents want, I also want the data showing that they are using it too. And then a couple of questions. I'm assuming that a lot of our residents throw stuff away, that they should not be throwing away. I'm wondering, do we have penalties from waste management because of hazardous waste ending up in our...

I don't know. Okay. I don't know.

And then the other thing is we do get, is it two dump passes a year, residents? Yeah. Okay. But if we throw away hazardous, is it three? And then, but if we want to throw away hazardous waste at the dump, it's additional, right? That's not covered, am I right? Yeah, I want to, so those are some of the questions that I have that would be good for us to know too.

That's why I wish Blake was here.

It sounds like a good idea to potentially use our social media to get an idea of whether residents think it's a good service, to your guys' point. And again, we have time. There's no rush.

I just wanted to get it before you. When we heard about it, we, you know, it sounds like a great idea, but who knows when you start digging into it. And, yeah. It's an action item, so it has to.

I was going to say, the other thing that was really cool, was it Angie who brought up the the events that are held where you can come and so I almost wanted to see if we could try something like that where it was a free event to see how many people turned up to a kind of maybe that was a way to test social media to see how receptive people were that this is great they've been looking for that kind of service that might get us more data too well the last time we had an event like that we collected over almost 700 tons of electronic waste wow

And we did it through Texas Instruments and Mountainland in association with those two organizations. It was really professionally done. So it's possible.

Yeah, and that would be cool to know from our residents, like if we hold events like this, is that worth your time to come out and drop it off versus $12 a year? A year, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah.

For me, probably, I don't know.

No, I mean, everybody does it. I mean, I think we all make that determination that our time is almost free, right? Yeah, I'll spend $6 in gas to save $1 a month. We're kind of okay with that. We kind of fail to really value our time as much as it's really worth. For sure, yeah. It is what it is.

Yeah, can I say one thing? I gave Blake the wrong date. I gave him tomorrow. This is my fault. I'm sorry.

Oh, it's okay. So when do we need to be back?

Would you be willing to let him speak at pre-council tomorrow? Or if not, I'll reschedule it. I'll call him. I am embarrassed. I'm really sorry.

I'm trying to think.

I told him the 10th on my email, but I sent a calendar invite for tomorrow. I blew it.

So it's not Blake's fault. We have time to amend it if we want to do it now.

I mean, I think it's going to be a bigger discussion. Or we can just wait.

Yeah, we'll wait. Tell him we'll get him on the screen. I sincerely apologize.

But tell him we have some phenomenal questions.

Which would be good because now you can tell him the questions so he can prepare and come and answer those.

I'm sorry. No, you're good. Thanks, Dean.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you.

Okay, item 2.2, Lehigh City party tax. That would be the Lehigh City park tax policy review and discussion.

And Matt is leading the party.

We can always rename it.

Welcome, Matt. There will be no dancing.

OK, mayor, council, for the record, I'm Matt Lee with the administration department. So I feel like we were just talking about part tax not too long ago. But we're coming up on our next cycle in November where we'll be sending out the application for the grant program again. So I thought I'd get this in front of you based on some of the feedback that we had this last round to make sure we can tighten up this policy so we're all in agreement of what we want to do and communicate to residents. So I've already taken a stab at a few things based on feedback from the last round. I'll talk about a few of those things, and then I do have a slide that we can maybe kind of kick off the conversation of kind of what does the council envision for this policy. So the first thing, oh, and also in your packet, you should have gotten three copies, right? There's the original copy, then there's the red line version, and then there's the revised without red line, right? So, okay. So the first thing that I updated or added, rather, is the proposition language. I heard that mentioned this last round and referred to. And it's actually a really good suggestion. It's something that we didn't have into our background section. Just to provide context to this policy is to pull directly from the ballot language that we provided to residents. So that has been added to the background section of the policy. The second thing I added is emphasizing the 70-30% split that we have. It's in there, but I wanted to bring it up to the front and also to highlight the allocation of the part tax revenues is determined ultimately by the Lehigh City Council, which is what state code says. And the distribution, 70-30%, that's also at the prerogative of the council. In the policy section, I also highlight that it's kind of a disclaimer that we're treating this policy as more guidelines of how to administer the program, but nothing in the policy will essentially override what the council may decide at the end. So nothing in this policy shall be construed to limit the legislative authority of the Lehigh City Council, and that the city council retains the final authority to determine the allocation and distribution of park tax revenues. The other attempt here is to define significant presence. So in the policy, we had said that you wouldn't qualify for park tax unless you had a significant presence, but it's open to interpretation. So this is an attempt to define what a significant presence means. So I wrote that it means that a qualifying organization is headquartered or maintains its principal place of business in Lehigh City and conducts a substantial and continuous portion of its operations, programming, or services within Lehigh for the benefit of Lehigh residents. Essentially saying that you have to be in Lehigh City versus what we had before where They didn't have to, but we gave priority to applications to those that were based in the high city. So this would be kind of a big change from what we've been doing up to this point. This isn't really a change in 5.5, but I did want to kind of expand, you know, the sole source kind of version here. It reads, applicant organizations must demonstrate that park funding is not their sole source of financial support and shall identify other existing or anticipated revenue sources that contribute to the sustainability of their programs and operations. So this isn't to say that we can't, Lehigh City with Park Tax can't fund a specific program program of an organization solely, but meaning as an organization as a whole, we don't want to provide the incentive that they're just being funded by park tax. We wanted them to look for other sources to help supplement their existence as an organization. And then I thought it might be useful for the council to talk about a few of the things that's kind of Lehigh-specific that we do that's not necessarily in state code. So these can be changed, amended, addressed, kept, whatever we want to do. The first thing, and this isn't all of them, but kind of the main ones, is the 70-30 split that we have, 70% for the city parks and recreational facilities and 30% for the grant program. That's a decision of the prior council that this is how we want to split it. State code doesn't say we have to do it at all. So this is just something of how we've chosen to administer in Lehigh. Second is the 50% of operating expense threshold. This came up at the last time a bit. This is also Lehigh specific, essentially saying if they're applying for a major grant, so over that $10,000 threshold, they can only receive up to 50% of whatever their operating expenses are. So if it's $20,000 of operating expenses, they can only receive a max of $10,000. We amended not too long ago for volunteer hours because that wasn't included. So in addition to the operating expenses, if they were a very volunteer-heavy organization, they could increase the reported operating expenses based on the number of volunteer hours. So that would increase what that 50% would look like. But that's also BHAI specific. We have the major grant and minor grant differentiation I referred to with that $10,000 threshold. We don't have to do that. It's worked out pretty good, especially for some of the minor recipients. Like a new organization comes in, they don't have all the financial reporting, they don't have all that stuff, but they have a really good program. Having that differentiation allowed them to get in at a lower amount. And then the last one I put up here is the requirement to have a park tax advisory committee. So that's something Lehigh does. It's actually in our code. But not all cities do that. A lot do. A lot of our neighbors do, but not all cities do that. But that's something that's know that we've chosen to do is lehigh city so kind of with that maybe based off updates that i've made what are some of the feelings that you have with the park tax committee or with the part tax policy itself um any updates to the provision let me just get the kind of appetite and what the council thinks so go ahead

