City Council - Regular Meeting

He's really good at

Okay, I'm going to call this meeting to order and council with your uh agreement, we're going to bounce a little bit back and forth between a couple of meetings. So, uh be patient with that. Uh as we begin our meeting, uh we're going to begin with a uh invocation or thought. I've asked uh Councilman Watson to give that and then uh Councilman Robertson, would you give us or lead us in the pledge?

Our dear Father in heaven, we're grateful for this opportunity we have to meet as a city council and discuss the business of the city. We're grateful for the opportunity we have to serve the city and and our citizens. Father, please bless and guide us at this time that we might be able to have productive discussions and find good solutions to the problems that are facing our city. And we are so grateful that we are so grateful of all the blessings that we have in this great city and state that we live in. And we ask for thy guidance during this meeting. We do these things in the name of thy son Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Ready, begin. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Um, can we adopt the agendas as stated? motion to adopt. Second. Motion made and seconded. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Our first item that we're going to deal with tonight, we have a couple of items of recognition and I want to deal with that while we have our uh all those here who came just for that in case they get called away. So, uh item A is a presentation from the Utah Chief of Police Association. So, I'll ask our chief to come forward and this would be recognizing our achievement of accreditation. Chief Davis. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, council. Um, Val Shupe with the Utah Chiefs Police Association's here to present a recognition to Syracuse Police Department for the efforts that we undertook this past year for reacredititation um through the Utah Chase Police Association. I've shared some information about this in the past, but it's a very rigorous process and I was aided greatly by officer Hunter Bennett with Syracuse Police Department. Um Hunter, I'd like to invite you to come up here as well. And Val, if you want to come up, sir, and I'll let Val take it from here. Thank you.

Council and Mayor, it's a pleasure to be here on behalf of the Utah Chiefs of Police Association to uh present the credation work to the city. Uh you may be aware that Syracuse has been accredited for the last 5 years but it was time for the reacredititation and so we have accomplished that. Uh officer Davis or officer uh Bennett did a tremendous job with this uh going through I was the assessor on this particular uh assessment and I would send things back to him that need to be corrected. He was very very pertinent getting those back to us. Just to give you a background on this uh the accreditation process we have in the state of Utah. We're a member of about 38 states and we are the recognized accreditation agency for the state of Utah and we are recognized by DOJ and what it entails is these uh these cities having been a police chief in the past in my former world I know what it is to a council to make sure that they they realize the liabilities that come with being police department and one of those is their policies and procedures. So what the accreditation process does is it the the department has to conform to city ordinances, state laws, legislative laws, and federal laws. And as each year we have a a process where we go through and a new addition comes out based on the legislature, what they've passed, on new things that the city's done, on new things that the uh federal has done. And then what we go through is we go through each one of these. This particular edition that they accredited on has 177 standards that they had to go through. Now, they just don't get to put a policy in and say they have it. They have to show us they're actually doing it and they have to show some of those that they've done in the last 12 months. For example, you may have a a the evaluation of an employee. They have to give us show us that they've done an evaluation of a ploy of an employee. Of course, some of

that stuff's redacted because we don't want that out into the public, but they show they have to show us that they've actually done that and that goes along with all of these standards. They are then assessed through that process. Then we come to the department itself and actually do an on-site visit. One of the main things that we're most interested in is evidence and records. Evidence is probably the biggest issue law enforcement has at times in their evidence rooms. They're either overcrowded, they lose it, they don't know where it is. In this particular case, I can assure you that Syracuse has a very effective evidence procedure and they have supervisors who know what they're doing and they're very cognizant of their responsibilities. And so I commend uh the chief chief Davis for that because he has great supervisors and he was very cordial to us and allowed us to come in, talk to his investigators, his patrol officers. We went through the the evidence procedures. We went through records and how they maintain their records and how they they uh the procedures that they have for those on grammar requests and so forth. And they were very efficient in that. So having said that, uh it is my pleasure to um u present this award to the Syracuse Police Department. Uh the accreditation which says and I'll read this. It says Syracuse Police Department approved and accredited in recognition for the completion of the standards for certification and accreditation as prescribed and mandated by the Utah Accreditation Alliance and the Utah Chiefs of Police Association November 2025. Chief,

thank you. That is wonderful and we appreciate you all of everybody whose work went into that. Next item that we have is we have a presentation of the Utah Supervisory Fire Officer Designation to Captain Clay Nelson. Uh if Chief Bington would come forward. Mayor Council, thanks for letting me have a little bit of time on your agenda. I absolutely love the time that I get to come up here and brag about our staff. So, I'd like to invite uh Captain Nelson up.

You've got that. Thanks.

Captain Clay Nelson has been awarded the Utah Supervisory Fire Officer Officer Designation as outlined by the International Association of Fire Chiefs and adopted by the Utah Commission on Fire Officer Designation. Captain Nelson has combined hundreds of hours of training, education, and experience to meet the requirements for this designation. His hard work and commitment to this process shows his dedication not only to the Utah State Fire Service, but to Syracuse City and our department. Uh there's probably I don't have the exact number, but there's probably right around only a hundred people in the state that have this designation. And so this is a pretty big deal for uh Captain Nelson and for our department. So, please join me in congratulating him.

