City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, I need a motion for the council to come back into session here.

Motion to readjourn.

We have a motion by Councilman Williams. I have a second second second by Councilmember Anderson. All those in favor. All right, it's unanimous, we're back in. Okay, we're gonna move to item nine, unless people wanna stay for the excitement here. 9B, public hearing to consider interim budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026, ending June 30th, 2027, and providing for an effective date. Director Roy, time is yours. I have a color one.

Oh, you have a color one.

Hey, it's black. You can share it if you want to share.

It's the same.

Yeah.

So just, this is the interim budget, little bit different. We usually call it just tentative with the new changes at the legislature. So the only thing I'm gonna note, this is a document that we've looked at quite a few times and given to you a couple times. On page six, which starts the revenue of the general fund, with the changes at the legislature, we need to separate the property tax proposed increase separate than the other amount of property tax. So on page six, you'll see that. Other than that, this was the same as the last document that you were given at our last meeting. Okay, thank you.

All right, I think, so this maybe was just for information.

Yes, I mean, just with the understanding, this is for public comment on the budget, feedback from the public to the city council. There will not be a vote tonight taken on the budget. This is just their opportunity to share their thoughts on the budget.

Great, so council, before I- Sarah, are you streaming?

Okay.

Okay, before I open this up, council, do you have any other additional comments for Director Roy before I let the public comment? Okay, all right, we're gonna go ahead and open the public hearing to the residents. Just a reminder, you have three minutes, and please state your name. Welcome, John. You still have to state your name, I'm sorry.

John Johannesmeyer. So I wanted to go on the record. I am adamantly opposed to taxes. I think most people are. I understand there are things that have to be funded. I appreciate the work that Todd has put in, getting extra data. Sid, your comment last time, 3% reducing them. I love it. It's awesome. Thank you. I know there's a lot of work that goes into this. And I can just tell you, my heart goes out when I heard that whole debate on the last issue. These people are suffering. They're worried about their HOA fees keep going up and up and up. And then let's smack them with a tax increase. That's hard. That's a tough pill. I feel for them like crazy. But I know there's concerns. There's money that needs to be brought into the city. And maybe there's a balance here that we can come up with. One of the gentlemen said, let's do win-win. I'm all for a win-win. Maybe what we can do is kind of follow what Sid was saying, and lower the taxes. Make it smaller. There's a bridge amount. There's money available. The growth is increasing in revenue. We're going to pull that in. And that way, if you go 16.5%, a lot of people are going to hate you, because that's a lot of money out of their pocket. But if you say, hey, it's only 3%, and we have other monies here, and that other tax is going to be perpetual, it's not going to stop. I think the Grove is going to keep producing money. It becomes that win-win situation. I want you to really consider maybe doing something like that. Instead of being 16.5 or nothing, let's find a middle ground that we all win, that you say, hey, citizens, we respect that you're hurting financially. Not everybody, but some people are. Those people that have their HOAs around town, boy, That kills me. That hurts to listen to them. And I just think we can come up with a really great solution. If you'll work with us, we work with you. Let's make it a good win-win situation on this one. Thank you very much. Appreciate what you do.

Thanks, John. Anyone else? Okay. With that said, oh, sorry. I almost shut you down. Sorry.

Mr. Mayor and council members, I just want to tell you I really appreciate what you do. I know it's a lot of hard work. Can you state your name? Oh, I'm so sorry. Jill Hazelton. Welcome. I know a lot of people think that you guys only work a couple hours a week here and there, but I see the posts and everything you guys show up for for all the citizens, and I really appreciate that. I do want to echo a lot of what John Johannesmeyer said, so I won't say all that again. I do hope, like he said, that we can find a different amount maybe to rest on. I know there's just a lot of people that are really struggling right now. I stood up here last time that there was gonna be an increase in taxes and basically tried to plead the case It is rough for people out there. And that was before all this last, this whole debacle over the last few years. So hopefully when you're looking through the budget, I don't know the numbers. I would hope that you would, I mean, I know you guys are all responsible and things like that. So I hope that you can find some places and see maybe where the money is coming from in the future for the Grove. I've really been pleased with the amount of new businesses that have come in. I try to go to those places, for example, the Smoked Taco. I know there's some in different cities. I try to go to the one in Pleasant Grove. I'm assuming doing that is helping us because we get the tax revenue, okay? So I'm trying to do, what i can to i don't i'm not a big spender but to make it work too and this i'm i was so surprised this has been one of the most exciting uh meetings i've been to exciting excitable i don't know you need to run for city council i did not and i won't even though my husband calls me an activist now i'm not i've just gone to a couple meetings but anyway um I hope the taxes don't have to increase too much. I know we're getting more revenues coming in all the time, but I do wanna say I understand needing, as the city grows, more first responders all these other things that are included in the budget. But I hope that we'll find, not me, I'm not really doing much, but you all will be able to find ways to mitigate the problems of inflation and things like that. But I do appreciate what you do, and I just wanted to be on the record that there are some of us that aren't really for the whole tax increase, because I know that's important to get out there and say, I don't want it, if possible. So, thank you.

Thank you, Jill. Anyone else? Oh, okay. Do you like Lincoln Park? Yeah. Okay, all right. I just had to make sure.

I went to see him in Texas. It was fantastic. It was great.

I thought you liked Linkin Park from Chicago. Oh, did you? Really?

Yeah. So my name is Chris Walsh. I'm a Pleasant Grove resident. It's good to see a few of you here. I am just opposing my opposition to this tax increase. I think for me that when I think of the data and I see a 16% increase and see over the, you know, something like the S&P or the stock market compounds annually at 12%, that tells me you're overspending. So I don't think you have any power to mitigate inflation other than cutting costs because inflation is caused by government. It's caused by overspending. So there's always a wants and a needs conversation that goes on in every household. I do it with my wife. Every time we look at a budget, you know, recently she's changed professions, and we're having the conversations now. Okay, well, what do we have to cut back on? Maybe we can't get new clothes. Maybe I have to wear my old Lincoln Park T-shirt. I can't get a new one, or I can't go to the concert this year that I want to. But that's just one of the things that I, as a citizen, think 16% is egregious and it's too high. And one of those reasons also is knowing that as property values go up, some of that tax revenue should flow down to the budget. So it's hard when I see these data. I haven't come to the other meetings like many of you others always come to. But I never see the budget without a tax change. What was the budget the prior year? Like what percentage? I'm sure I can go find it on the website and see that. But I'm always thinking in terms of increases relative to how the overall economy is doing, how the markets are doing. And if on average the market grows 12% and we're increasing costs by 16%, something is off. So that's my comment. Appreciate the time. Appreciate what you guys do.

Thank you. Anyone else? Welcome.