One thing for me is interesting, and I've seen this with other cities too, not realizing that they don't necessarily have a split. They don't have a 70-30. It could be beneficial if it was... for us that it was something where we're trying to stay within the 70 30 but maybe there's some years because i know that there's been lots of discussions with council members that feel like you know we should be putting more towards parks or maybe there's something that comes up with non-profits that we want to fund and we're like right at that 30 that maybe there could be some flexibility in there because i've seen that with american fork where they've funded more than 50% towards their arts and culture some years, and some years they drop down lower than that. So I thought that might be interesting, too, that kind of here's where we'd like to be, but there may be some projects that we want to get done one year, and we want to dip into that.

Yeah, and that was kind of a feeling here to an earlier point, like, you know, these are kind of guidelines. Yeah. But if the council decides that it doesn't work this year, there's nothing in this policy that restricts you.

There's nothing that says it has to be, so we could go out without even, like, amending it.

Right. Yeah, that's what's in the policy.

I think just one point to that. I think what happens to the money, because right now, and Dean I think just stepped out, if the general number is 30% for the grants, if we don't use all of that money, it has kind of just sat in a reserve fund for future years, right? I think it would, I mean, I'd love to see the 70% go up to 80, but another possible option is to articulate that it's up to 30% for grants, right? So some years maybe we use all 30%, and that will continue to grow over time with sales tax. But there may be a park capital project or something that we really want to focus on. And maybe one year we would only use 20% for it. Does that make sense? And so I think if we set a hard number and we have leftover funds, I don't want those funds just to kind of sit in a bucket and wait until a future year, if that makes sense. Right.

And Dean's not here to correct me. Or if he has, he can come in. But as I understand, there's not a separate bucket for the 70% and 30%. It's just all sitting in the same fund. And we paper track the 70% and 30%. So it's really all in the same bucket right now for the park tax funds.

The thing that's interesting with that too, and I've seen it when working with some of these nonprofits, There is that mindset out there that they have come in and presented an amount and that's the amount to hit. And working with them, I found ways to like, we can save thousands of dollars on your original bid if we go this way. I would love for there to be incentive for them to come in under. and not be penalized for it. Maybe that's something like, hey, it can roll into a future grant above the 50% or something like that. But I know with some of the excess funds that's been in there is because grants weren't fulfilled. They were granted and not delivered. Or maybe a council didn't feel like there was enough grants that they wanted to fund that year. I would love to have that mindset change with everybody that is like, you know, we still want to make sure that you're finding the best bids and the best ways to be able to do this and even incentivize that.

Okay.

Yeah, and I would just add, I mean, I do want to protect the 70%, at least, because I think every dollar that we don't put toward that 70% is a dollar coming out of our general fund, right? And so, but for the 30%, we wouldn't, you know, we're not using that general fund money to...

So it sounds like you want some flexibility with that 30%. You don't want to completely restrict it.

If it's up to 30%, then it does give us some flexibility in the leftover we could work with.

We can word it that way so that it works. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.

My perspective is that there is a big appetite for parks and rec in Lehigh I mean we have this whole parks master plan that we just that just happened and and they they asked a lot of residents what they wanted what they needed and there's challenges with with maintaining with operating costs versus having new facilities and so I I love the arts and the cultural things as well, but I see right now what we have is we do have a big appetite for the Parks and Rec. We do have some wonderful cultural facilities and things here, but I would also kind of support the up to 30% just because the demands that we have from our population and things that we have in the works That's that's where I'm at and just with I Guess I'm on the I am Louise on to the parks trails and trees committee.

So I would be remiss if I did not mention that I Kind of want to pivot a little bit on a different topic. So if there's more to talk about I

On that one?

Okay. The soul, the use of the word soul on when we're talking about the primary funding source of organizations and how they're using the park tax, I don't like the word soul because it implies one, I would rather use primary, meaning that we would look at entities who are using the park tax as a primary source of funding and be a little bit more cautious there. Because I think every nonprofit can find a way to not have this be their sole source of funding. But I think there needs to be maybe a little bit more scrutiny than just one

So you're saying you don't want them to be the primary source? No, what I'm saying... Park tax be primary source?

