City Council - Regular Meeting

I've never been turned off. Yes.

Right. Don't worry. And I would say for Oh, really?

Yeah. took all over. There's our mountain dress. greenhouse. Yeah, sure. That picture looks more like

good. All right, we'll we will get started again. Um, I know this may seem like a boring topic, but I promise Springmire will make it lots of fun. Wow.

Gonna bring Springmire up. Uh, talk about some some things they've been working on, him and his team. Um, as well as the Maverick Center and some successes they've had. and uh not the entire list of new businesses, but a decent list of some things that have come to the city. So, thanks R. Thank you. With that intro, I'm going to go I'm going to give her Abby and find the pictures that she wasn't able to post on public media and then send those out of county.

Okay. Um medical and biomed is an area that uh over the past over the last year we've seen some great successes and and great steps forward. Obviously we all know about the University of Utah campus and we know about Nano at least in in name and in theory. Um what what you may not know about Nisano is not only do we have the manufacturing building that many of us got to tour with the 10 ft thick concrete on all four sides. Um, they've also relocated their corporate headquarters from California to West Valley. And, excuse me, coming soon will be a new 211,000 square foot critical mineral center that will also be going out in the Lake Park area. Um,

not yet. Yep. Is that revenue?

It will be. it is a subsidiary of Nisano but yes they're same similar don't know about the ownership but yes um in addition to those also out in the lake park area we've got the med medical innovation and technology campus or the MIT campus ratio therapeutics is a company um that is already announced they're going to be uh expanding they they're in Austin and they're going to be expanding um here. Um in addition uh Sego Therapeutics is also um is also in right now. These are examples when Nana came in. Um, we were told and told you that the the growth of them of the of the reason this was such an exciting company for us is the opportunities to put these um radioisotopes. They need a delivery system and the lifespan of a radioisotope is 7 days. So sending it across the country, it it doesn't work. So it's we're seeing an influx and we're seeing more and more of these of these uh pharmaceutical and therapeutic companies that are located here to be in that to be in Nano's uh orbit. Um we've got and I can say this because um Mr. Hansen said it in a in planning commission meeting. I wasn't sure it was public yet, but since he did, I will. Uh they're working on a cancer treatment uh hospital coming this among a few other few other things that'll be coming toward coming to you in the next few months uh in the Lake Park area. And

then there's one more that I really wanted to tell you about today and I can't. It's not quite ready for prime time, but in the next 30 maybe 60 days of the outsight, we're going to have another big announcement coming. So stay tuned. Maverick Center. Um, one of the one of the biggest things that's happened in the Maverick Center in 2025 was we have a new general manager. Now, obviously, we were all saddened by the necessity of having a new general manager, but the bright side is uh Jeff Davis um what is Jeff's doing a fantastic job. We're really excited about him. He brings with him a wealth of experience from other facilities around the country, uh including publicly owned facilities, which is which has been really beneficial. He he gets our he gets our budgeting unique public budgeting system really well. Um he comes with big ideas. Maybe most importantly for me he brings an unwillingness to accept the status quo. That which has been at the Maverick Center isn't we're not doing it just because that's the way we've always done it and we're we're seeing a lot of progress over there. Um, we all know we're in the last season for the Grizzlies. Get uh get your tickets before before it's done. Um, but this brings new new opportunities for us at the Maverick Center. Um, some of those uh are some some concerts between available dates that we have and the lack of available dates at the other uh indoor uh arena in the valley. due to their um schedule and and renovation schedule.

Couple of big names we've landed uh coming up this summer. Olivia Dean will be playing the Maverick Center. Um this concert sold out in less than 24 hours and that was six months. Yeah, at least six months before she won a Grammy for the best new artist of the year. Um so we're really excited about her. Megan Trainer is another one that's coming to the Maverick Center. Um, this is a nationwide tour for her where she's playing Madison Madison Square Garden. She's playing all of the big NBA uh arenas and she's playing the Maverick Center. So, this is great. Um, we also landed a new sponsorship. Uh, Canyon View Credit Union came on as a sponsor for the stage. Um, this is a $250,000 a year per year for fiveyear deal. So, $1.25 million sponsorship from Canon View. Um, it's another 1.25 in the bank uh at the Maverick Center. And maybe most importantly, it's it was structured in a way that when it comes time to renegotiate the naming rights of the building, this would not preclude us. There are no exclusives given in there. So it because they'll overlap. That deal runs out in four years. So exciting things at the Maverick Center. Um if you don't if you haven't gone to Angel and reserve your tickets yet to Olivia Dean for the suite, I'd get on it because those are that's going to be hot show.

We did 2.1 million in net operate operating profit in fiscal year 25. We had 49 ticketed events, uh, non-Grizzlies ticketed events there for totaling 14.3 million gross ticket revenue. Top five shows in terms of of ticket sales is interesting to me. Sleep Token was number one. And I I I challenge anyone in this room to know who Sleep Token is. I only do because my son went and he loves them. Yes, they are loud. They are loud. They are anonymous.

They wear masks. They do not do interviews. They do not uh put out their real names. Uh and they they were the number one ticket sale um at the Maverick Center. Forest Frank coming in right behind is a is a Christian rock artist. And Tonics did their holiday show. I'm in Corno. Um, and then Bring Me the Horizon. And I had to Google Bring Me the Horizon. I still don't know who they are, but we had some we had some good shows and and as you know, like 9,03 for an end stage. That's that's capacity. That's that's as good as we can do there. Yes, ma'am. So, um, the last month there's been posters on telephone pole and power poles down 31 and down Redwood for a concert that just canled. Are we putting them out or is somebody else putting out?

I'd have to look. It's I doubt it's us. Um, I don't know which concert that is, but we're we would not be we would not be doing that level of of uh grassroots marketing. So, I'm fine to send them to my and ask them to be all gone. Absolutely. Gone. They're gone. Gone. Do you remember what the name is on them? Yeah, they're two different size. Over there. They were all removed. Two different artists.

Okay. If we have those again, if we see those again, let me know and we'll that's that's a my guess is that that's either a self-promoting concert or certainly not a concert that we're actively participating in the promotion in and we can clamp down on on that. That's Yeah, we don't do that. Any other questions on Maverick Center before I move on? Okay. um new businesses. Um we had a lot of ribbon cutings and groundbreings this year from from Longhorn Steakhouse where we got to see Will's uh Will's steak knife skills on display while standing. That's no easy feat. Um to Chick-fil-A to uh Cindy and I and our shovels at Via West or the Mocha Mocha Business Park. Um, we issued 120 commercial permits uh this year. And I want to pause here for just a second and kind of go off script a little bit. One of the things that we my department we are we need we're selling the city. That's part of our that's part of our job when we're recruiting new businesses. And there's a lot of attributes to the city that we that we showcase, whether it's our central location, our access to transportation, our workforce. We've got some attributes that give us some obvious advantage. One of those though that probably gets more traction with these business than any um I need to give the credit where the credit is due and that's to Steve's department and to Dan's department. We our ability to turn a building permit fast. We can do it faster than any other city. Now, I'm not not city our size,