We've given him a nice little framed plaque and then a pen that he can wear on his uniform. So, thank you, sir. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

All right. Well, it's wonderful. I Our fire department has more accreditations than I've heard of anywhere. I'm just so impressed with all that they do. All right, council. I'm going to take a brief recess from our business meeting so that we can discuss a couple of items and call us into a work session. Uh we don't typically do this. I will be very clear. We typically reserve things for separate times. But we do have two things because this is a brand new council that have to be addressed in a timely manner. So, uh we're going to cover them tonight and vote on them in the next meeting. Uh the first uh item is discussion regarding business meeting agenda item number three, consideration of appointments for special districts. Um if we don't get them appointed, they will miss the first round of meetings and I think that's important that we get there. We have um two special district meeting appointments that are coming up. Um one is for the waste management district and I plan to fulfill that myself. It is largely fulfilled by mayors across the county and the other is the mosquito abatement district and I have asked uh councilwoman Robertson if she's interested in that. I think that what she brings to the table that we haven't had in a little while is uh most of that meeting take talks about uh diseases and things that are mosquito-born uh pathogens and so uh we used to have a nurse in that place. Julie is a nurse and I think that that would serve us good to have that again. Is there any discussion on these two recommendations?

I think that would be great.

Okay. Uh the next item on our discussion is um we have a situation where we have been working with legislation uh legislators on a particular proposed uh amendment to legislation that would affect only Syracuse and uh the to help that we would like to pass a resolution that says that we approve of this so that all of the efforts that we're going to if we can get that passed through the legislation would be accepted by this body. Uh in particular, there was a bill that was passed last year that allowed uh southern Utah in specifically the hurricane city to uh leg or to impose a use tax that would help pay for uh firefighters that serve in national parks. We have a particular situation where we have a uh need. We are way underfunded. We have spent millions serving Analopee Island. If they would make a two-word amendment to that bill that allowed for a major state park uh to qualify as well, we would be able to do the same, which would mean that all of the people out of town that come and shop and um do their business here would be contributing to that uh need and the service that goes out to the island. So with that said, um we have been working with legislators. Like I said, we want to be able to put in the bill packet before the legislation be or legislative session begins that they it has the support of this council. Are there any questions about that? I know that was a lot, but we can talk about that offline as well. But is there any public questions you have? Do we know, mayor, based on the current bill, how restrictive that is or c can it can it

be used for any fire EMS services as long as it's going towards our fire department or is it more restrictive than that? We know

it is a little bit more restrictive, but uh it would serve our needs because it takes care of anything that would apply to firefighters, and that's where our weakness is right now. It would help us bolster our department because when we go out on a call to the island, it's several hours by the time they go out and come back. So augmenting our staff so that we can take additional calls really protects Syracuse citizens so that we're not left unprotected. And so we're just hoping that all the visitors help pay for that. And that's kind of where this goes. I know that it can be used for specialty equipment as well. In our case, that's not where we need it. We

It can be used for staff. It could be used for staff and that's where we need it. I think it's a wonderful opportunity if we can pipe into that though.

It is a bill that applies at this point only to one county in Utah. This is we're just trying to make it so that apply it would apply to us as well. and the amendment we're asking for would make it only apply to us. Uh so I know there's some concern that this would be a widely used opportunity. I've assured legislators that we're not asking for that. Okay. With those items discussed, I'm going to adjourn us from the work session and move us back into the business meeting where we will hold a public hearing. Uh public hearing is first on consideration for special service districts. Um I will declare us in public hearing. Is there anyone here that would like to comment on our efforts with special service districts before we go to vote on that? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing and entertain a proposed resolution R2601 appointing members to the uh Davis Mosquito Abatement District and also R 2602 appointing a member to the Wasatch Integrated Waste District. I move that we accept proposed resolution R2601 appointing the members as outlined um to the Davis County Mosquito Abatement District and the uh sewer the Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District.

Mayor, I need to point out that the resolutions have blank spaces. So Paul will need you to include the names of the people you'd like to put in there. Okay, I'll do it again. I propose that we accept uh resolution R uh R2601 appointing um Julie Robertson uh to the Davis County Mosquito Abatement District. And uh I move that we accept proposed resolution R2602 appointing Mayor Dave Mann to the Administrative Control Board of the Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor? I I

Any opposed? That passes unanimously and now I will open this up. We have public comment for any items that may uh somebody may want to comment on for the rest of our agenda. Do I have anybody here who would like to make public comment? Come forward, please. We'll ask you to state your name for the record and your address so we know where you're from. And you have up to three minutes to share with us. Very good. So, uh, my name is Andy Oblad. I live in Farmington, Utah. Do you need more of an address than that? Uh, we know that you're not from here. I guess

I'm not from here. I'm interested in Syracuse, though. Um, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council for allowing for public comment. Um, the reason I'm here tonight, um, I'm running for sheriff in Davis County and, uh, I want to just get to know your city, your city council a little bit better. I've worked with members of the the fire department and the police department, especially the chief. But at any rate, uh, I just want to give a brief, um, background about me and my career. Um, I've been working 28 years in law enforcement and um, currently I work for the Davis County Sheriff's Office as a chief deputy. Um, I started my career in Salt Lake City. I worked there 21 years and um, it was it was a great career. I worked in many different assignments and um, one of some of my favorite assignments was working in the schools as a school resource officer. um also worked in investigations and in on the motor squad. I don't know if you've seen the motorcycles, but that's a pretty good job. Um I moved up to sergeant and um I supervised the downtown bike patrol and worked in internal affairs. I ended up promoting to lieutenant, so moved up through the ranks and um worked in special operations and as watch commander. Ultimately, after 21 years, I decided it was time to leave law enforcement. I retired and went to work for the Utah Jazz as their team security specialist and um provided executive protection for the team, the players and the coaches. I did that for about two seasons and it sounds like a pretty glamorous job. It was not a glamorous job. It was a lot of travel, more way more travel than anybody should have to do. And after about two seasons of that, I I started looking for a job where I

could be home with my family and uh applied to be a a chief deputy with Kelly Sparks back in 2019. He was elected a sheriff of Davis County Sheriff's Department and I was appointed over law enforcement and um that's patrol that's a chief over um investigations over the courts court security the baiffs um crime lab um did that for about four years and then I went and worked a couple of years over the administration bureau and um that's over the finances and grants and um emergency management. And lastly, I did that for two years. And lastly, for the last year, I've worked as the uh chief deputy over corrections, and that's over the jail over our men and women that are serving in civilian roles and in sworn roles, working in the jail. Um keeping our population there safe and keeping our community safe. And um as you can see, I worked in all three bureaus of the sheriff's office. Sorry, I have to cut you off there. Well, I think I got like five seconds, but thank you so much.

