City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, welcome to our City Council meeting today on May 26, 2026 at 4.30 here in the Lehigh City Council Chambers. We have a full council today, Council Member Newell, Council Member Harrison, Council Member Stallings, Council Member Freeman, and Council Member Lockhart. Reminder that this is a work session, so there won't be public comment during this section. But we welcome all of you who have joined with us today, and we're excited to hear from you We will go ahead to our first Item number one and ask that mr.. Harrison like that councilmember Harrison offer an opening prayer

Dear Father in Heaven, we are grateful to gather together as a council and with staff and with our residents to discuss the items of the day and how we can best serve the community and be responsible in our roles. We ask for a special blessing upon our first responders and all of city staff as they're out doing their jobs and helping the community that they'll be safe, they'll be protected, and that we'll watch over them. We ask for thy spirit to be with us throughout this meeting and the rest of the evening. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Thank you. Okay, item 2.1, the front runner, two times presentation and update. So now you're asking us, I think so, is that correct? Yeah.

Well, thank you for the opportunity to present. My name is Brian Allen. I'm a project manager for the Utah Department of Transportation. Make sure this bad boy's working. Perfect. So today I want to be talking about FrontRunner 2x. How long do you want? It's about 10 minutes? OK.

10 minutes sound good?

Don't want to? Yeah. Okay. Sounds great. So feel free to ask questions as we go through the presentation. We're going to start just an overview of what the Frontrunner 2X project is. Then we have a little more detail about the segment that affects your city called the North of American Fork Segment and then also the North of Lehigh. With me today I have subject matter experts in noise, right-of-way, all the disciplines that it takes to deliver a project of this size. So I want to make sure we can answer all your questions tonight. So this project is a partnership between UDOT and UTA. The project is primarily state funded. A couple years ago the state legislature passed a law where if there's a state funded project, In transportation, they would like the UDOT to lead it. So as we all know, sometimes it gets a little confusing with different government agencies. So actually, I work for UDOT. However, we work very closely with UTA. So I don't mind if you call me UTA or UDOT. We're really one team working to really enhance Frontrunner to deliver a better transit service.

This is a video right here. It's on YouTube. Let's see.

This is a real test of boldness to see if a video will play in a city council meeting, right, or working session. We'll see if this works. Let's see.

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

Thank you.

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So I love that video because I think it does a really good job of simply explaining why double track and why frequency really drives ridership. So we're actually in what's called a core capacity program through FTA. FTA is the Federal Transit Administration. One of the reasons why we qualify for federal funding is because of frontrunner ridership is so high actually. So they look at ridership in the peak hour, peak direction, which actually occurs in the southern portion of the alignment between Salt Lake and Draper and Murray. We're at 90% of the seated capacity. So that program enables us to apply for federal funding to basically increase the capacity because frontrunner is such a successful system already. So the primary benefits to this project is really to make Frontrunner more convenient and a better choice for commuters. We're aiming to reduce headways, providing twice the amount of frequency. So right now, Frontrunner runs every half an hour in the peak hour. and every hour in the off-peak hours. So we want to cut those headways in half. So having peak hour service every 15 minutes, and then in the off-peak, have it every 30 minutes. That really enables you to just show up at the station and catch a train. You really don't have to plan near as much as you do right now with every half an hour. So it makes Frontrunner a lot more convenient. And that convenience really drives ridership. That's the real goal of the project, is to get people to take transit, reduce congestion, provide another benefit, another transportation solution. This project, over the next 50 years, or by 2050, the horizon for planning, is about to increase ridership by about 50%. This is the same time as I-15 performance continues to degrade, right? We can make Frontrunner faster. We can make it more convenient by adding more tracks, adding more trains. Now with I-15, you really can't widen much more, right? There comes a point where more lanes really doesn't equal better performance. So that's one of the key reasons why the state is really investing in Frontrunner as a transportation solution. So the project consists of a bunch of scope elements. I'm not going to go into details. There are a bunch of double tracking. We have to buy more trains. And we have to have maintenance facilities to service those trains. So this is a project map. It shows you all the strategic double tracking locations. Obviously, we're going to be focusing on the portion in north of American Fork and the north of Lehigh. Those two double tracking sections are in Lehigh City, have portions in Lehigh City. We named all these after the after the stations. So sometimes it gets really confusing because North of American Fork is actually in Lehigh City. But there was really no clear way to do it. So we wanted to anchor it off something that's already existing to commuters' knowledge. So this project is anticipated to be finished in 2030. Two of the main scheduled drivers really are the federal funding. The state's appropriated nearly a billion dollars. However, we're requesting about another billion to two billion from the federal government. We currently have our funding request into the FTA, but it's making its way through the federal appropriations process right now. So, tentatively, we're planning to open the project in 2030. That takes all the double tracking to be done. It takes all the trains to be manufactured and the maintenance facility to be complete to really implement that whole service all at once. So as you can see right here, here are the two double tracking sections that impact Lehigh. The American Fork, south of the American Fork station, or north, excuse me, we're widening to the outside of the track. So you can see like the American Fork station until you get about halfway through. I believe it's 500 south? West. West. Thank you. 500 west, and that's where we start winding toward UP. So the track kind of shifts from going to the outside to the inside. It's the same thing at the Lehigh Station. We're actually widening to the outside, but as we get closer to the north point, we start buying property from UP and widening to the inside. So both these double-track sections aren't as simple as just widening to the outside. There's a lot of shifts in order to minimize right-of-way impacts and make the project come to fruition. So let me go through this quick. So in order to advance a project through the FTA program, you have to complete what's called a federal document, federal NEPA document through the FTA. So we've actually completed our NEPA document. which makes you look at all the different environmental impacts associated with a double-tracking project. We completed what's called the Categorial Exclusion. That's actually posted on our website. If you go to FrontRunner 2x, you can read about all the different environmental impacts that will be associated with the project and how we're mitigating those. We also completed a Planning and Environmental Linkage document that looks at the impacts associated with the doubling of the frequency. Because now we have more grade crossings, especially in Lehigh. There's a lot of grade crossings in the Lehigh double tracking section or the North American fork double tracking section. And that has more activations. It has more delays. And we go through and look at all those impacts and any mitigation we have to do in order to implement the project. The biggest questions we get from the environmental process typically have to do with noise and right-of-way. So we pulled out a couple slides to really emphasize the noise and right-of-way impacts associated with this project and how we're mitigating them. Something that's a little unique to trains that you don't see in highways is vibration. That's also something that we look at. However, typically the frontrunner trains are a lot lighter and have a lot less vibration impacts, especially with the corridor that has a lot of UP trains in it already. We just look at the incremental increase based on the frequency that we're adding. I'm going fast because I only have 10 minutes, so if you have any questions. Okay, good. Sounds like everyone's... on the same page. With this noise study, we actually didn't find any noise impacts associated with the second track we're adding, the double track. So as we add another track, as I mentioned, some of it gets closer to the houses. So we look to see if that's going to cause noise impacts or vibration impacts. And then we looked at the increase in frequency. So we found that there was two potential impacts from the increase in frequency. Those are pointed out in this slide. We actually did in-house testing according to the FTA policy to determine what mitigation, if any, was needed. One property didn't need it, and the other one we're going to actually move forward and offer a window replacement if the property owner chooses to accept that. However, there is no other noise mitigation that's required, so we're not building any noise walls or anything in this double tracking section. So there are other double tracking sections where we did have to mitigate it.

Are these the only two properties that you looked at that were concerning, or are there other ones too?

These are the only two that we identified in the North of American Fork double tracking section that had impacts that we had to mitigate. So there's other double tracking sections that had impacts that we had to mitigate.

Mr. Mayor Mack, is that okay? Once it's installed and you get complaints from residents, are you willing to go out and also double check to make sure you didn't miss anything?

No, we don't.

You don't. Okay, so just in your initial review. But if residents complain afterwards that they've seen impact, you don't review it again?

No, it's very similar to what we do with highways. We look at the existing noise levels and we model what the future noise level is going to be. And there's a big manual, FTA noise policy manual that we look at. It looks at what's considered a negative impact and how we mitigate that if we find it. So we went through and did our initial modeling. We found really no impacts associated with the new double track. except for these impacts here associated with the new frequency. And that's when we took the next step. We kind of do initial screening. Is there a problem based off? I mean, there could be noise out there right now, right? You're living next to a railroad track, so it is noisy. We look at the noise. You've got to remember, it's the noise above what we're adding. And then we basically go to the next step. If there is an impact, how do we mitigate that impact?

Yeah, and if your modeling didn't capture, but the residents find that something did happen, you essentially just say, tough luck.

We like to think we do a very good job at our noise assessment and modeling. But yeah, that's how the process works. Thank you. We also look at vibration. So you can see right here, there's a double tracking section that actually has what's called ballast mats. It just basically stops vibration going out from the tracks. So you can see these red dots. These would have impacts if we didn't actually add vibration mats. So we're proposing to add vibration mats next to the existing vibration mats to stop any vibration impacts. So once we're done with this project, we don't anticipate any noise impacts and vibration impacts above the thresholds set forth in the FTA's policy guidance. Any question about noise? I do have a couple slides in here about the quiet zone and construction noise. Those are a little bit different than.

Yeah, I had some residents bring up concerns to me about, during construction, how the trains are required to sound their horn in a construction zone.

I think we can get to that one in the other construction slide. So I just want to make sure that we heard you guys, and we're going to address that and talk about that. Another item of importance is the right-of-way process, something that residents frequently reach out to city councils and their city staff. About one relocation in this section, there's someone that built a new house that was really close to the double tracking. That house will be demolished, and that resident will have a relocation there. Besides that, we have a lot of backyards that we're purchasing portions of and obtaining temporary construction easements in order to facilitate the construction of the double tracking. So that's something that's important to disclose. And if you guys get any questions at the city, feel free to direct them toward the Frontrunner 2x public involvement hotline. I want to just point out a couple notable items in the city that we're moving forward with in construction. As I mentioned, full-blown construction won't start till we actually receive our grant from FTA. However, we are taking some early action items and want to point out some items in coordination with the city. First is just the Spring Creek construction near Pioneer Crossing, I believe. We have to relocate a sewer line there. And that impacts the canal. We've had the opportunity to work with city staff engineering staff, they've approved the plans as with the local sewer district. That's something that will start soon. The rodeo ground was actually renting property from UTA. So we've actually, we're going to acquire that right away or kind of take back that right away in order to add our double tracking. However, we're working with the rodeo ground to ensure that the improvements leave them a spot where they can operate successfully. We understand that's a staple of Lehigh City, and we've been coordinating with them frequently. I want to point out at 700 South, we've taken a lot of efforts to coordinate with the city to make sure that whatever double tracking we add, Is Ford compatible with any bike lanes improvements? I think Brad can speak to that if there's any questions there. And just another item of work that we're going to be doing this fall is some 500 West irrigation. So I just wanted to bring that to the city's attention. We're also relocating some power lines, working with Lehigh Power in order to relocate some power lines. That should be under work soon. If not, I don't know if it's under construction already. Any questions about that? That kind of covers the north of American Fork double-tracking section. This one's a little more straightforward because it doesn't go through so many urban environments. This is just extending the double-tracking north of Lehigh. Because there's not any residents in this area, there's no noise impacts. There are minor right-of-way impacts. We're purchasing property from UP. We're also purchasing some property from Thanksgiving Point. In order to build some of the track, we need to put some walls in there, and those require easements in order to install. One portion that I encourage you, I mean, I'm a nerd because I like civil engineering, right? But this is going to be a really cool section when we build it. Because it's, I don't know, has anyone ever been down in this area? It's very tight, congested, constrained. We're adding a bridge in this area. This is right, this is a picture of that area. So that's going to be really exciting to build. I just want to note that there won't be any kayaking access or anything like that during construction. So just want to make sure the city's aware of that. So this is the construction noise. We do anticipate, as you mentioned, construction noise. The quiet zone will still be in place during construction, so trains won't honk their horns. I think we all experience PTSD from that great experience, right, of the quiet zone being removed. That is not what we're proposing here. However, we do want to recognize that there's a critical safety element working around the railroad. The railroad is not a forgiving environment. Trains are very big and powerful. So current practice, according to UTA operations and standard practice in the industry, if there is crews in the area, to notify them with a horn. So there will be noise drain construction. We don't anticipate a lot of construction at night, but there may be some noise. Let me see if Corey's here.

Yep. Just a little bit. OK. Not a buzz on everything. We're trying to focus on the day, weekends, where we meet up, that kind of stuff. But mostly from Monday to Friday.

There's some grade crossing work. There's a lot of grade crossings. We're replacing a box culvert that's called Dry Creek. It's right next to 500 West. Waystitch. Waystitch. Thank you. See, I'm just, yeah. I've got to work on the names. That will be replaced. I can see some of that work being done at night because we have to coordinate with Union Pacific.

May I ask a quick question? Yep. So just to clarify, you're not going to do construction at night, so would the trains still need to blow their horns, even if you're not doing construction? They will, yeah.

If there's workers in the zone, in the area, the potential foul zone, they typically sound their horns in order to notify the workers.

When the workers are there, but when they're not there, when you're not doing active... No, so they don't have to sound their horn.

Okay. That's why I wanted to... To me, the most frustrating would be night construction. It's hard to sleep with the trains. So there'll be limited night work, but there will be a lot of construction during the day. And there'll be crews throughout the segment, so there might be multiple instances where the train has to sound their horn. And they're usually not as big.

It's usually just a few feet from there. Thank you.

And we'll work with our public involvement and obviously notify residents before construction starts and notify the city also. Quiet zones, we're working with the city. I'd like to thank the city to, I mean, obviously you guys are the keeper of the quiet zone in the southern portion. Working with everyone to make sure that that stays compliant. and the necessary documentation is in place. So when the quiet zone is being inspected, that we're partnering with FRA and the appropriate regulatory bodies so that those can stay in place during construction and after construction. So that's something we've been really looking at. Because we're impacting a lot of the grade crossings, which obviously impact the scoring and how the quiet zone is implemented. So this just summarizes all the work that we've been doing to date. I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to present. I really believe in this project, that Frontrunner is a huge transportation solution, that this project will really make a big positive impact in the transportation system as a whole. So I want to thank the city for their support. And if you guys have any questions or concerns, I encourage you to reach out and communicate with us.

Any final questions?

Just curious, when do you anticipate that we would have double track all the way through, that we would no longer have these segments?

That's the eventual goal, to really have the whole thing double tracked and even add more track in the future if you want three tracks because you could have trains bypass each other and go fast.

So is there any projections on kind of when that would need to happen?

It's really dependent on funding, and there's no really dedicated funding source. They did this last session. They created what's called a commuter rail fund. But it only has about $50 million per year. And this project's, I mean, just the double tracking alone, we're adding about 23 miles and making it about 50% double track. And that's about $1.2 billion to add all that double tracking. So it's pretty far out. And we're trying to do the easy parts first. I mean, they did the easy parts when they first built it. Now we're kind of come back to the second easy parts. So the parts that are left are the ones where there's a bridge column in the middle of the way and things like that.

Any other questions?

Thank you. Thank you.

OK, we'll go to item three, working discussion items 3.1, parks, trails, and trees committee discussion on the proposed code amendments.

Good afternoon. My name is Scott Dane. I'm acting right now as the chairperson of the Parks and Trails Committee. Parks, Trails and Trees Committee, excuse me. Today we're coming and appreciate your time and the opportunity to present a proposal that our committee has put together regarding a change in the city code. I think you guys have a copy of that code available, and I'll put it up here on the screen as well, of the proposed changes that we've discussed as a group. We'd like to present to you as an idea of what we would like to see changed. To give you a little bit of history, let's see here. To give you a little bit of history regarding the Park Trails and Trees Committee, it's been in operation for about two decades. The reason that this committee was started was regarding the city's desire to be part of the Trees USA. And the Trees USA requirements had, one of those requirements is to have this committee as part of the city code since then there's been a lot of changes including the city has Now got an urban forester and with that urban foresters position. They have a lot of responsibilities that essentially overlapped What was part of this or what is part of the current? committees responsibilities, so we've come together as a committee and propose the following changes. Really revolves around removing a lot of those tree, the portions of the committee that revolves around trees and the, excuse me, the Standards that were set forth and how the trees and the streetscape the landscaping within the city would be defined and so when I with this proposal there's the main changes that is to remove the tree component of it and then the second component revolves around the part tax as Part of our commit as our committees come together to discuss potential ways to further Use a part tax and also to help that park tax be, help the public have more say in how that park tax is being used. We've taken some advisement and some feedback from previous city council and also from the arts component of the parks tax where they have a scoring system, I guess you would say, to be able to identify potential uses of the park tax. And we're proposing a similar type committee being put in place on the park side of things. They revolve around two components. Number one, the goal would be to help develop and help assist the parks department in their use of the funds to be able to identify ways to be able to match the or to follow along with the master plan that's been created and help identify help identify projects that we present to the city for recommendation. And then the second component of our request is to change the code that will allow the committee to evaluate or take recommendations from citizens within the community and take those recommendations on smaller projects that could be easily implemented and the goal behind it would be so that our citizens would be able to see how their tax dollars are being used and be able to have say in small projects in ways in small projects that could benefit whether it be smaller parks or Local amenities that would be beneficial to certain parts of the community As a committee we've discussed this for a few months. We've taken this to the parks department as well and submitted us to the city Attorney for review and that's what we've got in front of you at this point time is our proposed amendment or proposed changes to this code So that gives you a little brief history of why we're making that request and wanted to present that to you this time to see what your thoughts are, if there's things that you find fall in line with what your desires are, things that we may change as well to make the committee function or change, I guess I should say, the function of the committee. That's what I have to present and would just like to hear or welcome any questions.

