City Council - Regular Meeting

recording in progress

we would like to recognize emma snow who has not arrived but we will recognize her anyways and make sure she gets all this stuff and hopefully when she do you want me to read some stuff first and wait a bit should we wait yeah yeah let's just let's do that yeah sit down you know i'll just read all my boring stuff you give me like the look when

All right, as indicated on the screen, a required public hearing will be held for certain agenda items prior to council action. After each such item has been presented, time to comment will be provided for all those who wish to speak. For items that do not require a public hearing, public comment will still be taken following presentation of the items, but will be limited to 10 minutes. At this time, up to 15 minutes have been set aside for an open public comment period, which is intended to allow comments on matters that do not appear on the agenda, but are limited to topics regarding municipal business or within municipal council purview. Persons who speak during this time to an item that is on the agenda will not normally be afforded a second opportunity to speak during the comment period specific to that item. During any public comment period, each speaker will generally be limited to two minutes. Due to noticing requirements, no formal action will be taken in this meeting on matters that do not appear on the agenda. Now, are we here yet? Okay, we're going to do public comment first then. Great. All right, so anyone who wants to do public comment is welcome to come up. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature, and we'll go between online and in-person comments. But come up now if you have any public comment and you need your name and your city of residence.

My name is William Pohl. I am a resident of the city of Provo, and I'm here with a concern about the flock cameras that are proliferating across the city. In the recent Chaffee versus United States Supreme Court decision two months ago, this was ruled highly illegal because we have a reasonable expectation in our privacy. Now, if I were to do that and start following one of you around with a camera, I would be charged with a crime. Berkshire Drive, Lakewood Drive, 1060 East, 2100 West, 3950 North, 1150 East. These cameras are used not only by our officers to solve crimes, but to commit crimes. We have people that are victims of domestic violence, stalking, public protected parties, public citizens, US senators, that are all being followed by these cameras. The city cannot track them. But we have officers who do not understand the very basics of the First Amendment. But that's of little surprise. Our officers do not understand free speech, nor do our school officials. They openly retaliate against it. Yes, I name names. And that shouldn't surprise us because we started this meeting with a prayer, which is also blatantly unconstitutional. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else want to give public comment? We just need your name and your city of residence. That's great.

My name is Emma Sorensen, residents in Provo. I know you guys met a couple weeks ago about updating parks and sidewalks with, like, certain ADA updates. And I was just wondering if and how there would be input from people with disabilities on those things before they happen. Because sometimes those kind of updates are things where... able-bodied people just don't really know that they don't know certain things. And I know there are certain ADA standards and guidelines, but even sometimes those things are left open to interpretation or there's like windows and you can go somewhere in that thing. So I was just wondering, and if you guys have any say in that, if that's something that you guys could put in place before those steps happen. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Mayor, who should we connect her with? Me. All right. Thanks, Emma. So go to staff and they'll get, oh, do you already have her contact information? Okay. She knows you. She's going to contact you.

Thank you. All right. Any other public comment?

All right. We are going to now hear from Carla. This is employee of the month.

It is. And Emma, I'm going to make you come up here. She already hates me for this whole thing. It is our pleasure to recognize Emma Snow as our employee of the month. Emma is the library's day porter. She plays an essential role in keeping our building clean, welcoming, and running smoothly during our busiest hours. She consistently delivers high-quality work, takes ownership of her responsibilities, and can always be counted on to follow through. She doesn't simply wait to be asked. She sees what needs to be done, and she does it. What truly sets her apart is the pride she takes in her work and the service she provides to everyone who comes through our building. She regularly goes above and beyond helping us create a welcoming place for our staff and visitors to spend time. Daily she makes a meaningful contribution to the library and the city. We are a better place because she is part of our team and we are truly privileged to work alongside her. Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition.

We take pictures.

Do you want to get a picture with your team, Carla? Yeah. Able to stand up behind?

Yeah. All right. One, two, three.

Thank you, congratulations. All right, we only have one other item of business today, an ordinance regarding outdoor lighting standards. This will be presented by Britton Johnson, and he's our council intern right now.