period. We can do it faster than any other city. And we hear it all the time in a in an industry where Yeah. Sorry. I didn't go ahead, but I had a customer the other day. I was taking his order and he said West Valley City 6 to 8 weeks. Salt Lake City 6 to eight months to a year and a half.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And then when you're talking about an industry where time is money, this is this is real money to them. Um just in the last two weeks, um Black Diamond uh outdoor equipment is is coming to West Valley. They're they're taking some they're taking about 100,000 square foot of distribution warehouse space. Um, we had a a meeting with with their whole team and their their contractors uh in charge of their construction and they're taking existing space. So, this is just simple tenant improvement permit. But he tenatively asked, "Is there any way we could you think we'd get a permit in less than 3 to 6 months?" I said, "3 to six months? It's a TI permit. like we'll turn that in 3 to six days unless it's unless it's overly complicated and they're floored. And then just last week, Steve and I were on a and and Nate and Bridget were on a conference call um or a Zoom meeting with a site selector that's looking at lo relocating a a business and they're looking at couple of different sites and same thing. How fast can you turn a permit? like if it's a TI permit 2 weeks, it's new construction 6 weeks and they're they're stunned and it's it's a huge advantage for us. Um so in 2025 out of the 120 commercial permits issued total almost $330 million in new capex. Um those permits broke down to 35 of them were new construction

for almost 283 million and 85 were the TI um for 46 million. Um the highest value of the new construction were the Discover North and the MIT both in that fast uh vastly or quickly growing biomed sector that we were talking about. I al should should also point out this was a down year for us in terms of building permits combination of construction costs in high interest rates. There's not a lot of capex um dollars being spent. So for 330 million in new permits in an off year was a good year. That is my presentation. and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

Yes.

Going back to the permits, I'm just curious what it is that we're doing different. Are we missing things? And I I think it's great. Happy that we're able to accommodate it on business friendly, but what's it what is it that we're doing that other cities are not willing or not able to? And I'm going to look at Steve as I answer this and see if I if I'm going down the right path and if not he'll redirect me. I think there's a number of factors involved in that. I think I think our our development meetings that we have with our with with new tenants and we give, you know, new new business coming in. We give them the opportunity to come in. It used to be an in-person meeting. Now it's even easier. Now it's a virtual meeting where we have all relevant departments in the city as well as the utility companies that that may have um you know a a say or need to sign off on that. And we're all sitting down in the same room at the same time asking the important questions and you know often this takes place before they ever submit a building permit application. So, we're getting ahead of the game um and solving a lot of those problems before that permit application is even submitted. Um but I think I think we just we're we're just quick. We're good. We're efficient and we've got people that are willing to work together and walk down the halls from public, you know, from from building department to engineering and saying, you know, hey, what's the hold up on this? they're they're they're calling me or we got to we got to come up with a solution to make this thing work. So I I certain we're not missing things. Um Jerry Thompson's as good as it gets. Um and he takes pride in his speed but also

his his u attention to detail. We're just we're just doing it faster. I don't know why the our capital city can't seem to do it in less than 18 months, but well, they're not getting call backs. They don't know where the permit is in the process when they're in a different city. And they just can't get answers. And here, they get call backs. They get the attention they need. Y and it's just

And I think our our portal system has helped out a lot as well. It's all done electronically. They're uploading the files. Often times the delays we'll we'll Steve's office gets these calls. We'll get a call saying, "Hey, it's been 10 days. I haven't heard anything. Where's my permit?" And then the answer is check your email because you we responded and gave you back um gave you back a red line 48 hours after you submitted it and you weren't looking for it yet. So that's often the biggest delay more often. And it's usually the engineers and the contractors, not the obviously not the owners, but they're not expecting it for a week to 10 days. So when it comes in two days, they're not they're not looking for it yet. They'll miss them.

And working with another city and the person in the building department can say, "Well, I need this. I need this engineering." Well, I sent that to you three emails ago. and they're not just coordinating. So, I think our staff is just so y seasoned and know what they're doing that they're on top of it.

And I'll and I'm going to I'll take a little bit of credit uh on my department for that. Nate's um one of one of Nate's jobs is to be that concier service. And you know when when Black D when we had the meeting with Black Diamond, he said when you submit for your permits, email me right when you do it because now I can track it and it's and not that, you know, any of Steve's guys or any of Dan's, you know, guys need a kick, but he can we can shepherd along the process and and we're just giving a little bit more of that handholding and and concier service to it. Steve, did I miss anything there?

Okay. You know, if I can add to I um I I really do think they developed a culture where like Jonathan is saying, um you know, Nate as well has been awesome

because it's not normal. That's not a normal um like previous cities I've been in, I I've I get complaints. Um and I that's more normal to get complaints from businesses. Um I haven't gotten it doesn't there's not much that relies to Yeah. because there's a culture that they've established there. I think it's been a while like I mean certainly well before I got here, right? I mean, I wish I could take credit for any of that, but I think they've been rolling this way for some time. Yeah.

And um yeah, just it as far as I know, it's not it's not normally it's not a normal normal thing to be that responsive and that quick to that turn that kind of turn around. And it makes my job that much easier, right, to to add that as a cherry on top to all the other attributes that we can sell as a as a city to let them know that you'll be ready. We'll be ready faster than you are is usually what we tell them.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Spring Meer. Obviously, that's never a boring topic, but uh yeah, some some cool things we've been doing and we're we'll we'll continue it. Um, next we've got Sam Johnson coming up uh talking to us about a little bit of uh some crisis communication, something we have to always be prepared for. It's something that I believe we're very good at. Um, but Sam's going to talk to us a little bit on that. Um, and then some updates to our branding as well as uh our website that we've been working on. Thanks, Sam. Hello, Mayor and Council and everybody. Um, I think the first thing we want to talk about is I think we need to change the name of this. There's no It doesn't feel like a retreat. So, if we can I don't know what that should be called, but if we could make that adjustment, I'll work on branding or our team will try to fix that. So

um I appreciate the thoughts last year we had a lot to think about and and with EPO talking about alignment. I think one thing that we have tried to focus on is being in alignment with our administration with EPO and John but also being in alignment with what council is wanting from us as a as an office and the work that we're doing. And that's something that we keep in mind um with reputation and recognition in our office. And so kind of wanted to go through just a few things and uh feel free to interrupt or bring up any discussion that you would like to do. Um with media relations, I just wanted to I'm going to hit this fairly quick, but jump in. Um and we've had some great comments from from all of you over the past year about things that you see in the media and things that we're doing and and what we're trying to to accomplish. Um, and I'll just go through it. So, understanding the story being presented. We get hit up almost every day by different media about different issues that are happening. And there's always an angle to a story that we're trying to identify and understand. And and one thing that um, EPO has talked to us about is is this a story that we want to be involved in? We we get roped and as being the second biggest city in the state and with the team that we have, we get asked a lot by media to often become the face of whatever issues out there. And if it's a good issue, we're happy to be that face, but we get they try to force us into being the face of something that we have no interest in being the face of. And one of the things that came up recently and and we see it in the news is is ICE. and they love calling us saying, "Hey, we want to get you on camera. We want to talk to you about it. Look at what Salt Lake's doing. Don't you agree with what they're