Mr. Mayor, may I ask a question? Sure. So on letter E, when it talks about scheduling and planning of an annual parks and trails community event, what comes to my mind is like the Lehigh Serves volunteer things that we do on the 9-11 event. event where we go to all the parks. Is that what you're thinking like to do volunteer efforts or what exactly, I guess what's the vision behind your community events and would you need budget behind that?

So that could be a few different things. I mean that is one way that we have tried to do some of the events. We've also, the events have also focused around potential Projects in the ways of as an example some of the things we've done in the past is we've we have done a trails cleanup Committee if you will or want gone out and seek unsought help from community sponsors to do trail cleanup it It would also we'd be working essentially in in conjunction with the parks department to see what they felt would be the best Route, okay.

Thank you

I'm really excited to see this. I know last year was something that I brought up that I would love to see more involvement from this committee when it comes to the park tax. And a big part of that, I think, would be the presentation that we're able to have from the arts and culture side to come back and say, so also presenting what you think the recommendations are, but also a presentation sometime in the following year, this is what we did. And I think that helps to be able to be transparent to the residents. This is what we're doing with that 70% of the park tax funding. This is what we built. This is, you know, so we can have a list on the website of this is what was done this year through parks. I think that would be really cool to see too as part of that.

Absolutely. That's one of the things we've talked about is in the sense of this is, and I hope I'm saying this right, is a sunset tax, I think is the term. It comes to a certain point where it has to be essentially voted on again. And that was one of the things we talked about is if we get to a point where it comes to vote and anybody that's looking to vote and they're saying, well, what did we do with the last funding? That was a big concern that we felt would be a failure to what we're doing right now. And so that is one item that we have discussed is saying, Here is how your tax dollars have been used. We do see that, I guess, a little bit right now with just some of the up at the family park. There's a few things that have been labeled that way or that have that park tax on it. But there is not at this point that I'm aware of an all-inclusive list.

Mr. Mayor, if it's okay, I'd love to hear Steve's thoughts on this as well. Sure. And just how they would work together.

So I'll be honest. I'm part of the holdup on this. The park tax thing has kind of always been the council's purview. And that's something that does scare me just a little bit about this. I mean, of course, this is a recommendation board. These guys can recommend things. They're not a voting board. But what this is going to do is take some of that authority, I guess give some of the perceived authority to them. And so that's really one of my bigger concerns with this. I think it's a great idea, and like Scott says, if we don't start labeling the things that we've done, this sunset tax is never going to come back again. We took a large portion of it right at the beginning and put it towards a single project. Don't think that that's a bad approach But how do we make sure that it's citywide and labeled that way as far as taking the tree? everything out of it that doesn't hurt our Department in any case at all. I mean we've already got that covered in other directions and So, and I guess the other part of it is, you know, one of my biggest frustrations with the committee itself is how do we, what are we giving them to do? Is it just another review committee of a project that we're going to build over the next two years and so they're going to see it once or twice and go, okay, thanks, what else do you have? I mean, not that we're not always busy and always have things going on. But frankly, it turns into a reporting committee. We go in and we tell them, hey, yeah, so this month we've done XYZ PDQ. How can we help you? Well, I don't know. And so this does hit a lot of items. I guess my recommendation, if we go this route, would be to say, you guys have a set amount, similar to what we do to the arts and culture side of it. give you guys the majority and say yeah we want to do x project but give them a sum of money it says okay what can we get done for this much and what would you propose and then let you vote on it from there yeah i think does that help no i'm glad you said that because i shared some of the same concerns regarding the park tax in particular um because i think it is you

There's a lot of different ways we can go as a council. Like you said, we can either build it up for a larger project. We can prioritize it on smaller projects to save the regular budget money. And I think you've done a good job in this year's tentative and interim budget to identify where we could use those funds. I hesitate just adding budget to another committee if that and I know I know you're saying the allocation would be similar to the arts and culture but But that's just one one concern.

I have there I guess my biggest thing is I want to make sure that you guys understand that if you I don't want to give them a committee for them to not have any authority and come and you know what I mean because We want you to be able to decide. I mean, you were the ones voted in. So this is what the issue is, is if we go out and give it to another committee to say, hey, by the way, how are you going to spend the money? That's a hard sell to me. So I think it's a good thought. We're just going to have to be careful on either the amount that we're able to say, okay, each year we're going to allocate X amount for this committee to be able to do, or...

some way of yeah creating it yeah um yeah and i think also representation right so i don't know i don't know as far as the members on the committee you know if if all of them live on one side of the freeway or the other or they live in his pockets right there may be parts of the city that may not have as much of a voice or it just, it's not natural for me living out West to know everything that's going on in Heather's neighborhood and the needs there. Right.

Well, and we're a pretty heavy voice in this as well. I mean, our department is, so we would help say, you know, have you guys thought about things in this area? I guess that would be it is, is we need to really think through how this is going to do. This is a great opportunity. Bylaw, I would say but how does the action plan work? What is the actual authority going to be and how do we make that great?

Yeah, thank you Yes, so what I'm what I'm recognizing is that there are some There's there's some changes that probably need to be made with the parks trails and trees committee in some way whether it's changing the bylaws kind of giving some focus or some direction to the committee and But I think also, as a new council member, I'm looking forward to our discussion, hopefully with you at some point, about the parks, priorities, the impact fees that we have coming up to use in places. And in the budget, it had listed some things for the park tax. And I would like to better understand that before fully, like, to really kind of then understand the role of the parks, the PTTC, you know, at that point. So that's kind of where I'm at. Is that kind of?

Yeah, realistically, I mean, I've said this out loud several times. We've got to find something for them to do. It's not fair as a committee member to come every month and just be there for a reporting session. They're anxious. They're willing. We need to make sure that they're doing their portion, and we're not stringing them along. So is this the right move? Maybe. I mean, I've got other ideas. I've shared them with several of you. This is a good start, though. I really do think, you know, for what the committee is, if we gave them this to do, this would keep them very busy at least for a few months of the year, getting these projects organized, taken care of. I do want to address the what would that one event be. I don't necessarily think it would be a service event. I think it would be an awareness event, an educational event of what do we have, how do we have it. We have so many parks in our system that people don't even know about that, you know, I got complaints about the minute the law passed on the e-bikes. Why are we taking away all these parks for e-bikes? Frankly, we're building a park for downhill mountain biking. It's not an e-bike park, but... We are trying to help community with everything that we do. We have a vast array of different activities that most people don't even know about. I mean, we closed down Family Park last year, and people acted like that was the only park that we've ever built. It's crazy. We have so many different things that people can do. They don't know about them. So this potentially could help with that as well.

Mr. Mayor? So just to be clear, too, I don't think that I would ever see the committee as taking ownership. I mean, even when we saw with the arts and culture, we came in and just wiped the slate. But I do think that it's nice to be able to have some more recommendations, some more things that kind of indicate that we are out there working with the community. But I think at the end of the day, I agree with you that those decisions need to come here and maybe it's okay to have like a small amount that it's like, okay, this is going to be your project for this year. And you know, something that you feel comfortable with, that's really important to me too. So I just wanted to be clear on that, but.

Yeah, well, and I guess what I mean, it is absolutely perceived. I mean, you guys will have to have all authority. You're going to be the decision makers. I don't want them to have any money that they can spend freely. I think that it is more or less, what would you do with $100,000 and let them present to that limit? And then at that point, you would say, yeah, we're okay with these. Or have you thought about this? Or let's change this. Let's save this one until next year and increase this one. You know, something more on that line. Not necessarily, not anything that, it's not necessarily going to hurt a large project, but it's still going to show, if we don't start branding this, if we don't start getting this out, we'll never have it again. And that's been my fear for four years now. Yeah. We have one very well marked park out of our park tax. We've only really built one very nice park with it. But still, frankly, if you're not using that park, you don't know about it.

And I like how you phrased it, you know, having 100,000 or a couple hundred saying, hey, you guys go find the best use of this. I guess the one thing we'd probably have to look at in paragraph G, it says to evaluate all park tax funds applications or proposals. for Park Trail and OpenSpace, there's no real applications, right?

No, at this point, that's all you guys' decision.

So it's more just like suggesting ideas or recommendations on how to use a portion of... Yeah, please, Scott, help me out on that one.

If I can speak to that, there are two components that we've identified of potentially how to use or how we would like to be involved in that process. There's one component, and maybe to clarify, this is what the members of the committee want because we live in this area. The idea would be that citizens could come to the group, just like the art side of it. They could come and just whoever... I know on the art side it's groups or certain nonprofits, whatever, that come to the group to present ideas. We're seeing as a citizen, yeah, we had $150,000, $200,000. We'd love to be able to say, Citizen to come up and say hey we use this park and and I'm just make something up we would love to have Soccer goals in here because there are practices that happen every single month or there's a little trail around here And we want to have some park benches that someone could sit down and and sit down and enjoy while their kids are playing and so our recommendation is is to have a Approval process where citizens could come in there's a small amount of money that we had set aside and say okay Here are all the different people that came in. Here's all their ideas. It's going to cost roughly X. We've come in and we've scored them. Do they meet the needs? Are they all spread out through the city? What already is out there? Does it supplement maybe another project that's going on? And then be able to come to you as a council and say, We've come up with these 10 projects from the 20 that were presented to us we think that meet the criteria that set forth whether You know we together create what that criteria would be or whether we follow the master plan Yeah but it would follow that same process. This is what we recommend, and it gives listening ears to the citizens, and they can see their tax dollars being used. So that's the idea on the proposals that would go out. It would be two citizens. It wouldn't be any company or anything like that or just our group as individuals.

So just like consolidating, maybe soliciting and consolidating recommendations from residents and proposing that in a format to the city council.

Yes. We would want to follow a format that it's not just subjective, right? We would have a matrix to go out there and say, okay, here's the criteria. How does it score across that criteria? I've met with one of the individuals on the art side, talked about how they do that, and we'd formulate something similar to that so we could come up and say, here are the scores that we've come up with. We recognize as well that it's just – Recommendation you guys have ultimate authority to say what would happen with that you could you know turn around and say hey No, we're gonna spend all the money over here We do see there is value though if some small amount could go to the citizens to be able to allow them to have a say and then the second component regarding the Evaluate or proposed city projects the goal behind that in F is that When I look at it on the business side of things, I look at a strategic plan. And I feel that that master plan that the city has paid for and is looking to implement is that master plan when it comes, or that strategic plan when it comes to the parks department. And we would like to be able to do that same recommendation and say, hey, these projects, they meet this master plan criteria. They're following this. This is what we would recommend. These are the projects that we would recommend moving forward. that the park money goes to. Thank you.

Mayor, just some comments. Forgive me if I'm blunt. I'm just going to lay it out because we've got some tough decisions tonight that are weighing on my mind. So I feel it's really easy and fun for residents to come and say, this is how we want to spend money. What I would love to see you do is help us find solutions to do service projects, volunteer things to improve our parks. We've got a tight budget. And it's nice to say, oh, we need to park here or here or here. But those come with ongoing costs that you're not aware of because you're not doing our job. Our job is to dig deep in the budget. And so we just had somebody come the other day pitching Dragonfly Park. Great idea, but all I see now is dollar signs, and where are we going to find the money for that, you know? And I am sad. I get you kind of want to move on, but taking out the whole tree component, I mean, we're looking at we need to hire some arborists. I mean, yes, it's not fun. But if you could help with that tree inventory or, you know, looking at the street trees and that, I think that would help.

I just talked to that for 10 minutes. Sure. So realistically, the technical side of that is not in their realm. They can't help at all? Yeah, realistically. We have that covered. Even if we weren't to acquire more help on that, it's more of the management side. We have the management side under control. It is really the actual physical work portion of it.

And volunteers can't help?

Volunteers and chainsaws are not the best idea.

Trimming the branches. That's what I'm talking about.

Trimming. I'm going to say no on that one. I can go into that later, but yeah. Okay. You can come to my house and see how bad of a job. Yeah, I don't want volunteers trimming my trees.

Okay, fair. That's fair. Okay, so all right, take the trees out. But yeah, I would just, and the park grant, again, that's a tax, and we're the elected representatives, you know, to decide where those go. And I just, I feel like, and again, even with the park grant committee, appreciate their help, but there's just bigger pictures involved. broader context when it comes to where we allocate these funds. So again, it's fun to come and present ideas and projects and have great thoughts of what we could spend the money on. But honestly, that's the easy part. The hard part is paying for the ongoing costs or solutions where we don't have to take money from something else. Yeah, so I would like to see you utilize your ambition to serve and maybe start there. But I'm not comfortable saying, hey, here's $100,000. Figure out how to spend it because I could do that any day of the week. Is that, sorry, but.

No, that's fine. And yeah, I guess to, and maybe I probably made it clear, it's like we're not saying we would own that $100,000. It's just our recommendation to come forward and say this is the way that we feel that the citizens can be more involved in this process.

And I hope, and we do actually have citizens come to us quite often with ideas for parks. And I, again, we were elected by the people to be their representatives. So I would want them to come to us with your ideas and their input and And again, going back to the park grant, I would honestly have liked to heard from the applicants myself to ask my questions to get a better understanding. I think there were some misconceptions with some of the organizations asking for money. And we're a public-facing committee here directing them to you. I feel like I would like them to come to me. I that's my job, but, but I would love, I mean, not that I don't want you to come with ideas. Absolutely. Um, and especially on ideas to save money or, you know, service projects or involve the community and, and education is great. Um, teaching, you know, just taking care, educating people to take care of our parks. Um, Cut down on vandalism would be great. I don't know if they could do that. But anyway, yeah, I think we can utilize you for sure, though. And I think we need to do more of that, but just in the right way. My thoughts. Thanks.

Mr. Mayor? I just wanted to build upon the comments made. I do feel like we're going a little bit backwards. And so help, I just want to make sure I'm going to repeat back to make sure I understand what you're asking. And then if I'm wrong, please correct me. Um, I'm not fully grasping why you would have a hundred thousand or 200,000 to recommend. I would like you to risk, like if the process, the way we do for the 30% for arts and culture, I would like you to look at the 70% in a whole and say, based on what we know about the master plan, based on what we know this is what we think you should do here, like your rubric of criteria, this is what we believe. It'd be great also for us to get the parks department perspective as well. Maybe you guys overlap, maybe you clash at times, but both are good for us to hear. I don't want to cap you at like a small portion of the park tax allocation. I would rather see you be a committee that can really become experts in the parks and then gain that valuable feedback and give recommendations, again, to some of the comments up here, recommendations. I kind of felt like I was hearing that we would give you like a budget line item that you could then go spend, and that makes me uncomfortable, not as a reflection of lack of trust, but more of a transparency and accountability concern for residents to know that the the five of us plus our mayor, you know, does that stuff. So can you help? Are you asking for like a blank line item?

No, no. So let me step back a little bit. To that 70%, our idea was yes, we'd love to have a recommendation of how that 70% is. We've divided that into two components. One of it is what the Parks Department is already doing and saying help us or let us help you in working through that master plan and saying this is our recommendation following this of how to use those those funds. In conjunction with that, we identified a small amount of money. I mean, $100,000 is not a small amount of money, but when it comes to these projects, we realized that you can't go build a park for $100,000 or $150,000. So that dollar amount, which we threw out, I think was $150,000, that was purely a subset to be able to have the citizen input. So the citizen could come and say, we need... a park bench here. We need some of these smaller amenities that could go in an existing park and the citizens to be able to come in and say, this is what we would like to have done or this is what we would like to have in our community directly around us. And then being able to bring those together, identify how they fit in with master plan and say, here's our recommendations. It comes to $125,000 of cost. Of the total 70%. But once again, it's not us using it. It's not us saying this is how to use it. It's just coming in, allowing the citizen to have an additional input to say, hey, that park bench is because I went and brought this to the committee, and now we have this because of citizen input.

Yeah, and I think from my perspective, I don't think you need a dollar amount to do that. I think you can take the 70%. go through what's on the master plan and what's being worked on. And then in addition to, you might have 300,000 worth of requests from citizens that you're allowed to prioritize. I guess I just don't want to, I don't know why we would cap you or why we would restrict you when I hope you consider it the whole 70% as a whole and you engage with the residents on every item of that 70%. And as we, the five of us, should also be engaging with residents on all of these line items as well. I guess maybe I just don't see the need for like a certain allocation of it when I think that the citizens would be involved for every dollar spent.

And the whole reason that I'm even throwing that out there is I'm hoping that you guys have a big project that you have in mind that we can go and spend this money on. And we're not doing onesie and twosie throughout the whole city because, frankly, you get a better bang for your buck. If you've got a large project, you're getting more done for less money than if I'm putting concrete all over the city and putting park benches. Not that the park benches aren't needed and not that things like that aren't necessary. That's why I kind of said, hold on, let's not give them the full amount because I think the full amount – Frankly, we have major parks that need to be taken care of and worked on and things that upgrades needed. Not that the committee shouldn't have a say in those, but realistically, any plans that we have for anything that we're building, we always run by them and say, these are the things that we would like you to see and do and X, Y, Z. And so that's really where that substantial dollar amount came from to say, okay, you guys, you know, let's give you this leeway here, and then from there, let's let the council decide what they want to do.

Yeah, and I think that's where I think it's a little bit of a backwards approach. I would like to see it, and this is where I'll just say how I feel. I would like to see, I love the idea of getting the committee more of some direction. And so I think this is a great step forward. I would like to see them operate similar to the park tax committee where they look at the full 70%. They, throughout the year, should be engaging with the parks department and understanding the priorities of projects and the master plan so that every year they can come up with some priorities. I actually think it would be healthy to have some differing ideas from the parks department and the committee. That's a good thing for us to hear and deliberate. And yeah, I don't love this small subset that, oh, they can have freedom over. I would like to have your input on all 70% and that's just where I stand so I just want to voice that and Echo some of the concerns that my council members have also said thank you Yeah, so I'm the liaison.