John and I think differently and about things or whatever. So we're not the same comments. So anyway, I'm Eileen Johannes-Meyer. So I just like to say that my degree from BYU is in financial planning and counseling. And so, you know, budgets and things like that are of concern for me and things that I think about a lot. I also have quite a bit of empathy and I see a lot of people that are struggling to meet and make ends meet, especially going on these days. And I'm in some of these sharing, you know, buy nothing sharing Facebook groups here in Pleasant Grove and just see how many people are just really struggling. And they're losing employment. We fall in that category. Both John and I lost our jobs in the last year. And we also see people who are losing their breadwinners in their families. So in our neighborhood this last week, we had two in their 40s who passed away, two fathers. And so their families no longer have their breadwinner in their home. Anyway, we also are hopeful with all of the new economic development that we are having that we appreciate your efforts on that that would kind of reduce the need for having to increase our property taxes. We do want to support the police and fire funding needs. We feel like the public safety is very good, important priority, but we're hoping that we could maybe decrease expenses in other categories in a way that it could be funded without having to increase taxes because once a tax is imposed then it's never you know even if we get some additional funds from something else later on it's never going to be rebated back to us it's a perpetual ongoing thing that just keeps going up and up we also you know anticipate we're going to have increases in we have had utility costs increase it's been nine percent this past year since uh last July I keep every single I have every single utility bill in 27 years from Pleasant Grove City so I can see all of the increases in costs on utilities. So we would like to see our city continue to thrive and not become unaffordable, especially for those older veteran residents and senior citizens and things like that. And we appreciate all of the work that you've been doing in your work sessions and stuff to review the upcoming budget for this coming year. And we would ask that you would vote no on adopting a property tax increase and continue to look for ways to provide the public safety needs without adding the property tax. Thank you.

Thank you. Come on forward. Welcome.

PAUL C. Hi. My name is Paul C. Smith. I live here in Pleasant Grove. I know Diana, and I've talked to Sid on the phone. The thing that I've noticed is that our utilities and things like that are going up every year. And we have that in addition to a tax increase. And here I am. I still work, even though I'll be 85 in August. I think that we're at a point where we need to look at our spending and not raise taxes every chance we get. Because we've got the $7 that we're paying for the street improvement. We have the water thing that's every year that goes up. And we have all of these different things. So I'm against any tax increase this next year.

Thank you. All right, anyone else? Welcome.

My name is Jerry Duclos. I'm seven years old. I've lived here for 35 years, half my life. My wife and I raised six sons here. And fortunately, they're all productive citizens. Like the gentleman before me, I'm spending my golden years working still. pay off whatever I need to pay off. It's difficult. I know you say that the increase is only going to impact for $5 a month. But every time you give me another $4 here, $5 here, $7 there, it all adds up in the long run. It does. And it makes it harder to do. You're not the only one increasing our taxes. The county's doing it too. The government does it all the time. I'll tell you what, I would vote 100% if you guys came up with an idea to lower our taxes, but I don't ever hear that. So my request is that you consider all of us and come with some compromise other than 16%. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Hi.

Hello.

My name is Nora Bocut. I have lived in Pleasant Grove for the last 30 years. I think I was on the Planning Commission when Tina was hired. So it was that long ago. OK. But I'm against a tax increase as well. And the biggest reason is because I've worked for the state. I've worked for Intermountain Health Care. And when I got raises, I mean, I'm speaking from a budget perspective. When I got raises, they were 2%. Now I'm on Medicare. and we get like a cost of living 2%. So what I'm asking you to do is look at your budgets and see where you can cut instead of raising the taxes, particularly at this time. I mean, when I go fill up my truck for gas, it's 70 bucks. And I mean, we're in hard times right now. My daughter's trying to buy a home, and it's just out of reach. And I know this isn't new to all of you guys, but I would really hope that you would consider other ways to find that money. Because I do want Pleasant Grove to flourish, and I'm very invested in our city. But anyway, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, at this time, I'll go ahead and close our public hearing and bring it back up here. Denise or Scott, you have anything you need to add?

No, sir.

Okay. Conversation? Anything, council?

Or are you moving on to the next?

Well, I think it's important to acknowledge that Nobody up here and nobody down there, including all of staff and our residents, everyone has the same goal, which is to have a great, safe, beautiful city. I think everyone has that goal. And the question is maybe how we accomplish that and how we budget for that. I did wanna just say one thing because it's something that I've learned since I've been on council that might be helpful to understand about property taxes in Utah. I think we all recognize that in Pleasant Grove specifically, our property values have risen sharply over the last, we'll say five to 10 years. We've gone to maybe an affordable city to a not affordable city for most people looking to buy a home. So my natural inclination was to think, oh, my property value is going up. So therefore, my property tax must be going up. Therefore, the city must be getting more money from me. But that's not true under Utah law. As our property values go up, our property tax dollars for the city stay the same. So if we have been committed to, let's say, a million dollars for easy math, of property tax revenue from all of our property citywide. As our property values go up, we still, as a city, only get a million dollars. The nominal rate goes down. The rate of our taxes actually goes down. So when you look at, and this is something that I'm evaluating and I've had hours long conversations with both Scott and Denise about the budget, about how to find money, very candid discussions about where I sit, and where I think the budget needs to be going. And I think those are good, healthy conversations to have. But my point in bringing up the property tax rate is that when property values go up and as people, as needs expand, the money that the city gets does not necessarily increase. Now, when we develop properties, that property that is developed then can increase our tax revenues because we now have economically productive property as opposed to open space. These are all things that I've learned since I've been on council, okay? And because of that, as I evaluate a property tax increase, I look in the past, I look at inflation from our gentleman in the back talking about inflation. I look at what the costs are of the city, what the services are that all of the city residents have interest in us providing. And those are difficult conversations. I will say this, we're not taking a vote today, so I'm not gonna grandstand for or against the property tax. But I will say this, whatever happens, we will need to fund these positions for public safety, period, the end. Doesn't matter, we're gonna fund them. And it's either gonna be cutting costs somewhere else, or it's gonna be a property tax increase or a combination of the both. But I will tell our public safety individuals, our employees, our administration, that I don't care what happens with the property tax increase, we will fund the positions we need to keep our citizens safe. And I think everybody up here, maybe they don't, but I think that everyone up here agrees with that.

So I'll second that because I was a no vote. I probably still am a no vote, but it never have I... Never do have I believed that we should not fund public safety because our city's growing. Our residents are growing, we've got more development and we'll have more development, I'll say even residential development down in the Grove. And I'm not willing to sacrifice my potential heart attack in the coming years and the ability that, Public safety has to hopefully save me. So I agree, Steve. We've gotta be able to fund public safety. I believe there's ways to do that. And I've been in conversations with city administration to do that. I think there's money there. I think there will be money there as we continue to develop economic development, commercial economic development. Those are some thoughts.

Yeah, I just wanted to finish one of my thoughts, and that is in all of my discussions with the city staff, never once have I felt like they don't have the best interests of the city in their view. And I appreciate that. Thank you. I think it comes back to even the last decision we made in the last ordinance, which is I trust our planning commission. and the work that they put in. And I trust our staff and the work that they put in and their intentions. And so having difficult conversations because things are tough out there to our residents points. and our city has needs to provide. And so having tough conversations can lead to differences of opinion, but it should never lead to any kind of personal attacks or any kind of even, intimation that our staff and our people are not trying their best on behalf of the city. Because I've sat for hours with them and I know exactly where their heart is, I know what they're trying to do for us, and I really, really appreciate it. So that's all I wanted to say, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member. Do you have anything?