doing?" Or, "Don't you disagree or whatever it is." And it's things that we have to constantly evaluate our direction as a city and what we want to attach our name to. And when it's not something that we want to attach our name to, we're happy to put out statements um clarifying what we believe. we just don't want to be the ones that are being interviewed and brought into a situation that uh we don't mind controversy if we're part of it, but when we're forced to become part of it, we don't want to do that. And so we've had a different relationship with the media over the past year or two where we're very proactive and and willing to talk a lot off the record so that they understand why we're taking certain issues seriously or not, but also uh politely declining a lot of those asks of us as a city in the medium. Any questions on that? um it becomes fairly complicated and I'm I'm proud of my team because we often have discussions as a team of how do we want to approach this issue and what do we want to do and and where do we want to be um we had a great example of positive stories um about two weeks ago was it two weeks ago yes we've developed so many relationship with reporters that whenever they have openings they want to reach out to us and one of them was a morning uh program where they had live shots throughout the morning. We got that first call on a Wednesday afternoon for a Friday morning to do it. And they just said, "We know that if you guys want to do this that you guys can make it happen." And we did. We had the mayor come and speak. We had Eco that came and did these live interviews that morning. We had fire talking about the blood transfusion program. And and it's things that we appreciate that the media is starting to look to us more about the positive things that we can start talking to them about. Um some of the

things I've got different um allow the experts to speak. One thing that we try to do as a city is when there is a specific topic, we want to get our expert in front of it. So it's not the PR guy trying to spin it to the story. If it's a story on public works, we want to get someone from public works that can speak directly so that when people see it, they're realizing they're listening to an expert, not someone trying to spin a story. Not that I ever do that, but one of the things. Um, the other thing that we've tried to do in regards to our reputation is we are the second biggest city in the state. We are going to have crime. We're going to have issues that happen in our city, but we're the second biggest city in the state. So when people start coming after us as you guys have so much crime, we do have some crime, but as you saw in the chief showed is we clarify to the media that we're not at the top of those list when we talk about per capita. When we talk about comparing us with other cities, we're often much lower on that list and that they should be aware of it so that they're not constantly throwing us under the bus when crime does happen in our very large city. And I think that's had an effect also. And I know um this was something that the mayor um believes in and and we do as well is some of the things that happen that are bad in our city are from bad places like Sandy. And I don't know if I should say that, but it happens from people outside of our boundaries that bring their crime ways to West Valley City. And so one of the things that we do, and we we've done it in the past, but now we're being forceful, is where is that person that did that thing in our city? where are they from? And if they're not from West Valley City, we would appreciate the media actually identifying it as a crime happened in West Valley City from someone that came from Mil Creek or came from Magnar somewhere else. So that's become a priority of us to identify um

who's bringing trouble to our city. They come, we catch them. When they come, we catch them. We do. We do that very well. The police that come here are stupid because our police catch them. Yeah, they shut down. That's very true. Thank you, CL.

Uh crisis communications. Um this and I'll keep this fairly short. We uh I do believe we do this very well. Um, we have situations that are high-profile and high impact and our team takes a very thoughtful approach and we appreciate John and EPO with with their guidance in it. We are lucky to have such great chiefs and and Chief Jacobs and Chief Evans who are always willing to talk us through those things. And and just a quick little explanation of what my team does when that happens and the things that we're trying to to keep track of is if we take a um and I I'm sorry to bring up Westfest, but we bring up that situation that we had last year. In that kind of situation, the chief finds out what's happened and she relays that to EPO and and EPO typically gets that out to all of you. The chief then talks to Roxanne on my team and gives all the information that she has. Roxanne then calls me and we come up with a plan on how we want to work with the media and how do we want to get the word out to our residents and then I work with EPO as we move forward. Roxanne continues to work with the chief and the investigator from our side that's handling the case. Then we instigate our team and and we have Travis from my team is here and we have several members of our team that do everything from rounding up the media that's going to be near where Westfest was. And I'll take that specific example. Last year when that happened, uh Travis and Matt McKela went right out to the shopping mall across the street from where Westfest was to round up the media, get them all situated, answer basic questions, but have them ready for the press conference that Roxan would do. I went out to the site with Roxan and Roxan met with the investigators and and I kept an eye on what was going around so that we understood what we were getting into and we talked about

it. And then my team of Aaron Crim and Marin, they watched the media. They did all the social media keeping an eye on it. And then we all communicated through text and through phone calls so that we were able to cover our residents who we cared the most about knowing what was happening if there was danger in the situation but also be able to pass out all the information to media. When we deal with media, we want our residents to have the information first. So we don't go in front of media without it going to our residents first. So we do that through social media. So when our residents see it, if they want it directly from us, they can have it before the media gets it. When the media gets it, we don't know where that story goes often. So we want to make sure we get it out that way. That's kind of how we've handled all of these situations. Luckily, we haven't had huge fires in the city, but um we're ready to work on that. and we have had earthquakes and other things that we follow typically what we're doing and working with media to get them the information so that it can be disseminated disseminated out to the public. Are there any questions on that?

So, do any proactive um information about how we're going to make Westpest safer this year because that is one I get asked a lot.

Yeah, I I Yes, we will be. Um, and that's something that I know we'll work with EPO and I know EPO and us will work with council on kind of the questions suspicious on kind of the questions that are coming up from the community that we definitely want to answer March 10. I don't know if everyone heard um we'll do do it in close session because it's part of it is our security plan that we um any questions on what I've gone through so far.

Yeah, branding and I and I see it on some of your shirts. We're going to talk about that. So in the beginning as and I don't know if we've shown this before but we had the tri city and that is Granger, Redwood and Hunter. We've all heard of what we could have named our city differently but uh those are the cities and this was and I and I believe you've heard the story as well. This was an employee that came up with the logo just wrote it on a napkin basically and and turned it in and West Valley City ran with that logo that we see right there. And you can see I'm going to move this guy over. There we go. Um, so that you can kind of see how the evolution has happened with our branding. And uh, these were more in the 2010s. These were pre200. And then we have the past decade. That's what we've used. We've used the blocks right there. And then we've got our seal. Um, we consider that our seal, not our logo. That is our actual city seal. And this is where we have now moved. And so we've got the logos. We got a black and white version and then we have the colored version. And then we have the seal versions, both of those. Um, the thing that's been exciting about having the logo out is our residents recognize it and see it. I was at the barber shop um up in on up on the east bench and when I came in he saw that I was wearing that. He's like, "Westide Pride, go West Valley City." And I'm like, "Yep." He saw the logo, knew what it was. Our residents know it and they use it and we see it more and more. I hope you're seeing that more in our community. But I think it's such a a great way for people to show um their pride in the city with the loan. Um, and then you see the seal, which is a little more formal. Uh, we