Well, so Emily is also to the parks committee. We've talked about this I would like to have the council, since many of us are new, have a discussion with the parks department, a separate discussion at some point, again, about the parks. We'll have a parks committee meeting, parks and trails committee meeting next week, and I think it would be great to talk about some of these ideas, feedback. I'm really glad you came, Scott. Thank you for coming. This is an important discussion to have, because even though you sent me this, and I tried to send it to the council months ago and socialize it, we didn't get a lot of feedback from the council, so I think it was great to have this discussion now, and then I would I would like to talk about this proposed code changes at a later date with the council after we have been able to assess all the needs of the parks in the city ourselves and kind of see, like, is this what direction do we really want to go? And, you know, all these percentages, things, whatever. I mean, I think it is a little different talking about parks versus nonprofits and grants and outside organizations versus inside, like, We have the parks department who are our specialists who would be applying basically to you to, and then you would tell them, I mean, it's kind of like be this interesting relationship going on. And basically we want the park, PARC, name on things because the first five million dollars was spent towards family park yeah and that's kind of like this is the one of the answers that's really what i'm after here i've got to start branding this and to brand it yeah i just want to put that out there we can't i mean yeah it goes so well it would be a shame to lose it yeah so thanks for coming i i would love to talk more about this code and change it another time so thank you may i ask just a follow-up question for steve could they

I mean, I appreciate you getting input, like, oh, this park needs a bench or something like that. Could that be something where they go out and, like, inventory each park or just see, like, oh.

I think, I get what you're, sorry to interrupt you. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, so I guess really where this is is, I know that citizens are supposed to come to you guys and ask for requests and do that. And they do. And they do. But where do you go with it? You go either to me or you go to Jason or you go to Dean. This is a way that we can streamline that and say, you know what, we don't have that in our budget right now. That's a great idea. and put the burden on investigation, construction, cost, analysis, is this worth it, D all of the above, back to a committee that, frankly, in my eyes, is struggling to have value. I mean, I hate saying that out loud, but they do. I mean, it's really hard to even get them there to want to participate. I don't know that... More than four of them maybe? Maybe? I guess there's only five now, isn't there? Anyway, I'm going to say I don't know that two of them have read the Parks Master Plan. I don't. That's hard. I mean, that's what their whole thing is. So if we give them something to do that's not necessarily the detailed work that me and my staff have to take care of, because we are. We're the experts in the field. I mean, Trent has more certifications than all but four people in the state in his field. It's amazing. But in that same breath, we do like differing opinions. We do want to know what people want. And it's hard for us to know what everybody wants, because all we do is put out fires all day long. So this is a benefit to us if this is what we want the committee to do, if that makes sense.

Scott, thank you for coming. Thank you for expressing. We appreciate that you volunteer and come and do that. So from me, thank you for the time that you put forth. Appreciate it. Okay, item 3.2, discussion of the electric cost of service and rate design study. Mr. Joel.

Let me just see and make sure we're all connected here. Maybe I just, I guess I just share my screen to show you what I'm looking at here. Okay, looks like that works. And then just a sound check. Dave, can you hear me? Dave Berg? Yes. Can you hear me, Joel? Yep, we got you. Perfect. Thank you. Okay, so Dave Berg, as you know, is our consultant that did the cost of service and rate design study. I've got just a couple of quick slides to go through and just kind of update. I've sent this out first iteration. We made a couple of corrections, but the first iteration went out about a month ago, and then again roughly a couple weeks ago, our final draft. From one of our other discussions, there was a request to see how we compare to other cities. So that's what these slides are, and you've been provided these. This was what we presented in February of our current rates, where we sit comparatively to other cities when you compare a small residential home to a medium and a large residential home. And then with the changes in the rate design, this would put us at this level. So on large residential, we bump up a little bit. That should just give you a feel of where we sit with this. And with that, that's really where I want to start with. So yeah, any questions?

Mr. Mayor, may I ask a question? Do you know if St. George and Spanish Fork are also doing rate studies this year?

I don't know that. Oh, okay.

I'm just curious if they're also going to... Oh, Dave does. Oh, I forgot.

What's the answer, Dave?

Spanish Fork will be doing one this year, yes. Okay. I don't know about St. George, but Spanish Fork definitely will.

Okay, so there's a chance that if they adopt an increase, we might still be the lowest for large homes. We don't know, right? I could watch some of their meetings and find out, but yeah.

Yeah, we looked at maybe possibly comparing this year, 28, 29, but as we do that, we're comparing to old data. We don't have their new data yet, so it's not a really reflective comparison. Okay. This is kind of the best we can do right now. Okay, thanks. With their published rates.

Yeah.

Joel, just on this.

Well, one of the things I can maybe, which then to a certain extent results in a bit of a lower energy charge. And so what happens then is that your rate with the lower customer charge is in a way more beneficial to smaller use customers. Whereas their rate goes on with the higher customer charge is more beneficial to larger customers. So there's a little bit of that that goes on, not necessarily because of the level of rates, but because of the design of the rates.

Understood. Thank you.

Yeah. So why do you break it down as small, medium, large, residential when it's, I mean, the residential rate increase will apply to all of them. And how do you do that? Do you look at just usage or?

We look at the whole picture, so we take, yes, their usage. Actually, I have a bonus slide. But we literally take the usage for each month of some sample customers, and then we bill it out with the customer charge as proposed, the power purchase adjustment clause, and the energy charge. And so it's pretty straightforward on what these costs are, and as we change them, we can move these around. Now, this is reflective of three customers of $33,000, but it gives you a feel of what it does to small, medium, and large.

And then I can also add, the other thing is, into the large, you've got your rate design for energy. You've got two energy rates in the residential plus. There's a rate for zero to 1,000 kilowatt hours, and then there's a higher rate for usage over 1,000. So obviously a small customer on a usage basis will not get into that higher rate. Whereas a large customer, you look at those usages that Joel's got there, like 2,500 kilowatt hours. they're buying most of their energy at a rate that's over a penny and a half higher than the rate for the first thousand. So that's why you will also, there's a difference between small and large because of rate design.

Okay, help me understand this. You're proposing a rate increase, but...

you assuming conservation i mean the total on the proposed yeah they're all negative so they're their bills will go down with their rate increase yeah so there's two components to the rate there's a power purchase adjustment and then there's the then there's like covering our operations the increase comes on the operations side of that now there's still the ppac so for example if we look back We've done very well this last year. And because of that power purchase adjustment, it will actually reduce that amount. So the net increase is actually a decrease. And I know that's confusing, but let me just illustrate it. We budgeted $75 a megawatt hour to purchase our wholesale power cost. We came in at $71. Market's been favorable. We made some good decisions. We've got a great team. And so we're able to keep those rates down, even though the base rate, I'll call it, is increasing. So as long as we can maintain something like that, that PPAC will protect us moving forward.

Does this include the customer charge?

Yes. This example here that we're looking at, yes.

It's added in. Okay. Thank you. That makes sense now. Any other questions? Is that it?

Yeah. I mean, this is just the Q&A for, I'll tell you next steps is, let's see, I think our next meeting is June 9th. Is that correct? So we would be, you know, barring any challenges that you guys have or concerns, we would bring this to you for adopting that on June 9th.

Okay, I have more questions. I just wondered if that was your presentation.

Yeah, I just kept it short because this could really go anywhere with questions you might have. So the floor is yours.

Great. I do have some questions. You're good.

Well, I called you and asked you questions today, so I'm good. Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Yeah. I should have called you. So help me understand. So I'm looking at all the... The different sections. So the projected operating results. Well, okay, first of all, this iteration is very different from the previous draft. So can you explain what happened there in the previous draft? The numbers are better. The base rate increase was less. So why the difference?

Are you talking about this page here? Is this your referencing?

I'm referencing the thing you sent out the May 4th. Draft versus the May 20th draft.

Yeah. So Dean and Dave, help me remember, but as I recall, I'm trying to remember the things that we noticed in there. that we needed to correct. One was we weren't counting enough on the fund balance for our impact fees. And so that had a big chunk in there. That was probably the biggest one.

The biggest change, the rate that we had in there included the PPAC, and we didn't think it did. Oh, yes. That was the main thing. Yeah. And then the money we had any impact fees on.

Yeah. Say that again. So in short, the initial version, we inadvertently counted the PPAC that's on the fee schedule twice. Okay. So we caught that and said, well, that's covering too much. We got to fix that, which then made the rate increase higher. And then we reassessed where we realized we need to make sure we include our impact fee fund balance because our impact fee projects are listed in here. And so that balance then brought it down. So we kind of went up and back down.

And then the overall difference, we were around 4.5% before, and now we're at 5%. So we were essentially overstating revenues of the existing rates, but we were understating available funds for capital improvements.

Well, looking at the projected operating costs, Doesn't have a page number, I'm sure. Sorry. But it's on the second section, all the numbers.

Yeah. I think that's this page, 2A.

Exhibit 2A. Yeah. OK. So when you go to fiscal year 25 to 26, your charges for services drop by about $3 million, $2 million? 2 million.

So from 55 to 53. relative to the PPAC, that portion of the rate, in 2A, there's no rate changes. And the PPAC is going down because you've been doing so well in wholesale power. So you're collecting less money because of the PPAC.

So this is pre-any changes.

But would you, huh?

This is pre-any change. So if we didn't do anything, that's why it goes down, because we're not increasing the operating cost to bring that back up to make it more solvent. Does that make sense?

This is if we do nothing, then we're going to be negative. Yeah, exactly.

And so you can see we go down to minus 2%. Yeah, minus 2% in our savings account effectively by 2030.

But wouldn't you include the PPAC? It's the same thing, only with the changes. Oh, you're saying that it's... Okay, so the next year you would increase the PPAC, right? Because you're not capturing the revenue you need for the cost?

On this table?

Yeah. This is with no... Is this with the new calculation?

No. This is if we do nothing for the next 45 years until 2030. If we keep all of our rates the same.

Including the PPAC at 0.017 cents or whatever.

And that's going to adjust for the wholesale power component. But specifically, our operational costs are increasing and we have to correct for those somewhere. So because there's no correction in this table... That's why you see it all go down.

Your charges for service are reducing, but the PPAC is staying the same. I'm still not... I mean, I can understand it if you're using the new formula for the PPAC where it is reduced, but if you keep everything status quo, again, why is it going down?

What's your estimated PPAC on this table? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay.

In the... table in Exhibit 2A and in the one in Exhibit 4B, the PPACs in both of those are the same. We're not changing the PPAC formula, okay? So the amount of revenue in the current version due to the PPAC in Exhibit 2A is the same as the PPAC revenue in Exhibit 4B. The difference between the two unrevenues is the changes in the public rates, the customer charge and the energy charge, not including the PPACD.

So that formula is what you've been using?

And the projected PPAC in both of those tables, Dave, is reflective of this table, correct? It's that .00813, .00262, and so forth.

Yes. So that's the... And the reason that that PPAC is going down from the current to fiscal 27 is because you've done better for wholesale power. Yes. So if costs go up or down, it's supposed to adjust. So we're collecting less next year because your purchase power costs have been better than we expected. But you recalculate that every year. What's in the table here is just my projections. I will never claim to be good enough to know what's gonna happen to wholesale power costs in the market going forward. But the idea is as wholesale power in the market change, you're able to adjust that portion of the rate, PPAC, just to adjust for differences in wholesale power costs. Primarily the changes in the rates, not PPAC, but the published rates, are addressing your local costs, which are increasing, as well as the funds needed for capital improvements.

Okay, to go back, so kind of, You've been using the formula all along, right? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, we run that formula each year.

I looked on the city website and it had a flat number, so I thought that's what, okay.

Well, yes, we run the calculation, but it was so significant. We would have had like a 20% rate increase in 2023, if you recall. We chose not to do that, but to do a lower PPAC and recover that over about two to three years instead. So that's why it was, I think it was 1.17, .017, anyways, yeah.

Okay. So with your wholesale power costs are going down, why, again, this is Exhibit 2A, why is the operation and maintenance going up so much?

So I'll take a stab at that. If you look at our 10-year plan of projects coming up, we got a lot of stuff to build. So it's more expensive.

Yeah, it looks like out by 2030, it'll be 10 million. We'll need a lot. I won't say it. I won't put a number on it.

Those are substations. There's two of them in there, Sky and then probably Cold Springs.

So it looks to me like the solution is to kind of increase the base, the customer charge, the base rate by a small amount every year, and then a small amount of cents per kilowatt for, that's kind of the solution so that we can build up reserves so we have that money for capital projects that are coming up in the future. Correct. Okay.

I think the other thing, when you look at the operating expenses, so operating in maintenance line item, which is going up. But what you understand is the average per kilowatt hour is better, but you're selling more because of growth. So the actual overall number still goes up because you're buying so many more units because of growth on the system.

But you're also selling.

If you look at the charges for services from 27 to 28, it goes up by $3.5 million. A little of that is 2A. A little of that is DPAC, but most of that is because of more sales. So you've got to be careful when you look at the increases.

That customer charge, unless I'm missing something.

They have one, but it's $29 per month.

Yeah. That's going to be, let's go here. four sorry it's all the way at the bottom here okay large commercial solar there's your there's your customer charge 29 and we're going to take it up to 37. and we have one customer that's on that rate um and 37 is not going to do anything for that customer because their cost is significantly higher for their energy so they are charged Oh, yeah.

So you might want to correct on page six.

Six of section four?

Oh, well, excuse me, I misspoke. They're not, they are charged the customer charge, but not the PPAC. So bottom of page six.

Page six.

Yeah, section four, page six, right there, yeah. Yeah.

So that's because the large solar customer, we've entered a power purchase agreement with them that they will procure solar energy in their behalf at a fixed contracted rate for 20 years. So that's why the PPAC is not moving, because the energy cost is fixed for them. However, all the other components are on the table to continue to adjust. As transmission costs increase, we charge them an increase, and we get them in all the other components that we need to to make sure our costs are covered.

So how does that affect – if we're securing solar for them, and sometimes solar is very, very cheap, right? How is that – I'm just wondering, do they get the benefit of that cheaper rate?

Yeah, so for energy, energy only.

Right.

Yeah, so they're tacked on. We call it sleeving. We're sleeving the Red Mesa project to them. There's a fixed power purchase agreement that we're passing along to them. with extra things added on, delivery cost, transmission, capacity charges, local costs, customer charge, all these other things are still in play.

Let me help here. If you're looking at it, are you looking at Exhibit 4A?

Okay, there it is.

So if you look at the general service demand rate 105, That's a large customer who's not part of the solar. You'll notice that to compare that to the large commercial solar 111, the customer charge is the same. The demand charge is the same. But actually, the solar has a higher energy charge. Because if you're just buying solar energy, yes, it's relatively inexpensive.

But you've got to remember, the sun doesn't shine at night.

It also isn't firm, so it has to be firmed up, and we have to deliver it over the transmission system. So you can't just pass that pure energy charge onto them, because then they can only use energy during the day. And so when you hear about how cheap solar is, what's missing from that equation is what we call firming it up, so that you can use power all day long. And so the rate is actually, slightly higher than it would be if they had stayed on the 105 rate, which is where they were before we created the solar end.

Okay. I just don't want them to get all the cheap power and charge everybody else more. Thank you. Doing a great job answering all the questions. Appreciate it.

Hold on one sec.

Anybody else can ask questions while I read over my notes, if you want. OK. So the assumption that there's a 4% annual increase in the cost of wholesale power, is that historically what you've seen?

It said a 4% increase because of the cost of wholesale power? Yeah. It's hard to say what the future is going to be because we've entered into a whole new market, and so that is an estimate. That's going to be hard to tell for sure.

But again, that PPC will adjust.

And you guys in particular learned that only less than the fickleness of the market there a few years ago. Right.

Nobody could predict that.

Right.

I think that's all I have.

Okay. Feel free to reach out with any others. This is a great format because you have all the experts here. We've got Dean, we've got Dave. But if we need to field more questions from there, we can.

I can email all three of you or something.

Yeah, that'd be fine. And then without any other delays or issues, I think we'd look for an approval June 9th. And then just so you're aware of how the process will go is We'll collect all the data for the fiscal year. But we're about a two-month lag to get our final wholesale invoices for power. So we'll probably be doing the calculation for the PPAC and adopting the new rate in September from here on out. because we'll look at that whole fiscal year, do our calculations, and then we'll come to you in September. An adoption of this is that this is how it's calculated, but we still will bring it forward and let you know what the number is. We won't just run forward with it. Even though you've granted us authority to do it, we'll still bring it to you.

Great.

Okay. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, guys.

Okay, item 3.3, life safety signage ordinance discussion.

Here he is.

Here he comes.

Good evening. I know you've got a busy night, so this is going to be short and sweet. My name is Gary Enrowit. I'm the Lehigh Fire Marshal. And I've worked with Craig Chambers to come up with this ordinance to address a specific problem that we have. The problem starts with the International Fire Code's life safety system signage requirements are very basic and vague. And so, over the past few years, we've developed a standard that we give out to the construction companies and business owners and say, hey, this is what we'd like to see so that we have some, I guess, some consistency across the city. And then also have signs and language that our first responders are going to pick up on quickly. But since this is just a standard, what we run into is a lot of business owners, construction companies, You know, this item comes up at the last minute and they're rushing to get their certificate of occupancy. And so they go and get the signage that they can get at a moment's notice. And it often doesn't reflect that standard that we have. And since it is a standard and not an ordinance, I don't have a way to enforce it, hence this ordinance. So it tackles FACP, which is Fire Alarm Control Panel. And then we've got FDC. And in the standard, this sign is actually smaller. We've reduced it to four inches, so it's not so big. And that is fire department connection. That's where our trucks actually tie into the building's fire sprinkler system. And then lastly, the fire riser room. And that is the room that houses the building's fire sprinkler systems. So this only applies to buildings that have life safety systems. As you wander the city, you'll see examples that I'm referring to where you'll have different sign colors, different sign language. And you'll even see it on this building as you exit, where it's just a red vinyl sticker that may only last five years max. This ordinance would set an enforceable standard to create consistency across the board and then also provide signage that is, one, reflective and then also made of a durable material that will last for years. So any questions?