You don't want... Yeah, like I think that the park tax is like a supplementary form of funding for these organizations, but it should not be the primary source of funding for any of them.

Oh, sorry. I'm going to disagree with that. Again, referring to state law where it says the intent is to provide, I can't remember the words, but predictable and substantial funding for these organizations. So I don't support that change. But I did have a question. When you talk about the volunteer hours and the operating expenses, are you adding that the volunteer hours amount to their operating expense, so it increases? Correct. And that 50%? So is it, okay, I think I get it.

So the state has, I forget the number, but they set kind of what that rate is for volunteer hours. And we take that based on the number of hours that they report in their application. And then add that to their operating expenses. And then whatever 50% of that new number is, is what they're eligible for.

And are you saying that that's just a policy guideline? It's not?

Yep, that's how we have it right now. We don't have to do that. That's up to the council.

OK. One concern I have with that is that there are some nonprofit organizations that are better Structured so they can have a lot of volunteer hours. I'm thinking the Arts Council with their their plays You know, they have the actors and actresses that you know, they're volunteers So they put in a lot of hours so that adds to it or things like the Hutchings Museum They for insurance purposes. They have to have paid staff on hand and you know to oversee the artifacts and that kind of thing so they They're less able to utilize volunteers not that they couldn't and I To me, it's ultimately I think all those organizations get their primary funding from the city right now. So I think that could be more challenging to some organizations than to others. So I've got some concerns there. But I would like, when you talk about what the money can be used for, to include recreation facilities, like public recreation facilities. Because we could use this potentially towards the Legacy Center if we want to make improvements there.

is that right or yeah you can't use referring to a specific section well just the background i probably have it written i believe i believe it's in state code yeah it's in it's in state code and we do say that it can be useful with capital improvements i i just like that For parks, playing fields, et cetera.

Clarified so that maybe future councils can understand that.

So recreational facilities, that language you want to add?

I think it says in the background, it does say enhance funding for recreational amenities.

Yeah, I know it's in there. I don't know exactly all the places it is, but I can make sure it's clear.

There's some places where you talk about what, and I think it's in the background that it wasn't included.

Okay.

There's cultural facilities performing arts facilities But yeah, so this we could use the park grant or sorry the park tax Maybe that's to do the thing is that the tax portion could go towards Yeah, so I pulled a couple things from the code itself that

make sure it's clear what we can use it for. So you've got cultural facilities, recreational facilities, geological facilities, and then operating expenses of recreational facilities or botanical organizations or cultural organizations, geological organizations. Okay. Okay, it's there.

It wasn't in other places, and I just kind of wanted to drive the point home. No, I can make sure it's clear in the policy, but yeah. You know, if we... Don't want to use general fund money or bond as much. Maybe we can use the park tax money towards the Legacy Center.

That's an option.

And then the other thing that I personally would prefer is not having a park grant committee. I think sometimes there's Well, there's a couple of reasons for that. And the first one and foremost, I guess, is because this is tax dollars that we're talking about. Even though it's set aside for specific purposes, it's taxpayer money. And as elected officials, That's kind of our purview and our responsibility to safeguard that money. So when we come up with budget discussions in a work session, we have the department heads presenting to the council. And we have the opportunity to ask questions and that sort of thing. And they make their case. So I'd rather have applicants come directly to the council, make their case, ask our questions. The committee is just a recommending body. And I appreciate the time they spend in it. But it's different from the planning commission, where we can watch those meetings and hear those discussions. And there's benefit there. Even ultimately, if we agree or don't agree with the recommendation, I think there's benefit in hearing the entire discussion. We kind of miss out on that by having the committee. The other thing is that talking to staff, it kind of doubles your workload because you have to prepare the information for the committee, and then you have to prepare it again for us. It might cut back on some time for the park staff. So my personal preference would be just to bring it for the council. We signed up for this job. I think we committed to spend the time to fulfill our duties there. But that's my thoughts.

That's interesting that you bring that up, because I was kind of thinking about this. This is my first go around as a council member, how we had the CBDG applicants come before the council. And then eventually we had the park applicants come, right? But it was a little different process this year with having the PARCC committee come and present their ideas. And then we asked the PARCC grant applicants to also come. So it was a little bit redundant versus what the CBDG applicants did. I can see the benefit of just streamlining it and just having it in a work session with the PERC grant applicants right to the council, since that's what we do with some other funding mechanisms.

Yeah, I will just chime in my perspective. This is an opt-in tax. that the residents vote on to opt into, I think it's really, really important to have a committee of residents who give input on how it's spent. And so if we can maybe redesign the process without eliminating the resident input, I'd be open to that and maybe finding some middle ground. But this is something that if we want it to continue, we need to make sure that there's resident engagement throughout the whole process, in my opinion.

I want more advice. I want people's feedback. I know that the committee's recommending body, and we saw what happened. We just took it and overhauled it ourselves. We always have the right to do that. I always know I'm not going to be the smartest person in the room. I'd love to hear what others see. I also know that with this specifically, there's a lot of sensitive information that's given. And we receive that too, but I'm always open to having... more input and feedback, but at the end of the day, I know it's falling on me to do my homework and to even reach out individually to these organizations to understand things better. I like having residents involved. I think that there's a lot that goes on and a lot of work that gets done, and it doesn't all fall on us. And, yeah, maybe we're the end point and we're the ones who have to make that final decision. But I just think in everything that I do, I'm not the one doing all the lifting. So I would like to still keep the input from a committee, but also understanding that ultimately it's our responsibility and we can take it or leave it. Yeah.