Yeah, I think we even saw it this evening, the very first two individuals who came up in the open session discussing their HOA and the need for additional parking enforcement demands on our police force to review their red marked curbs that aren't being addressed and that takes additional staff. It takes additional resources. There are new laws that have become enacted about monitoring e-bike use and the safety of our youth on the city streets and that just takes the resources and so there's no doubt that we have a need in our community as the community has grown. One of the thoughts I wanted to maybe comment too, it's been said by a few individuals about the rate of increase, the 16% increase and how that measures or compares to inflation or annual raises or the S&P and such. And the reality is those are annual comparisons but, and I'm new to this, so I'm kind of the newbie on this panel, but Scott, first, we've done one tax increase in 20 something years, I've learned, is that right?

Well, to our knowledge, we did one four years ago. That was the first time in our history we couldn't find a tax increase.

Yeah, so it's one of those things where it's not as though the city is perpetually and consistently looking to tax increases at every turn. And I think that's an important distinction. And even... the 16 increase is only on our portion the city's portion of the the property tax there's the school district the county all the other hands in the pot um and so to do this once every 15 20 whatever years and who knows maybe we have to do it again in three years or five years or whatever who knows but it's not as though the city is is continually looking to take additional increase rates out of the purse. What I would like to say, and I feel this and this echoes somewhat to what Councilman Rogers has said, as I've had the exposure again in my new experience here to our department heads and their divisions and picked their brains probably to an annoying degree about of how they operate and and what what they do i feel strongly that the people we have in place already not only have the best interest of the city at heart but haven't and honest and a responsibility to utilizing my funds, your funds, our taxpayer funds in a responsible way. I feel like so many of our divisions are already operating on thin budgets. Is it possible that we can cut services? Sure, we can always cut services. Comparing it to when you've gotta cut back because there's not as much money in a personal family household, I think that's a difficult comparison. If I'm gonna go on vacation and things are tight for me, maybe I drive instead of I fly. Or instead of eating out at the new steakhouse that's gonna come up that everybody's excited about, maybe I go to, Costa Vida and my wife and I share a burrito. It's easy to cut back on a personal household, but when the budget is 75% personnel, salary, wages, benefits, what we're talking about is cutting people. And when we have such a thinly stretched teams already, public works, library, parks, and rec, all the services that our city provides, I see that as an incredibly dangerous path to go down, making it seem like we've gotta pull people's uh resources from our divisions within the city based on whether we get more revenues this year versus last year or less revenues this year versus last year and creating an environment where our teams are looking over their shoulder about whether they're going to get get funded that creates an environment where it would be incredibly hard to staff the city and provide the resources that we're all saying we want. It's been said by everybody. We we love our city. We've got great resources. We've got great programs. We've got great parks, award winning parks. And yet I think cutting too much simply because we have a down year creates an environment where it'd be hard to maintain that kind of community, that kind of environment in staffing the city and supplying for the needs that we all say we want. And to that point, I think our budgeting process, the way we approach it, has been award winning, triple crown, is that what they called it? Impressed with the evolution of our city's balance sheet over the last 15 plus years and to be recognized as one of, I think it was six communities in the state to receive the honor for the tremendous use and efficiency of our funds. I think that's an honor well appreciated from my end.

Thank you. Council Member Anderson?

Yes, and very briefly. First of all, we all have very different ideas and I want to say, and I feel this tremendously, it's a pleasure to serve with these people even though we're diverse and we come from different spaces. About eight years ago, we did a budget analysis of the cities around, and it was the revenue to resident. And we were about, if I remember correctly, it was about $4 a resident compared to Linden, who I think was like, Were they $12 per resident that they had to spend? So it was at that point that I knew, my gosh, we run lean. And I appreciate what everybody has said about their view of the budget. And I'm thinking in 50 years, I want to make sure that we just have what we need and that the quality of life is... is worth living here for. Last month, and correct me if I'm wrong, Denise, but I think that we did an adjustment because we had $7,000 more in fuel. So we have a lot of trucks that drive around. So when you said $70, so can you imagine the fleet of the city, I think we're about $7,000 in a month. Is that right?

The fire department has went up close to $4,000 a month with the price.

Just the fire. Just the fire was $4,000 more a month in fuel costs. So we're trying to manage the value, the personnel, and giving them the tools that they need. So are we open to a win-win? Yes. Do we want taxes to go up? No. Hell no. Um, but do we need to have a city that is, um, that like our daytime population down by the Grove is going to go up like 20,000 people. And that takes a lot of people that takes a lot.

So anyway, council member Lamont.

About a week and a half ago, I sent an email to several staff in the council regarding getting numbers on combining our fire services specifically with a neighboring city, whether it's Unified, American Fork, Orem. We did this years ago with our dispatch and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars a year when we moved our dispatch that we had here in Pleasant Grove to county. And there's a reason that cities around us are partnering with other departments. Vineyard and Linden both partner with Orem. Cedar Hills is looking at partnering with American Fork. And I think it's time that we revisit getting those numbers. We have two issues going on. Number one is we don't have enough people. And number two, we can't pay the people what they deserve for our first responders. So we could give fire 10 more people and they could turn around and leave the next day because we cannot pay them We're not being competitive. Partnering with another department opens up that opportunity to pay them more. And I think it's something we need to look at. We haven't even explored that option. And it should be an option that we're looking at. I want to help our first responders. I want to keep them here. We are a training ground for both police and fire that they come here and then they leave. partnering and consolidating services is there's a reason other cities are doing this. They're doing this to combine resources and to save money because they are in the exact same situation we are. We can no longer provide, and I'm not going to say the quality of service because the quality of service is there, it's the level of service. We are calling on American Fork and Orem constantly to help us because we don't have enough staff. So yes, I want to get first responders more people, but we need to pay them to keep them here, or else we're going to be right back here talking about this again in several months. It's going to be an ongoing problem. The size of our city, we are growing. Our needs for first responders are growing, but our budget is not the same as other large cities like American Fork and Worm, where they have University Mall, big box stores. We will never have that here in Pleasant Grove. Now, whether that's good or bad, I don't know. We're not gonna have the sales tax revenue, but we're able to stay a smaller city. We will never have that. Our tax revenue will not be equal to theirs and what they're able to pay their people. I never heard back from staff on my email and I just want to know if I can get help in getting those numbers so we have another option to look at so we can take that burden off the residents and see if it makes financial sense and bring a greater economy of scale to our city to help not only fund more first responders, but also pay them what they deserve. And I'm asking for help in doing that. Now I can call the city managers and I can call the fire at the fire chiefs. I'm not asking to do this with police at this time, but for fire, these services are being combined around our county and I'm asking for help in getting those numbers so we can determine if that would be an appropriate option right now.

so if we are going to consider the city not providing the service is a big big decision most cities if they're going to entertain contracting with another city or creating a district we'll do a study and we would need to hire a third party consultant that are expert in this because it's a it's pretty complicated it's not as simple as me figuring out what the numbers are So I would recommend if the body of the council wants to entertain that, that we hire a consultant and we can explore those options.