So this would be any sign that isn't in compliance with this would need to be replaced? Is that what I understand? This would be moving forward. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And it would be on the cost of whatever business or owner or anything like that, right? Yeah.

At this time, we'd just be setting the standard, and then I would be identifying... approved vendors that would have these available, and then they would go out and purchase from them. In the future, if this passes, I would pursue an option to purchase these signs through the bond process, and then we would be able to provide them.

No other questions? Great. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Have a good rest of your evening.

Okay, item 3.4, neighborhood exchange structures ordinance discussion, parks and facilities department. Mr. Trent.

Hello, I'm Trent Dyer from the parks department. Hopefully you've had a chance just to read over the summary of kind of why We're proposing this. Basically, we're just trying to clear up the code and make sure that the city isn't falling liable or responsible for any risks or maintenance associated with stuff put on our right-of-ways or on city property that residents are trying to provide. We support these and we like them and we think they're great for our community, whether it's a little free library or a you know, fresh egg stand or some other thing. We just want to make sure that they're on private property and that we're backing that up with our city code. So happy to answer any questions that you may have or hear any concerns with what's proposed in here.

Just a quick question. And I get it. We all love the little library. Yeah. But it's understandable why we have to Keep them on private property. Do you have any ideas about how to educate people on this? Because I hate to see somebody put one in their park strip thinking that's their private property and then being told to take it down or something.

sure we uh and and and to be quite transparent we we have some of these existing that we've you know talked with residents and allowed in the past and and that's something that we'll have to go and address and you know whoever put these here initially may not be involved with it anymore it may just be kind of a running on its own And so part of our engagement process is to reach out to the community in these areas and just educate them on this process and hopefully find somebody who's willing to take stewardship of that and potentially move it into their yard. I think moving forward with future, typically we've had requests come in. It's been on our city property I think the right-of-way would would definitely be a challenge just to address that kind of on an as-needed basis with our with our code enforcement or you know if we catch it and see it early enough just Educating them and and probably having something that we can hand to them and say hey This is our ordinance give them an opportunity to address it and you know, hopefully move it behind the sidewalk Yeah, so maybe

Maybe staff with the, what's the Facebook thing? The High City chat, whatever. Yeah. Maybe put something out, friendly, just kind, saying, hey, these are great, but just be aware. You need to set them back and that would be okay. Again, I just feel bad if somebody puts one up and then they're told, no, you can't, then we're the bad guys, you know. Anyway, just catch it before they do that would be great if we can, but.

We'll still be the bad guys. I know.

Mr. Mayor, may I? Yep. So I saw that Gary from engineering talked about lemonade in the section of the code where you specifically refer to temporary lemonade stands. Is that because of the law that they call the lemonade stand law? Why did you choose to write? It's on page 39.

That was added in response to his comment. So this was updated after the DRC, and I believe we added that in so that it wouldn't necessarily restrict kids from setting up a stand and, you know, code enforcement coming after kids. And maybe that needs to be...

written differently what if it's kool-aid like they'll be fine right right yeah or if they're doing tang back in my day we did tang um but yeah i wonder if that drc comment of changing it to temporary food or something might be beneficial just because lemonade is so specific and i know we have that law, but I didn't know if that's what you guys were trying to go after or something else.

Yeah, I think originally it said And Gary's not in here to correct me, but I believe it just said this does not include lemonade stands, and they updated it. The planning department uses such as temporary lemonade stands. But we're happy to update this anyway. It makes that a little more clear and a little more general.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless there's a specific reason to say lemonade stands. I would think maybe being a little bit more general. But that's my one piece of feedback. Great work. Thank you.

So basically, it does not include temporary stands. That's what you want to say, right? Yeah. Okay. This does not include temporary stands such as lemonade, hot chocolate, cookies. No, I'm just kidding.

My neighbor did Italian sodas. That is high class there. Okay. But this, sorry, this causes a follow-up question for me. We've got people in my neighborhood that have fruit stands. I mean, these are adults that are, it's kind of a commercial thing there. So, I mean, is that considered a temporary use and is that permitted or?

That's a good question. Probably not permitted. Something that came up after we started working on this and went to DRC is we found a spot they were selling garden beds in the park strip. They had them all out on display. It was a great little business, but it Again presents problems for the city that we're just trying to address and so maybe we need to update that that verbiage for temporary because that could be you know, it's only temporary for two years or Who's determining what temporary means so I think that's that's good inputs are and are you feel familiar with state code because there is that a Not specifically regarding the lemonade laws.

It might be good to look at because I know there is that where kids are allowed to do these stands, right? But then we want to probably keep people from kind of using it more as a full-on commercial business where they're selling stuff. I don't know. So maybe look at that. Okay.

Yeah, one thought I have is, and I brought this up with Kim, I don't know if in the city you've seen, but there's people who sell flowers randomly on corners or food or whatever. And I've had some citizens who are concerned. And I don't know, this is not within my realm. So I would think the police, go to enforcement. would have input on that planning as to how to address that and if these are grown adults with businesses, do they need to rise this license versus we're talking about minors selling a thing for maybe an hour they last or something. So anyways, I understand what you're saying about the neighborhood exchange structure. I just wonder about the temporary uses and all of that and how that works. So it's just something to think about.

Any other questions or comments for Trent? Great. I think we got a run. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, item 3.5, discussion of budget amendments for current fiscal year 25 to 26. Mr. Dean.

We have a budget amendment on the agenda for the next council meeting, whatever date that is, in June coming up. So I put this out just so we can talk about it if you have any questions. I'll just kind of go through them line by line. I think they're mostly straightforward, but we can ask questions as we go. some of them are items where we've received a grant or a Donation or something like that and just to remind you even though we received the money We still need your authorization to spend it so so the first one the donation on Carnegie Carnegie donation for the library they received some money ten thousand dollars to buy books There's a justice assistant grant Same thing, that was to purchase software for their drone. The third one is payments on the 2025 water bonds. So we issued bonds last fall, and that was after the fiscal year had started, so we hadn't budgeted those payments. So that's all that is, is the payment on the 2025 water bonds. Those are already included in next year's budget for that one. 600 East home demolition. The city had purchased a home near the cemetery some time ago, and I think the long-term plan is that land could be used to expand the cemetery. Sometimes we purchased homes and rented them. This one is not in a condition where it's like we wouldn't want to put money in it, and the city doesn't want to rent a home that is substandard, so we just want to demolish it. the fifth one is the sales tax bond payment that's the science and technology building at Thanksgiving Point we hadn't budgeted that because it happened mid-year and that's is paid with the lease paid to us from Thanksgiving Point the sixth one is the Civic Center construction so there's been a long project there's a lot of things go on there were a few items that we added, like they have a really tight budget and they need a little more room for things that we added, some building things, some security things, some AV things, but that's $100,000 to add to their budget. The next one, I was counting in numbers, but now I'm using letters and I don't know what letter G is. So 5G is medical supplies. As our fire department surprise service, Supply services to primary children's hospital. There's just some more unique supplies that they would need for children. And we should be able to cover that with additional ambulance fees that we're bringing in. The next one is the fiber bond payment. So we issued this one. I probably should have had it in the original budget. I think I missed it. But payment on those bonds. We have capital interest money that was borrowed to do that. So it's not additional money. drawn anything else it's using the fund that's already there to pay that the next one is the outdoor pool repair we talked about that a little ago a little bit ago we were concerned we may not be able to open the outdoor pool but it sounds like we have a fix for at least this year that is not too expensive and that's to do that the next one as I understand it we had a Our firefighters go out and do wildland firefighting. We get grants. Sometimes those come in, and I think we have to repay. It's only $5,000, but we need to repay that from money that we'd received previously. Next one is wages, especially related to police overtime. We did an amendment last time, if you remember, for the overtime that we're providing over at Utah Valley University. That's still going on. Most of this is going to be covered with that. But we also have a little bit that I don't think is going to be covered. And what I want to do is just transfer money that's budgeted in the planning department that's not going to be spent over to the police department. And this is probably something we'll have a little bit every year. You know, when we put a Wage of benefit budget together. There's a ton of assumptions that's in there as far as is it gonna be staffed all year long Are people gonna get family coverage and this and that and so it's not uncommon at the end of the year to say There might be some departments that would be a little bit over and some that would be a little bit under and so It's not a request for new funds. It's just reallocating those Park tax this is just that so the actual money we got from the park tax was a little more than we'd put in the original budget. So we gave out more grants than we had in the original budget. That's all this one is. And there was one more grant that I was supposed to add something. Allison, do you remember? I'm sorry. There was a police grant that we needed to add. This came in at the last minute. Do you remember?

Yes, that is for the ICAC grant, so the Internet Crimes Against Children.

So that's one more bet. It's not on this one because I didn't have it in time, but it'll be on the final one. But again, that's just a grant from the state. It's like $15,000. That's it. Any questions?

Mr. Mayor, I wanted to just... I had sent an email. Dean, thank you for your quick response and providing that information about item 5F, where the additional items for the Civic Center construction. And based on the conversations I've had with facilities and that information provided, it seems about $20,000 was spent to accommodate a request by the council for office space. I recognize that Mr.. Mayor you have some spending authority that we've granted to you But I would just ask from a process perspective that anything spent That affects the majority the council at requests of council members come before us as a vote before that money is spent I would have loved the opportunity to voice opposition to that prior to those dollars being spent and It's unprecedented for council to have office space, and I am very concerned about separation of powers. And so I'm just simply one of five here, and that's great and how it's meant to be, but my request is that dollars spent at request of council, even if they're below the threshold, that they're brought to a vote before the council, before those things happen.

Thank you. Any other comments, questions?

I do have a question. And I'm not sure who to ask this up. But did any particular council member ask that money to be spent?

I'm going to say something. Is it OK if I say? Oh, you can go, Jason. You go first, I'm going to say.

There was a request for workspace here in City Hall. As we talked about it, we tried to find the most cost-effective way to make that happen. That still allowed for that request to be made. So did they ask for $20,000 to be spent? No. But there was a request for...

There was a request for workspace. Workspace. But we do have a lot of empty offices and pods, too.

We do. But those offices are meant for growth. And again, we did have concerns about separation of power and keeping different branches separate. So that's why we chose to take the approach that we did.

Well, I think just from my perspective, I don't know of anybody up here that asked for any money to be spent. I also would have... If it were up to the council, I would have opposed any money spent on it. My understanding, I don't know where the number comes from, 20,000, because I think there were two cubicles put in a hallway. And my understanding is the cubicles are things we already have.

So the cubicles, we purchased them for the info center. They were the wrong size. We could not return them for full value, so we repurposed them. So we thought it was a good solution to put them to use there.

So I guess, where's the 20,000 number coming from?

I can shed some light on that as I ask facilities. Mr. Mayor, if that's OK. Sure. The $15,000 spent on security. And Steve, I guess you're here if you want to come in. But the $15,000 spent on the security door was a direct cost associated to the request to separate the powers. And then there was also roughly about $3,000 of additional desks, the topping required. So when you take 15 plus 3 plus you have to take the cost of the walls. That's where I get roughly about $20,000.

So realistically where it was is yes. So we could not return them, but we had to buy new in addition. So that's where that funding came from is we had to repurpose those. So we had, by the new, we accredited that towards where they got put. The door itself, the locking system, all of that was, like I said, was about $15,000.

Yeah, and again, the door and the extra wall, right? Yeah, just that small wall and a single door. That wasn't at the request of the council, correct, Jason? That was a decision that I made. Okay.

um because again i feel strongly that we need to have a separation between the executive and the legislative branch so it depends on how you want to slice it if not for the request then we would not have put the door in but we did put the door in to try to appease everyone as cost effectively as we could

Yeah, I guess my point with that is if there was any money going to be allocated or spent whatsoever, I would have definitely opposed that. I recognize and respect the separation of powers. And I appreciate kind of this informal like, hey, where can some of us put our budget books and some papers and somewhere to sit to meet with staff? You know that you went above and beyond of course and I appreciate that effort But again, I I would not support a dollar being spent on the council beyond just what's already in the budget.

I Totally see how this ended up where it did where councils asking for requests and Admin and staff filled it. That's you know, I get it that there needs to be a separation I when I saw the door I totally had heartburn over it too because I just don't think the council needs to have designated office space perhaps we could you know people had too many books to carry they could have a locker or something but i do think there's enough rooms within the here that we could reserve them as needed and my biggest concern is making sure that this is repurposed in the future i don't think that this is going to be something that future councils need i know other councils in the valley have been making jokes about it. So I just, when we've had councils in the past who even have less digital assets than we have, they have not needed office space. So my biggest thing is like, in the future, do you think this is possible now that we have a door and security there that this can be repurposed? Because I thought it could be something where, you know, the team up there could expand. is this something that now is going to be totally locked off? Or you do see a point where we could repurpose it?

Well, great, great questions. If I can take them maybe a couple at a time. We do have quite a bit of room in the finance area for that group to expand. So that door, the security door that you're referring to, I have less concern about that being a barrier for them to expand. And frankly, that area was kind of meant to be I don't know what it was meant to be. Frankly, it didn't really have a super practical purpose. Um, it was a seating area, uh, and that didn't serve a whole lot of practical purpose either. So, um, I don't, I don't think it's worth taking the door out, spending more money to take it out at a future point. But, um, I don't know that it necessarily impacts us too negatively in the future, but.

Like, I guess when we're at capacity, when we have like, at the old city hall where we had people working in hallways on tabletops, they could possibly, I guess it just seems kind of weird to have it isolated like that and to have it be a cubicle space, but maybe those cubicles do get repurposed downstairs and it becomes like a second kind of meeting room for council. So that's why I just wanted to make sure that it was something that would serve a purpose in the future to, um, not just be money spent for right now for this purpose.

Okay, I'm going to say something. So I walked through the city hall with Jason in December and I will take full responsibility for noticing all the extra offices and desks and I found out that the info center cubicles weren't up to what they wanted and it was too late to return them and I suggested that it would be nice to have a little space for the council, I asked. Well, as a normal resident at the time, I didn't know that city council didn't have any space, and I wanted to be physically present and available for any residents or employees or anything like that. And at the time, I appreciate the work by any city staff, who took initiative and tried to meet that request. And when I walked through it again, before it opened again, I noticed that I was pointed out the part behind here, the city council, where we have some space where we can do closed sessions and all of that. And that was a good spot for us to, if we needed to have an hour between meetings, be on our laptops, anything like that. And I thought, oh, that's a great idea. I even joked to Mayor Binns that I'd bring my little folding table, my little card table, and put it in the corner because that's all I really wanted was a little space that I could work when I'm here in and out of meetings. If even the firefighter union wanted to come to our office, they said, can we come to your office? I said, we don't have an office. And I'm fine with that. So blame me. I can take all the blame. I'm fine with that, that I requested to have a little space like I do here where I can put my computer up and get some work done temporarily in and out. And I can be present and available for city staff or whoever needs to see me. And I think that, you know, it's really beneficial to be on site. I love the connections that I've been able to make. with different employees i'm better with faces than names and and i think it's it's been really valuable i haven't been here a lot um to be honest i feel a little bit i've used that cubicle one time i feel a little bit weird being right outside the bathroom um kind of in the hallway area and so i tend to go in this back room here but i appreciate the the space that has been been created for city council to have a place to drop off. And I appreciate those cupboards, those cubbies and cupboards or whatever to, you know, I can keep some business cards there for when I come and go. And I mean, yeah, the stacks of books and things like that. So I appreciate that. So thank you. I'll just say. But I also did not intend any money to be spent on me. I will also say that because I knew there were just extra things around. So, you know, it was just a, yeah.

And I think I sent an email about this. I would have loved that money to be spent on a book drop or save for a book drop someday. But it's money spent. And again, I don't think it was money that was spent at the request of a council. I think that's been made clear.

Any other questions for Dean? Great, thank you. Any questions tonight for the agenda?

I just have one question, Mr. Mayor, and maybe this is for Jason. We were trying to figure this out, but we couldn't. For the executive officers, can you define who's an executive officer and what positions qualify?

That's probably a David question because there's a technical definition for that. I was just curious. Let's have David define that so I don't get it wrong.

Okay.

Yeah, happy to answer that question. It's defined by state law as usually a department head or a deputy chief or someone, I believe, that reports in a supportive function to the department heads.

So how many do we have? I guess how many for Lehigh City total? I'm just trying to figure out kind of what this entails, just so I can... Yeah, there's... See, there's...

13 city departments. Some of those have more than one executive officer. So I would say no more than 25. Okay. Okay.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Yeah. And to be clear, that's any compensation. So it's not like that group is getting or being considered for compensation above and beyond everyone else. Even if you give them $1 more, we have to go through this process.

Any change in their compensation has to be noticed through public hearing.

I have a question about item 4.6. And I don't know if we can talk about it. It might be a lengthy explanation, because I've spoken with Allison about it today for a little bit. Or we can talk about it when we come to the item. I just want some clarification on the item for the council, so I'm happy to wait until the regular agenda. Just putting it out there because of time.

Any other agenda items tonight you'd like to discuss?