Okay, good evening, counselors. Yeah, this feels like my debut. I'm excited to go over this item. So today we're going to go over some dark sky updates to the city's outdoor lighting code. And some of the principles that were used to make some of these updates is from this document that is co-published with the Illuminating Engineering Society and Dark Sky International that put on these five principles for responsible outdoor lighting and to condense this even further it's basically about using the right kind of light and controlling it to be only where we want to see it which is not in the sky and the aim with some of these policy changes or proposals, I should say, is to reduce atmospheric light pollution in our city. So the first significant proposed change to our code is to require a cap on correlated color temperature, which is how warm or how cool a light looks visually. This will only apply to new developments and any replacements or remodels, so no existing properties or light fixtures. And the cap, except for a few exceptions, is 3,000 Kelvin or less, which is that neutral white there, or warmer. And those longer wavelengths with the warmer lights contribute less to atmospheric light pollution. Secondly is requiring full shielding for all fixtures, and the same applies. This will not be retroactive. This will only be for new developments, remodels, and full fixture replacements, which I'll clarify even further later. So fully shielded fixtures imply that the light is fully recessed in the fixture, is directed downward, and that none of the light escapes what's called the 90 degree plane. If you look in the cutoff part of this graphic, that's kind of the 90 degrees is where the light is. We don't want anything going above that and into the sky. And then lastly is a small change to our off-premises electronic display sign code to put it more or to align it better with our on-premises electronic display sign code in Title VI of Provo City Code. And that caps the number of nits, which measures the surface brightness of a sign, to 300 during nighttime hours and 5,000 during daylight hours. Another question that was asked during our work meeting discussions on this topic was how this would affect current residences and residential outdoor lighting. And in number six here on the screenshot, it says any existing outdoor lighting fixture attached to a structure on a residential property as of today's date is exempt from this change. So that means if a light bulb needs to be replaced and it's super blue light, you could replace it with a blue light that doesn't meet the color temperature standards that we're proposing. However, if the entire fixture needs to be replaced, then this exemption no longer applies. As I mentioned, this will only apply to new lights going forward. And exemptions are made for holiday lights, the airport, construction lighting, temporary event lighting, and outdoor sports lighting, as it says there. Kevin, if you could go to the ordinance. There was one change requested during the work meeting discussion today about holiday lighting. I wanted to... show that it's in the exemption section it's number one below 15.21.04 and it says um holiday lighting that does not create dangerous glare on adjacent streets or property is considered exempt and all holiday lighting um now has a curfew and must be turned off by 10 pm nightly okay um and then other than that if you could go back to the presentation please um i wanted to show what some of the practical impacts of a change like this could look like. This is in Moab, Utah. They implemented a dark sky policy for their lighting. And before that policy was introduced, you can see the lights appear very, or the streets, excuse me, appear very dim. But the night sky is pretty visible. However, when that same light that was used before is directed downward where it's supposed to go in the after photo, you can see how much more well illuminated the streets are, reducing glare on drivers and giving a perception of safety that our residents deserve. And on top of that, the night sky is much darker. And so on the right on this slide shows what is a spec similar to what's being installed by the city now on the left as of about two years ago that would meet these dark sky compliance standards versus one on the right, which are some of our older fixtures that don't accomplish that saving. And with that, that's all I have to share.

Thank you, Britton. All right, we'll open this item up for public comment. Anyone have a question for Brittain before we do that? Councillor Garrett.

Just a comment, Britton, on those two photos from ROAB. I think you made the point earlier that they were taken at the same time of day.

Yes, so these are both in the evening hours, and it's kind of difficult on this projector screen, but that same building on the left is visible in the after photo, also in the before photo. So I'd encourage anyone to go to the packet at agendas.provo.gov if they want to see that picture a little clearer.

All right. Thanks, Brenton. Any public comment on this item?

Hello, my name is Gavin. I'm a resident of Provo. This is the first I'm hearing about this, but I just have some questions. What's the benefit of having a dark sky for at least the citizens of Provo? My wife, she works at a national park, and so there's obviously a benefit for Moab to have that, but I'm specifically asking about Provo. And then with the Christmas lights, is that only for new... What's the word? new buildings for the Christmas light enforcement? Is that for all citizens of Provo, the Christmas light enforcement? And how is that going to be enforced? I feel like it would be cool to have a cop come to your house or a ticket to your house during the holidays. Some questions on that.

Thank you. We'll address all the questions after comment period. Any more comments? All right. First of all, the Christmas lights, they are exempt. So no one will get, you know, now after 10, it's good. I think it's gonna be with those things. We are generally a complaint based enforcement system. So if it's bugging your neighbors and it's going through their windows and they're irritated, we could get a phone call and then that would come by. Yeah, exactly.

We don't want you to be Mr. Christmas Vacation.

Okay.

And it's all holiday lighting. And it's all holiday lighting.

Yeah. So and then there was another question. Oh, the dark sky. Do the same reason it is valuable at Moab, right? It's better for animals. It's better for people sleeping. It's better for people who do want to see the stars or not have everything, you know, lit up. It's just better for the environment and quality of life is the idea. Is there anything else you want to add to that, Jeff?