When I spoke with Cedar Hills, they're talking with American Fork. She didn't say that they've hired a consultant. I don't know if we have to do that. I would think the first step would be to speak with the chiefs of those cities to see if that's even an option that they would even entertain before we spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring a consultant. I think there's a way this can be done to just get a general idea if this is something that could even work.

Go ahead, Mayor.

I'll answer this for you to a certain degree. I sit in a room once or twice a month with the mayors of all of Utah County. If you look around the room and you hear the discussion, Cities are either looking to opt out of agreements with other cities, or they are looking at doing something. There are about 17 to 20 special service districts, or fire districts, or unified, whatever you want to call them, in the state of Utah. If you go back and look, and this is research I've done over the last five to eight years, none of them, including all the cities around us, are immune to what's going on. If you look, a lot of them are looking at doing property tax increases. because they're having the same struggles that we are. We're having struggles with staffing or wages. I sit in this room and I hear these struggles. Eagle Mountain's looking at a 250% type of increase. Saratoga Springs looking about 55 to 60% increase. They're looking for a fire for police. Orem is looking at doing a property tax increase because they need help with their public safety. We're not alone. We're not an island out there looking to combine with something. This, like Scott has said, goes down a road that is not, I don't want to say dangerous, Because it can be dangerous when staff hears this, fire or police hears this, they start thinking that, and whether, I'm not putting words in your mouth, it's dangerous because then they start thinking, is there mistrust or does the council or mayor think that our department is not running efficiently? Our department's running efficiently. Every department in and around us are all having these similar issues. I sit in a room, like I said, once or twice a month and listen to the struggles of every city that are going down this road with property tax increases or having struggles of hiring people. It's a real problem for all of us to have this discussion, but I do want to caution the council to even talk about this because then it starts a morale in our departments and it's truth. It will create a morale that says there's unrest, uncertainty that is happening up here. i don't want that to be created our staff does a wonderful job at providing the services to our city i think it's already been said that you know 75 to 80 percent of our city is service its employees and we appreciate those employees we don't get the major portion of our property taxes the school district does right we do with what we have with the 15 16 percent very wisely very lean so we want to be careful when we talk about certain numbers or talking about or getting information from other cities because we want if you're getting information from other cities is it coming from the legit sources that has been approved by that city to give you those numbers we want to be careful with that again there is a concern Utah county-wide and even Utah in a greater scope that there's concern out there. There will be in the police and fire always, right? Is the grass greener on the other side? That we have to deal with this all the time. The chiefs, I feel sorry for them, that they have to deal with this all the time. So we need to be very careful when we start talking about these types of issues. We had a discussion many years ago called Prop 3 in our community where it was placed on the ballot and some of us up here had to go through it, some did not. We had to have the discussion, a hard discussion about what is first, what is priority in our community? Well, public safety obviously came out and we said they were the priority. We had to go through and label. If we were to make certain cuts, two to three million dollars in our community, what would be cut? It was people. We have to be careful when we go down this road of talking and providing for services. That's all I'm saying is we need to be very watchful if we're going to have those types of discussions moving forward. We have to be very serious as a council. I, for one, as mayor, am not It's nothing against anything you said, nothing against it can be set up here. I'm just not in favor because when we looked at other departments and what's going on and increases that they're asking for, we lose local control. We lose the say of what's going on. It's about a governance issue. And then we have to deal with local control and it's gone. And that's just a short brief. I've got a whole folder of notes I've been taking. Scott, I'll turn it over to you to answer any other questions.

Wait, I just want to say one thing. So we did go through this before. And what we did learn was that the minute that you contract out with another city, you now have no say over what the increase is. So then that city that holds your contract comes to you and says, all right, we're going to raise you a million dollars. The contract is up a million dollars. So you now have no say in what that is. That's not true. I've spoken to Lynn about it. That's not true. You lose your local control. You don't.

You do lose your, I'll even pull chief. If you want, I'll pull chief up here.

No, we don't need it. No, it's going to get the numbers and find out mayor, because why are we scared to even get the numbers?

And I'll tell you what, I am not scared to get the numbers. What I'm scared of council member Lamone is creating an issue within our departments of saying there's untrust, whether it's true or not. of untrust moral issues with our people saying we have an issue with our leadership or control or whatever else you're going to create an issue within our departments that's going to

No, you know what I want? I want our first responders to get paid competitively. I want them to stay. I would ask you to go out and do your homework. Go out and do your homework. We're bleeding people because we can't pay them competitively.

I just explained to you other cities are going through this, Council Member Lowell.

I know, that's why they're combining services. They're not combining services. Yes, they are.

They're not.

They are.

We're bleeding people. We can't pay them.

Mayor, can I make a suggestion?

I was just going to say, Orem City has already had Vineyard and Linden. Linden has already had some issues about increased prices that have been thrown their way. Same with Vineyard. They've all gone through this. They're not immune to this. And so go ahead, Scott.

Well, my suggestion would be if we want to have a discussion about this, that we wait until sometime this fall because there is not a way for us to make a decision before we make a decision on the property tax. If this is driven by the property tax, then I don't think there's a way that we're going to make a decision like this before August 11th. So if it's something that we want to consider, my suggestion would be is let's have a work session and let's talk through what this means. Because in my opinion, contracting out or going with the fire district, is a big, big step for our department. And I want to make sure our chief can chime in on this, our firefighters, I know we're not talking about police, but sometimes when a fire goes, then police is next. And so I want to make sure that we have a a big discussion about what this means. Because in my mind, this is a big deal. And I understand the intentions, and I think the intentions are good. We want our people to be paid so that they'll stick around.

I don't think any of us argue about we want fair pay.

I'm trying to find options for that. I'm just telling you it's a dangerous road. When I send an email and I get no response from staff, I feel dismissed and ignored.

Do you get any response from any other council members that support you on that? We can go right down the line here.

I've had discussions. So I feel dismissed and ignored when I'm trying to do what's best, what I feel for our first responders, and getting numbers to try to pay them to keep them here. That's what I'm trying to do.

We have no issue with getting numbers of wages. Okay, then let's do it. And we've already done that.

Right, we got the wages, and we can't pay them what they deserve.

Other cities can't pay them. I'm just telling you other cities are in the same.

Don't ever say that I don't trust them. Don't ever say leadership.

Sid, I already preface it. You just said that publicly. Don't ever say that. Council Member Lamone, I already preface that this is not an attack against you. It's just facts that are out there that other mayors that I have discussions with are going through the exact same issues, hiring issues, wage issues, trying to hold on to people. that the other people are leaving to go to other departments and seeing that the pasture is not always greener over there.

Yes, sometimes it is.

Well, great if they can find that.

We don't even know because we're not willing to get the numbers. I'm trying to do my due diligence as a council member to look at other options besides putting the entire tax burden on the citizens. I'm asking for help in getting just numbers. We're not even taking a vote. I'm asking for help and I feel dismissed and ignored.