More time to uh talk to you at another time. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. I appreciate it. The next item on our Oh, wait a minute. Is there anyone else that if you'd come forward, state your name and address for the record? Thank you. Even though most of us know who you are, Terry Palmer, 2486 West, 1500 South in Syracuse.

Welcome. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Congratulations to uh Council Member Andrea Brown and and Abraham Pard. Congratulations. Looking forward to working with you. I'd like to report on the museum for 2025. Um it was a good year. So, in 2023, we had 838 people visit the museum. In 2024, we had 3,851. Nice increase. And in 2025, we had 8,158. Just want to tell you that uh we're doing well. We really appreciate your support as uh here in the city. Also to note that uh we did uh pick up the property next door and there's a 2400 ft building there that we are uh getting it getting it uh on the inside to where we can put displays and make it part of the museum. uh we received an endowment from somebody and we appreciate uh the endowment that was given to us. Also along with that we received a $50,000 state of Utah grant that is helping us to finish uh finish the building which will cost us about you know $110,000 to do. Um our our biggest event typically is um the museum at Halloween. So night and our it was an excellent night. We had

over 2,200 people go through the museum. It was a mad house. And so um it was really good. We really appreciate the the support of the city. One other note that I would like to give to you. We have the old fire engine over there. Have you all seen it? Yeah.

Okay. Well, we found out an incredible discovery. The that fire truck in Syracuse was used as a their first truck was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. and used as a Gowen field in Boisee, Idaho. This is one of three trucks that is known. So, it's a nice piece of equipment. We appreciate uh Lawrence Briggs, who is no longer with us, but he's the one who drove all the way to Idaho, Boise, Idaho. Picked it up, paid for it himself. He was a council member at the time. and he brought it back and at 2:00 in the morning he drove through the what was then the city and woke everybody up with the sirens. Now it is ours. So anyway, thank you for the time.

Appreciate your time. Is there anyone else that would like to make a public comment? Seeing none, I will close public comment and we will move on to item number five, which is a report from our city victims advocate. We can have her come forward.

Thank you for coming and sharing tonight. Thank you for having me. She's so tall. Oh, can you guys hear me just fine though? That's probably good then. Okay. I think I have a PowerPoint that we can show. I made it cute and pink cuz pink makes me happy with flowers. Okay.

But I don't know. I can we can start by um introducing myself to the um new council members. I'm Celeste Hopkins and I'm the victim's advocate. I've been here for almost seven years. Seven and a half. I mean, six and a half. It'll be seven years July 1st. Um, I've enjoyed my time here. Um, I've grown a lot as an individual and also as a um, victim's advocate. Um, and I'm excited to, you know, share a little bit of what I do with for the city. Um I don't know if you guys had a chance to go over the PowerPoint before tonight's meeting, but um I am we are contracted with um Clinton and Sunset. So I do take care of all three cities. Um and I'll be showing you guys a little bit about what's going on with our victim service program. Okay. So I'm first going to start by, you know, the usual where we go over stats and kind of where we're at. Um, these stats are showing the last five months. So, from July 1st to January 7th, um, is when I pulled the stats and as we can see, Syracuse is definitely up there in comparison to Clinton and Sunset. Sunset has not been keeping me busy, which is good. Um, I don't um, I'm able to, you know, balance everything out with that. Um, although Clinton's not that behind from us. It does kind of vary when it comes to Syracuse and Clinton. I did pull the stats today and those numbers I was able to add a few more. So, as of today, we're at 195 victims. Um, there's still a few more I have to add, but I would say we're about 200 since July 1st of 2025. Um, I also I think next time I'm definitely going to add a slide where I

want to show you guys kind of a comparison so you guys can see it um in front of you guys comparing the same time frame but a different time, right? So I pulled the numbers from July 1st, 2024 to January 7, 2025. So, same timeline, just a different year. Um, five months and we were at 142 victims when I pulled those numbers um during that time period in July 2024 and 2025 and we're at 188 now combined with all three cities. So, we can see there's about 40, not the best at math, so you know, this is just off the top of my head about 40 victims more that I've um worked with this time um of year. Now, with the holidays, we usually see a little bit of a um jump when it comes to, you know, people are spending more time together, families are together. Sometimes there's alcohol, and that's kind of a common denominator when it comes to domestic violence. So, we did see um it was kind of December was kind of crazy. I'm not going to lie. Um it was a little overwhelming, but we got through it and now we just, you know, have to keep on moving forward. So, um, during the holiday season, I also pulled stats to kind of give you guys an idea of what I worked with. And I, um, counted the holidays as from Thanksgiving to the New Year's weekend. So, January 3rd, so about um, November 26 to January 3rd of 2026. And I worked with about 40 victims. And this is all three cities combined. Um, and I did notice more calls were actually coming in that were involving male as victims, which was kind of interesting. Um, just in Clinton real quickly, we actually had three females that were arrested the same weekend for domestic violence. Um, I think that's the most I've seen in just females arrest in one weekend, and that was over um New Year's weekend. With that being said, um again, victims