have it on some of our on a lot of our materials obviously, but I think we're using the logo more and more. Any questions on the seal and the logo website? So one of the things that we have uh been working on over the past year and this was uh I believe a priority of administration was to bring us into more current and make it more um something that we can all be proud of in our website. And so I wanted to kind of show you a little of how that's changed. This was our original website years and years and years ago, early 2000s. Um, those people, they may still be alive, I don't know, but they looked like lovely people on our city website back in the day. It then switched over in 2007. This was when we joined Civic Plus. So, Civic Plus is a large website provider for city governments. uh they have a template and they they stick to that template and they stick all of us as governments into their template and it's been effective. We've people are able to find things. This was the first iteration. This was the second and this is where we are right now with our website which I believe accomplishes some of what we were trying to do. make it easy for our residents to find things a nice look, but we wanted to take it uh to an extra to the next level. And so, right now, we have been reviewing website companies and I'll be presenting that to you on Tuesday with a recommendation of a company to to um to choose. But these are some of the examples of ideas of more modern, more current websites. And I think it's kind

of a fun way where it doesn't feel like a typical government website. The navigation tools will become very uh governmenty just so that people are used to it, but when you get there, you're seeing something that doesn't feel like a government website. Um, you have a lot of moving things, you got a lot of moving videos. It's It's cleaner. We're going to be using AI more into it and have a better search function. If you've used our search function, it's fine. We want it to be better. We want the AI capabilities to be able to help people find things quickly and not have to click four, five, six times around to find what they're looking for. So, we're excited. um this as we go through the approval process with all of you, we're hoping to have this live and running by uh October 1st is

Yes. So when you bring this to us, um can you maybe maybe you've already got this information highlight the top 50 pages or links that are hit on our web page? Yes, I can do that. what people are going to page four.

Definitely. I I will do that. Um off the top of my head, and I'll get you that list. It's dogs and swimming are two of the top 10. People love their dogs and pets and swimming pool. But yes, I'll get you that list. But that's the other. Um, yes. Yeah, I will get that for you. And and we can talk about why we chose the company we had. This is a spoiler alert. And Nicole, did we have that was the most RFPs we've ever received. We had 58 companies that actually put in a submitt. So Aaron Crim basically locked his floor for two weeks just going through every proposal and then we all met, discussed them all and then presented the EPO and John and came up with one that we think's a winner out of the 58. One of them was a $15 million proposal.

Fantastic. So and we picked it. So I can't wait to propose to be great. Fantastic. But it was it was a $15 million proposal for a website. one guy doing all of the work and he times it out by how many hours he thought it would be at his rate. $15 million.

Um, any questions on the website or any thoughts or any concerns about some of the work that we're doing as an office? I know we have part of our office with our management analysts who we appreciate very much. Um we've had a chance to work a lot with them on some different projects and support their work that they're going to be doing that they're going to be showing. But you'll see more of uh some of the things that are exciting with our outreach to residents.

I just wanted to say I've appreciated being kept in the know because when things happen your neighbors and your friends and people of the city call you. So, it's it's good to know and I've also learned when to talk and when not to talk and I've learned to refer them to.

No, and I do and I appreciate that. Um, council member, I think if you do get any media calls, you are welcome to do whatever you want as a council member or as a mayor. Uh, you're also 100% welcome just to say thank you. let me turn you over to Sam and we'll go from there because that's I don't want you ever to be caught in the situation. And if they do get you with a phone call and they start asking you questions, just you can let them know, I'm sorry, I'm not able to talk right now. Here's Sam's number. Talk to Sam and we can work out something to talk to you. We're happy to do that.

I've appreciated those text messages or emails that I'm very suspicious. So, I just think they're going to trap us and I just give it all to Sam and he makes it go away. I don't get myself in trouble.

Oh, thank you. Mayor, is there any way that you would like us to communicate? I know EVO reaches out to you. Um, is that the way that we that you want I can get the information? I I just we don't ever want you to feel like you're not getting and I and I don't mean because I know EPO is getting you that, but if there's more that you ever need, please let us know or let me know and we'll make sure you're getting what you any additional information that we're allowed to release at least.

And to Sam's point, the question, even the things that I'm sending, you know, there's obviously a whole lot more that's going on. It's just so there's certain things that I pick and choose to not bother you guys with. But um so if there's more as you see that's coming down the s there's a lot of things Sam would say sent me that maybe I don't send it to you guys because it's not maybe not going to get to the news or there something that's not worth you know but but if there are things that you've seen that you wish that you know you would have known before I could let me know and we could

figure that out too. I don't think you could over like the three carbon dioxide tests. I got questions on that and heard anything other than maybe that's a question too on is the group me that we use with all of you is that what you guys appreciate or do you want it in a different medium on how you get that information? I don't know what's the group meeting. Okay, that's but I think to Will's point overcommunicate would probably be better than under

there's numerous things that I found out on the 10 o'clock news that I thought oh okay that might have been better to have a little bit and then next year we might say under communication but that's good to know though there's something like Sam communicates very well. Chief Chief does as well to send me things and not everything that comes to me I'll put on there. Maybe I'll start with that. Maybe everything they send to me. We'll see. We'll see how that is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.

All right. Uh I think we we're making good time. Um we we considered maybe moving into tomorrow's agenda. Uh but we've got one more section planned for today. So we'll work through this and kind of see where we end with time. Uh so thank you Sam. Um we're going to bring uh Harold Melenny and Laura McPeek are two management analysts. I'm sure you've met them. and they've um worked on many many different projects over the last year and have done some great things as well as Travis Iono our marketing manager. Uh they've been working on a lot of uh improvements and extra effort with our social media as well as our youth services and various events we are now doing throughout the city. Uh so they're going to come up and give you an update on all that. I bought a laser clicker just for this.

Really excited about that. We're excited to uh to just go over social media. I took over the Instagram page six months ago. Um, so we'll just go over some of the changes that we've made and the direction that we're heading. Yeah.

Um, when taking it over, we had to have we had to establish our purpose, direction, strategy, right? The purpose of social media is pretty simple. It's to be social. It's to build engagement, but it's also to make uh it's to make people uh sorry, what is it? move people to act, right? Um, if we can establish that purpose on social media, sky's is the limit, right? That go that goes into our direction. When we speak of direction, that's the story that we're we're choosing to tell the public, right? We need to control our narrative. Um, one thing that we we decided on was to become the food capital of Utah, the medical capital of Utah, and the entertainment capital of Utah. Are any of those things true? It doesn't even matter, right? Because we write our own story. We had to choose what we present to the public. And the best way to do that is through social media. Um, we'll go into our strategy. This is of course, right, how we execute that direction with our strategy. I wanted to quickly go over why I chose Instagram first. Um, just about Instagram. Instagram is the most popular social media app um for the demographic that we're trying to hit, which is the 18 to 40 year olds. Um we choose that because it's been untapped and uh an untapped demographic for the city for far too long, right? So social media accomp uh Instagram accomplishes that. But that's just a start. Just know that we started with Instagram and we're moving to the different social platforms, but we needed a base to start with. Um, Instagram, it's like I said, it's the most popular. It's catered to smaller accounts much like ours. And then, um, yeah, like I said, it reaches that neglected or untapped demographic. And I think to add to this, so our specific strategy in regards to growing our Instagram and our social media

presence is we started with grassroots marketing, right? So, we went out to the community. We went to the high schools. We went to Valley Fair Mall. Valley Fair Mall let us rent those little bear thingies that we rode around and gave away free cookies. And that really helped us to engage the people, but it also helped us to build new relationships. So, we were able to meet people from different um businesses from Crumble. It's crazy what people will do for a crumble cookie. every time we take those down to people and and basically we have a relationship with crumble now to where anytime we need crumble companies they can just provide those for us. So being able to um capitalize on our current uh connections and then build our network has really helped us to grow our social media accounts. And another thing I'll add is that sorry um our goal wasn't to post more and like post every day but to make people feel something when we were posting so that they would come to events, engage with our presence on social media and engage with us in person too.