I'm not even gonna say I'm sorry you feel that way. You're not ignored. I see your emails and I don't agree with them, okay? And I don't get a vote, Councilmember LeLong. I just get to voice my concern that we're going down a dangerous road with our staff when they hear these things, when we're trying to do all that we can, talking about a property tax increase and helping our first responders out. We've done it in the past. We've increased wages for them. I'm just telling you that other cities are not immune to this and they're going through the exact same struggles we are as a city and I can't say that enough because I sit in the room with the mayors and they're having the exact same struggles.

You're creating the narrative of distrust, not me. I haven't said that one time. I want to help them.

I'm just saying you're going down a dangerous road sometimes.

Why is it dangerous to gather numbers? What are we scared of? Of helping them? We could come back and find out that this was the best financial decision ever or that it wasn't. We don't know. I'm trying to gather information. So don't create that narrative and make me the bad guy for trying to gather information for our first responders. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm asking for help.

Will you help me? The ultimate result, though, is I think what Scott was alluding to is that for this discussion, as far as this year's budget and the potential tax increase, there's just not the time to even have that discussion. It's a deeper dive and a longer discussion. due diligence period than what we have. And so I think from what Scott's saying, we absolutely can have the conversation, but it's probably just not the right time for this year's budget. Perhaps if it was, I don't know, make up a time, September, so we're six months before the budget discussions happen for next year, then I think we'd have the time to do that research. But right now, for the vote that does have to happen within the next month and two, there just isn't the time to give it the proper attention.

Correct, so we're gonna move on. I think we've had a good discussion here. Since we're not voting on this, we're gonna move on to item 10B, to consider resolution 2026-28 authorizing the mayor to sign a cooperative agreement with the Utah Department of Transportation, UDOT, we need to sorry i skipped i'm just too fast sorry tina to consider resolution 2026-27 authorizing the mayor to sign a memorandum of understanding between the utah division of forestry fire and state lands and the city of pleasant grove regarding use and compensation of city services to the state in wildland fire management and providing for an effective date

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor and Council, this is a memorandum of understanding submitted by the State Division of Forestry regarding fighting wildland fires outside our jurisdiction. Oftentimes, we are able to respond quicker and we have the manpower and can suppress a fire that would be on forest lands rather than in our own municipal boundaries. This agreement simply sets forth the process for doing that and for us getting compensated for providing those services to the state when we normally wouldn't be responsible to do that. Any questions about that?

Any questions for Tina?

No.

With that said, I'll entertain a motion.

May I make a motion that we approve Resolution 2026-027?

We have a motion by Councilmember Anderson. Do I have a second? Second by Council Member Williams.

Sorry.

Oh, you're good.

I choked as I said yes.

I thought it was Steve choking for a minute. This is the roll call vote. Council Member Lamone. Yes. Council Member Williams. Yes. Council Member Phillips. Yes. Council Member Rogers.

Yes.

And Council Member Anderson. Yes. It's unanimous. Thank you. Okay.

Now we get to read the one I read here.

to consider resolution 2026-28 authorizing the mayor to sign a cooperative agreement with Utah Department of Transportation, UDOT, regarding the installation, maintenance, and operation of a connected vehicle system in Pleasant Grove, Utah County, Utah, and providing for effective date.

Mayor and Council, this agreement is with the State of Utah Department of Transportation. I did not know what a connected vehicle system was, but basically what it does, it allows our emergency vehicles to preempt traffic signals to enable them to travel safer and more quickly on our roads when they're in a call situation, an emergency situation. They are going to provide six of these equipment devices. They're called roadside equipment. And they're going to be doing them at six different city-owned intersections. And then we agree that we're going to help them facilitate the onboard equipment. in up to eight of our vehicles designated by mutual agreement, and UDOT will operate and maintain their parts of the system, the CVSs, as part of a larger statewide system in accordance with the terms stated herein. Any questions about that? Any questions, Councilor? This is a new thing? Yes, it's a new thing, and the fire chief and Neil would be able to tell you a little bit more details about the negotiations as to if they have the locations already designated. I don't have that information.

Okay, any other questions?

um i know we kind of have our is this just for like ambulances and fire trucks or because we have like oh yeah you're not getting one steve i mean i'm just wondering just throwing it out there everything's for sale right no

so we're actually saving money we're actually with the state they're willing to do this to our signals and we all the other signals in the city are state run signals so they already have that system on there okay so there's only six signals that are working in our city that are going to put that in for us with this in this in this contract and grant that we have and we're putting uh uh i think six of our rigs and we actually have two snow plows that will be on this so the snow plows can actually get through some of these signals without having to slow down during those types of seasons. So it's actually saved us, the city, quite a bit of money as opposed to us going through and putting our own Opticom system and all the signals throughout our city.

So this is something in a truck that as they go through, it triggers the light to go green.

Yeah, it'll turn the signal so many feet away, turn it green for us. Everything else is red, and it makes us green going through.

Are those transferable, so if we get a new vehicle, we just take it out and put it in a new one? Yes.

We order some for our ambulance, so we can pull one off. They got it reprogrammed, but put it back in our rig. They're not cheap, but they're like $5,000 a rig.

Well, if I can clarify a little bit, when you say saving money, it's like the mic.

So right now, our Opticom system is pretty out of date. We haven't kept up with our Opticom system throughout the city. So for us to regroup and do all those signals probably would have cost us a chunk of change. Yeah.

And that's probably soon it would have to happen in the near term.

It's just something that's a safety issue. Yeah, we can get through them, but it's a safety concern. But talking to Britt, and Britt did a ton of work on this stuff, and getting through this, it's just saved us a lot of money. it's better for us to go with the state system for that reason, and if they change, we'll worry about that five, eight years.

And my point for asking, I guess, is just confirmation and a compliment to the due diligence that you and the rest of our department heads do to look for ways to save money, and I appreciate that.

No, thank you, yeah. I think it'd be a good thing, thanks.

Anything else, Tina? Okay, with that, I'll entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve Resolution 2026-028, authorize the mayor to sign a cooperative agreement with the Utah Department of Transportation regarding installation, maintenance, and operation of a connected vehicle system in Pleasant Grove and providing for an effective date.

We have a motion by Council Member Williams to have a second. Second. Second by Council Member Rogers. OK. And this will be a roll call vote. Council Member Lamone?

Yes.

Council Member Williams? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Rogers? Yes. And Council Member Phillips? Yes. Unanimous, thank you. all right item 10c to consider resolution 2026-29 authorizing the mayor to execute a reimbursement agreement with valley grove phase 7 llc for storm drain infrastructure improvements as part of the valley grove flex 7 development pleasant grove utah providing for effective date

Thank you, Mayor. This is Valley Grove Phase 7, i.e. St. John Properties. It's in the area of North County Boulevard and 1300 West. It's where, if you'll remember, they've just recently had a flex development approved in that area. Previously, when the city acquired the property from Penn and Inc. for our detention basin, part of that agreement was is that we would be responsible to install the infrastructure for that basin. at our convenience, right, when we were ready to do it and when we had the funding. Because St. John Properties is now ready to develop their flex space, they are willing to front the cost for installing those improvements because they need them sooner than we are ready to put them in. And this agreement just says that we will reimburse them. I believe, if I remember correctly, it's $39,000 is the max. Yeah, $39,383.10 would be the amount that we would be reimbursing them for this infrastructure.