um during the holiday season, I also um the comparison was there was 18 males and 22 females. So, you can see it's kind of like males are up there as well. Before in the past, we would see more females calling in or more females victim than males. And males are kind of climbing up there as well, making it more even. If you guys have questions, feel free to interrupt me. I tend to talk really fast, too. We can go to the next um slide. So, this one right here, um, it's a graph just showing you guys of those are the five most common victimizations or cases, um, that I deal with when it comes to crime. Obviously, domestic violence is always the one that's up there with Syracuse being 79 and, um, Clinton being 51. So, with again, Sunset, we were really um, slow, so that's always good. But stalking and harassment, we um often see we I've noticed a lot of cases that are being screened or um charges are being are being filed for electronic communication harassment. So they um victims are needing more resources as in more um explanation on what's going on with the cases, the CJ, the court process and so on, more notifications being um provided to the victims as well. Um, Syracuse had the just like I as Syracuse had the most EV cases compared to the other cities. So, 79 cases and Clinton at 51. And then I also noticed with like child abuse cases, I've seen reports come in where um I've worked usually this is the highest number I've actually worked with with child abuse cases in such a short amount of time. And the reason being is because uh those cases are either being uh investigated a little bit more because there's going to be charges are going to be screened or charges have been filed. So because it actually got or um was filed in our criminal justice system with the court system, that's when I get involved. In um child abuse cases where we don't have any criminal

charges, normally I don't get involved unless I'm requested to do so. So that's kind of um a number that I saw that did go up in the last few months. We can move on. Let's see. And then um these are this next slide would be the services that were provided. Um I'm only going to go over the ones that I um I think are the probably the most important although all of them are important but number one which is information on criminal justice system criminal justice process. pretty self-explanatory. That was 293 times. Um again, that 293 number or that number we see on that row uh role row is um times and not victims. So potentially I can help a victim and explain the criminal justice the criminal justice process five times. So it's just how many times I go over that. Um, when it comes to prosecution interview advocacy, that's how many times I communicate with the prosecutor in all in all cities. A lot of that involves a lot of sending and emailing notes on each case for that specific um court dates. So, I have court on Wednesdays and then Thursdays. Wednesdays it's Syracuse and then Clinton right after Syracuse. We have the scene judge. Um, and I always send those emails to the prosecutors. Um, there are there are four prosecutors I work with. There's two in Clinton, one in here, Mr. Winchester, and the one in Sunset, which actually now it's Ryan and Brandon who work for the county. So, um, building those relationship with those pro prosecutors is very important to be able, you know, stay on the same page when it comes to, um, victimization in the court system. Um, let's see. So, I've also seen more cases where um, they're being sent to the county. And what that means is these cases that were are coming in are more serious. So, they're more serious, they're more dangerous. Um, victims are

needing a little more attention. And what um that includes is more emotional support, u more explanation on what's going on, talking about safety. Um, I've actually given a lot of safety plan with a lot of victims, um, this this last month. And that really entails like, okay, what can you do in order in case you have to leave the house in emergency? Oh, you can go to Walmart and buy those, you know, a burner phone. The burner phone you can hide it. um it's somewhere where only you know and if you have to leave that house or your your phone gets broken, you have that burner phone to either um make call 911, call your mom, whoever you need a call, but you have that extra um communication and no one knows about that. So I really like that um plan that I always give to victims especially of domestic violence. And then so last week I did want to point this out when it comes to um the um court last week I had 13 or 14 cases in um Syracuse and Clinton combined. That's a lot of cases. And all of those cases actually needed a little bit more um discussion with the prosecutors. And there was four protective orders or pre-trial protective orders that were requested. And what that means, I also have to send all that information over to the court clerks to be able to get all that information inputed or in the system. And then I have to call the victim, let them know, okay, here's your protective order. Either mail it out a copy or email a copy of the protective order. So there's just more um things to do with each specific case. Um so it's just more time consuming. We can go on to the next slide. I don't know where what time I'm at to be honest. Um this is kind of the same thing I was just talking about with the slide um previously. It just kind of shows it breaks down the ones for the services provided for Syracuse ONI. Uh most of them is just offering resources and that is talking about CVR crime victim reparation program talking about how to obtain a protective order. Um safe

harbor crisis center um what else can it be? Utah legal services. There's a lot of resources out there that are available for victims. So, um, a lot of the times we go through all of them. A lot of the times they only need one, just case by case scenario. Notifications of criminal justice events, you know, just letting them know when the next court date is. And then the emotional support is a big one as well. We can go on to the next slide. Okay. So, what's new? Summer events. It's always nice, you know, um, to know that summer is right around the corner. So, I'm going to be prepping for that soon. you know, kind of figuring out what to do for um Syracuse Heritage Days and um what fun things that'll be giving out to kids. Um so I'm excited for that. And then we have our victim service training that's coming up next month. We've actually been working on this for I kid you not, at least a year now. And for whatever reason, it just hasn't worked out with everybody's schedule. Um I wanted to do one training where all the departments can come so we don't have to do multiple. Um, so we finally were able to do that and we are going to do it here in Syracuse at our training um, in our conference room and then I am bringing I asked Trent Dresen. I don't know if you guys know who that is. He's a prosecutor for the Utah Council um, Utah Council prosecutor's office in Salt Lake and he's really good at presenting um, information when it comes to um, domestic violence, sex assault, and that's what he does. So, I'm excited for him to present to our officers um on how to deal with tra being trauma informed um domestic violence and how to work with victim advocates because it's always really nice to be able to, you know, have that extra training. Um and then I'm also going to have we're going to have a survivor story who's going to share um what happened in their life when it came to being a victim of a crime. And this survivor is actually um a local who grew up in Syracuse. She's about my age. Um, and I'm really excited for officers to hear this story because