There's two numbers when it comes to marketing especially in social media that we need to be cautious of right is our engagement rate which is our likes and comments. You the the formula is there right? The engagement rate is how many people are actually commenting, liking, sharing our posts. That's what really what's most important. Our reach rate, um that number is dependent on how many people see our content. Um so these two rates you'll see in the next few slides, we'll talk about we compared um some of the top cities within Utah and then also cities that are comparable in size to us.

Yeah. And just to add to this, um, for the engagement rate, so social media, Instagram specifically, used to have an algorithm and the algorithm would choose what you see on your feed. And that was based before on how often you would post. So if you would post a ton, you'd post every single day, multiple times a day, a lot of times that would push those stories onto your feed. that algorithm has changed and now what matters the most is what Instagram thinks you're going to be most interested in and the best way to drive that is through engagement. Right? So if your friends, your family, the people that live around you are engaging with content, it's going to push those hosts to your timeline to your feed. So that's a big deal when it comes to strategy is boosting our engagement. Sorry, just to piggyback on that with the engagement rate the and a little bit more about the algorithm. Instagram wants people to stay on Instagram, right? So that they can push out their ads, their marketing that they have. Um, so the more that people engage with our content, the longer that they stay on Instagram, the better we sit in the Instagram algorithm. So, that's the goal. It's just to stay on top of people's feeds because like Harold mentioned, it's not like it used to be in 2023, 2024 where it was a chronological posting, right? You see what Instagram wants you to see. Um, but we'll go into that a little bit more. I'll start with Salt Lake Government's Instagram page. Um, there's a few things that I want you guys to notice here. Um, you'll see that they have 15,000 followers. They have 15,000 followers and yet their engagement rate is 1.32%. We took their last uh 45 posts um to get these numbers. A good engagement rate on Instagram is anywhere between 3 and 4%.

So they fall below that engagement rate though they have 15,000 followers. One thing to note here as well, um piggyback off of what Sam talked about branding. Um, with West Valley City and us controlling our branding, we want to feel like a premium product, especially when people see us. Um, so you'll see that the branding is very simplified and it's not, it's recognizable, right? You'll see that on these, this is a snapshot of their last eight posts on their Instagram page. I couldn't tell you what they're posting about. Most municipal government pages uh use Instagram or social media as a bulletin board, which is dated. I'm not going on social media. I'm not going on Instagram to to to see a bulletin board of events or things that are happening, right? I need something more. You'll see that they have I don't I don't I don't I don't know what's up here. But yeah,

and it goes back to the purpose of social media, which is to engage and to be social. So, we're not trying to be an information bulletin board. We're trying to engage the the population. And by the way, I hope you're all taking notes because this will help you with your own personal Instagram account, right? So, also something to bring up is Salt Lake is the capital of Utah and you'll see things like Park City is on here too and it's just missed opportunities. You know, everyone around the world knows that Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah. Everyone around the world knows that Park City is a ski thing, but they don't market themselves well enough to even know that.

Just uh that's fine. Just it's low hanging fruit for some of these bigger cities. Draper, put them on here. Draper posts every single day. Um they post on their stories as well. You'll see that it's just still it's still all over the place with their aesthetic. Their engagement rate falls below 1%. Their reach rate is only at 12.3%. So, they have 8,000 followers, but they're not doing something correct, right? And so, it's just missed opportunities. Haramman, another one of those bigger accounts. They have 12.9 follow uh 12.9,000 followers, yet they're uh I I still don't understand what they're they're trying to accomplish here, right? still super low engagement rate, reach rate still a little bit lower than it needs to be.

And something else you'll notice too is like there's so many words, right? Um don't go on Instagram to read a book, okay? So just not dogging on any cities, but you'll see what our looks like soon. Like Lauren mentioned, Park City, for as uh beautiful as Park City is, uh if I'm an outsider looking in, I wouldn't be able to tell that from their their their Instagram page, right? Your Instagram page is like your portfolio of what your city looks like or what it is or what story they're trying to tell. And I couldn't tell you what story most of these cities are telling. You'll see that these thumbnails, these thumbnails are the the placeholders for the post, right? They're just they're not fit to fit to uh fit to the screen. It's all cut off. Images are are poor quality. It doesn't fit what Park City really should be. We keep going. Salt Salt Lake. You see that they're low much saying they're posting about everything that's happening in the city. Things that they should be posting on their website, right? Not things that they should be posting on their their Instagram page. Maybe even Facebook is okay. But I'm not going on Instagram to see these things. to read all these to read all these words on the graphic and then read all these words within their caption.

Yeah. And another I was just gonna say this is a this is a good comparison to our city because we have very similar uh followers same follower count. And another important thing is that social media is about building trust and helping people feel connected to your city. And when they feel connected to your city, you'll notice that the engagement comes naturally. So these low engagements means that people don't feel connected to their city.

Again, St. George much the same. St. George has a ton to capitalize on. They're like the recreation capital. They have like all sorts of marathons and huge events. Um, pretty good engagement rate here, 1.5%. But just keep in mind that a successful Instagram is anywhere from 3% to 9%. So something to keep in mind. Average likes, average comments.

Provo, this one is like this is so upsetting for me to see as as someone as a strategic marketer, right? They have 27,000 followers. Provo should be lowhanging fruit, right? They have so many kids and so many young adults that are on social media, yet they don't capitalize it. Um because they they're treating social media like it always has been for municipal. They're treating it like a bulletin board. They're treating it um like it's just a task to do. Taylor's most terrible in size to us, right? They have 3,500 followers. Engagement rate falls below 1%. Um again, it looks like every other page that we've looked at. So, this is this was a snapshot of our our Instagram page in July of last year. Um, and this is not anything about, you know, anything negative about what we were doing, right? Because you just, you don't know what you don't know. And so, this was our Instagram page. You'll see that we had 2,900 followers. We had over,300 posts. Our engagement rate was at a 1.9%. Um, our thumbnails were all over the place. You'll see that this one here is actually our Olympic announcement. I don't know if you could tell from the thumbnail. probably you probably can't um and and just to point out something too like um for the past I mean 1.9 engagement of all the ones that we've been showing so far that's actually the better one out of all the Uncle Joe so they were doing some good things absolutely um really as Travis came in with his expertise and the marketing uh background he was able to refine a lot of things to create our page just to move it to the next level. So now we get to our page.

So you'll see that we've um I've archived a lot of our post to bring us a little bit lower in the in the in the post number. You'll see that we've increased by over 2500 or something something or so followers. Um, you'll see that all the thumbnails on our page, if you pull it up right now, all the thumbnail thumbnails on our page will tell you exactly what we're looking at or they fit within the frame or they're pleasing to our aesthetic, right? You'll see that our average likes are somewhere around 388, comments 42, and then you'll see that our engagement rate, right? It's an 8.9% right now for the last four or five posts. Mind you, 3.3 to 5% is good. 8.9%. EO talked about us being the best at everything we do. I promise we're the best municipal Instagram page in Utah.