Correct, okay. All right, any questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

May I make a motion that we approve Resolution 2026-029?

We have a motion by Councilmember Anderson. Do I have a second?

I'll second it.

Second by Councilmember Phillips. This will be a roll call vote. Councilmember Anderson?

Yes.

Councilmember Rogers? Yes. Councilmember Phillips? Yes. Councilmember Lamone?

Yes.

Councilmember Williams? Yes. Thank you. It's unanimous. Thank you.

Thank you.

Scott, do we need anything to continue from work session?

No. In fact, we've done department reports. I don't think there's any more on staff's end. Okay. Oh, sorry. We got to read our text. Oh, yeah. Sorry, Denise. Good job, Denise.

I'm sorry, Mayor and Council.

I believe you remembered.

Maybe I should have, like you guys, I should leave a few things out, see if you guys . So proposed property tax impact schedule, tentative budget July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. Pleasant Grove City will consider an increase to its property tax rates from .009620 to .001121 estimated to generate an additional $683,088. The following information is intended to provide decision makers and the public with an explanation of how the city's operations would be affected if the proposed property tax increase is adopted. Pleasant Grove City's current property tax rate is .00962. Pleasant Grove City's current property tax revenue is $4,127,422. The proposed revenue with tax change would be $4,810,510. And the new property tax revenue to Pleasant Grove City would be $683,088. The estimated increase to Pleasant Grove City's property tax revenue is 16.55%. Estimated annual increase to a primary residence of $570,655 would be $49.97. Estimated annual increase to a commercial value at $570,655 would be $90.85. Affected departments, police, Proposed budget, $6,654,468. Budget without tax change, $6,289,380. And budget change would be $365,88. The impact of the tax increase, police department will hire two new police officers and provide funding for reserve and retention. Affected department fire, proposed budget $3,722,747. A budget without tax change, $3,404,747. The budget change is $318,000. Impact of tax increase, the fire department will hire three new firefighters and provide funding for outfitting. The total general fund change, $683,088. Thank you again, Denise.

All right, Scott, review and discussion for June 16th or the 22nd. I think we've already talked a little bit.

Yeah, we've already talked about that.

Okay. All right, council business. We'll start down here. Councilman Lamont.

Yeah, I want to understand the procedure for when a council member asks questions to a group in city email. We're trying to get information for the next council meeting or whatnot. I know sometimes staff doesn't respond. Todd sent a couple regarding the budget. I sent one regarding getting numbers for looking at partnering with other cities. Who should be, should anyone be responding? Because again, I feel ignored and dismissed when my email, I'm trying to gather information that just sits out there. I've spoken to other cities and they say generally their city manager is the point of contact and then not to say you have to take that information on yourself and get that, but you direct either city staff or contact other cities. When I have a question or concern to prepare myself for the next council meeting and an email is sent and there's no response, what should I do?

Yeah, that's a good question. Generally speaking, when I get inquiries from individual council members, I have to make a decision in my mind of is this something that is substantial or is this something that is relatively simple to answer? when there is a request, and I don't think the email was addressed to me. I don't remember that. The email you're talking about I think was sent to everybody. I don't know if it was specifically sent to me.

No, it wasn't just you. It was a group, yeah.

And so, um, in my opinion, a decision to get numbers from another city for our fire department is a really big thing. Like that means I want to make sure the rest of the council is okay. That we're even asking another city for numbers for our fire department. I did not have other council members send me an email saying, I think this is good. Let's get the numbers.

So how many council members do you need to respond in order to move forward?

Yeah, if there's three council members that are saying we want that number and we want to engage with Orem, we want to engage with other cities to do a fire district, then that's, now I have my marching orders. now when i get an email from council member williams asking some questions about the budget that to me is a different discussion than putting together numbers specific to what we're going to do with the fire department so i have to make that determination in my mind on what's substantial and what's not i don't know if i get that right every time For the most part, I feel like I'm responsive to those types of questions, and maybe I should have sent you an email outlining that. Again, I didn't know if it was addressed exactly to me. to say, okay, this is what I want you to do. And again, I'll just say this, specific to that issue, I'm okay. If I have a majority of the council or if the mayor's giving me direction that this is something we wanna have studied, let's sit down and talk through, before we commission that, what that means. Because again, to me, that's a big deal. So that's why I didn't get numbers. It's not as simple as me calling up a city manager and say, hey, can you give me a number on how much you would charge us for fire services? they have to go back to their council and say, are we even interested in taking on another city? And if we're gonna do that, now they have to put the numbers together and that's gonna take them a while to do that. But now we're opening a door that we need to, let me give you an example. So Cedar Hills did this a couple of years ago. In fact, we put together a response as Pleasant Grove City to take their services and American Fork was bidding on it and PG City was bidding on it. They studied it for, I don't know, probably close to a year. It was gonna come to a vote. I think they were gonna choose us. And the day of the council meeting, they tabled it. And then they spent another six or eight months on it and eventually they chose American Fork. And so again, like in my mind, for us to make a decision like that, we're looking at at least a year before we're gonna have the information that's gonna make us all comfortable to say this is the right thing that we wanna do. So that's my hesitation to get numbers. And again, that's the logic I have to have in my mind is if a council member is asking for something, if it's substantial policy or if it's going to take a substantial amount of my time or staff's time, then I want to make sure that the majority of the council is saying, okay, we agree that we need to spend time on that.

I didn't know that was the policy that we had to have majority vote to move forward with gathering information. What would be appreciated is if an email is sent, just acknowledgement that it has been received and at least reviewed. I know there may not be time to answer the question, but again, Todd has sent two emails regarding the budget and there's been no response. I received no response from staff. I feel ignored and dismissed on a pretty big subject.

I mean, I agree. I could have responded and said, this is, I mean, Mayor Jensen responded to your email and he shared his thoughts.

I guess we need a point of contact and from what other cities are saying, it's the city manager. I had no idea it would take this long. I think we may be overthinking it and it could be a simple phone call of the chiefs to see if they're even interested and that we may not even want to move forward with the study because maybe they're not even interested in partnering with us. I don't know, but that information should have been conveyed back to me because I've spent two weeks trying to gather information myself.

No, and fair enough. I mean, I could have responded to the email and said, this is substantial. I'm not gonna spend my time on it as the city manager unless we have the majority of the council saying this is something that we wanna have done.

But you wouldn't be the one gathering information at staff. I need help from staff.

I knew that there had to be another approval.

I didn't know that. I've been on here for 14 years and I didn't know that if you ask for information, depending on the type of information you're asking for. It's going to cost money. I didn't know it was gonna cost money, no one said that.