it just happened here and um, so I'm excited for that training. I'll have to get let you guys know how that goes on the next meeting when I'm here. And then challenges, we kind of went over this a little bit as well when I was talking about services, but again, victim victims just need more time and more emotional support. I've been meeting with victims in person a lot more than I have ever in the last um six, seven years I've been here. Um and that's just because it's it's easier to, you know, build that relationship in person and kind of seeing that person in um face to face and they feel more comfortable also opening about their personal life when they have someone in front of them. Um seeing an increase again in violent DV crime. So they just need more education regarding their victim rights, what resources, procedures um and challenging times for Ellie as a lot of um law enforcement, a lot of our officers are new. So of course these new officers need more um training and um with I want to make sure we're all on the same page. I want to make sure not just Syracuse but also Clinton because you know I'm their victim's advocate. So they require more training and more education when it comes to our victim service program. Um, and then difficulty difficulty keeping up with Casey's and maintaining program in a good standing with our federal guidelines. Let me reward that. I'm still keeping up with the federal guidelines. So, everything's great there. But what I'm trying to get at with that um is that with everything being so busy with how much time victims are needing from me, I'm having um a difficulty time trying to figure out where I'm going to fit this volunteer or intern in my schedule. um when you um bring on a volunteer or an intern, which usually they're interns from Wever State University, um they re you I want to make sure they're being properly trained. I want to make sure that they're um they have my full attention. So, it's kind of tricky trying to provide all of this when my

schedule is already a little tight, but you know, everything will work out in the end. Um, and then right now, unfortunately, I do have a few projects on hold uh just because um my number one priority in this program is making sure our victims are being taken care of. They deserve to be taken care of. They deserve to be um obviously um informed on what's going on with their case. And aside from that, it's in their rights, right? So, we just want to make sure that um their advocate is being good and keeping them updated on what's going on. And then victim service folders, those are those those are actually really timeconuming. So I need to um kind of figure out a way what's the best way to um maybe not have it be so timeconuming because they have to be printed put together and believe it or not it's actually takes a little bit of time. But we do have volunteers that I should probably utilize a little bit more. So I'm kind of been like brainstorming on how I can you know better utilize um volunteers that we do have in the police department. updating our web web page. That has been a goal of mine for about a year now. I have to get with Cara. Cara's very nice and I know she'll help me when um I have the time to come talk to her. So, I would like to update that and make it like more um victim friendly. Um maybe provide more information and so forth. And then lastly, I did talk to Chief Davis about this a little bit. I want to make some of the interview rooms a little more familyfriendly. When you walk in there, they're kind of like dull and boring. So, I think if like maybe we can I don't know do something more where here in Syracuse I just asked permission if we can buy like little bins where I can put like coloring books and like some crayons in case a mom comes with a you know a toddler who wants to be kept busy with toys. Something along those lines. I don't know. Put a happy picture on the wall. Something like that just to make it a little bit more friendlier. Um, but that's kind of what um the projects I really want to get done this year and we'll get to it eventually, but that's where we're at with challenges. And then

I'm just going to end it with the next slide with a happy stuff. Why not end it with a happy ending? So, in December, I saw a lot of um and I didn't pull stats. If you guys want to know stats, we can I can definitely get that um pulled for you. But I for me personally, I saw a lot of suicide that happened during the holiday season. For whatever reason, I feel like it spiked. I don't know the numbers. Again, I can pull those numbers if you guys need me to. I can talk to Mariana or the whatever police department. Um, but it kind of had me thinking, um, man, we need something like good, right? Like we need to do something, um, I don't know, some positive during the holidays. And so the goal was to um there was a family in one of the cities I work with where um their children they're not very what how do you put it? Um they don't have the best picture of law enforcement. So they don't like talking to officers. They try to stay away. Why? Because every time they have an interaction with an officer, it's a negative interaction, right? they're eating they're either either seeing mom and dad being arrested or something negative is going on. So I wanted to create a positive interaction with um the youth. I so I spoke to Chief Davis and then we were um I was given permission to out of the victim service budget to buy 25 gift cards $5 each for Maverick. And the goal was to have officers just go out there and start a positive interaction with the kid. You know, just be cool. I don't know. They're 14. talk about skateboards or whatever they talk about these days, you know. Um, so Sergeant Johnson and his crew there, I've heard they're really good. So then they I was going to share some pictures, but then I wasn't able to. I talked to Cara about that. I rather be safe, you know. So I wasn't able to share those pictures, but they did go to Bluffridge Elementary and, you know, interacted with kids, played games, and I thought that was really cool. Um, I just wanted something

positive during the holidays. So that made me smile seeing those pictures. That is my happy ending for my presentation. And yeah, do you guys have any questions, concerns, comments? That was a lot. I'm sorry.

I I think I can uh comment for all of us that we're really grateful for the hard work that you do for our city and for the surrounding cities and for our victims. That matters a lot to us and we're very aware of the work that you do. We really appreciate it. So, thank you so much. Uh I I am kind of curious if next time we could see how many of our victims are repeat victims. Like statistically obviously you can't give us demographics and names, but I I am kind of curious with the increase in the spike of how much of that is um in in my line of work, we used to call them our frequent flyers, right? How how many of those people are continuing to use our services? I would just be curious on what the statistics of that is. Um, but I conclude with again, thank you so much.

No, thank you. I'll definitely keep that in mind for next time. Any other questions? No. Thank you. No, thank you guys. Appreciate your time. The next item on our agenda is approval of minutes. We have minutes from December 9th uh council business meeting and December 9th council work session because that was and then we had a special session on December 22nd. Do we have any uh amendments to those minutes or I'll take a motion to approve them? I motion that we approve the minutes from December 9th, 9th, and the 22nd as outlined in items A, B, and C. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor?