For me, I would defer mostly to you, Matt, because you're the staff member that kind of quarterbacks all of this. And you don't have to share it in this meeting if you don't want to, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how necessary it is because what I don't want to do is add more to your workload and maybe a committee could relieve that workload and sometimes it would actually add to your workload because you have to see everything that comes through anyway. For me, I think the biggest thing is filtering out non-qualified organizations. Once I have that information and I can see the application, I could make the decision with or without a committee. And obviously, I'd want your input as well. But either way, we can talk now or after.

It doesn't matter. I can just give you kind of a high level. So I've done the committee with counsel, right? It is like doing it twice to Councilmember Stallings' point, which is fine. It's not a big deal. That's part of the role and the job. It's really not a big deal. I'm really ready to serve either way, either direction the council wants to move. So really, I don't really mind. It is more, I will agree, but it's fine. It's not that big of a deal. My concern would be for the committee members themselves, because it is a lot of work that we go through. They meet with all of the the applicants, and they do the presentations. And so they meet to discuss and deliberate and do all of that stuff. If that isn't useful to the council by the time it gets to the council, I could see how they feel like their time was wasted. So really, why we have this committee is for the service of the council. If the council doesn't feel like it's a good service or it's not helping them make the decision, Being an efficiency guy, I would probably say then probably lean not doing it. If it's not serving you as a council, but if you find value in it, then yeah, then you would keep it. So that's probably what I would say.

Okay. That's helpful. And just one more separate issue I want to bring up. For the way I see the grants is that there are organizations that are operating within Lehigh, like Hutchings Arts Council. I think for them to be physically located and operating in Lehigh is important if the funding is going toward ongoing operating expenses. The outliers are sometimes there's events that are put on by external organizations to Lehigh. But the event itself, so all the expenses, the operations, manpower, equipment, everything is within Lehigh. I kind of like to separate that out a little bit. So if we're funding an event in Lehigh, as long as all those dollars are being used in Lehigh for the benefit of Lehigh residents, I'm okay with it. If it's an organization like Hutchings, for example, we're not going to fund a museum or something in American Fit or Draper. So I guess what I don't want to do is eliminate really good events that do benefit the residents of Lehigh because the organization is not...

headquartered here does that make sense it does and it's kind of what we've been doing like we've given preference to those located in lehigh but we haven't excluded organizations that have come from elsewhere and served residents and that's kind of been the status quo up to this point.

Yeah, and I definitely want to give preference for Lehigh organizations. But I just want to clarify, is that a change in this new draft?

So the change would be the defining of a significant presence, saying that you have to be based in Lehigh, headquartered. To not do that, then we could say you want to kind of keep it how we've been doing, where we want to include others from outside that serve residents, we would adjust that.

So my understanding is that, and I could try to pull it up really quick, try to find it, but state code from my understanding, specifies that it needs to be within the city.

But I think it says operating. I think that's the vague aspect of operating within Lehigh. So if the event, because we've had applications come through generally for Lehigh Arts Council or for the Hutchings Museum, right? It's pretty obvious. But if it's like... chalk it up, for example. If the event that we're funding is fully operational within Lehigh, that's where I think the term is vague in state code. And ultimately, the spirit of it is, is it benefiting Lehigh residents? Is it Is it happening in Lehigh? And then the difference is a physical location like a museum or an event put on within Lehigh. And I still, what I don't want is to eliminate really cool events or other programs that are going to be put on in Lehigh simply because they don't exist, like their headquarters isn't here, if that makes sense.

So I did pull it up, and it's State Code 59-12-12. 1402, sorry, I'm going to find it again, that the money, the revenue collected from a tax imposed, this tax, shall be expended to finance ongoing operating expenses of recreational fields. Number two, sorry. organizations cultural organizations within the city so the organization as I'm reading it has to be within the city not just the event has to be within the city and so a lot of this is just policy that we're deciding on but we do have to follow what state code specifies so it to me it's we need to fund only those organizations within the city

Yeah, I guess the ongoing operating expenses is where I'm held up. Because I think for a brick-and-mortar museum or something, we're funding the ongoing expenses. But for something like Chalk It Up, that's definitely not an ongoing. It's a one-time expense. So I think that's the difference.

Feel free to look at the code and see where it says. I mean, this is what we can spend the money on. It allows us to spend that money on organizations within the city. It doesn't say anything that we are allowed to spend money on one-time events within the city. Does that make sense? So to me, maybe Craig is the expert here, but we can only spend the money as stipulated in the state code.

Yeah, I'd love to hear Craig's thoughts on that, just because we have been doing it very differently the last five years.

So the way I was reading it, and It indicates that we can provide money to organizations operating within the city, correct? And so the issue is what constitutes operating within the city? Is that the crux of what you're doing? So the issue that you're raising is someone that wants to do an activity or do something here, the question is do they have a footprint? witness within the city and i think that's the analysis that you have to look at are they coming in just to run something and then leave or are they going to be established and i think that's really the you know the matrix that you need to run through on that and that's something we can look at i think that would be something that would kind of be on

Run a bill file. Add some clarity up there. Get our legislators to just add in events or something. Because I think this was written for the zoo and the aquarium and those big things that depend on a lot of this. I don't think when the legislators wrote this that they were thinking about Chalk It Up. But I think there is value in a Chalk It Up event. So we have time over the next session to work with our reps to get an amendment passed. And then we could be able to put it into play next year, too.