There's not an official policy on this. That's why I'm asking for one. Yeah, there's not an official policy. This is me as the city manager making a judgment call to try to do in my best estimation what is being requested and how we're gonna handle this. If I have a council member say we want numbers on what it would take to annex Cedar Hills, I mean, I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but like, I'm not gonna, because one council member asks, I think that's a substantial decision. I am not gonna move on that. And if I'm wrong, if I, if this is not a substantial decision and the council can tell me, Scott, you should have, you should have got the, uh, you should have got the numbers. But there was nothing that was pointing to me to say, hey, we gotta get on this. This is something that we need to get done right away. So again, we just had an issue where I had to send an email to all of you to say, I've got three council members that wanna move in this direction and two that wanna move in this direction. I hate moving when it's three-two. I would much rather have five-zero. but I can't stand paralyzed if we can't get a direction from the people that employ me. And so that's what I try to do. I try, I want consensus. I would love for, here's what I would like. I would like for us to study this, but let's sit down and have a discussion to say, let's be thoughtful in how we're gonna approach this. Because creating a district means we have to have other cities that wanna work with us, okay? particularly if we're gonna be a district with more than one city, we're now dealing with other city councils. Don't know how they're gonna feel about that. And if we're gonna contract out with a different city, that's a different ball of wax because as Mayor Jensen pointed out, we're walking away from all local control. And there's a value to that, I think. But I don't know what the rest of the council thinks of the value of that because we haven't had the discussion. My preference is on something like that that we have a discussion. So that's all I'm saying. I work for all of you. I don't work for any individual with the exception of the mayor. The mayor is his position in the city, has a little more authority to give direction than individual council. And I do my best to try to interpret and understand. And I really want to keep everybody happy. I've learned over time I can't do that. And I'm trying to move in a direction I'm hoping that is going to keep us moving as a city, as a group. And I recognize that not everything is going to be a 5-0, no-brainer, this is how we move.

Thank you, Scott. Council Member Lamone, anything else? No. Council Member Williams, we're gonna mix it up tonight.

No, I don't have any.

Council Member Phillips.

I just wanna point out, in the public comments regarding the proposed tax increase discussion, probably not a surprise to anybody that nobody stood up to say, holy cow, I want a tax increase. We appreciate the thoughts of the public and the perceptions that are there because even on this group, on this side of the microphone, Nobody is jumping up and down hoping for a tax increase. But these are important decisions and impact the long-term health and viability of our community. And I hope there is a win-win. I hope there is a solution that appreciates the needs of the city as well as empathizes with the situation of the citizens. And I just want to express that I'm confident that everybody here feels that way, takes the responsibility of that vote very seriously, and if there is a yes vote to any degree for a tax increase, it won't be made easily and will be done appreciating the cost that each of those dollars takes out of the pocket of our residents.

Council Member Anderson? No. Council Member Rogers?

Yeah, I mean, I love the passion that we've had here tonight. All the way around. I love when we have a lot of our public come for an issue that matters deeply to our residents. Doesn't make our job any easier up here, but it does give me a little bit of hope that, hey, we've got people who really care. And even though we can have differences of opinion, we can still all agree on the fact that Pleasant Grove is a great place to live, it's a great place to be, and that we're all trying to make it better just by being good neighbors and by trying to help each other out. And I just wanna reiterate, and again, I think it's felt in the passion that comes from up here from everybody, and that is that our, and from our residents, as every one of them spoke, not a single one of them has disparaged our police or our fire. Everyone recognizes that they're out there busting their tails for us and that we need to support them in the best way that we can. And I don't think that that, I think that's universal. And I hope that our public safety personnel know that, that debating where the money comes from, how we do this, what happens has no bearing on our confidence in them and our support of them and our willingness and desire to get them whatever they need, training, equipment, and compensation-wise, so they can do the best job for our city. And I think we've done a pretty good job of that. And that's not even just our public safety, but our public works and our street and all of the people that work for us. The last thing I'll say is a couple- Are you gonna tell them what I said, what I told you? I don't know what, you say a lot of things, Todd.

When I said, I leaned over to Steve a little bit ago and I said, why would anybody want to serve on a city council?

Yeah, well, you know, it's tough. Like somebody said, they liked it all. You know, hey, it's great. It was a great night so far. But I will say this. A couple of months ago, I asked. and this is a little bit lighthearted, but I'm in favor of a disc golf course in Pleasant Grove. Okay, that's gonna take a majority to even top that. We're gonna table that. I know that. That was in jest. I think Dion was here when I said that, Yes? Okay, so I just wanna know if, I just wanna put that buck in everybody's ear.

Well, I believe you forwarded an email to us of a resident in there. So we need to follow up on that.

Yeah, I think, I'm just joking. I mean, I do want one, okay, but.

I would play it.

I would play it too. I have them in the back of my car right now. But I think you can find sponsors even if we needed to, to kind of sponsor holes and have it pretty easily done. But that's more of a lighthearted thing. If we needed to take it out of the budget, I'm fine with it. But I... Oh, it's not in the budget currently? But we could have a tax increase.

Steve, we could add it and then cut it for you.

Anyway, that's a little bit of lightheartedness because it's been a good meeting. And it's been, like I said, a lot of passion. That's all I want to say, Mayor, thank you.

Great, thank you. I had an interesting conversation. I had a visitor to my office today, a new resident to Pleasant Grove, and I just asked him, why Pleasant Grove? And they happened to move up by the Murdock Canal. That was one of the reasons. The other reason was the quality of life that they saw that Pleasant Grove provided. THE RESIDENTS, THE RELATIONSHIPS. THEY COULDN'T EXPRESS MORE ABOUT OUR CITY. THE STAFF WHEN THEY CAME IN, THEY WERE APPRECIATIVE OF THE WAY THEY WERE TREATED AND HELPED GET ORGANIZED AS A CITIZEN OR NEW RESIDENT OF PLEASANT GROVE. AND SO THEY HAD NOTHING BUT GREAT THINGS TO SAY. STAFF, I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU DO FOR OUR CITY. the countless hours that are provided that people are not aware of. Denise, thank you. Doing a budget is hard, especially on a city level, it's hard. I appreciate the years of experience that you have in organizing and putting together yearly, and then putting up with the auditors. I know they're good guys. but putting up with the auditors and going through that and line by line, right? Wendy, thank you for all you do. Scott, Tina, again, thank you for all that many hours. Sierra too, thank you, and all of our directors back there. All right, we're almost done. I need a motion to adjourn as the Pleasant Grove City Council and convene as the Pleasant Grove City Redevelopment Agency, RDA.

Mayor, I'll make a motion that we adjourn as the Pleasant Grove City Council and convene as the Pleasant Grove City Redevelopment Agency.

We have a motion by Council Member Rogers. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Council Member Anderson. All those in favor?

Aye.

all right she knows now we're now convened as the redevelopment agency rda um i think director roy you're just going to discuss and we have nothing to vote on here yeah we're not voting on everything we're just having a public hearing on the budget and sorry i overlooked that i didn't give you a copy wendy says it's in the packet but nothing's changed from last time but apologize for that so yeah it'll just be a hearing of

And then we'll take a vote on, I think it's 22nd.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. With the other ones.

Okay. Any discussion? Oh, well I need to open it up to public hearing. We'll go ahead and open up, uh, the 2026. Oh, two RDA resolution for public hearing. So welcome John.

