City Council - Regular Meeting

There's a lot of people that come visit our city and they're already here. So if we can get them in a hotel then they'll spend money at restaurants which help drive more, sit down restaurants which drive more. So really having this hotel really changes a lot of things even for our residents. So it's a big deal.

Yeah. Kind of a milestone, I guess, after what happened last year. Everybody knows the explosion. Everybody calls it the Domino's explosion, right? But Jimmy John's is the first tenant back in there and reopened today, and they're all to have him back.

I love it because I think they sent their employees to other locations while they were rebuilding. So I thought that was pretty cool how they handled it, too. Yeah.

Right. Harriman's First Hotel. First Hotel, exciting stuff, right? I know, um, we've wanted this for a while. It's good to be, people are visiting or the, we have a lot of economic development and tourism stuff happening in the city. So this just gives people a place to stay. And so we're, we're excited to break, you know, cut that ribbon today with them.

One is, I think what people don't realize about having a hotel is the Salt Lake Academy, the Real Salt Lake Academy that's here, the Zions Bank Academy, I think they call it, has more room nights out of that facility than even the Maverick Center right now in West Valley. So we've seen those numbers at our tourism meetings. So there's a lot of people that come visit our city, and they're already here. So if we can get them in a hotel, then they'll spend money at restaurants, which helps drive more, sit-down restaurants, which drive more. So really, having this hotel really changes a lot of thi

Trader Joe's. It's a long-awaited. So we get to pop over here this afternoon and see a quick tour, because... I'm not going tomorrow. I love that they're here, but I'm not, I'm not going tomorrow. So maybe, maybe next week, maybe next week, I'll spend a lot of money there, but not tomorrow.

Those will be the first major tenant in that area, right, with Target coming later, but a lot of fun stuff planned in that area right now.

It was fun. We did a first council theme that I've ever... We've never done a council theme as a whole council, so we were Tic Tacs. Various flavors of Tic Tacs. Homemade costumes, by the way. I was impressed. They were homemade.

We had fun a lot. I had more pictures taken with me because of the costume than ever before. It was a lot of fun.

So hard to pick a two or three to win. That is so much fun. Amazing. Love that participation.

Right. We've heard a lot of pushback on the stoplight, but this is such a major connection for so many reasons, for residents up there. I dropped my son off at school up in that area, and the traffic is already different. Like, it's... we're getting people to Mountain View faster and what's just helping it is a benefit to this community.

Well, you and I have talked a little bit about this before. We could hire 30 more people, right? And still probably not have enough people to do. But we, in government, we have to balance that, the need to do everything, versus tax. Like, you guys are paid. That's what's unique about... Being a city employee or government employee, you're paid with taxpayer money. We have to be careful with that. We will. So we try to thread the needle on providing a good level of service with keeping taxes relative. We don't want to raise taxes just to add more employees. We've got amazing employees doing ama

Right. Which we have to do. Just a reality. Yeah.

Yep, and it looks good. It's looking good. It'll be a good change.