Okay, Mr. Jason, administrative report. So we actually have two items for the administrative report, but in the interest of time there, if you're okay, they both do tie to the budget. One was we had council members request discussion on parks and that discussion that ties into the budget. So if we're OK doing that as part of the budget discussion, that might be helpful. And then David is here. As you know, the employees have asked for a conduit or an opportunity to express thoughts and feelings with the council. I sent out an email earlier today with that information. David is here ready to answer questions. If we want to do that quickly now or if we felt like that needed to be a more lengthy discussion, we could do that as part of the budget discussion as well.

I'd rather save it. OK.

Anything else, Jason? Just those two items?

Those are the two items that I had, but again, we can do those later or now or whenever you'd like, but I know we're short on time.

Okay, we can talk about those during the budget discussion. Item six, council reports.

Mr. Mayor, if I may start, is that okay with you? There's quite a bit in the past two weeks that I've been able to participate in. But one that is very relevant to the council that I need to put on your radar is I went to the Lehigh Serbs kickoff event. And thank you, Mr. Mayor, for saying that you'd be willing to help out on that. The committee for Lehigh Serves has asked that the council engage and that they help promote the event through our social media and things like that. So I just wanted to put that on your radar and let you know that they would love for, we don't have an official liaison, but they would love for you guys to all engage on the Lehigh Serves element and help the public turn out for those activities. And then there are really good things coming for the Roundup. We had a meeting in Lehigh Roundup. There's some cool stuff coming that way, as well as I just wanted to say that Ms. Lehigh, I had an opportunity to help with the mock interviews for Ms. Lehigh and Ms. Lehigh Teen, and we have some phenomenal women participating in that, and I look forward to seeing how that goes. So anyway, thank you.

Other reports?

My committees will meet that I'm in liaison to next week. But I did have a chance to attend the heavy rescue graduation, which I didn't even know what that was until I attended it. And it was amazing. It's a countywide group of firefighters who come together. They're kind of like the specialists in their area. Hopefully don't slaughter this chief craft. But we were able to watch a demonstration on a trench rescue, which was fascinating for about an hour. Brought my son with, who wants to be a firefighter. And the work that the men and women do is impressive. So that was really wonderful to be a part of, as well as the historical marker for the Lehigh Tabernacle, which I'm sure Michelle can speak more.

Thank you for speaking of that. So our next one, it seems like you have one every other week, but the next historical marker unveiling will be June 3rd, 7 p.m. at the Civic Center. And Mayor, I think you're speaking on how Lehigh got its name. So I'm sure we're all dying to find out the story behind there, right? You too. And I got to attend part of that, the heavy equipment demonstration. I got mixed up and came quite late and they were done. I'm like, wow, that was quick. But I did get to go to the graduation and watch the video. And Chief, if you can post that online, it's incredible the things that they were trained for. And it's just very impressive and made me just even more supportive of our heavy equipment vehicle and adding to that over the years. So I think it'll be saving lives. And then just a side note, Rachel and I got to visit at the Senior Center last week, and what a wonderful group of people. But the residents who tend there just love the staff, and they are incredible. And I just want to give a shout-out to Jan, who's over that. I talked with a neighbor later who was there, but I didn't get a chance to visit with her there, but she talked to me later, and she said, do you know that Jan saved my life? I'm like, what? She said, yes. She said she was choking and Jan came up and gave her the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life. So we have lifesavers, not only in our first responders, but even at our senior center. And she, anyway, I can't rave enough about her, but we, we do have wonderful city employees and I, I know there's some hard discussions going on right now, but we just have,

great people who work for this city and I just appreciate all of them all of you so thank you any other not a report just just kind of a general recognition to the finance team I know this has been a brutal long budget season a lot of different views and not everything's easy and one of the unfortunate Realities is that no matter what decisions are made, you can't make everyone happy. But I've just been very impressed with Dean and his team here by their very objective answering questions, providing information. Four of us are new up here, so it's, you know, there's been a lot more questions than normal. But I think we just have a top-notch finance team and staff generally. But just with this budget season, I wanted to recognize the finance department. So thank you, guys.

Okay, I'm happy to take a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

I have a first. Second. I have a second. All in favor? Okay, we will adjourn and be back at 7 so you get 20 minutes

Can I just speak from here?

Wherever you're comfortable.

Okay, how about if I just start from here? Yeah, so this agenda item is for the design contract. for the Pony Express Parkway design Again, this is a it's two projects the first project being The roadway design for Pony Express Parkway and the other is a project that we teamed with Utah County to extend the Utah Lake Trail This project was competitively bid we selected engineering firms from off the UDOT website Those are engineers who have been vetted through their system. So that's the selection process we used. We submitted a recommendation for six different engineers to propose on the project. We ultimately ended up receiving three proposals. And those proposals were evaluated by Lehigh staff, members from Lehigh staff, Mountain Island Association of Governments, American Fork City, and Utah County. and Wilson & Company was chosen as the company that we wanted to have design this project, so we received a proposal from them, and that's the proposal and the agreement that's on the agenda tonight.

Are there any questions for Mr. Kennison? I'm happy to entertain a motion.

Okay. Good job. This is really well done and comprehensive to be able to read through. I move that we pass resolution 2026-36, approving an agreement with Wilson and Company for Engineering Services for the Pony Express Parkway and Utah Lake Trail. And is there anything to include there? I think there's a whole appendix A or exhibit A that's going to be included. I don't need to any other DRC comments, right? Okay.

So I have a first from Councilmember Freeman. Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a second from Councilmember Lockhart. Any questions on that motion? Councilmember Newell, we'll start with you.

Yes.

Councilmember Harrison. Yes. Councilmember Stallings.

Yes.

Councilmember Lockhart. Freeman. yes thank you this is the first time you haven't skipped me but you skipped someone else i just want everyone to feel good yeah i'm yes great thank you okay item 4.2 consideration of resolution 20 uh 26-37 approving an agreement with wilmeg construction inc for the construction of lakeview park

Yes, this is for Lakeview Park Construction. It's up in Traverse Mountain. We went through a competitive bid process. This is a company we've not worked with previously. They were the lowest qualified contractor, and we reached out to a number of their references and had positive feedback, and so we felt comfortable going with them. And we've already actually worked with them and adjusted The amount that they initially bid and reduced it by about $130,000 to just help with overall costs of the park, but still maintain the integrity of the design.

Great.

Any questions for Trent?

This is paid through impact fees, is that correct? It's entirely impact fees. Yes. Okay.

Yeah, this is part of the Traverse Mountain Area Plan, one of the approved parks in that plan. I think there's... So this... this summer, the bike park. And then beyond that, there's one other park in that east canyon, or the west canyon, that would be the final park in Traverse Mountain as part of that area plan.

Good job saving money. Way to go.

Any other questions for Trent? I'm happy to entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve Resolution 2026-37, an agreement with Wilmong Construction Inc. for the construction of Lakeview Park.

I have a first from Councilmember Harrison. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Councilmember Stallings. Any questions? Council Member Harrison, we'll start with you. Yes. Council Member Stallings. Yes. Council Member Freeman. Yes. Council Member Lockhart. Yes. Council Member Newell. Yes. Great. Thank you. Item 4.3, consideration of concept approval for the updated Spring Meadow Villas, the PUD concept, a 71-lot single-family residential project located at approximately 1630 South, 500 East. The petitioner is Windy City Development. Before we get to this one, is there anyone in the audience tonight that's here to speak to this item? Great, thank you. So with that, Kim, is this yours? The applicant should be here. Are you the applicant tonight, Mr. Trey? Before Mr. Train starts, I will actually take a motion. This was tabled. So before Mr. Train gives us any comment, I will take a motion to untable it. So moved. I have a second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Great. Mr. Train.

Back again. Brad did a good job a couple weeks ago explaining the situation. Excuse me. I've been sick for a couple days, so I might struggle through this. We redid the layout to show you what those changes would be. There are some impacts. It did have an impact on a lot. Instead of shifting it through the whole subdivision, we just ended up with 71. Felt that was appropriate. The layout worked better to keep it that way. So with those adjustments, we brought it back just to show you what the proposal was, what the adjustments were. And with Brad's presentation last week, it kind of explained what the benefits are. So any questions or concerns, we're just here to see what else we need to do before we move forward to bring it through as preliminary.

Any questions for Mr. Train?

Go ahead. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. And I just am really impressed with the new concept. One thing I was wondering is, will you be able to preserve some of the mature trees to the south, as noted by one of the residents there. I think his name was David Packard.

Yeah. I mean, that's absolutely the hope. There's no additional trail needed there or things like that. Some of the things we'll be coordinating with Lehigh City because that's a park space on how we approach fencing there and things like that. Excuse me. But some of the trees down on the bottom end are Russian olive are not great trees and not in great shape, so there'll definitely be some work to do there to clean those up. However, there are some good trees that the absolute intent would be to preserve as much of those as possible, especially along that natural open space down at the bottom.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, I'm just pulling up what Brad had shown us two weeks ago, but If I'm to understand, you requested, we were saying 10 additional, but now based on your new layout, you're only going to get nine additional. I just want to make sure I'm tracking that change, which is still less than what you requested, right? You guys had requested, was it 16? 17.

yeah they're the calculation would be almost 15 15 yeah and then um we were going to give you 10 but now based on your new design the new layout we could squeeze one in it just didn't make sense with the layout the layout works well at 71 so we left it okay excuse me we left it at 71. yeah that makes sense i just wanted some clarity on that density thank you there um so this might be

premature question but um is this there was a drc question about will the subdivision join spring creek hoa is that do you have any ideas or thoughts on that we've had conversations i guess until we can get to the numbers we won't know exactly what that will be so whether the the this subdivision creates their own hoa or works with spring creek

That will still be a variable or preliminary.

But the HOA will be maintaining the open space, right?

The corridor through the, yeah. Right now, Spring Creek maintains the power corridor. That would be the same thing, yes. An HOA would need to maintain that power corridor open space.

And the other open space as well, or no? No.

The remaining all the south open space will be dedicated to Lehigh City. So that'll be there. And I did talk to Steve. You brought up the question on the concern with open space on the bottom end. The one thing that Brad and I had talked about, there does need to be property that is mitigated for this road project. Will have to be done. I talked to Steve about it, went through the conversation with him about maintenance. And of course, I mean, to be fair to your parks department, anything additional for maintenance right now is a struggle. But that, and Brad, correct me if I'm wrong for our conversation, but there needs to be property associated with this road. This totally makes sense to do it. It will need to be maintained for a certain time as part of the road mitigation. And then, I mean, the hope is we do this one correctly, and there will be very little maintenance as far as a wetlands goes. But it needs to be done correctly, and we've had a conversation with Steve about that as well, how to make it work.

Can I ask our Parks Department head, yeah, some questions? Oh, he stuck around. He did.

So realistically, like you said, I've had the conversation with Brad and Tony at this point. We do have to have wetland down there if we're going to build a road. We're going to have to mitigate it. As long as it's done correctly, we can make it so it's pretty low maintenance issues. Just in the past, we've had some that have been pretty high, and as long as those things are corrected, we should be just fine with this. Okay. So, yeah.

That's all I have. Thank you.

Any other questions on this one?

Brad, go ahead. Just one question for Tony. It's from an engineering standpoint, and I missed this on this most recent layout. Our intention really is that 610 East connects directly to Pony Express, whereas right now you have it turning down into 530 East. So do you see any concerns with modifying your layout when you come through preliminary to run that straight over? From a spacing-wise of signals, you know, future signals or whatever, we really need 610 East to directly tie in, not 530 East.

Did you see the new layout? Actually, you know what?

I'm probably looking at a different layout. So that's why I didn't notice it. That's why we got you the new one. That's good. That's good. I'm just looking at the one on Kim's computer, and that does meet what we needed.

Yeah, yeah. We fixed it to meet the intent. And it is widened on that one.

Any other questions on this?

Just to clarify, you're okay with it? Okay. Even more so. Okay. I just wondered if we needed to.

No, even more so when, you know, we felt like it was entirely justified 10 units, and they're down to nine. So, yeah, definitely.

I am happy to entertain a motion.

Mr. Murray, I move to approve. Let's see. Approve this concept for the updated Spring Meadow Villas PED concept of 71. single-family residential project located at approximately 1630 South, 500 East, with the findings that the proposed concept does conform to the goals and policies of the general DRC comments.

So I have a second. Questions? Great, thank you. Heritage Meadows, including density in lieu of connectivity. Do we have anyone in the audience who's here to speak to this item tonight? So we're looking...

Yeah, we're about to look at providing hulkage. So we've been with staff on that over the past couple months to figure that out. And we've come up with a design for the bridge. It'll be very similar to the one that was built in the subdivision to the west. And there will be some open space and a pedestrian trail connection from the subdivision to access that bridge. So it provides connectivity from this new subdivision across the bridge onto the pedestrian trail that runs along the ditch and connects other neighborhoods as well. So figured that out, and then we've worked on kind of a, I guess, a trade, I guess you would call it, for a couple lots of density in lieu. So that's all I have, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Great. Any questions that we have tonight?

I don't have questions. I just am thankful that you responded to the residents and to their petition. I know that I was contacted by them about this, and it wasn't on our agenda for a long time, and I'm just impressed that you responded to them.

Yeah, no, it worked out well. Yeah, I feel like it's a good thing, so thank you.

We have a question for staff. I just want to make sure I'm reading it right, that this doesn't increase the density, but it does allow some adjustments for setbacks and that sort of thing, or lot size?

I believe that's incorrect. It does increase the density by two lots. Is that correct?

Yeah.

So two units of density were given.

Allowable density, yeah?

I mean, I asked.

Oh, as far as units per acre, is that what your question is?

Yeah, the staff report says 1.72 units per acre is what the

what the layout is and i think the the minimum is 1.75 right yeah so so in that context yes they are below what the maximum allowed but if they were to have all the standard lot sizes then that's where they are they have two extra units yeah okay yeah yeah this ad like with rachel i had

Several residents reached out. I know I called you on this one, too. So thank you for working on that. I know this was really important to them to have that connectivity. And I think it's important to all of us, especially with that expansion to go up to the schools. I think this will along the waste ditch trail. So I'm glad that there's a way that we can do this where the city's not paying out of pocket that we can make this work.

For sure. Thank you.

Any other questions for the petitioner?

No, I think If I may ask another question of staff I Council member Stallings. I'm I'm with I'm just trying to make sure I understand because I think that answer to her question is a little confusing to me because It sounds like the maximum if they were to maximize all their lot sizes. They're under a but they are getting a density bump? Can you help me? I just didn't follow that.

So in the R1-22 zone that this project is located in, it has a maximum density of 1.75 units per acre. And that number really doesn't come into play unless we're doing a PUD or a PRD or some kind of a special subdivision. So you have the density cap of 1.75 there at 1.72 but then there's also a minimum lot size of 22,000 square feet and so a lot of times it just depends on the shape of the property this has some unique shapes and the curves in the roads so when you get a situation like that it's very hard to to actually achieve the 1.75 units per acre so When they laid it out and tried to meet all the 22,000 square foot lots, they came out with 13. And so then that's when we said, hey, if you're willing to take two additional lots, and that seemed to equate to the cost of the bridge. Yeah. So does that make more sense now?

It does, yeah. And I really appreciate that additional. Just thank you. I know that that question had been asked, but for me, I just needed to hear it maybe a little bit differently. Yeah. Because when I consider items like this, I look for infrastructure and public benefit, and we've met both. And that's why I'm just trying to make sure if we haven't met both, then it changes where I'm at, but it sounds like we've met both and the public benefit is huge. So anyway, thank you. Thanks for doing that for me.

Maybe if I could weigh in just really quickly. Two weeks ago when we presented the density and the calcs on brought those same calcs to you today. The challenge of non-disclosure with this developer so as to not report the property value that they paid. And so that information is available if you as a council would like to see it at a different time, but it wasn't something that we could propose and show you publicly. But we do feel confident that with all the improvements that they're doing, the trail that they're putting in, the abutments for the bridge and the bridge itself, the dedication of the property for the trail between the lots, The open space, you know, there's some, I think there's a small planter strip on each side and the fencing, we feel comfortable from a staff standpoint that it warrants two lots. Any other questions?

I'm happy to entertain a motion on this one.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve The preliminary subdivision approval of an update to the Heritage Meadows, now a 15-lot residential development located at 1250 West, 800 North, including density and loop for connectivity.

I have a first from Councilmember Newell. Do I have a second? I have a second from Councilmember Harrison. Any questions on that?

Would you be amenable to including the DRC comments and the finding that the proposed subdivision will provide a trail and bridge connection, increasing neighborhood access to the trail network. For sure. Thank you.

So it's been a first and a second. Any other questions? Okay, so we'll start with you, Council Member Freeman. Yes. Council Member Lockhart.

Yes.

Council Member Newell. Yes. Council Member Harrison. Yes. Council Member Stallings.

Yes.

Great. Thank you. Item 4.5 is a public hearing. So we will open that public hearing at 7.32. It's a public hearing for executive municipal officers' compensation increases. So it is 7.32. We will open the podium for public comment. We will close, I will close that at 732 and we will then now go to item 4.6. Item 4.6 consideration of resolution 2026-39 taking formal action to pick up required employee contributions in the public safety and firefighter tier one and public safety and firefighter tier two contributory retirement systems. any questions on this one and I believe Dean do we have you to ask questions to or Allison Allison is going to answer questions tonight welcome any questions for Allison

Hi, Allison. I was wondering if you could explain this.

So we're all, as part of that system, if you're in particular hybrid system if the percentage goes over a certain amount on the employer side it becomes an employee pickup the employees have to pay that the state legislature allows that cities can pick up the public safety and firefighters employee portion but not the regular employees so Last year, the city chose to pick up 4.73, which is the employee portion. Federal law says that once we elect that, we can't go lower than that unless the percentage that the state sets goes lower than that. So this year, it's moving up to 5.98, which is an increase of 1.2%. That 1.25% would come out of employees' checks if you guys didn't approve the pickup.