I think it would be, we would have to look to see what kind of footprint Chocodile has in Lehigh, but I agree with Emily. I think the language in the statute is a little vague in the fact that it says does business in Lehigh. What exactly does that mean under the definitions? I was looking at the definitions. I don't think it goes into detail on that. I think that would have to be a decision that we make after reviewing who they are and what they do. If you have a company from Connecticut that says, hey, I want to come in and do an activity in Lehigh, give me your park tax. Absolutely, we can make that balancing test a lot easier, but if it's a local company that has a larger footprint in Lehigh, that's kind of a balancing test we'd have to do on a case-by-case basis.

So Craig, this ballot measure was passed under law at a certain, whenever, 2021? 2021, yeah. Okay, so does it operate under code in place at that time, or if code changes, then it changes?

I would have to check. It would be my understanding that the ballot measure that passed allowed us to to do the park tax under the state law. And I think it would allow for any changes that they make to clarify. Especially if it would just be a clarifying measure, we'd be able to go under that.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- OK. Well, again, I want to honor the intent of state law To me, it's pretty clear I'm not seeing the word doing business in or operating within. I see organizations within the city. I think that is what was in place when the residents voted on it. So my position is to honor that. It would save us a lot of time. I mean, I think we have too many organizations just looking at the list of the the last list of applicants, there's some that are really pushing that envelope on what a cultural organization is, whether if they're doing something substantial in Lehigh, have a substantial presence. And I don't think a couple of days counts as substantial, in my opinion. So my position is to, again, honor state law, not try to, mean if we're going to put our efforts towards legislation i i think there's more valuable things we could put our efforts towards but um yeah so i i would like to use the money towards organizations within the city um yeah I'm going to weigh in, if that's OK.

Please do. So yeah, I looked up city law, too, just because Michelle was talking about it. It looks here, 59-12-1402. And we go to three, and then to A and B. And it talks about cultural facilities, recreational facilities, and zoological facilities within the city or town or within the geographic area of entities. that are parties to an interlocal agreement. And then it talks about this more, and it keeps talking about the geographic area. So to me, I do think that we're kind of talking about the organization is located within Lehigh. I personally love Chalk It Up. But when I voted for this as a voter, I remember reading this and thinking, oh, this is great for these communities. organizations in lehigh established in lehigh that will like we as we as lehigh residents are going to help our our fellow organizations or whatever that's what that's what i remember as a voter voting for and as i read it again that's what comes back to my mind i i like what council member lockhart says is about some clarity could probably really be helpful. And it's not too big a thing for the legislature to do that. And someone get a win. Anyone listening wants to take it on. But I think as far as the way that I interpret it and as I I saw the intent as a voter when I voted was that it says specifically within the geographic area. I have to say it makes me a little sad because there are some great organizations in American Fork or other places that I would love them to come in and do an event, but that's what I see as the intent.

I think just kind of tying that back to my original comment, let's say we go down that route and it's only organizations that are physically located here putting on events here. There may be years where we don't use the full 30%. And Dean, I think you stepped out when we talked about this at the beginning of the discussion. But if we were to phrase it as up to 30% for cultural grants, the remaining we can use for capital projects. Is that correct? Because as of, at least in the last few years, it's just kind of been put in reserve. But if we don't want to do that, can we put it toward capital projects?

I think so, because the 70-30 is our call, right? It's not the state's call. So what we've really done is just budgeted an amount. Like, I think we'll get this much in, and we probably budgeted maybe a little less than we actually got. And we just did the 70-30 off of that number. So if we get in more, It's kind of gone into reserves, and I think we used some of that this year. But I don't think there's anything that would keep us from saying it doesn't have to be 70-30 because that's our own rule.

And reading the language in there, it's a 70-30, but it also still reverts back to the discretion of the council is my understanding from the language of the policy. So whether you guys want to do that 70-30, it's your call as the keepers of the funds.

Okay, because I would kind of support like no less than 70% in policy with the remaining going toward cultural grants or other capital projects as needed. Just because I think it gives the council that are in the seats that year more flexibility on Within the policy to to say hey this year the the cultural grants We're gonna have to use the full 30 for whatever reason and then other years. Maybe we only use You know 20% and we have other capital projects that we need to focus on. So I think that would be my My preference unless we wanted to give it a hard number of like, you know, 80 20 or whatever But I think that's that's a little more flexible

My thing, too, is because it's at the discretion of the council, any future council can just change it. So I kind of almost rather than put hard lines in there, I like kind of having where we're seeing the goal is, but knowing that it should be discretionary because there are going to be different years and different feelings, too. The other thing I'm going to come back to with the advisory committee, I think that's a really good point about what works best for you. I do like having these committees that it's not political. They're not going to be swayed by any kind of anything going on making it political. They're just giving us a straight here's

the facts and you can take them how you want to but I I would still really like that but maybe that's that could also be staff perspective that we have to so good the one wrinkle I would see with up to 30% if you kept a committee what do you tell the committee to fund to because it might be 20% this year it might be 30% it might so there's some you know a little bit nebulous for them to really decide how to craft their recommendation.

What if we eliminated the split? Just imagine, just pretend. Do cities have that, just an open fund, and they kind of allocate the funds where they need? Or do most cities have this kind of split?