Yeah. And let's actually show that list. So, this is a list that breaks down all the different cities that we just went over, their engagement rate, their reach rate, and I mean, it's not even close, right? 8.9% engagement rate. Um, 280% reach rate. We've also grown followers by close to 2,000 followers uh in the last year. And I mean, we're just killing it. And really, it goes back to the strategy, right? The strategy was grassroots marketing, going to the people, bringing the government to the people, having them engage with us, and then simple things that Travis brought to the table that were huge, made such a huge difference with aesthetics, with keeping everything uniform, and then being able to engage through uh videos and different things. And and by the way, we're going to get into uh we're going to show our Instagram page. If is there a link on this next slide?

So, we're going to pull up our Instagram our Instagram page.

Um and we're going to show you some of our our recent posts. And one thing that we did in regards to strategy is we leveraged events. Okay, we used events to drive our social media engagement and then we used our social media engagement to drive participation in our events and so by uh instituting some new events in the city, some new exciting fresh ideas uh we were able to drive up engagement significantly. So we're going to scroll through some of these different events and ideas that we had um just to kind of give you an idea of how we were able to leverage that to boost our engagement. You have to log in.

Oh, yeah. The uh scavenger hunt did a while back. Yeah. Which was great. I noticed recently terms trying to do something similar and I don't know if it's the way they pitched it but the very first comment was this is just weird. So if the the events that you're doing I think spot on and the way you're presenting it yeah people are catching or people are participating a lot more than I think other cities are trying to follow suit and do similar things as people are this is weird.

Yeah. Yeah. We're we're the trends setters. Absolutely. And delivery is everything right. the way that you market yourself, the way that you deliver makes a big difference. Um, and I just want to while we're pulling up this Instagram page, I just want to give a shout out to Travis. So, as we're going through strategy, I want to point something out. If you were a new city and you were trying to boost your engagement on social media, the best thing that you could do is hire the most popular person with the marketing degree, right? Because what do they already have? They already have connections in the city. And something that Travis and I have is we have so many connections. And so this isn't something that we've been building for a year. This is something we've been building for our whole lives growing up in West Valley City and having the connections that we have. And that may that plays a huge part when it comes to um engaging the community and having those connections, capitalizing on those connections. So Lauren's gonna pull up her page. Don't look at any of your make sure you like and follow. Okay. So, we're going to go through some of these. We're going to scroll back to uh best value thread. So, just talking about branding, talking about um trying to engage the community. One thing that EO really wanted to have happen at city hall is we wanted to live the place up, right? And so, an idea that we came up with to engage the community was to come up with a a clothing store. So, we instituted Best Valley Threads kind of on a as a joke to the, you know, last year's budget retreat with Best Valley City. Um, but that's been a huge thing for the community. The first time that we launched it, it sold out. We took closed to Westfest. We we had to print a whole second batch and then we took it to Westfest. We sold out again. And then since then, um, it's been a self-running machine. A huge thanks to the Treasury Department for um Jen's department being so helpful with that. Um that's kind of

where we started.

You'll see that everything looks and and I don't say it has to be my aesthetic, but this is very much my aesthetic, right? Everything looks uniform here. It looks like it's from the city or looks like look like it's from a business that knows what they're doing. Um we can keep going through it. Let's talk about July 4th. So, E4 E4 really wanted to um give an opportunity to residents to have not have to leave the city to watch fireworks and so we were able to have July 4th fireworks. And by the way, a lot of these events that we did um I think being on the budget committee really helped me and spending a lot of time with Jim really helped me to be uh finance uh conscience, right? Conscious. So, budget conscious. A lot of these events that we did, we found sponsors. to be able to connect the people to run these events. So, I think uh I think we've I mean, as far as

50,000 Yeah, I think I think $50,000 raised for different events and things that we did. So, the fireworks were amazing. Uh like I said, we institute a relationship with Crumble. You can keep going. Want to talk about this? Yeah, like I said, we wanted to become the food capital of Utah. One of the things we implemented was a a food smack series. If you haven't watched them, go watch them. We need the views. But it we really just took any any business in West Valley or any restaurant that would respond to us, we'd go out there and visit and we would not rate their food, but just highlight everything they had to offer. Right.

Yeah. And this is a this is an original idea that we had, if you haven't watched it, the the whole idea behind it is food smacks. And so we had an influencer, a Tik Tok influencer come on our show and he would literally smack his mouth after eating the food. that was kind of like the that's what stamped it as officially amazing food. And so it was just a fresh new idea that we were able to come up with that drove up engagement. Um WV combos, that's a podcast that we ran. Um that goes back to creating and controlling our own narrative, right? We were able to share with the residents and with the world what we feel and what we do and what we are. And by the way, this just the whole day going over all the wins in West Valley has been awesome. like this is another win for us and we're able to showcase some of those clubs.

We can talk about the social club. That's something that started here on Craig's team. Um it's uh I know you maybe you've seen it, but the West Valley Social Club is really just a space for the youth to come once a month for two hours to get free food, uh free snacks. There's a live DJ and they just hang out. There's no agenda. um they can leave and go as they please, but really it's just an opportunity for them to be inside of a city building around city employees and to meet different youth within the city.

Yeah. I think the first social club we had, we had like 50 kids show up and now we're like 300 kids that show up. Um, just real quick on this concert, we wanted to run a concert that uh was a free concert. And so we asked Shonoki, who's a who's a pretty renowned artist, to volunteer to donate his time to um to this concert, which he loved. He's a West Valley native. He had never done a concert in West Valley City before. And so we were able to find um other artists that were up and coming that were West Valley natives and kind of push their music. So, I think we had um anywhere from 3 to 4,000 people attend that free concert and it was just great for the community. Um it was an amazing experience for for everyone involved. We've got educational videos. We've got um this is best audio threads as well with the battle of the bill, the rivalry game.

Um and then we are able to honor businesses. So last year was our first standout business award of West Valley. Um, so we had people vote and nominate businesses. So we selected two finalists and then we're able to honor them. Um, which is just a great way to promote all the awesome businesses in West Valley. Um, and then the money hunt. So like you were talking about, something that I, um, have learned is that working with Harold and Travis and they used to be council members not being from West Valley is I got to know all these people and create relationships with them. So, we already knew that our events were going to be successful before we even did them because of the relationships that we had. So, the money hunt was a huge success and we knew it would be. Yeah.

So good that we did it twice. Yeah. We were only planning to do it once. Um but we were able to do it twice. And Lola is another one of those relationships that we were able to build. So when we did the first one, someone found it pretty quickly. And then the second one we were like, we want to do one right away. Who can we ask? We called up Lola. They were like in 10 minutes. They were like, yes, let's do it. And then we launched the second one which was great. And then just the last thing if you want to scroll down just the the youth city council um when we talk about like an an untapped dem demographic the youth are so cool in our city right the youth are they're awesome the coolest.