So last year, they decided to fund 4.73%. And this year, we can't fund less than that. But we have 1.25%.

The additional pay, I think, percent contribute or things. That's just been to do it by law.

Happy to entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve Resolution 2026-39, taking formal action to pick up required employee contributions in the public safety and firefighter Tier 1 and public safety contributory.

I have a first from Councilmember Harrison. I have a second.

Second.

I have a second from Councilmember Lockhart. Any questions? Okay, we'll start with you, Councilmember Lockhart.

Yes.

Councilmember Newell. Yes. Councilmember Harrison. Yes. Councilmember Stallings.

Yes.

Councilmember Freeman.

Yes.

Great, thank you. Item 4.7, consideration of Resolution 2026-38, adopting the budget and consolidated fee schedule for the City of Lehigh for fiscal year 2026 to 2027, July 1st of 26 through June 30th of 2027. I will ask, is there anyone in the audience that came to speak to this item? Great, thank you. So, Council, I'll bring that back to us. Any questions?

Mr. Mayor, were we going to do the administrative reports that we skipped?

Yes. So Jason, you want to?

Is that OK? Yep. You want to lead on that? Yep. Let's start with the parks presentation. So I think Steve has something that he'd like to present, and then we can start in on discussion after that.

know this one-handed thing's not worth anything all right so i was asked to kind of go over what we've proposed for the park tax capital projects and our impact fee so those are two different areas so i kind of broke it out into into such So for the playground replacements, we'll dive into them. This is just all of the requests right here that we have for the park tax and capital. Playground replacement, softball resurfacing, sports park safety netting around the playground, Holbrook Park pickleball lights, Main Street Christmas lights, Jordan Willows area action plan, and then Willow Park renovation. So the big one that I want you to understand is our playgrounds. So 35 playgrounds within the city, and all of them, the majority of them were put in in 99-2000. So manufacturer recommendation on those is 10 to 15 years. We stretch ours to about 20 years just out of the gate to the point where it gets hard to get replacement parts to get items and then they wear as such. So that's just what this slide kind of represents here. So let me show you a couple pictures. So this is Olympic Park. If you look underneath at some of the safety inspection points that we look at, we have a lot of delamination from the soft material on top of them. Our slides are cracking. The supports and bolts get worn out to the point where we do need to replace them. Chapel Valley Park, this one's very similar. This is the big fish park down on the south end of town, if you guys are aware of it. It's actually to the point right now on this yellow piece that kind of looks like a spine. The pitcher doesn't do it justice, but we have a crack all the way through it, and this is actually coming out, just safety concerns that we have to take out right now. To get a replacement piece for it is almost near impossible. They'd have to redo the mold and everything else. So it's spent its time. It's time to replace them. And Willow Haven Park, this is a small playground, very similar issues all the way throughout it. So on those, like I said, you can see the breakdown on them on the prices. Chapel Valley and Olympic are much larger place structures compared to Willow Haven Park.

Please excuse me, I'm going to skip around on my slides because that's who I am.

Bandwagon Park. This houses our historic bandwagon as well as it has a play stage and a small restroom on it. The foundation's cracking. The doors we've replaced four times. The frames are at the point they need to be replaced, but the block structure is having a hard time holding up to it. What we would like to do and what we're asking on this budget cycle is to get plans for next year we would put in for replacement at that point. So if we wouldn't do the work this year, we would just get ready to do the work for next year. Excuse me. Okay, so that kind of gives everything in a nutshell. We've already talked about Willow Park, right? I think you guys understand that. The sports park netting, that one down there, we're going to have to come up with a solution. What we were proposing isn't going to work, so we're going to find something, get it taken care of. So that money slated towards it is what that is for. So capital projects... Excuse me. Let me catch back up. This is the rest of the capital projects that we've kind of talked about. So Family Park, you know, Christmas, Main Street Christmas lights. Is there any questions on those? We had a lot of complaints on how we decorated last year for Christmas. Surprisingly, that's something that really bothered a lot of people. And so this is an ongoing request. This is the second or third year that we put in for it to try and get that taken care of as well. And then the Jordanville action plan, what that is is a very high level plan, basically identifying it as a lot of wetland areas, getting a map out there showing identification of what there is, and then looking at can we add boardwalks, can we add nature areas, could we add a small bike track, can we do different things in areas to make it still functional and nice for the neighborhood and the city. I think that's a 100-acre site down there is what we own in that wetlands and open space. Pickleball courts lighting out at Holbrook. So we only have lit pickleball courts at one other park. That's up on Traverse Mountain. They get used very, very heavily. In fact, I kind of fought that whole putting pickleball courts up on the windiest part of town, but... and they make it work somehow. So it's a very, very high request. People that play pickleball do it early morning and late night. We will have to set hours and regulations just due to the noise, but anyway. Okay, park impact fees and priorities there. So Inverness, that whole area plan is starting to develop and underway. proposing putting 150 000 or 1.5 million dollars up there towards all of the trails open space and trail heads that we will have most of that is all trail way up there we don't have a lot of public parks those are all done through hoa for the community up there so our our main focus up there will be the trails on that lakeview park you heard that tonight um cost towards Lakeview to be able to get the design cut down to where we need it to and be able to build a nice park up there. We currently have $900,000, and so the whole park, it's a 13-acre park, will be about $165,000. We are back on the drawing board a little bit on that. where we do have to cut down some of the playground surfacing and area, but we're working on that too. Mellow Road's redesigned with the new additional property that we've had down there. We need to fill the space, make sure our plans work, as well as make sure that the plans are what we want to build on that. Any questions on that one? The property acquisition improvements. So what we're doing on this one is anywhere that we've had the encroachment issues that we've been facing throughout town and any additional areas that we gain if we need to do small improvements, entryways, gates, easements, things of that nature. This kind of gives us that little nest egg to be able to do those things and make sure that they're all functioning and working. And then, last but not least, the Triangle Park redesign and construction. You guys are all aware of Triangle Park, where that is. We do have money coming in from the developer on that as well to about $150,000 to help with that. The total cost of the park will be the $950,000. So really, out of our impact fees, it's only going to be $400,000. We'll reimburse the rest on that. One last thing that I wanted to touch on is, you know, we went through all the park impact fee priority or park tax priorities through this budget season. And a little bit before that, we've started really investigating how we can help with our labors or our labor extents that we have. And one of our biggest concerns Labor costs is our ballparks. So currently our ballparks, we have a four-man crew that goes down there for four hours a day to prep baseball fields. We do that six days a week. We only do that for our rec leagues for four of the days, and the other two are rented. So what we're proposing, we actually went down to Orem Lakeside Park. In Orem, what they've done about six years ago is they put turf on the infields. We've been entertaining this for quite some time, doing a lot of homework on it, making sure that this would work. But what this essentially does is take all labor costs off of the clay. So we're going from four hours of a four-man crew a day down to one hour of a maybe two-person crew cleaning restrooms, picking up garbage. We don't have to paint lines at this point. We paint the outfields. We wouldn't paint the infields. We wouldn't have to field prep. We wouldn't have to drag them. water them, do all of that. There is huge advancements in this industry. A few years ago, if you would have asked me this, I would have said we have no business being in the parks if we can't grow grass, if we can't do turf. But frankly, with what we've looked at recently, even down in Texas, they're putting turf in their outfields, in their whole parks. So if we do the infield surfacing, we're talking about $500,000 per field, roughly. Of course, each one of them has a little bit different dimensions, and it would come across a little different. If we were to do Vets Ballpark and Sports Park and only do the infield, we're talking a $4 million bill on that. If we talk about doing solely like what they have shown here and do everything at VETS, we're talking 4.5 or 4.7. Water savings, maintenance costs, irrigation costs, sprinkler costs. This is very, very intriguing when we're fighting manpower shortages. I don't know that I want a direction tonight because we still want to investigate this a little bit more. But what I would propose is start looking into this for our park tax monies, other than the other things that we've talked about on branding and making sure that we spread the wealth a little bit throughout the city. Because this could be a huge potential saving for our department, especially manpower-wise.

Do you know the replacement, I guess, the lifeline?

So there's a 12-year replacement on it currently on, of course, the top tier. But what they would do on that 12-year, it would be about half the cost to replace each field because all they're doing is taking off the top material and maybe some of the padding that goes underneath it and then replacing it. The drainage system would all be intact and in place, and then they're just laying out the new carpet, basically.

Okay. So every 12 years?

Yeah, so they have a 12-year warranty on them. And so just like everything else, the minute your fridge goes out, a warranty is going to go out. They've made it so that that's the case. I've talked to the school district. They have these in a lot of their different field surfaces. And that's what they said is make sure that you're aware that the minute that your warranty is out, you're probably going to be replacing it just due to the fact of wear.

Do they know on those Steve to the I know you get issues at home plate? You'll get issues on the mound and you're gonna get the issues at first base where people are Occupying more often. I know in those areas they replace those areas. Yes about every two or three years So I'm assuming that's part of exactly as part of the maintenance where tears hoping those can be cut out and replaced.

Yes. Yes, they can so If you get free time go down to Orem look at their fields, it's it's pretty impressive because I hate the color. We'd do better than that. But they were limited on what they had for selection at the time, too.

So I forgot my question.

I know. Sorry. I gave you a lot of questions, a lot of things to think about.

Oh, I have. Yeah. But on this one in particular, I mean, Is there cost savings to do it all at once, or can we stagger it so that we have the replacement cost savings?

Yes, of course there's cost savings. I mean, you get them here, they're going to want to do more, and they'd give you a benefit if you knock down price. I don't know how dramatic. And again, they're very, very receptive because they want to sell it, of course, and I can ask them about any question and get a response within a week or so. So if there's things you want me to look at, I'm happy to do that.

Yeah, I just, future councils, if we go this route...

Yeah.

Replacement costs. You're tying hands.

But realistically, I look at it this way. Just the labor that we're spending on this pays for it.

So how do you have that calculation?

I'm not ready to give you all that information yet. That'll come closer when we do the full on what do we got coming up discussion.

Can I ask then, so it's It's turf. It's like fake grass. Yes. Not like a sports court type thing. Yes. All right. Yes.

They do it differently. It does still get warm, of course. I asked that question when I was down in Orem. Basically, I said, how many complaints do you get a night because of how hot it is? Because theirs is dark brown. It's chocolate brown. And they said, realistically, after we put it in, we don't have a lot of questions. We don't have a lot of it because it's a unique thing. It's nice, and it's kind of an upgrade. It's not playing in your neighborhood park anymore.

If we were to do this, which park? And let's say we only want to do one park at a time. What would you practice? I would do vets just because of the heavier use. Yeah.

Mr. Mayor, is it on this topic, or are you ready to switch? I'm just talking about parks. Okay, same, same. Okay. I'm just looking at page 48 from the interim budget, right? Because some of it was covered in your presentation, but Holbrook Farms Park 2.

Yes.

You have it in here for like $1.2 million, but I seem to recall when UDOT came in to present on 2100 North, they had talked about how we would And just the, I can't fully remember what they said, but they're like, we're going to pause that park.

So that park cannot be built until 2029 at this point.

Okay. So you just have that money essentially just sitting there.

So on the impact fee money, we have to have that money. We have to have our projects allocated. Dean, correct me if I'm wrong, but we have to have it identified to what the projects are going towards.

Okay.

I'm not going to say it can be moved easily, but it's impact fee money that can be used for its impact. So yes, that is identified as a future project. I know that it got mistaken on this.

No, no, no. I just want to make sure, because I don't want our residents thinking, oh, this is in the budget as an expenditure in fiscal year 27. It's coming. When I just want to clarify, 2100 North is going to delay some of that.

Yeah, we have a contract with UDOT at this point until 2029. I think it's July.

OK. OK. So is it fair to say that the projects you proposed in the presentation today, those are the ones that will happen.

but maybe what's on page 48 is correct those some of those could be placeholders yes and to be on and to be very transparent um like the uh mountain bike park that was the trend presented on tonight that is still ongoing that's from last year's budget we do still have those those projects that we're still moving on usually it takes two years to build a park between planning and actual construction unless it's a large large park and then it's closer to three

No, the clarity is great. I know I'm getting questions, and I just want to make sure that I give the right answer. Absolutely.

Thank you.

Steve, I just wanted to clarify for the Inverness trailhead, that's for design only?

No, that is for design and construction for the whole site. So all of that money will not go out this year. So the 1.5, I'm guessing we're probably closer to $500,000. I know that they've got two trailheads itching to go right now. Trails don't come easy. You have to get a specialized builder in here. If you just let anybody with a little grader in there, you're going to have issues. So we're We're pretty picky.

It just said design. It didn't say construction. So I kind of had. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's all of it. So that will be what we spend on the trails and everything up in Inverness.

Okay. And as far as the Holbrook pickleball lighting.

Yes.

How late do they play in the summer? I mean, the sun's out.

They'll play until you tell them not to. I mean, that's the thing. We'll put timers on it that go off. Our park curfew is 11. So we'll put timers on it that go off automatically at 11 o'clock, and then they don't open back up until 6.30 in the morning. Okay.

And on that same topic, and maybe Emily would know more, being a resident out there, and you as well, Steve. I know that I've heard in other cities with the lighting and the noise with pickleball, sometimes you put lighting in and then you have a whole new slew of complaints coming in.

So what do you think the balance is? I mean, if it's so popular that... The only good thing about Holbrook Parks on that is the pickleball is about in the center. It's a huge park. There will be noise traveling. I guarantee there will be noise traveling. If we get the complaints, we may have to look at putting up more trees around it or doing something to help buffer the sound. But I think the benefits outweigh the negative on it by far.

Yeah, and there's that big mound, like that big sledding hill. I'm not sure how effective that is, but it's a good call out that there is going to be some sound. I would say, though, having talked to residents out there just last week, they seem to be looking forward to it. Yeah.

Maybe if I could, too. I'm sorry to interrupt. Oh, no. But I'm a pickleballer. I love to play. We play a lot at Patriot Park, and the way they seem to be able to get around this is they just turn the lights off. The lights just automatically go off at a specific time, and so you naturally just stop playing because you can't see.

Well, and frankly, we've got a little different situation. We do have homes all the way around ours. The south I am a little worried about, but we have some structures there to help. taking some of the sound too.

And I think thanks to Council Member Freeman's points during the noise ordinance revisions, right? Like the city isn't absolved. Yeah, absolutely. So I think, I don't know what the time would be. I know the ordinance is 10 p.m. And like I said, we can set it.

If it starts becoming an issue, we can set it for when we need to. I mean, we can put automatic locking gates on it if we had to. There's plenty of ways around it. It's not

To be fair, unless it's us out there playing pickleball, making the noise. I don't think, I don't know.

That's true.

Yeah.

I don't know. We can charge everything, right? It's the owners. It's the person making the noise.

It's yeah. I do have a question also about the campsite renovations at Willow Park. Is that just the sewage line upgrades?

It's all lumped into the same thing. So it's the sewage line that goes into the restrooms. And then it's making all of the camping stalls ADA accessible. So it'll put new picnic tables and replacing the wood table ones that we have that have a wheelchair access. It's putting actual camp ring or fire pit rings in the designated areas instead of rocks and old pieces of metal that we've found to be able to make this work. It's, it's improving everything that we have down there. And then, um, I explained this earlier, but if we go away and do a different use on the site, eventually it's not like those things can't be taken and put into our system somewhere else. We have, I mean, the fire rings of course are probably going to be a little problematic, but anything other than that we can absolve into our system pretty easily.

Okay. Okay. So going back to your original, um, presentation on the park with a C park tax. Things I'm looking, we have playground replacements, the family park, safety surfacing, reseal. Yeah, stuff. And then the sports park. I don't know. For some reason, this old budget says protective roof, shade, but it's safety netting.

Yeah, well, we were going to try and put a roof over it. Not going to work. We're going to have to do something. But it's the same price. Okay, whatever it is.

Okay, Holbrook, Main Street, Christmas Life.

Just one more question. The Silex Park and Cold Spring Ranch, we talked a lot about how there's so many issues there, but I'm not seeing it here. It's not on here. Yeah, so help me understand why. Okay.

I can only do as much as I can do, frankly. And we have other plans for it at this time. We've engaged the HOA over there. A lot of the issue that we've seen in the past they've helped contribute to. We've worked with them. We've had volunteer projects there with them. We've got a spray plan in place so that we're going to keep everything down lower. not only that, but on the North side, there's a lot of construction going on. So if I go spend a lot of money on that right now, it's for not, and I don't want to do that.

Okay. Um, the residents out there, I know

they've struggled with mice and the grass and all of that but you're still going to they're always going to be mice out there they built right next to a field next to a power line and there's construction all the way around them but it's on lehigh right with that that land under the power quarter was dedicated to lehigh so we're going to continue to mow it down and yeah it's i mean it's the power line corridor it's it's the same thing we talked about when tony was in here just on the other end of town we have this all the way through town And unfortunately, until the construction slows down a little bit, the mice are going to just stay there because they get disturbed out of their homes and move to anywhere that's warm.

Okay. Okay. So you would look at putting that into the budget once the construction north is finished?

Realistically, we're probably two years before you'll see anything on that. Okay. Thank you. Yep.

Sorry, Mayor, just one thing. I'm sure you're already going to do this, but when you come back with the baseball field stuff, if you could break it down and show it over time how much we're going to save in wages, that would be really cool to see.

And part of the problem there is water. I mean, you've got four different people in the state saying three different things on how much water you're going to actually utilize on a field. how much water costs and XYZ. That's a huge thing, especially this year. But two years ago, it wasn't that big of a deal. It is one of those things that we're trying to nail down everything so you have as much information on as you can. We'll try and get manpower. We'll try and get water savings. We'll try and get replacement costs all included so that you have an educated decision.