Yeah. Well, I have a couple sites here, just maybe to help with this conversation. so i did look at other cities that have a committee and have a grant program and those that don't so these are those that have a committee and they're made up of different a number of members with residents got american fork orange springfield payson provo eagle mountain spanish fork they all have a committee that functions in some way eagle mountain so all of them have a grant program besides eagle mountain their their committee the purpose of their committee is actually to evaluate the projects that they have to use the part tax funding for. So they get a list of projects from the city, and they kind of prioritize them and then make a recommendation to the council. So it's a little bit different. They don't do the grant piece. So that's that side. And then those that don't have a committee, as of now, Linden, Pleasant Grove, Highland, Alpine, Cedar Hills, Saratoga Springs. Saratoga Springs is relatively new to it. It wasn't too long ago. But so they could end up getting one this year, I don't know. But I know Linden doesn't have a committee, but they do offer a mini grant program. And how they operate, so it's still similar. They do the applications and staff collects it and do all that stuff. But it just kind of gets folded into the regular budget process and goes to council. And the council considers it just as they would any other request from staff. it's a little bit different how they do it they just opted not to use a committee so so they have staff like it does staff review it yeah so it's essentially what you know I would do already just instead of doing it with a committee I would do just go straight to the council so

Well, and I was looking this up, preparing for this meeting, and I saw that a lot of smaller cities, they don't have committees. And maybe it's for simplicity's sake, but it's one less step, I guess, in bureaucracy is how they worded it. That's their words, not mine. But yeah, it looks like Pleasant Grove uses staff review and council approval. And then there's other ones that are not necessarily in Utah Valley that do a similar thing as well, or council-only review. And I think that just statewide, when you've taken the small cities into account, that's kind of the most common statewide, actually, and just kind of most aligned with legislative authority. But that's my opinion on that.

Any other questions for Matt? Matt, do you have a road to run on here?

No, I'm going to quiz you right now. So I understand it's probably not unanimous on everything. But the first thing, the sole source language, you want me to keep that or take it out? I know you might not all agree, but maybe just a head nod for keeping it as written. explain so what right now yeah so okay so rather than have some other sources of revenue yeah they have to have other sources of revenue or a way to generate revenue or something they can't be solely funded by park tax versus suggested primarily funded so they need to have something else greater than the park tax yeah i agree that they shouldn't be solely funded by the park tax and i but i think i'm

What I'm saying is even a step further that all of these organizations should be working to survive with or without the tax so that if the tax were to ever go away, we don't lose these vital organizations in our community. And so if we create something that we're the sole source of funding for them and it's not renewed, that's going to be a difficult budget cycle for that next council. So I just want to incentivize them to diversify as much as possible.

Can you answer me how you would tell that they are the primary source?

You'd look at their revenues and look at the percent of total to determine who's the primary funder.

They provide that information already in the applications?

They do for major grants. For a minor grant, they're carved out and treated separately.

It's really for them, right? Because it's an opt-in tax that our residents vote on. and if they decide to opt out those organizations are at risk and i worry about that for them so the major minor or both all all of those organizations i'm worried so you just don't know right so if we change it to primary at this point i think it would

kill these programs. I think the message has been sent loud and clear that they can't depend on funding from the city or even the grants. And the ones that I'm working with are working hard towards becoming self-sustaining. But if you make that change now, that undercuts them at this point without giving them time to adapt. So I'm absolutely fine keeping it so that it's not their sole source of revenue, but to change it so it can't be their primary source of revenue at this point, I think is very premature.

I think there's a compromise there in that if we're making the policy that 50% of operating expenses It can't be more than 50%, right? So it can't be 51%. That's to me, I think we can find middle ground in that's not the sole source, but it's also not going to be the majority of their operating expenses. And that kind of helps to combat the dependency on this as a primary source, not necessarily We're going to cut them off if they're at, you know, whatever, 52%. But if this is encouraging them, if we're encouraging the 50%, up to 50%, to me that's a good message there to send that up to 50% but also not sole. I understand we're talking about primary, but I can see how we could find compromise there. So that's.

Yeah, I'm open to that. That's what I like, too, because I thought we were keeping the 50%. So I feel that it's there, but it also gives them some safety net because they can add in their volunteer hours, too. Right? So it gives them a little bit of buffer. But having that 50% in there, we're pretty much already saying that it needs to be almost a primary source. Or it can't be a primary source if it can only cover up to 50%.

We just didn't follow it. We were new. It is policy.

It's guidelines.

I know. And so maybe we're just hashing out. Like at the end of the day, are we creating something that doesn't matter because the council can do whatever they want anyway, right? What is a guideline if we don't believe in it? Why would we pass it? Why would we have it? If we're going to have a guideline, we should follow something.

So it sounds like we probably still want to think about some of these things and work them out.

I don't like saying it's a primary source. I think it's, you say soul, or soul source. I don't like saying the soul source. What was the word we were saying? It cannot be the soul source. It can't be the primary source. I'm okay with it saying it can't be the soul source.

Okay, you're okay with it can't be the soul source. Okay, we'll leave that for now. How about the big one, the Park Tax Committee? Do you want to keep or not keep?

I would be OK if we did not keep it as long as I think throughout the process, I don't know, maybe it's in a public meeting where we have almost like a public hearing on so that the public can provide input. I don't know for sure. Because I agree with Heather in the sense that it's great for residents to feel involved and have a voice in at least recommending

where this money goes but I also don't if it's not if it's too redundant I also don't want to have the committee so I mean you can still get input from from residents if you feel like they can come present you can open up for public comment on them whatever so you can still there are still ways to get public input but you know it's really it's up to you how you want to craft that

Does that then fall on you, or has it always fallen on you to weed out those who are unqualified? Or do you rely on the committee to do that?

The committee?

Does it?

Well, so staff would check the guidelines first. And if they really just didn't qualify at all, then they didn't even get to the committee. And that's rarely happened, maybe once or twice, when someone was trying to fund their recreational program that's not a city rec program. But that's been the only cases.