I. Any opposed? The next item on our list, we have to do this every couple of years. We, this is proposed resolution R26-03 designating appointing certain officers for Syracuse City. We do uh uh reappoint the police chief, the city treasurer, and the city recorder. Is there any questions about this or I'll take a motion? Do we need to name the people specifically?

Um, well, I'll name them right now. It would be Chief Davis as the police chief. Uh you're still with us, bud. And uh treasurer would be Steve Marshall and the city recorder is Cassie Brown. I move that we accept proposed resolution R2603 designating the Whoops. designating and appointing the uh city officials that the mayor just detailed. Um, second. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Item number eight is authorize Mayormon to execute license agreement between the United States of America Bureau of Reclamation and Syracuse City for Trail and Drainage improvements adjacent to the Leighton Canal. This uh is described in your packet. Does anybody have any questions? Otherwise, we can just go straight to an approval. I'll take a motion then. I move that we authorize Mayor man to execute license agreement between the United State of America Bureau of Reclamation and Syracuse City for Trail and Drainage improvements adjacent to the Leighton Canal. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor?

I. Any opposed? Also passes unanimously. uh proposed resolution R26-04 expressing support for the proposed legisl legislation authorizing a limited optional local sales tax um dedicated to emergency services for communities serving qualified state parks. This is what we talked about in our uh previous work discussion. Is there any further questions on this? If not, I'll take a motion. I move that we approve uh proposed resolution R26-04 as set forth in agenda number nine. Item nine.

Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor? I I. Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Item number 10 is a report from Syracuse City America 250 committee regarding planned events. Um, as you remember in our December 9th meeting, we formed this committee and we have met twice now, um, and talked about activities and we wanted to come back and report what the plan was for some of those activities. Do you want to take it or do you want me to take it? You do it this time. I did bring my notes. I don't know why.

Okay. So, uh, we did put this in there, but there are a couple of items that we've, uh, put forward. We have some items that are going to take place in the museum and help with the museum staff and I have written a letter to the museum staff to see get their support and hopefully uh we have on our committee the museum uh city employee who is doing an awesome job and I credit Nelden a lot for the increase in traffic over there. But for this there will be an opportunity for youth to do one of three events that they would earn a challenge coin uh for that would be just from our city. The first would be to do an uh in city um or in the museum scavenger hunt where they would find uh answers to 90 questions and if they were to do that they could earn this. The next would be a travel what they call a walkabout. And the walkabout would be travel throughout the city and take selfies at some different sites, maybe 20 to 25. We're asking them to kind of look at the most historic sites in the city. And that would get them familiar with uh some of the historic parts of our city. And the last one was to the suggestion that we would have uh anyone who wanted to memorize the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence because that's what we're celebrating, our Declaration for Independence. In that second paragraph, it's 270 words. It kind of outlines what is taking place in the specific grievances throughout the rest. And I did a similar project to this when I was just a small kid asked to memorize the Gettysburg address and I have learned from that throughout my life. So we think this is a good challenge and they would pass that off with one of the dosent that are volunteers at the

museum. So that's the general one. We also have a project that we uh decided would be a good uh opportunity for us. we would do a citywide series of fundraisers to do a new park memorial. Syracuse does not have a veterans memorial and we wanted to do some kind of veterans memorial which would still be designed and dedicated um at a spot that we decide as a council. Uh but this if we were to raise some money for this and we can get some matching funds and grants and things that we apply for, we could get a proper veterans memorial here in Syracuse, which we do not have. This one of the parameters of that that I did sit was uh some cities do a memorial just to those who have passed. We want to do one to all who served. So it wouldn't list specific people because we don't know what the parameters of that would be. That would be difficult to say. Do you just list the people who lived here, the people who were born here, the people who left from serving here? So rather than list specific names, we would le list each branch of the service in our memorial and make sure there is a proper designation for that. And lastly, there is a suggestion, though we have not confirmed this one because it's still out there, of doing some kind of celebratory Americana style uh uh se or segment race in during heritage days one day where it would be all of those traditional things that you would do at a county fair and you could get together with a team and you could if just participation would earn you a a coin. and uh we thought that that was a great idea. Those were our suggestions coming out of our uh two meetings. Council, do you have any uh feedback for the committee for the things that we came up with?

The only thing I think it sounds awesome. Um the only thing I my on number one the youth brigade. Um Oh, I forgot to mention that. Sorry. No, you're right. We uh did set out uh I was doing all this for memory. Sorry.

Our first thing was going to be we were going to ask for a youth brigade to lead the heritage days parade. This youth brigade would be made up of si of uh children or youth from uh 14 to 18. We're going to ask all the stakes to help us round up people. They will bring an American flag. We want to get 250 or more American flags to march down and lead the parade, which we all think will be an amazing awesome site. So, yeah, that's what that first one was. Sorry. Yes. And I think that is cool. I'd like to see the invitation extended to other Sure. any youth, the LDS or not, whoever whoever would like to participate.

Absolutely. Yes. The reason we did that one was we did the math. There's seven stakes with six or seven wards. It would be maybe five kids per group that would get us at least enough, but we will open this up to everybody. We just thought if we distribute the invitation that way, we could assure that we'd get at least 250. Yeah. If we just put it out through the schools, we were worried we wouldn't get enough. Any other suggestions?