Well, and even the water savings, we have that immeasurable part of it, too, where it's like we really do want to try and cut back where we can.

Right, right. So... Yeah.

Okay. Sorry. Can I ask? Okay. I remember you talking about this with the Parks, Trails, and Trees Committee, and you mentioned Riverpoint.

So River Point is a development that is building that and will deed it to us. That's edge development. That will be coming in, I believe, not until next year. It may be late this year. But we're not. The city's not. No, we're not building it. We will reimburse them through impact fees. But it's not something that we are building ourselves. And that's really the only things I track is what we're building other than when we gain them in our acreage. So I have those on a different slide, and that will be part of the next presentation you see from me.

Okay, and I know you're going to love this question. No, go ahead. But many residents are inquiring about Dry Creek Lake area. So is that considered a park, open space, something that we have to maintain or...

You do ask me hard questions because I have a lot of smart answers for that. It is a park. I mean, frankly, it's kind of a multifunction, but we have a lot of multifunction. If you look at Centennial Park, it's a detention basin, but it's five acres. I mean, it's a five-acre grass park in a neighborhood, so we use it as such. This is going to be very similar to that. As far as the construction, I guess the question, what is your question? When will it be done? When are we bringing it online?

So I just want to clarify, the primary purpose of the Dry Creek Reservoir is to... Water. To reserve, to hold the water. Correct. It's a flood mitigation area. And... The anticipated date of completion, we are not sure of. It's very close. Okay. And what can residents expect? A trail?

So, yes, there's a walk path all the way around the park. It is not a paved walk path. It's a hard pack walk path. It's not for equestrian. It's for foot traffic only. No bicycles, nothing like that. Um, if we can secure water levels to the right pipe that will have a fishery in it of several different varieties, um, there's two restrooms. There's a large beach area with beach there with a seating, um, built into it. There's plenty of parking.

Um, and does it connect to, um, What is that trail right there?

Currently it doesn't connect to any trail. We're working on that. Part of the other entities are a little hesitant to allow it just due to the flood purpose of the park and inviting all those people in an extra way out. It's a natural connection if they want to get on. We're talking, I mean, not even a mile to get onto it. So it's something that we're diligently working on and we'll take care of it. try and get a better connection to it.

So is it safe to assume that this year it's going to be a little bit of a challenge and rough because of our water restrictions?

It's colder than I've ever seen it right now. But that being said, we're just starting. People have low expectations about having a big lake. Don't expect it to be 10 feet deep by any means. Fall is going to be mud.

Just to throw it in, because Heather and I, we've got to go on tours out there and

I wish I would have been invited.

Pretty scary tribes on the trail. Yeah. But people were using it when we went out there when it was just a reservoir. So they were walking there anyway. But it's very close. Highland has some trails right there that go to a little park. Yeah. People are using it long before we've... And currently right now we have the gates shut.

The pavement is down. We're waiting to mark the parking stalls. We have a little bit more homework to do on if we're going to charge for parking or not up there. We do need to go meet with Northern Utah County Water Conservancy Board about that and make sure there's no concerns there. And then signage is our big thing. And then we're still waiting to hook up the sewer pump to be able to, because it's low enough that we had to inject the pump or a sewer pump in it to extract all the sewage. So it has to travel all the way up onto the road by Smith's to be able to exit the site.

So for payments, you said we have to talk to the? North County?

Yeah, where it's their ground. There's some liability issues that we're trying to work through. Our risk manager's quite worried that if we take payment on it, that we could potentially assume liability for it where it's not our ground. We're trying to figure out the details on that, and then we'll be able to present to you and let you guys make that decision.

Steve, how much of, up on the screen, how much of this represents the, I guess, the full amount of the remaining park tax in that 70%? Is this all of it, or what percentage? For a year's worth, is that what you're saying? Or like currently what we have in that fund for the capital projects?

I'm going to run some numbers off the top of my head that are going to be guesses, but Because we got our first $5 million. We hit that point November-ish of last year. And so in a year, just for the capital projects part, that's $1.4 million. So it might be reasonable to say by June we'd have $800,000 already. OK. Another money that we've collected but haven't allocated for anything.

OK. Yeah, that's good to know. Because I think going back to the PTTC conversation earlier, even like holding on that conversation until we do have the priorities, because if we do end up deciding, hey, we're going to save for three or four years for a larger project, it kind of negates the whole change.

I think that's kind of why I was trying to allude to a certain lower dollar amount is to be able to say, still save up for that big project. There's things that we need to do.

Yeah, and I think just one item I would suggest, and we talked about the Osher Park, kind of the minor improvements there, opening access a little bit.

And you won't see that on any of our presentations. That's a trail connection that we're going to be working on. Okay. Perfect.

So, sorry, that's something you are working on?

Yeah, that's something we're currently working on. You directed us to do that, and we're working on it currently.

Great, thank you. Sorry, my understanding is we directed you... To do a trail around the whole thing. Yeah, okay, okay. But it wasn't the... No, it wasn't the full parking lot in the back or anything.

No, it's a trail all the way around it to make it accessible for everyone.

Yeah, I wanted that clarity.

Thank you. Do you know the timing on that? I just got to get Geneva freed up enough to come look at it. Okay. So we have a contract with them for paving, and yeah, perfect. Just use our contracts on it.

So are we talking about paved or unpaved trail?

It's going to be paved. Right now there's an unpaved trail currently, so we'll pave it. We have a little drainage work that we need to take care of, and then we'll pave it. Anything else for me? Thank you. Thank you very much.

Jason, so there's item one, item two.

Yeah, the other item we had, I think David's gone. Oh, there he is. David's still here. I don't know if the council had any questions for David specific to the survey results I sent out earlier. If not, then that's fine too.

Is it possible to get a recap? I was in a meeting with Public Works when that email went out, so I've looked through it, but I'd appreciate a recap if that's possible.

Yeah, happy to provide that. So a week ago, we sent out a survey to employees to collect their feedback on the proposed budget, the mayor's proposed budget, and wanted to understand how that budget would impact their daily responsibilities, their departments, what they do on a daily basis. And so we got 101 responses back to that of varying degrees. There were some open-ended questions. There were some familiarity questions. How familiar are they with the budget? What we got back was a wide variety of responses. The majority of employees that commented on the proposed budget were in favor. There were also some comments that said it didn't go far enough. And so it's been... Kind of expected of what we've been hearing anecdotally, but we wanted to give employees a chance to respond formally.

And that's on the mayor's budget or the interim budget?

We instructed them to comment on the mayor's budget. However, I think some employees commented on the interim budget as well.

Okay. And were the responses different on the budget, which budget they were commenting on?

Yes. Yeah. They favored the mayor's proposed budget. because there are additional funding for employees, for staffing, for other things. Yep.

Okay. Sorry, David. So do we get the individual responses ourselves or just your summary?

I just gave you an executive summary. Okay. At this point, Jason has the additional responses, but for employees, we felt like Jason and the mayor could address specific responses and you guys could have the executive summary.

Just to be clear, most of them supported the mayor's original budget with the tax increase?

Yes.

Okay. And even though it didn't fund the full request of the fire department wages?

There were comments from fire department members that wanted additional funding, but overall employees supported the mayor's budget because there was overall more money with the property tax increase. Because it was their understanding that the mayor's budget, which included the property tax increase, would make more money available for police and fire as well.

So, yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Jason, anything else? That's all I had at this point, Mayor. Great. So let's bring 4.7 back here, consideration of Resolution 2026-38, adopting the budget consolidated fee schedule. for the city of Lehigh for fiscal year 2026 to 2027, July 1st of 2026 to June 30th of 2027. Questions or comments on that?

Mr. Mayor, I have a question for Dean, if that's OK. Something that stuck out to me in the letter that was the redlined version of the letter that gave me some concern, and I just wanted to hear more about it, was the revenue projections. So on the guiding financial principles page, the red lines at the bottom, where it's been crossed out, projects will be conservative in order to reduce the chance of revenue shortfalls. That's been removed and replaced with economic data from both national and state sources will be used, including the annual economic report to the governor. So are we not being conservative with our projections?

I think we're less conservative with our projections. I think I mentioned our property taxes lagged just a little bit in how it's come in even this year. The projection we made for property tax was probably less conservative than we've been in some years. I really wanted to just, I thought it would be good to change because we talked a little bit about I think we're a little less conservative in budgeting expenditures that's probably the bigger impact on revenues because that's what we really changed in our budgeting employee benefits and pay so I for our work just so for our revenue projections for this year they're probably a little less conservative than we've been but I still feel good I I don't I'm not too concerned about hitting our revenue projections for next year okay but I do think there may be a little less conservative

And the impact of having a less conservative projection is that next year there's just less? Yeah.

So the wages is a good example, right? And I kind of mentioned this earlier. When we budget wages, we've always just said every position is going to be filled every day of the year. And if someone comes in during the year, they're going to choose family, health insurance, just like to be the most conservative, right? And so typically we have some money in there that's not spent every year just because we do it that way. The same would hold true with revenue projections. If you're a little conservative and it's been growing 5% for several years, so I budget 4.5% or 4%, chances are you're going to have surpluses at the end of the year. I hear different things on that. Sometimes it's like, well, why do you have a surplus if But part of it is because of that, there's a lot of things that happen in a year. We're doing our projections now. In fact, a lot of these were developed in January and February for July to June of the next year, and you don't really know what's going to happen. You want to be careful. So less conservative projections is probably going to lead to smaller surpluses, right? Maybe even a chance that we wouldn't have a surplus. um which the biggest impact is that every year we've done some projects and just say hey we're going to use fund balance to do those because we don't really have a budget in our general fund that says let's set aside a certain amount of money for capital projects And these wouldn't be like big building things we'd bond for, but it could be things like a park project or buying a piece of property to do something or all kinds of different things, right? And so a lot of times we've been able to say, we don't have to take those out of our general operating budget because we can use last year's surplus to do it. So if we have less surplus, we have less of those funds to do some of those projects.

Yeah, we're kicking the can down the road.

Yeah, it's just, you know, As a finance person, I always like to be conservative because it gives you more options.

Yeah, I appreciate your perspective. Thank you.

So in regards to that, though, I mean, when you say surplus, are you saying over the 35%?

No, I'm just saying at the end of the year, did we bring in more money than we spent?

Yeah.

Because we talk a lot about budgeting, and there's lots of estimates that go in there. We're really trying to prepare a budget that allows us to, have money for when we need it. But when it comes down to it, our actual results is just we brought in X amount of dollars and we spent out X amount of dollars. So that's the surplus, revenues minus expenditures. And we've had some decent surpluses in the past. Maybe those, if we're a little less conservative, those are probably going to be smaller in the future.

Right. So it's a choice. Are we going to put our money more towards ongoing expenses or more towards the capital? So, I mean, it's money you're going to spend one way or another. But I know that we've talked about this. I know Chris Condie was, he kind of made it a point that, you know, we're charging this tax, you know, we're taxing our residents and we need to use that money for the benefit we need to actually spend it instead of just, I mean, at one point we were keeping the max 35% in our reserves. And his point is we have that money and We're taxing the people for it. We need to spend it for their benefit. So I mean, I would not say it's kicking the can down the road. I mean, just making choices of how we're going to spend the money. I mean, we definitely are struggling with our ongoing costs. But of course, it means less in capital reserves or for those kind of projects. But help me, maybe I heard you wrong, but right now we don't Set aside money for, it's just kind of whatever is left over goes into capital?

Yeah, there's not a line item in our general fund budget that just says capital expenditures. Usually those smaller capital expenditures, we use fund balance to pay for them. And that's probably not even the best way to say it. We use money that we've surplused in a previous year. It's like that's our savings account. Let's use that money to do it instead of using ongoing money to do it.

But extra, but not, I mean, we maintain that rainy day fund, right? The 30%. Right. That's it. That's different. That's protected. That's different. Yeah.

I think we do a pretty good job of setting aside those funds for specific things. But there's money. Because if we have money on top of that part, that's what I would transfer to capital projects. And so this year, and most years, we'll say, well, instead of transfer to capital projects, let's just use it for some of these smaller capital projects. I think I didn't say that very good. When I say transfer it to capital projects, transfer it to our physically separate capital projects fund to be used for things in the future.

I have a question about the firefighter pay increase. I think the original ask was $640,000, and now it's budgeted at $750,000. Am I understanding that correctly?

I think the original request was $750,000.

Let me find it here. Okay. And I think... Well, I guess what I'm looking on.

I think the original cost was $750, and that came from David's survey. No, you're right. It was $640. $640. I take it back. And we funded $390 and didn't fund $250. That's in their original budget.

But in the interim budget, I see $750.

Yeah, it went up to $750. We put it at $750 because the new request was $820. So this doesn't even do the whole $820.

And also, if we move forward with the 3%, based on the email that I sent you, we're even lower than the $750. Because the $750, like the $820 that they needed was at the 4% assumption. So we are going to need even more than the $820 to get to market.

To get to market, they would need the $820. then that's a little shaved off the 4%. I can't remember the number.

Oh, yeah. Just from your email, I saw that it's still a significant amount. I think it's over the amount that was budgeted in the initial budget.

Yes, there's significantly more in the interim budget for firefighter than either of the initial budget.

Even despite having only a 3% increase versus a 4% increase. Correct. Yeah.

I think the big thing with that, though, is we had almost a half a million in the mayor's budget that was also going to be redistributed, likely would have gone to fulfill the firefighter wages in full. I've kind of taken this as we're being less conservative than we have been in the past. It's not like we're really gaining money. We're just spending more than we typically would to be as fiscally responsible as you've been. So if there were to be any kind of, I mean, COVID kind of year coming, we don't have the safety net that you typically had. Is that a fair?

Yeah, that's fair to say. I mean, salaries is obviously by far the largest part of the general fund budget. And so this isn't like breaking new ground. Other cities do this. Other places do this. We've just budgeted those a little bit less conservatively. And it's not necessarily spending less money, but we're budgeting less conservatively, which It helps you put it to other places in the budget.

I'm just going to say what I think. I talked to you about this. I don't know. It was the first year on the council, yeah. I did vote for a tax increase, and some of that money went to the fire, and some of it went to police. And that went against everything I wanted to do. But I was new, and I didn't know the budget very well, and I totally support fire and police, and I know That's where we're competing with other cities. And we have a labor shortage. So we need to do a lot to keep our officers and our firefighters. We don't want to lose them, especially I think the chief has pointed out that they spent a lot of time training them. And again, going to that graduation ceremony was helpful to see the training they do. But I also don't like tax increases. know i appreciate that an email went out to the city employees getting their feedback but we didn't extend that extra courtesy to our residents you know probably logistically it would be hard to do but i did go out and talk to residents myself and i know there's concern especially those that are on fixed incomes and we can say this is just a small bed each year but looking at the percentage creases of above the certified tax rate, it is increasing every time. So the first time in fiscal year 23, it was 3.38%. And then FY25 is 6.25%. Now it's 9.78%. So those small little amounts, they add up, and they're increasing over time. And I just don't feel like this is a sustainable way to have a tax increase every other year. I just don't think it's fair to our residents. And I've dug deep in past budgets and this budget to see what's going on here. And I know there's claims made that it's due to inflation. But I've looked at CPI increases over the years and COLAs, and we It's not due to inflation. Our tax revenue, we collect more than just property taxes. We collect sales tax. We collect franchise tax, other taxes, other sources of revenue, and just the taxes alone. And even the property tax is above what we collect. The revenue we collect is above the inflation rate. There's only a few outliers, 2021 and 22, but even in those cases, our Our tax revenue exceeded the inflation rate. So we can't say it's just due to inflation. I think it, and I don't mean this to criticize. I'm just saying this is the reality we have to deal with. I think it has to do with past decisions. We've grown a lot, and we've got a lot of revenue from that new growth, and it's been spent. And we have this beautiful building, but we're also at the number somewhere. I am I'm going to say $1.6 million each year just to pay the interest and the principal on the building. That would have covered our tax increase this year. Past councils have taken on obligations. Like I mentioned, the Willow Park, that was a county park, and we decided that it should be the Lehigh residents that pay to upkeep that. So now we get to pay for that. There were other obligations that were taken on. for good or ill I don't know but it's the reality we have the Legacy Center that again it's like 2.6 million a year for the Legacy Center and the recreation programs that we're subsidizing from the general fund I think going forward I love that we have a study budgeted in here that we can look at that and maybe bring those costs down at least some to free up some money for our staff and our employees and other needs of the city so it I I don't see this it's not an easy fix and I'm Like many of you, I'm so done with it and just want it to be over one way or another. But I see that in the future that there's some things we can do to rein in some of those costs, some of those expenditures, and it's not necessarily cutting services. I mean, the choice has been presented. We either have to raise taxes or cut services. I don't agree with that. I see that there's ways we can reduce costs. I think moving those The contributions to our nonprofits, the park grant was a great way to find some money, to free up some money in the general fund. I like what the mayor said in the past about finding efficiencies. I think we can do that. So I don't want to increase taxes. I think we need to break that cycle. We will have to do that every other year. And again, it's just growing and growing. And I don't think that's... I just don't like that direction. I also don't like this broad 1% cut to employee wages across the board. I know Council Member Harrison presented at least 12 different options of things to look at as far as wage reform or wage structure goes. And my understanding, I never asked that that would be the approach that we took, but that's what's presented in the interim budget. So I think if we want to look at wage reform, and I do, I think we should look at it more strategically and not just across the board cuts. I think there's our lower paid employees where that cut's going to be big for them, will be impactful. I would prefer looking at more a tiered approach, where the top wage earners in the city don't get that guaranteed 4% increase. If you look at the salaries, that's a lot every year, and it compounds. So I think we need to contain that increase there. I would like to look at the market adjustments more strategically. Um, where are we losing employees? My understanding is police, fire and streets. So maybe those should be the priorities. Um, so I'm kind of stuck because I don't like either option. I'm sorry, mayor, but I don't like that the tax increased, but I, I don't necessarily, I do appreciate the work that's been done on the interim budget. I think you took feedback back from the council and went with it, but I don't like that across the board approach. So what is the solution? I thought I had a good one until I talked to the chief just before the meeting, and I wasn't able to find a solution in the 20 minutes in our break, but my original thought was to not do the cross-de-board wage cuts, or it's not a wage cut, a little bit of a decrease in the increase kind of thing, but instead maybe not do the tax increase but instead maybe spread out the fire wage increase over two years um i'm seeing that the fox hollow golf course as when that bond expires that'll 275 000 and i would put that towards the fire wages for next year i think that's better investment than you know doing miniature golf there top golf there whatever they want to do um So we have that from a starting point. And then to get up to the original request of $640,000, we just need another $40,000 to get there. But I'm also hearing from the chief that you guys need that money now. You've waited. Last year some promises were made, and you're just getting more and more behind. So my preference would be, as much as we all want this done sooner, probably today, just to be done with it. Maybe take the extra two weeks just to table this item and try even more to see what we can do. And if not, then that hard decision will have to be made. If it's a tax increase or a wage, looking at the wages, or maybe something in between, a little bit of both. But I...

yeah i just i've worked hard on this but i i personally would like a little more time to see what we can still come up with so that's my position mr mayor can i make a point of clarification i just i just want to make a distinction between um breadth of service and depth of service and what i mean by that is when we say um We don't want to cut services. I understand that. But by the nature of it being a growing city, every house that moves in requires that much more incremental city services. So when you say that inflation is not a factor, I respectfully have to disagree because... If there was zero growth, then yes, the property tax would not need to increase. But when you say these tax increases have been coming in higher than CPI, that's due largely to our growth. And that necessitates more police officers, more fire, more streets, all those things that we talk about. So I just want to make that distinction. When we're talking about depth of the quality of our service, that's one thing. But breadth is every house that comes in has to be

And I'm mostly looking at sales tax revenue. I mean, the billing is always property tax. We have other tax revenues.