So I would like I said, prefer it just come to the city council. But I'd love to have public comment on it, public input, and open that public input to all the residents, just not a few appointed people. So yeah, I definitely want to have the public weigh in on this, like we do with budgets and everything else. But I do see a problem. I mean, it was said that committees aren't political. I probably would disagree with that, because they have opinions and they have preferences of their own. And I would rather just open it up to all the public to be able to weigh in to the council, because this is our responsibility.

So reminder, the public does have access to all of it all the time. So there's public comment always. So I don't want to pinhole ourselves to a committee that's doing vetting. Meanwhile, we're saying the public doesn't have input. The public has input every meeting we hold. So I don't know that we want to pinhole ourselves directly. I can understand where you're coming from, Council Member Stallings, but I remember we do open it for public comment every meeting we hold. But I can understand the committee portion also. Just want to make sure I throw that out there.

So are we leaning towards no? That would be the next version.

I would like to know, maybe not here, is how the committee felt about what happened this year.

Maybe it's worth, if you want to visit with a few of the committee members and get there.

We can privately chat about that. Because I know there was frustration, it seemed like to me at least, that there was frustration on the part of the Park Grant Committee that from body language and from the words that were used, that it wasn't decided how they recommended. Even though the guidelines they were given by the council last year was why they ended up with the applicants they ended up like do you know what i mean so we were just trying to fulfill the like i was trying to fulfill the previous council's um direction um so i'm not sure how that ended up and i would like to know and and take that into consideration as well but i did read some of their minutes i think it was last year and i did see that there's there are some I mean, just kind of like with the city council, there's some discretion used there where a committee member attended an event and thought it was really cool. And so they highly recommended it versus someone maybe didn't attend an event from another organization. And so that wasn't weighed as heavily. That's just me reading the minutes. I wasn't in that meeting, so I don't know. But I do think there can be some discretion used there. If we don't read all the things, or if other future councils don't, then that committee has a lot of that kind of legislative authority, in a way, that is being delegated to them. So that does kind of concern me. But I would like to have a little more information on the committee.

TODD BANDUCCI- OK. So it sounds like there's some discovery and sorting out Where people are.

Can you work on maybe developing a different process? Like if we kept the committee, but the way in which the process happened changed, is that an option?

Well, if we kept the committee?

Yeah, but the way in which the process of, like, because I still think we could have applicants come to both, right? And that would meet that need.

We can absolutely workshop that. I just want to know if... That is the priority of the council before we do it. Because I'm happy to do whatever the council wants to do. So how about I suggest this. Maybe we want to talk to some of the committee members, whatever, and sort out where you sit. We can work session this next month, at the beginning of next month, or pre-council or whatever when we meet next. And then gear it up for a vote at the second meeting in September. Will that be okay, kind of a roadmap for this?

Okay. I would just, while we're talking about the process, it would be good, especially, you know, the 70-30 thing, it's very fluid. At the end of the day, we can choose not. We can choose whatever number we want. That's my understanding. So the one missing piece for that would be, I would love to hear from Steve Marchbanks at the beginning of the park grant season, just to show here are his top priorities. If he did have extra funding, Here's his number one priority, number two, number three, right? That would be helpful. And I know he does that in the budget season, but it would be good for that to be part of the park tax or the park grants as well.

Yeah, we can workshop these ideas.

Or maybe not just Steve, but also Dan at the Legacy Center, if that's on the table. Like, whoever would benefit from a city department. I'd probably defer to Jason on that, though.

I'll just add to I do like what Emily was saying with as far as like having the policies because I did feel like this last time it did get pretty political it was in the paper things were going on there's a lot of motions and things and I don't know if the committee can help like try and make this more administrative in a lot of ways and but maybe some ways it can't be but I think having these stronger policies in place

going to help us be consistent and that's what I'm looking for is to not have the as many of those kind of things coming into it okay good for now we can workshop this over the next month and what will have this discussion again next month perfect any other comments from it okay item 2.3 the Lehigh City data privacy policy review and discussion I think that's still you right

Unfortunately, yes.

Fortunately for you, Matt, it is.