Um we uh when I took over last July there was eight people Sam maybe eight eight in there and maybe five showed up. Um, we had a meeting yesterday. I think there was 38 youth and these are the best of the best youth. Um, and we have about 20 to 30 kids waiting to get in, right? And it's uh the youth city council. If you haven't had the chance to meet them, meet them. They love being with Steve last week. Like they're they're the best.

Yeah. And they they come from all walks of life. Like they're we have from different backgrounds. They go to uh Hunter High School, Granger High School, West High School, Cypress High school, Taylorville High School, and they all come to our UC council stuff. Next, next we're going to show you a video just that kind of ties in a lot of what we've been talking about. Cool.

U and then we'll just end with this. Right. These are some of the comments and uh and highlights I wanted to show. Just the the large one in the middle. This is Logan Boulei. He was um he was a captain of the BYU uh football team this year. This was a postgame press conference after he had a an interception against Arizona State. And it's uh it's so cool that he chose to wear one of our t-shirts for this press conference. Right. And then you can't really tell, but his caption right there says product of the West #WVC. I think it's important to note that the people from West Valley City are so proud to be from West Valley City and they should be because we're we're fantastic. West Valley City is so great. And so you'll see that Logan um that's just free views for us, right? He tags our our city page. That's just free. That's free views for us. You got people like Bachelor. That's a an influencer on social media. You got Cassidy Condi who's proud to be from her hometown. She has somewhere over five million followers on Instagram and Tik Tok combined. Um you have Kyus. He was just in the uh he played in the Super Bowl just two weeks ago, right? commenting on our on our posts. These things are important, but they're also to note that like I said, there people are proud to be from West Valley City. Um, talk about some of those highlights from the from the Fourth of July, you know, and I um the the cool thing about all of this that we've been doing is like Travis said, West Valley City people are very proud, right? I mean, there's people in this room, some of us grew up here, and we're very proud to be from West Valley City. Um, and by engaging them and interacting with them and talking to them, it just brings out that pride even more. You can see it in the comments, you can see in the DMs that we get and they just love to be from West Valley City. And the more that we give them to be proud of, the more

they're they're going to push that out, right? the more that we are um showcasing all of these wins that we're having as a city, the more they're going to want to share that just because that's who we are. We're proud to be West Valley City buildings. Uh any questions, comments? I think you should take the my picture, the golf picture, because all the golf community hates me. We'll archive that.

So usually you archive. So I don't know if there's more social media I'm on when it says see this post is going away. So is that what you mean by they fall off and you archive them or? Um archiving is just taking them off the public like the from the for the public to see. Um we're not deleting any of them. So if anybody needed to like we need to recall those posts, we could still pull them. Well, you just won't see it on our feed. I think you're talking about um if you're on Instagram, there are stories and stories only last for 24 hours. So, those will disappear after 24 hours.

Okay. And by the way, if you don't follow our Instagram page, please do. It's free. You don't even have to share. Keep going. Follow. All right. Cool. Take care. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Harold, Lauren, and Travis. Um, that is what we had planned on the agenda for today. Um, we also plan to potentially go till 5:30. Um, if you wanted, we could start to jump into the agenda for tomorrow. Um you you can direct us and tell us what you want to do.

Appointments about a half hour or Greg, we had you plan first thing in the morning. If you're ready, we can jump into it. I totally had seven minutes. So, this is going to You got as much time as I needed. Questions the same day, too.

I was planning a dance tomorrow morning to start the morning off. Sorry, they're not going to see that now.

No, no, no. It's too late. I've already me I apologize. All right. So, planned for we'll jump in right now as well as tomorrow morning. Uh we wanted to uh just bring to your attention some some topics um some presentations on things that may be coming up in the next year or so uh that we want you to be aware of. We may want some input from you. Um, so these are more focused on what we're looking at over the next year. Yep. Um, again, please comment, ask questions on on anything uh that sparks your interest and we'll we'll take note of things. But that's kind of the focus of our next section is what's coming up in the next year. So So Greg's going to talk about some of our community events he's with.

Thank you, Craig. Um so we're talking feeding connection today. Uh so with the new department um I thought it was important for you to understand or to remind you maybe um our department is all about community connection. Um our mission and purpose statement as a department as Utah Cultural Celebration Center and as the uh division of neighborhood services. It's all about connecting residents, engaging residents, um having fun with residents, um getting them involved in the community. Um so everything we do really actually fits into these five components that you talked about last year. Um just as a reminder, you know, sense of community, attractiveness, diversity, prosperity, and reputation. If you think about all of our outreach, all of our connection with residents, we're really talking about these things with the residents and we're trying to um help them um connect with city resources. We're helping to engage them through the community resource centers and actually, you know, have them find pathways to be more prosperous in the neighborhoods in in the community. So, this is our department in a nutshell. I was told that maybe you didn't want to see this. Um so, this is kind of what we do. Um and we're all over the board a little bit, right? But our main focus areas are, you know, our community committees, our my hometown pro programs, our neighborhood services programs, um the department support that we provide, arts and culture programming, the cultural center itself, and West Valley Celebrates. Um so those are really and then the special projects. Um so we're kind of all over the place. We have our fingers and everything a little bit feels like. Um we're a small but mighty team, if you will. Um so what I wanted to first talk on were resident committees. Um some of you have been involved with our resident committees. Um we invite you to uh come out to any of them at any time you'd

like. But these committees really have the potential to um connect with these residents and help them and have them kind of advise us what we need to be paying attention to. Um they are our champions and from the community as well. Um they provide a little bit of project oversight. If you think about Springfest, um Westfest, um they provide a lot of valuable um service and connection for us. The civic engage engagement, the fostering of community pride, um they incubate incubate creativity and then they also just help us nourish new relationships within the community as well. So why is that important for us? We have the West Committee. We have the Clean and Beautiful Committee here. We have the Healthy West Valley Committee, Interfaith Committee, Veterans Committee. Um, but we're thinking, can we do more? And so, um, we are looking at more. Um, our next committee that we're thinking about launching this year will be the faces of West Valley. Um it's a the idea is to bring in all of the rich diversity within our community and have them sit around a table and talk about what uh they want to see within our community, what programming they want us to to do in their neighborhoods, what programming they want us to do here at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center, but also invite them to be participants in creating that programming as well. So things of Valley hopefully coming this year. Um our neighborhoods committee hopefully this year. Um, and then we are still exploring arts and culture, the historical society, volunteer advisory, and an education committee. Um, but coming up this year, we're really kind of hyperfocused on getting two new committees going with uh faces in my own or neighborhoods. Um, our collab program launched last year. Um,

we hoped for eight applicants. uh we ended up with 52. Um so a little bit overwhelming. Um we actually accepted about I want to say 26 of those applicants actually were accepted. Um part of the reasons some of them were not accepted they didn't fit into the model. Um they were profit based or um simply we didn't have the dates available. Um, so as kind of reprogramming here at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center, we're dedicating Monday through Thursday for rentals, Fridays and Saturdays for community events and for collab. Um, most collab events want to happen on the weekends. Most of our rentals are businesses or corporations. We're pushing them to the Monday through Thursday. Um, it's been so successful. We did help to bring back the uh partners program. um that is kind of on hold right now just based on capacity for our team. Um but we are also going to be thinking about a signature line for our collab. Um some of the events that we have coming up uh a statewide marachi competition uh for high school. Uh we're bringing back a pow-wow. Uh we already have Day of the Dead. So we're looking for these signature programs that really celebrate our community. Um but also signature programs that are created by the community that we simply provide the space for them. Um eventually um we'll get to the partners um but this year really just taking a breather and trying to get through collab celebrations for this first year. Um just as a heads up uh every weekend is booked in 2026. So don't try to get anything in here. Um along that line though, um in 2025, and 2026 is going to be even better. In