We do. But that's subject to population growth as well.

Yes. And I forgot my point. Okay. So, yes. So looking at the budget, we have to increase personnel staffing. And that's a big thing. That's a big concern. Yes. But the wage increase is a big thing. And I know that the conversation is, or has, some people have said, oh, we can't reduce it because then, oh, it won't keep up with inflation. But if you look at coal, and I did look at federal government sources to get good numbers, I think there's four times in the last 26 years since 2020, or 2000, year 2000, that it has been above 4%. And that's COVID, two years with COVID, mostly because of COVID spending, and then 2008 with the housing bubble burst. So I'm not seeing increases so much in light items because of inflation.

it comes down to the cola and i i'm seeing that that wage increase stays above that and i guess for what we're seeing is even with the four percent as of recent we're still falling behind in certain areas so we've created that pot where we've done very targeted market increases like you suggested we we've done that for the past several years where we go person by person Position by position.

Yeah. No, what I'm saying targeted is where are we losing employees? Yeah, that's what I'm saying also. It's fire and police and there's some in the streets. And that's where we're really falling behind.

Yeah, years ago it was building inspectors. During COVID it was engineering. And it'll change, right? Yeah, it will. And we've addressed that. So I just don't want the perception to be that we aren't trying those things. We're also pulling those levers, so.

Yes, but we can't disregard what's the money that's been spent in the past. And I've been on the past council, and I know the discussions that took place there. It wasn't where can we save money, where can we be careful, rein in here or there. It was, well, let's spend money here or there. I mean, ice skating rink or fragmite mower or do more here or there. The conversation in the past was where can we spend money. It's never where can we.

brain in okay but we're talking about wages right and and I think we're talking about two different things talking about skating rinks and programs and capital things is one thing but now when we talk about okay let's save money by not having our wages keep up with the market that

I wasn't for that. I wasn't for reducing the 4% increase. Okay.

Because what you just said, it sounded a little like it. So I just wanted to clarify that.

Okay. I'll say it right now. I do not support the broad approach of reducing every single city, I guess it's full-time employees, by 1%. I think that is too broad and I think it will hurt us in the long run. So I'm not for that. But I'm saying, you say, the conversation has been, oh, it's inflation, that's why you have to increase it every two years. I'm saying, no, it's our spending habits. Past spending habits have created a problem. That's my position. And again, I've been on the past council, and I've known discussions there. And like I said, I've listened to many past budget discussions long before I was on the council. And it was, I think... New growth brings in a lot of new revenue, temporary revenue, all right, for property taxes. You know how that works. And we got a lot of money. Where can we spend it? And I think that that's put us in a bad position. And again, it's not to complain. It's to kind of acknowledge the reality. We've got obligations now that we've got to deal with. Sure. I get we needed a new city hall, but I would never have voted for building like this um something more modest i think would have been appropriate but it is what it is right and so um how do we go forward now is is the challenge i guess so yeah i think my thing too is it's difficult when we're basically comparing lehigh to lehigh we're not comparing lehigh to other cities and you're looking at what other cities are doing and the

large tax increases that they're proposing right now, and that's something that probably will get kicked down the line. I had a really great conversation with Utah County Republican Vice Chair, and he's like, I wish I could explain to people how property tax works because people don't understand it. It's like sales tax, income tax, they all keep up with inflation, and the CrossFit property tax doesn't. And I think that's why we're seeing the conversations online and with others being supportive of making sure that we're taking care of our employees. I think that's really where we are tasked to do is to take care of the city and make sure that the city takes care of our residents. I know it's been really discouraging to all of us to have things become pretty politicized and to have the employees be all consumed in this and the morale going down. I'm grateful to hear the thought of the 4% I'm concerned about when we start doing targeted things too. I do definitely see the need to take care of our lower earners, but also we have to consider that our highest paid employees are paid that way for a reason. And they are the ones who are head hunted. They're the ones most sought after. They're the most expensive and time consuming to replace. So it all comes into a head. And this is where I have the most difficult time with this budget is that there was a mayor's budget presented that showed the employees 4%. And to take that off now, the optics are terrible to go and start using what was earmarked for employee wages that was never part of the tax increase portion of the mayor's budget and say we're going to take any portion of that to be able to pay for new positions. I'm really concerned that we are affecting our employees and their output and their morale, their willingness to feel that they're appreciated and still want to be a part of the city. So I I appreciate that that's been brought up. I think that's something we need to be really mindful of and careful of and just let our employees know how much we appreciate them. I don't think that any of them have ever been through a budget cycle like this before where it feels like usually they just focus on their work and let us know that we're going to focus on ours. They've been part of a lot of conversations. A lot of them have spoken with me. And I hate that feeling that I'm not doing my job of taking care of them so they can take care of our residents. And so I would really love to table this and figure out a way to be able to make all of this work together to make sure that we prioritize that. I also struggle with the fire wages because this was supposed to be the other half of the fire wages catch up. We already did the first half as part of the tax increase. So it's hard because I just want more money to be able to... to be able to to meet all the needs um i think lehigh has done a pretty good job just by based on where we fall in how much we charge in overall property tax compared to other cities and i think that's really where we need to to look at this and make sure that we are on the mark that way i do think it's great that this budget has been completely scrutinized in every possible way Lots of light item things have been cut. I think the departments have done a really great job. I think it's absolutely incredible that we gave direction to the mayor and financial staff to say, hey, we don't want to do a tax increase, figure it out. And what you came back with was just like, we would have never pulled that out. And so I think we have an incredible team that's working for us and doing everything they can to

um make sure that our residents pay the least amount they can to get the best service they possibly can so i just want to thank you for all the work that's gone into this can i just ask a follow-up question heather yeah um so my understanding correct me if i'm wrong but all five of us said no to a tax increase thank you for saying that well okay that's what i'm saying right so all five of us said no to the tax increase But you also give a great kind of defense of increasing the tax. So I'm just wondering.

Yeah, let me explain that.

Like there has to be some savings in order to do it. So it's more of a debate on how we save. So I'm just curious how we would save that money if we didn't look at that extra cost. annual increase on bonuses or whatever.

So my thing, the tax increase indicated new positions. To me, that's what comes with the tax increase. So we don't then take from our current employees to pay for what a tax increase would have covered. So in my mind, then we don't fund all the new positions that were proposed. We do have almost half a million of that park tax. We have some other cuts we've made to be able to fund a portion of it. But we don't – I really struggle with the idea of using what was proposed for employee wages to fund what was proposed for a tax increase. That's where I came in.

So then where – so I guess my understanding is that you are – To make up for that, you would just not include what the mayor stated as the tax increase justification, right? Right.

So it would be the new employees that would not. So I'd use a portion of things that have been saved for the park tax money to go towards funding new positions, but I wouldn't take it out of the current employees to pay for new positions. I think we've seen that too when it comes to the police department. Instead of taking new police officers, they're going to use that money to increase pay. What's most important to me is we take care of our current employees, and then we can look at the new positions based on the greatest need. i think that would then fall back on the mayor to determine okay and the executive team of these are the departments they're lacking the most but that would be my top priority is funding taking care of our current employees and then we look to hire well yeah i think that's what's so difficult about not raising taxes and it should be difficult right um

is that even under that scenario, we're not getting enough headcount for streets or parks. I think water has new employees as well as police headcount. You know, I think you have a good point, and I'm not arguing. I'm just saying, like, if we don't look at everything across the board, then we're forced to look at certain things, and then there's another headache, right? There's another complaint toward the city council of saying, why aren't you supporting us? You're putting too much work on our shoulders. And again, my personal, oh, and one other question. You say it's been politicized. I just want to understand how, I guess, it's been politicized in your mind.

Well, like you saying that you won't do a tax increase, right? And then we had our director of HR have employees go and say, what does that mean? Does that mean that we're not going to? Because the only way to be able to have property tax even keep up with inflation is by doing a tax increase. So I think there's a concern there from the employees that if we have a council member making a promise without understanding operational budget or understanding them, and that's just their perspective of not being able to sit down with you and understand, then there becomes a concern about, is my job safe? What's going to be cut? So employees are being involved in the budget process in ways that I don't think they ever have been, that they're now concerned about how that's going to impact them, impact their workload, impact their salary, which then impacts their family.

Yeah, I think, again, the workload is something that would be under your solution, right? I have more workload on my shoulders because we're not going to fund any of the proposed increase in positions. But I think, I guess politicize, that's a loaded word, right? Like for me, if it was all just data, right? If it was just purely data driven, then we could set an algorithm. We could like have very little to do on the council and the algorithm would just automatically raise taxes. And so for me, I think it's a balance between principles, right? And we all have political principles and how we view the role of government. Priorities, right? My priority, if I could wave a wand, I would give, you know, and I've stated this for a very long time, public safety, fire police, and infrastructure budget and projects. Those are my top priority. And I wish we could do more in this budget for it. But ultimately, I know we're looking at this kind of in a vacuum in one year, but through this entire process, we've identified different ways we can save. When I say cut fat or trim fat, it's not like we're going to go take Steve Marchbank's you know, laptop and sell it and make money, right? Like, it's more about we have these huge commitments that Michelle talked about. We have a lot of land. We have buildings. We have things that we can look at long term because my goal is to get us back to 4% or more every year for employees. My other goal is to separate the COLA and MERIT. And one of the things that I saw in the feedback from employees that I 100% agree with is that a few years ago, the mayor kind of lumped everything together, the MERIT and COLA. And I can't remember the exact reasons, but I don't think employees like that either, because it confuses the line between what is cost of living and what is an actual merit bonus. And I hope we can, in the coming year, distinguish that a little bit better, because I'd much rather say, okay, let's match the... Inflation rate for COLA, and that's COLA, right? That's something that we don't really touch unless there's a crazy year, there's like COVID or some disaster. And then we can look at merit through a high functioning performance system. And in my opinion, you know, the city is the umbrella. And you have many different industries within that umbrella. So for performance management, that's a policy decision. I don't think we can do that without a resolution or if staff wants to take this on. But for public safety, I think Chief Paul knows what he's doing within his industry, per se. And he can set those standards of performance. Same with Chief Kraft. And those are very unique professions. And I think they should have full kind of authority and ability to dictate that in a way that's good for their departments. It's good for morale. It can put bonuses and increases where they need to be. So, again, this is like a first step in kind of this new council and how we view tax increases. I hope we can get to a point in the coming years, especially with a lot of RDAs expiring in the next four or five years, like that's going to be a ton of new revenue. You know, the Porsche dealership had just opened up. Tons of revenue there. We have other things coming in. So yeah, it has been a painful year. We're not going to make a decision, even if we decide to raise taxes. I've heard from a lot of residents how vehemently opposed they are to it. And that's just their feelings, right? And that's why they elected the people they did, is because we talked about these issues. Sorry, I'm looking right at you, but I'm just going to talk generally. But anyway, so I think that's where we need to move. I think I'd like to see in the coming year an earlier budget process. Again, the finance team has been incredible, but we just felt that it was so truncated, and I'd like to look at more of a zero-based approach so we can identify where we're currently spending money. instead of just starting at where we are and looking at increases and how many increases we want to approve or not approve. So yeah, I think, again, tax increases should be an absolute last resort. There are, I think, times and periods where we could do it, and it would justify it. But again, an absolute last resort in my view.

Mr. Mayor, we've talked a lot about what prior councils have obligated us to, and I just wanted to call back to an email I sent last week where Dean, again, the finance wizard, I don't know how you do it, where you just, within minutes, thank you so much for helping me understand this. But we've got, he sent an email that all the council has received. And I just, I'm going to go through these things. And this council likes to say, well, prior councils have obligated us to these things. And when I say what we're obligated to, I hope the residents listen to what we are obligated to. Because Station 83, are the residents of Traverse Mountain glad that a council obligated us to that? Are we glad? How about our police station and the resources that it provides to our county and to our city? There's the Thanksgiving Point Science and Technology Building, which is paid by Thanksgiving Point through the city. The Civic Center, which is a point of concern, and then Station 84. I sure know living out on the northwest side that I'm glad Station 84 was built and fully staffed. We have a lot of prior obligations that have to be paid for water and PI. And seeing as we're in a drought this year and that water is a critical, it's absolutely essential for life. I'm sure glad prior councils have approved investments in those things. when it comes to our power and the way in which we charge our cell phones and sometimes our vehicles and power our homes, keeping the heat on in the winter and our AC running in the summer. We have made investments as a city into power building and the power generation that helps keep our rates some of the lowest in this county. I'm sure glad a prior council did that for us. And then this one I actually think could cause some interesting insights, the fiber project. Maybe some residents feel like that was a good thing, maybe not. But a prior council did obligate us to that. That's what we're talking about when we talk about prior debts, is fire stations and firefighters, police stations and police officers. And yeah, in the spirit of full transparency, this building. and the fiber project, and a lot of pressure irrigation projects and power projects. Let's be clear about what those obligations are to our residents, because I'm guessing that most, if not all of them, are grateful for at least 85 to 90% of these projects, and they're willing to pay for them.

Emily, I don't think anybody was saying public safety was a waste.

Nobody's complaining about those. I never mentioned those. I'm talking about the things, the frill-less things that prior councils obligated us to. Which are what? I mentioned them. Willow Park was a county, it's a regional park. We have, what, a 100-year lease on that. And those, I mean, Steve just brought that up to us about how much that costs to get it. get it going okay that there's no way we should have taken that on except it made a campaign slogan to say hey look how much park space i've added you know it's great for campaigning it's not great for the budget and ongoing expenses okay the legacy center again the debt here do we need excuse me this building the civic center do we need this this size of a building with all the empty offices and all the empty spaces and a teeny tiny library kind of tucked in there do we need to the Legacy Center. I have advocated for years, long before I even thought about running into the council, that we need to do a study to improve that. And instead of funneling more and more money into that, We need to find a way to make it better, make it more self-sustaining. And I'm sorry if you're not willing to acknowledge that there's challenges and there's things that we can look at to improve there and reduce the costs there. I think that's what's needed going forward. I don't think we need apologies for the past council. I fully support the police station. I fully support the fire stations. I've talked to Chief Kraft about what we can do to fix the fire station we have downtown, Station 81, where our firefighters are sleeping in rooms that don't even meet fire code. And we don't have to do our $68 million civic downtown campus plan to make those improvements. We can do it a little more wisely, with a little more cautious caution, with a little more fiscal responsibility. So I'm taking issue that with what you're complaining, you're saying that I am concerned about those necessities or necessities and I totally support those our basic essential services that we need to provide our citizens our fire protection our police our police protection safe roads to drive on water safe drinking water electricity to power the things those are the things that we need to focus on and I know in past councils again I've been there I mean it $50,000 was called a rounding error. I am looking, combing through the budget, trying to find $50,000 here, $100,000 there, so we can pay our firefighters a decent wage. So I think we need to have honest conversations, stop making it political, stop with the sound bites, and have a real discussion about how we're going to solve this problem.

Council Member Stallings, I apologize if you are offended by my comments, but I am trying to have an honest and transparent conversation about our long-term debt obligations, of which I asked Dean to provide the double-click, so to say. Shining light on those long-term debt obligations was not accusing you of anything. I apologize if you took offense. I also think in your statements, you've made some accusatory statements towards me, but I'm going to chalk it up to This is the messy middle of budgeting, and I'm going to grant you some grace there. And I hope that we can move forward with an approach that's more collaborative, as I am doing everything I can to be transparent.

So I'd like to hear your ideas for how to do it.

So before we move forward, we're going to do so in a professional manner. If you do need to speak, I would now ask that you ask me, just so that we can maintain some decorum. amongst the whole group of five. So with that, Council Member Stallings, you had a question that you wanted to ask her?

I'd just like to hear more solutions.