Yeah, I think one other thing I'll say to the first question is a lot of times laws are not necessarily just to be enforced by police. There's norms we try to create as a society to help us, you know, live together in a community. And so I think that's what we're also trying to do here is just trying to collectively say that, you know, this is better for the quality of life of Provo to see the majesty of the night sky. Provo is blessed by nature. And I think the more things we can do to show that we cherish that, I think the better

Counselor Bogdan.

Hey, so I'm old. But when I first moved to Provo, I was probably your age with young kids.

And there's a cul-de-sac behind me.

And that light is so bright. It shined into my baby's windows. And that's really hard. Do you have young kids? When you have young kids, that's really hard. So I have in every single room in my house, I have blackout curtains. Not Walmart, we need blackout curtains. I have some serious blackout curtains. And even still today, I represent West Provo. And when they opened up the Lakeview Parkway past the high school, I had one of our residents come to me and say, they just put in those new streetlights and now I can see it through my window. What do I do? So even though those are the not so bright ones as it was 25 years ago when I moved into my home, right? It still does cause a problem. Now I'm going to put it on the flip side. And I was at my sister's house when my brother-in-law died and Springville is so dark. You can't even really see. So I appreciate that. And one of the things that last year Provo Power did is they put out the reason why Provo has a power company. It's because the residents here wanted streetlights. So I think having this ordinance helps us have that light. And I am one that fought hard for the holiday lights to stay up because we are Christmas lighters and we are Halloween lighters. And it's a whole community thing. It brings in my entire neighborhood to my home. So those things are important. It brings in community. But you have to have that balance, right? And that's what we're trying to look at. And then also when you have some of these big electronic signs that come into your neighborhood, that also leaves you with no sleep. And so you're just like zombied out. And all of it is that balance that helps.

Okay. Go ahead, Rachel.

Well, and I can add one more thing is that as we adopt these standards that we have for our city, whenever UDOT or another entity does work in it, then we have standards in place. So when UDOT redid 300 South, And they put in the new lights there. Those are not the fully shielded lights. And I live on Third South right next to one of those lights. And my entire house is illuminated, like all the way through the house because of that. You know, we've had to do blackout curtains as well. And so while we will not be making UDOT go and change the fixtures that they've got, it means that in the future, they will be doing these more directed lights that are more safe for the community and avoid the negative impacts for residents and animals. So I think it'll be a really good thing to have.

Now, to be clear, like you mentioned holiday lights and Britain with like with general white lights under the eaves, like that's not what we're talking about as far as it have to be unplugged, right? It's more the brighter, all the things going on at once.

So Brian and I, the city attorney, actually have discussed this. And this might be something that comes back to the council to specify exactly what a holiday light means and really clearly define that. But one of the discussion points was about permanent outdoor LED lights that, depending on the season, you can change the color. If there's a Tempe or Provo High football game or other sporting event, you can rep your colors like those.

I think this is still a piece, we need to.

piece that we need to iron out, and so this might be coming back to your consideration to. As far as figuring out that definition and being very specific with those details, but for now our city attorney feels comfortable with the language that's in the ordinance.

To piggyback on that, I mean, I think there's going to need to be some more study done, but we didn't want, as Britton and I talked, I think what he's added in there gives us an immediate exception so that you don't have to worry about somebody going out and enforcing tomorrow while we study things. And we also didn't want to go the other way and say, we need more time before you can pass any of it. So I think that this works for what was expressed in the work session. But holiday lighting is not actually defined in the code. And so then there's this whole question of, what does that mean?

There's a lot of the basic, just basic lights that people have are totally fine all the time. They're not. So we need to somehow differentiate between a nuisance And normal.

Yeah, because everything that's underneath the eaves and underneath 3,000 Kelvin is already in compliance. So we're only talking about things that aren't.

Yeah.

And that's where we've got the holiday lighting. And one of the comments I made to Britain is, you know, we talked about these jellyfish lights often being shielded because they're under the eaves, but not all holiday lights are under the eaves. Some people string their holiday lights out around the frame, right? So I think that there's more going to need to be done on the holiday slash jellyfish side. issue but i think this gets us somewhere where you can um okay so we'll follow up on this soon and clean it up yeah but you think it's worth it's okay to pass now i think so yes okay i don't think this penalizes something that you're not meaning to penalize it might be too permissive but we can come back and tweak that after okay all right thank you all right any any more comments anyone else has

All right.

We'll call on a vote on the implied motion. Are you still with us, Travis? Councillor Hoban.

I sure am.

Your vote. All right. Councillor Whipple. Yes. Councillor Bogdan. Yes. Councillor Whitlock. Yes. Councillor McKay. Yes. Councillor Garrett.

Yes.

All right, that passes 6-0. And if there's no objection, we will now adjourn the Provincial Council by unanimous consent.