You know, I always have something. Can you explain what's going on with the RDA? Because I can't have an opinion on something I don't know a whole lot about. So just educate me a little bit and everybody else that's tuning in online or whatever, just because it's new to me.

So what you do is we'll have you, after you take a seat, we'll have Denise or Scott, whoever wants to handle this one, go ahead.

But can I have public input after that?

I tell you what, go ahead and sit down and then you can come up after. How's that? Thank you. Okay. Scott, you're good.

Basically, RDA is somewhat of a generic term. There's different variations of RDAs. RDA stands for redevelopment agency. The purpose of those is for cities to be able to work with businesses to come to the community. For example, doTERRA, when they came to Pleasant Grove, We entered into an agreement with them that as they generated their tax that we would rebate a portion of their tax to them. This is to help encourage them to come to our community. It provides jobs to our community. And in old cases it used to be sales tax to our community. Now the state legislature a few years ago said we can't use RDAs anymore for sales tax retail stores. So generally, that's how we have three of them right now. One of them is doTERRA, one is the Grove Tower, and the third one is what we call the Hammonds RDA. It's actually a CDA, which is a variation of an RDA. It's a little older one. Yeah, that one expires here in a couple years. But those were all mechanisms set up. The Hammonds one isn't active in the sense that the money is being generated, the money is not being used. The city captures all of the revenues because when we enter into these agreements, the school district, whoever collects property tax in our area can help participate in the RDA. so the school district is a participant in rebating some of these taxes utah county is a participant these are agreements we set up with them in pleasant grove city those are the three main ones there's a couple smaller entities central utah water north utah water conservancy district they're part of it as well So anyway, that's the purpose. They don't front the money. Or they front the money. We don't front the money. They front the money. And then after the tax is collected, we have an agreement that we're going to pay back a certain percentage up to a capped amount. So it's a tool to bring business to your community is the bottom line.

Now explain LBA because we're gonna move into that next.

A local building authority is an opportunity for a community to be able to build and own a facility. For instance, our LBA is the roof theater. The city, sorry, the LBA owns the theater. The LBA board is our city council, but they operate under a different entity when it comes to that. Our agreement with the Ruth, the city agreement is they're gonna pay rent to us every year for that building, and that's what we use to make the bond payment. It's a function to get a building built as a community partner in partnership with the Ruth Theater. Sometimes cities will do an LBA to build a fire station or a city hall or whatever. Again, it's a mechanism where they can probably get a better interest rate. You don't see them much anymore. It usually sells tax revenue bonds on those things now. It's a way to work in a partnership to have that done.

So say, Scott, that we had a citizen that was curious about RDAs and LDAs, right? They can come and visit me any time.

I'll sit down and talk with them.

I love educating people. You'll provide the soft drink or whatever they need.

I'll even give them a Diet Mountain Dew if they want to come and meet with me. All right, John, now, or then you give me.

In all seriousness, because...

I'm going to Dr. Pepper. Okay, hey. He has Dr. Pepper. We're not too far off, John. Because I got Dr. Pepper in my office too. But because RDAs, LBAs, they are a pretty nuanced deal for a city. And I would guess a large, large, large majority of our citizens don't know how they operate. But again, we can educate. It's not something where we put out on Facebook how they work or whatever. But if a resident wants to know, we'll sit down and talk through what it means.

Thank you, Scott. OK, now I'll reopen up the public hearing if you want to come forward, John.

Thank you. John Johannesmeyer. Thank you for that clarification. I really hope it makes sense. It does. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I think a lot of other people in our city would be very interested in this information, how things happen, how they're funded, how they're structured, and stuff like that. I'm curious, with the roof, they're making payments to the city. to the city, does that mean at the end it sunsets when the bond is paid off and the roof has the whole amount, or does the city keep that?

Yeah, so once they pay off the bond, then the roof will own the building.

Okay, and how much money over the bond amount does the city keep as interest and extra money just for servicing this debt?

Yeah, so they have to pay the interest on the debt.

Yeah.

So there's a debt payment which includes interest.

Does the city get a cut extra?

No, I mean what the city gains is that we get people that come to our community and eat dinner before they go to the theater and we get a little additional sales tax or something off of that. So there's a benefit to the community in that sense.

I would encourage the city, I'm sure you can make a quarter point or half a point or something interest off that, make some more money for the city. And obviously money is a very hot topic in this city right now. So the more we get in, the better off we're all gonna be and it's gonna be great. So on the, you said the RDA, right? Well, that was the, that was the Ruth, but you said St. John's property and, and places like that. How, how much do the tax do they get back?

I think Scott, if John wants to sit down and meet with me, let's do that because I don't have all that off top of my head. We'd have to sit down and thank you.

I'm looking for a Dr. Pepper and we'll share a Mountain Dew and a Dr. Pepper.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, with that said, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing for that. Now I need a motion to adjourn as the redevelopment agency and adjourn as the Pleasant Grove Local Building Authority, LBA.

Mayor, I'll make a motion to adjourn the Pleasant Grove Redevelopment Agency and reconvene as or convene as the local building authority of Pleasant Grove City.

We have a motion by Councilman Williams. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Rogers. All those in favor? Aye. All right, it's unanimous then. We are now convened.

So their budget pretty much consists of, that Scott talked about, is we show that they have lease income of approximately 2.4 and then we have bond principle of 995,000 and then 1,418,135 in interest. And so this, we receive that and then we make the payments for them. That's part of our agreement.

can i ask you a question denise and i just noticed this i wish i would have noticed it earlier but in the packet the budget has 2025 and 2026 numbers that was posted online is that the headings are scrivener error on the heading or just the heading that beginning those second and third is just the heading so i'll get that changed and get that out there So this is actual for 2026, beginning and amended for 2026, and then estimated actual expenditures, and then adopted fiscal year 2027 is what the heading should say.

Yeah, I'll get that changed.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure it was a heading issue, a scrivener's error, and not we're looking at an old sheet.

No, thank you. Yeah, those numbers are accurate.

Thank you, Denise. Any other questions? Okay, it's just a discussion thing, so then I'll ask for motion to adjourn as the local building authority, and I think adjourn again.

I think you have to do a public hearing.

Oh, sorry, I'm totally skipping it, sorry. Just so excited. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and open our public hearing on the LBA. With that said, I'll go ahead and close our public hearing on the LBA, and then I'll entertain a motion. Is it okay if we entertain a motion to adjourn, and then convene again as the city council, and then take it?

Well, I think you have to, is there any, I guess there's no vote.

No, there's no vote until the 22nd. It was just more of an informational time.

Well, Mayor, I'll make a motion to adjourn as the Pleasant Grove City Local Building Authority and I guess reconvene as the Pleasant Grove City Council.

And Mayor, I'll make a motion.

So we have a motion by Council Member Rogers, a second by Council Member Phillips. All those in favor? Aye. And now I'll entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'll make a motion to adjourn tonight's Pleasant Grove City Council Meeting.

We have a motion by Council Member Williams. Do I have a second?

Second.

I'm going to give that one to Council Member Anderson. Second. And all those in favor? Aye. We are now convened. Thank you, Council.

We are now convened? Sorry, adjourned.