2025, uh in rentals, uh we estimate over 70 to 80,000 people came through the Utah Cultural Celebration Center. Um with our community events that our team does, arts and culture events, that adds in another 52 53,000 people. So, we're reaching quite a a large number of people within our community. A really exciting thing from the arts and culture team is voices and votes. Voices and votes. Um, it is a Smithsonian exhibit. We will be serving as the launch point for the state. It will be touring the state. Um, as part of that, uh, we will be doing an opening reception. We're also going to, uh, launch a volunteer service awards this year. Um, so stay tuned. We'll be doing that hopefully in the next couple months. Um, we'll we have a new outrageous online uh component uh with Jake Spawning. Um, it's a beautiful piece, so it'll be really great for you to see. Um, PBS, we're continuing that relationship with PBS through 2026. Uh, they'll be doing a viewing of Breakthrough with Deadlock. Uh we're doing an exhibit called Generations West Valley story. The name is changing a little bit off and on. Um but it's really talking about the the origins of West Valley and how West City was formed and what that's meant through the last 45 years. Um then we'll do a community first Friday that as well. One point that um Mr. Bey really wanted me to talk about is the cadence. Um we are uh buried um in the process of getting these three community resource centers going. Um but as of this weekend uh the white hall or the central granger area

uh that currently is kind of just to the sorry the yeah the central granger area I'm getting all the names mixed up. Central Granger area that is just to the south of city hall. They will be moving into the white hall building this weekend. Um and they will be starting classes on Tuesday. Uh the lighthouse building will be coming on a little bit later. Billsdale was already in the building. They've been functioning. Um and they're having a great time over there with it with these buildings as anticipated. Um they are providing neutral space. Uh it's becoming a more and more welcoming space for people to come to and people are feeling that comfort. Um, we are hoping to expand some My Hometown programs um because we now have flexibility to program an additional release and we don't have limitations of what we can program. Uh, one of those exciting pieces is a partnership with Nomos. Um, they will be providing immigration services uh for those that have pathways to get their citizenship. um if they don't have if they don't have the documentation to be in the country legally and if they don't have a pathway to citizenship, they won't be eligible. They'll have to be turned away. Um but for those that are here legally and have that pathway, we'll be able to provide them that service. Uh with that relationship as well, we'll be able to provide some passport services for uh youth within the city, which uh the residents are really excited about. Um it gives them a level of comfort knowing that their their ch their children have that passport. They have that identification. Um we met earlier this week. We have about 20 to 30 additional partners that are lining up to use the buildings. Uh we'll be uh vetting those getting them trained in the buildings and opening those

buildings up on additional days as well. um sports leagues, clubs. Um we have a group that just wants to get and play bluegrass. So yeah, that's easy for us. We'll unlock a door. Um and let's have some fun. So it's going it's going to be great for the community and the community is really clamoring for these spaces to have access to them. Um the community gatherings will continue. They'll just get better. Uh we're working with Jamie and Parks and Recreation. Uh the lighthouse, as you know, provides an amazing opportunity for additional programming in that park. Um and as well as the gym, our family fitness center and our parks simply have outgrown the space that they need. And this provides an amazing opportunity for them to grow into these spaces. Um and then if we get partners, collab partners going, we'll be able to actually start programming them into these buildings as well as overflows. Um, another exciting piece is, and I piece is, and I think, uh, most of these think, uh, most of these people know, people know, uh, a few of you know, um, we launched uh, a few of you know, um, we launched the neighborhood leadership academy a the neighborhood leadership academy a few weeks ago, um, coming up on Monday. few weeks ago, um, coming up on Monday. Um, well, the the intent of the program Um, well, the the intent of the program is to inspire is to inspire uh, resident leaders within our uh, resident leaders within our community and to help them find their community and to help them find their pathway to become those leaders that pathway to become those leaders that they they have the skills and they have they they have the skills and they have the passion to be. Um, another exciting the passion to be. um but they don't know the pathway to to get there. Um so this program will go through nine weeks. I think this is week four coming up. Uh they'll meet all the department heads on Monday. Um and talk to them about what they do as department, but also see if they can connect a neighborhood-based project to that department if they need assistance.

Uh each of the 30 students in our first um cohort will have an opportunity to apply for $1,500 to go towards a neighborhood project. Um it has to be neighborhood driven, neighborhood central, centralized. Um everything about it has to be neighborhood um and and community building. Um so we've been having a lot of fun with that as well. Um and then and we have had an amazing response from the residents on on participating. Um we've already had requests for fall for another session and we do have a wait list for this. So we're very excited about this. This was on our bucket list for about 10 years to do. So we're excited it's finally been able to come forward. Um, part of the reason it's been able to come forward is the partnership with um, City Strong and they have raised the money for the projects to pay for the the neighborhood projects that will be taking place over the summer. So, that is kind of where I'm at. Any questions for me? Is there a question on American 250%? you the one that's

um sitting um there are a number of things that we are working on behind the scenes as well as as part of America 250. Um arts and culture uh is doing a meet your legislature type town hall. Um so we're planning one of those. Um, we're planning on getting that committee together soon to talk about other opportunities that we can uh take advantage of like Westfest and some of the other events that are already in place. So, who's in charge of of parade? Um, yeah, Westfest is uh Thank you, Jamie. West is now uh our department.

So, just letting you know, I invited all the cities to have those in our phrase this year. Thank you. and we would reciprocate to go to their parades if they come to our parade. That would be lovely. So, yes, our parade, our parade is early in the season, so sometimes they don't have their their floats.

Um, but we would love any help we can get in inviting those uh other cities to participate. as well as any community groups that you know, any bands, any if you have a young women's group that wants to just decorate their bikes and ride in the parade, let's do it. Um, if you have a neighborhood band, let's put them on a trailer and have some fun. Um, yeah, anybody and everybody we can find from West Valley that wants to celebrate West Valley, let's do it. Um, but we definitely want those floats that help build the environment for the excitement. Yeah, Magna's in, but I just let the others know today. Awesome. Because we had our conference of mayors. Yeah, we would love to have any folks we can get.

Thank you.

All right. Uh, thank you, Craig. Um, I think we're gonna stop here today. So, sorry, Steve. You got to wait till the morning. Um, Anything else from the mayor or council for for today? Presentations. Really appreciated all the hard work that's gone into them. Thank you. Great. Um,

yeah. Anything else we need to do? All in favor say I. Thanks everyone. Uh let's see. Just so everybody knows, I think you all have an agenda, but uh breakfast from 8:30 to 9 tomorrow and we will get started at 9:00. Oh yeah. your