Is everybody okay with our suggestions? I I can tell you that when I talked with my my kids about it, they were all pretty excited. They thought it would be a great great fun thing to do. So, that's that's four of the youth in our in our city. I think it's a great opportunity to include our youth and I think even if we are able to pull off this some kind of uh relay challenge where it's got a couple of different events, I think it'd just be downright fun. I I think it'd just be a chance where even youth could get together and make their own team and you know, doesn't matter who wins. It'd be just fun to be a part of Americana Heritage. Okay, so that's just a report. I appreciate everyone for that. The next is an annual open and public meetings act training. Um, I'm going to turn the time over to our city attorney, Colin, to give us a brief update. I thought it was really important with a new council that we cover this early in the year. Uh we will talk about uh another part of this in ethics at a later date, but we really want to make sure that we talk about the things that we have to do to meet the uh parts of this law. Colin,

thank you, mayor. Um this will probably take us about 20 minutes. I think I have developed 17 or 18 questions. You will not be graded on your answers. You don't need to publish them. Uh but we'll go through some questions and answers and have some discussions. Hopefully this will be informative for for all of us. Great. Question number one. Which of the following is not a public body? The beautifification committee, the redevelopment agency, the city council, or the planning commission? Anybody want to take a shot? The beautifification committee.

Why do you say that, Paul? um because it's it's a appointed committee.

Okay. The definition of a public body has five things that are in the statute. Number one, it's a legislative body of a political subdivision. Syracuse is a political subdivision and we have legislative bodies. The beautifification committee is not one of those. Number two, the legislative body has to be created by law, either by constitution or state statute or ordinance. Number three, it has to consist of two or more people. Number four, it expends, disperses, or is supported in whole or in part by tax revenue. And number five, it is vested with authority to make decisions regarding the public's business. So, if you have all five of those things, then you have a public body. And it is public bodies that are required to have open meetings. Next question. A meeting is a gathering of a public body for what purpose? A to receive public comment about a relevant matter. B to deliberate about a relevant matter. C to take action on a relevant matter. D at least one of the above. Or E all three of the above.

All right. Paul was daring who went first. Who's I feel like that's a trick. It is a trick. Of course, it's a trick. I would say it's D or E.

You're correct. It's D. If you do any one of those things, then you are having a meeting. So, think of your work meetings. In your work meetings, you don't take action. You don't do anything under number C, but it's still an open meeting. In your business meeting, you receive public comment and you deliberate and you take action. So, all three fit. So if you are doing any one of those things as a public body, you are holding a meeting. Next question. A meeting is a gathering of a public body with a quorum present. How many members of the Syracuse City Council does it take to make a quorum? Mr. Kra, this is like law school.

Lawyers don't do math. That's why I picked on you. Um, I would say it's enough to have a vote that counts. Okay. So, you are a six member council, right? Is three a quorum? Yes. Yes. If there are three city council members, perhaps three is a quorum. Let's go with the general answer that it's going to be four because it has to be a majority and generally u four is four is clearly a majority of six. Three is iffy. Okay. So, it takes at least four and sometimes three to make a quorum with fewer members than that. What happens if only two of you show up? What do you do for your meeting?

It's not a meeting. You go home. Yep. Next question. All meetings of a public body are open to the public. True or false? Abe? False.

False. There can be closed meetings. Generally the rule is that all meetings are open and they are open unless they are closed and there are certain criteria to hold a closed meeting and certain procedures that you have to go through but yes some meetings can be closed. Next question. A workshop is not open to the public. I remember back in the day when I was serving on a city council and if we we didn't want to discuss something in public, we'd say, "Well, we're going to hold a workshop or we're going to go on a field trip." Are those things public meetings? Call on somebody.

I just called Julie. The public in our workshops now.

Yep. though those things are public meetings just like regular meetings. They can be closed but unless they are closed pursuant to statute they are in fact public meetings. So let's say you want let's say you want to take a field trip down to the secondary water reservoir and a bunch of you meet here and you get in a truck or a SUV and you drive down to the reservoir to look at it before we fill it up in the spring so that you can see how it works and and and what modifications might need to be made or maintenance needs to be done. If you're talking about the reservoir, if you're talking about secondary water, if you're talking about the funds that it might take to maintain it, you are in fact holding a public meeting so long as there's a quorum of you present. Okay. Workshops and field trips can be and generally are public meetings. Next one. How much public notice is required for a public meeting? Andrea,

what are you going to guess? 24 hours. 24 hours at least. Good answer. Okay. Any exceptions to that? Yes, you can have emergency meetings. If you have an emergency meeting, you're still required to give as much public notice as is practicable under the circumstances. So, you've got only 3 hours. The emergency has come up. You're going to get together at 7:00. You give your you give your public notice 3 hours early. You don't wait until 5 minutes before and then give your public notice. One more thing. If a public body holds regular meetings throughout the year as the city council does, it meets every second and fourth well not every but most second and fourth Tuesdays. At least once a year you have to publish that schedule so so that the public knows when your meetings generally are held. And finally on this topic um an agenda an agenda is required as part of the public notice for a public meeting. And in the agenda, you have to describe the items sufficiently so that the public can understand what it is that you're going to talk about. Next question. Mayor, this one's coming to you. A public body may take final action on a relevant matter in a public meeting even if the matter was not included on the agenda. True or false?

False. False. Simply cannot do it. Of course, once again, there would be an exception for an emergency, but short of an emergency, if it's not on the agenda, it doesn't happen. Next question. Written minutes and recordings are required for open meetings, closed meetings, or all meetings? Paul all meetings. Okay. Anyone else? Anyone want to help? Paul in in certain closed meetings they can uh some things are protected.

Yep. Written meetings are required for sorry written minutes and recordings are required for all open meetings not necessarily for all closed meetings and there are some exceptions there that we could talk about um for the closed meetings. Now a brief diversion about grandma. Let's say we have draft minutes. Are draft minutes public under the Government Records Access Management Act? Or can you say, "Sorry, they haven't been approved. I'm not going to distribute them to you." Yes, you can say that. Yes, you can. But you would be wrong if you did. Draft minutes are publicly available. What about uh approved minutes? Public or non-public? Public.