That's great. OK. So the Lehigh City Data Privacy Program policy, this is something relatively new to cities, municipalities, well, in a way. The intention here is to create a policy for this data privacy program. And the goal is to help protect resident data. Of all the ways and processes that we collect, the city collects data from residents. We want to make sure that information is protected and we're handling it responsibly. Maybe some history on this. You know, this kind of is interwoven with other, you know, the state laws. We've got the Government Records Access and Management Act, GRAMA. We've also got the Division of Archives and Records Services. I mean, a lot of this, so GDPA, or the Government Data Privacy Act, that was passed in 2024. But its history and a lot of the provisions that's contained in it today is actually in grammar when it was passed in 1991. So as it explained to me, the state said that a lot of entities at the time were, after grammar passed, was really good at the records portion of grammar, but not so good at the privacy. And the legislature's like, we need to put an emphasis on this. So they pulled a lot of those provisions out and passed the GDPA in 2024. At the time, that was just for state agencies. And just last year, they extended it to municipalities and other government entities. So now we've got these new practices that we've got to account for and a program that we need to create for Lehigh City. So what is data privacy? The protection and responsible management of personal data, ensuring that it is collected, access used, and disclosed only as authorized. So that's the goal of this policy. So what does the state want us to do? There's a number of things that they want us to do, and that's included in this policy. One of them is designating a CAO. I know that term's a little odd. But it's a legislative term that they have crafted in this. So we need to decide who appoints that. And I'll go over that. There's other things, like training that has to be done. There's inventorying of all our processes that we do, record series management, privacy noticing. Collecting minimum data that's necessary incidents for incident response breach notification There's a lot of these things that that want to be done. I kind of Put them into these six major ones that I'll go over a few of the provisions but One designated chief administrative officers. So right now I put in the language that the city administrator will do that appointing and Right now, we have it as myself as one of the CAOs for the GDPA. And those related to grandma is Tisha, which is some of the work that she's already been doing. So that gets reported to the state of who they are so they know who's over this program. We also have inventory and processing activities. So that's every way that we collect information. We have to account, have a list, an inventory of what that is. And we'll get audited on these things from the state. Say, what are all the ways that you collect personal information from the public? We need to have a list of all that stuff. So that's part of what I'm doing now to start collecting that information. Privacy noticing. There's a lot of noticing that's required the state, in fact, that every time we collect information from the public of their personal data, we have to also notice them at the time we collect it. That's part of the inventorying, make sure we're being compliant with those things. And that's in the policy. Data minimization, for the information we collect, we shouldn't be collecting more information than what is necessary to run our program. So if we're collecting more than that, we need to maybe change how we're collecting that information. We only want to collect the minimum amount needed to run our program. Record retention and record disposal, dealing with a lot of the grammar stuff and the archives. I've listed in there that the amount of time that we're going to keep our records, our record retention policy, we're just tying that to whatever the state's retention policy is. They have a great database you can look at of what's required for each record and record series. And then breach notification, what happens when there is a breach? We've got to make sure we notify and understand what the scope of that is. So that will change the dynamic of the notification process and who we notify and notify the state. So that's all in the policy as well. Overall, this policy consolidates privacy practices, outlines governance roles and responsibilities, and ensures compliance with generally applicable records management, data protection, and data privacy obligations. And the scope of this will apply to all city employees as well as contractors of the city. So it's something that we're also putting into our contracts or third party agreements that look where GDPR applies to us as well as you as the contractor. So they have to follow the provisions that is in this policy. So this is where I wrote the city administrator will be the one that designated. We felt like that fit well as part of his role of administering for the city. And it's CAO or CAOs. It could be more than one. It also could be dynamic. Say, for example, down the road, he felt like there was a need to have someone in HR to be also a CAO. He could designate that. Or he could pull it away, make only two, make three. There are cities that might have seven or more. So it fit well with the city administrator role, we felt like. And then the CAOs appoint the records officers. That's a lot for the archives to know who's dealing with this data and the training that they need to have. The record series the city shall maintain and dispose of each record type, specific type of record based on the state of Utah's adopted retention schedule. In the transparency section, employees shall only collect personal data from individuals if, on the day the personal data is collected, the city has provided a privacy notice to an individual, asked to furnish personal data. In the processing section, these are all just kind of a summary of what's in the policy. The CAO shall ensure that all programs within the city obtain and process only the minimum amount of personal data. Responsibly necessary to efficiently achieve a specified purpose. And then lastly, in information security, the city is required to provide notice to an individual or the legal guardian of an individual if the individual's personal data is affected by data reach. And there's other things in there as well. But this is a template that we received from the state of Utah that said, hey, all of these things here put you in line with state statute. So we've taken that, crafted it, made it Lehigh-specific to make sure we're in line with state law. So that's what this is. If you have any questions about it, I'm happy to answer. Otherwise, I'm hoping that we can get this up for a vote our next meeting.

Any questions on this for Matt?

Can you give me an example of a data breach? for in this context with the city? Would this be utility data that we host, or would this be employee data that we have?

It could be either, say, an email with personal data that was on it was sent out to the wrong individuals in the public, and they didn't know it until after. We need to notify all those individuals that are affected in there. And there's also a timeline that we have to do it. And based on the scope, You have to, if it's over 500 individuals that are affected, you have to notify the state, the Attorney General's office, the cybersecurity center, things like that. So that's all prescribed in the policy. trying to be transparent and responsible.

Yeah. Thanks.

One thing that I would maybe suggest adding is a section when it comes to vendor due diligence. So for any vendor that the city contracts with, that they're of good repute and data protection and have no ties to foreign governments. And I know that sounds weird, but there are I mean, I lived in China. I worked in the federal government. And just one example, there's a camera company called Hikvision, and they sell cameras in the U.S. They have extremely good technology, and it's typically cheaper than U.S. products. However, that specific company also assists the Chinese government in monitoring cameras minorities and religious minorities for the purpose of persecution. So for, you know, and then, I mean, that's on the foreign, kind of the foreign ownership or ultimate beneficial ownership. And then also just for domestic vendors, I know that the city does not have a contract with FLOC, as Chief Paul has confirmed, even though I get that question like at least three or four times a week. But, I mean, I think it's just good practice to be able to confirm, have an extra due diligence step to do some due diligence on those types of vendors.

I'm happy to add language if the rest of the council feels that works. Okay.

I don't know as much about companies based in foreign countries, so I do not have an opinion on that. But I do think that it's important that our vendors are also respecting and secure with the data that we have. So that's important to me. Privacy is important.

And maybe I'll just clarify. There's going to be companies that are like British-based or whatever, right? Maybe we could make it... be a little more nuanced on foreign technology, right? Like hostile or... Maybe you can help me craft the exact language since I know you're more of an expert with that. Yeah, I can help you figure out the language, but you get the gist, right? I'm not too worried about the UK, a little more worried about China or Russia.

Does the federal government have requirements like that?

Yes.

Okay. Well, there you go. There's a good basis example.

Any other data questions for Matt? That's I have perfect.

Thank you.

We have item 2.4. That's you just kidding Matt thank you. Thank you staff for your For your participation today with that I'm happy to entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second So I have a motion from Council Member Lockhart, a second from Council Member Freeman. All in favor? Aye. Fantastic. We'll see you tomorrow evening, I believe, Tisha, at 6. Is that correct? Okay.