Julie, this one's going to be better for you. Yes, approved minutes are public. And what about recordings of public meetings? We broadcast our meetings live, right, Cassie? Is this recording public or non-public? Obviously, it's public. We're sending it out there. Answer for everything is I'm going to refer to council. My answer is if you refer to council, I'm going to refer to Cassie. Excuse me. Next question. A closed meeting may only be held if blank number of the members of the public body are public body who are present vote to close. What number of you have to be present to close a public meeting? Good

question. Is it a majority? Is it unanimous? Is it at least 2/3 or at least 1/2? It's unanimous. 2/3. At least 2/3. Okay. at least twothirds of you. So, here's we're back to the math questions again. If six members of the city council are present, how many have to vote to close the meeting? Four. Four. If there are five of you present, how many have to vote to close the meeting? Four.

Still four. Three of you would only be 60%. And you've got to get to 66%. If four members are count of the council present, how many have to vote to close the meeting? Three. And if only three members of the council are present, how many have to vote? Three.

It's a trick question. It probably would never happen because I think if there were only three three of you, you wouldn't be holding a public or a closed meeting in most cases. A meeting may be closed to discuss the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual. True or false? True. You can close a meeting to discuss those things. I've heard it said many times over the years, we're going to close the meeting to discuss a personnel issue. Well, that's not technically right. You have to be closing the meeting to talk about the character or professional competence or mental health or physical health of an individual. And you may not know this, but you don't have to take minutes during that.

And you don't have to take minutes and you don't have to record that discussion for this type of a closed meeting. So, what if you close a meeting to discuss changing the color of the public works uniforms? That's a personnel issue, but it doesn't talk about the professional competence, right? That would not be legal to close a meeting for that reason.

You could not do that. Um, let's see. I've got another one. Oh, you you want to have a discussion about closing this administration building at noon on Christmas Eve? That's a personnel issue, but once again, it's not professional competence or character or physical or mental health. So, not all personnel issues qualify to close the meetings. We're just about done. A meeting may be closed to discuss the purchase or sale of real property if a public discussion would disclose the appraised or estimated value of the property or prevent the public body from completing the transaction on the best possible terms. True or false?

True. True. And we do that fairly regularly. I wanted to shorten the question. So, it's not just sale or purchase. It also includes exchange or lease. We just kind of ran out of room there. The moral of the story is state statute has a list of times when you can close a public meeting and if it ain't on the list, you can't close the meeting. A public body may not hold electronic meetings unless it has adopted an ordinance that allows and governs electronic meetings. That's straight out of the statute. So the question is, has Syracuse City adopted such an ordinance? Yes. Yes, we have.

Yes, we have. And you can hold public meetings. Excuse me. Electronic meetings. How much public notice is required for an electronic meeting? Andrea. Uh that was seven hours. Let's go with the same. That's 24. Yes. Thank you. I knew you'd get back to that number again. It doesn't make any difference when it's an in-person meeting or an electronic meeting. It's still that same 24-hour deadline. How many members of the city council can meet together outside of a meeting to talk about an action that will be taken in a future public meeting?

Two. Two could do it. Can three do it if one of them's the mayor? Maybe. Maybe three. Can four do it? Absolutely not.

Four can never do it. So, anytime you're tempted to get together with three of your best friends and talk about something on an agenda and see how you're all going to vote, just don't do it in those numbers. Okay? Can a member legally text other members about a relevant matter during a meeting? So, let's say we're in this meeting and we're having a discussion. Can Paul text Julie and say, "How are you going to vote on this?" The answer is no. You can text each other and send emails to each other all you want when you're not in a public meeting, but when you're in a meeting, you got to turn your phones down. You don't have to turn them off, but just don't use them. You can't during the meeting. And we got two more questions. True or false? A court can void an action taken in violation of the Open and Public Meetings Act, but the plaintiff cannot recover attorney's fees.

So, we do something, we're in violation of the act, somebody sues us. Can the court void that action that we took? Yes. Yes. Can the court also impose attorney's fees and costs? No. Yes. So getting getting your action overturned or voided by the court, it's a slightly thing. It's going to end up in the newspaper that that happened, but paying that 10 or 15 or $20,000 attorney fee bill is not going to be fun. So let's don't go there. And I believe, yep, finally, a member who knowingly or intentionally violates a law governing closed meetings can be charged with a crime. True or false? True. True.

True. It's a class B misdemeanor. The maximum fine is 1,850 bucks. The maximum time in jail is 6 months. So, don't knowingly and intentionally violate the Open and Public Meetings Act. And thank you very much. Any questions? Okay. If you got if you got more than 15 right, see me and I'll uh get some day old donuts from the police department and share them with you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. That was awesome. Appreciate that.

At this point, council, we're going to go to what we call our um mayor and council reports. These are generally reports on the service that you have done in one of the committee assignments. Since we won't be talking about that until our next meeting, um I don't expect to have a lot of council reports, but I will give you the opportunity in case there's something you need to report on. Um let's start with you, Abe. Did you have anything you wanted to bring to the table? I'm brand new. No, I'm good. And and no is an expectable answer at any meeting, correct? Nothing from me. Okay, Paul, I have already emailed out my notes from the planning commission meeting.

Excellent. Uh the CTC is back in session so there'll be more next month. Communities that care. Andrea, I am also

which is also just fine. I just have to ask that way you're given an equal opportunity. And uh as far as me, I think most of the things that I have to report on were already reported on as agenda items. So I will defer to another date. I'm going to now open it up for public comment. Is there anybody that has a public comment uh for the council or Okay, seeing none, I will close public comment and then I am going to declare us in recess for five minutes and we will reconvene in the conference room. Uh the next part of is is a discussion that I wanted to share with everybody about some of the things that have gone on just recently. So we will reconvene in five minutes in the boardroom or the conference room.