City Council - workshop

We'd like to welcome everyone out to the Pleasant Grove City Council work session tonight, Tuesday, August 4, 2026, and welcome those who are in attendance and joining us online. I'm going to go ahead and turn the time over to our city administrator, Scott Darrington.

Thank you, Mayor. We do have a quick presentation from Julio Homer and a couple others with him. And Julio will introduce them and explain why he's here. After that, we'll do staff business. We'll have all the department heads come up and share what they need to. And then after that, we will review tonight's agenda. So we'll go over the items. because all three items on our agenda are public hearings. When we get into our city council meeting, you'll hear the same presentation, but in work session, I'll give you a chance to ask a couple of clarifying questions if you have any leading into that. So that's the three things we'd like to get done. Okay.

Great, thank you. Mr. Homer. Welcome.

Good afternoon, City Council and every one of you. First of all, we come here to express our gratitude for the help that some of you guys have done for you, and I hope everyone else will help us next time. But anyway, as you know, a couple of years ago, I came up with an idea of doing a fundraiser for our BFW, and this is our quartermaster, Les, and this is our commander. and Jeremiah. And so we are part of the 4918 post over, it's located in American Fork. But anyway, I was still wanting to talk real quickly. So real quick, we, like I said, we've done this a couple of years ago. And so we decided it would be a great idea to thank those who have helped us for that. So do we have a, the police chief and the fire chief here with us, Mr. Drew Engelman and Mr. Keldon Brown. If we could have them come forward. I believe I spelled his name correctly. Finally, he took three tries.

I don't know, let's double check and make sure.

And if this misspelled, I'm gonna blame it on my Spanish.

Okay.

So thank you so much. And without them being part of our tournament, it would not have been possible. So we really appreciate them on behalf of the BFW. Wanna give that to them. One of the other person that helps us so much and does most of the work as putting it together is, you know, getting people sign up and everything is Megan.

Is Megan here? And Scott who,

He talked to me a few times and right off the bat, he jumped on board, so this is for him. Okay, and last but not least, our mayor who when I came up with the idea he said well do this do that and at first it wasn't like no it's not going to happen but then he encouraged me to do it and talk to some of you guys so I had almost given up but he just you know told me hey you can do it just keep going so I appreciate him for that thank you thank you and so he wants a picture if we can take a picture of you guys Like I said, hopefully next time we get more of you guys to help support us.

Julio's phone's loud. Julio's phone's loud.

Your phone is loud.

He has the old school.

He has old school. It felt like an old picture.

Polaroid.

Thank you. Did I spell that right this time?

Yeah. And so anyway, well, I want to thank you guys for that, for the time. And like I said, a lot of people enjoyed the tournament and hopefully we'll continue next year again and get more involvement.

Hopefully it doesn't get rained on this time.

Gracias. Yes.

Yeah.

that quick in making a next thing. Bad weather.

I think, Les, you have a few things you want to say, right?

I appreciate it. I'm just going to take a couple of minutes. My name is Les Langford. I'm also a member of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers. And recently working with the members of the Mormon Battalion Association, Mary Ann Kirk, who lives in Linden, has identified 497 members of the Mormon Battalion and identified where they were buried. and the Mormon Battalion Association has created a medallion seven inches in diameter made out of zinc to be placed at the grave of each of these veterans. They've also identified 24 ladies that were with the Mormon Battalion and they've created a medallion for those 24 ladies. Three of those members of the Mormon Battalion are buried here in Pleasant Grove. Last Saturday I held a ceremony where we placed a the medallion at their grave and we had direct descendants place the medallion. They are encased in a piece of cement that is put in the ground right next to their headstone. We also identified three over an American fork. I have a short report here. I'm going to give it to the mayor. I have a copy of this report that I gave to the Pleasant Grove Historical Planning Commission. I hope I got that word right. And the lady that's a chair of that, I gave her a copy of the report electronically. So she has that report.

Okay, and we'll have Lisa, our public relations, put this out on social media for you. Is that okay?

I can send this out electronically if anybody wants it.

If you can, can you send that to me? Pardon? Can you send that to me? Perfect.

Okay, great.

All right. That's wonderful. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Sherry, we'll have Library come up and give the report first here.

well we finally got the furniture that we asked for money for last year and for the we got a new front desk and teen furniture um and we have a couple things still coming but most of it's here and so you need to come visit the library and take a look it looks really great and it's already been popular the teen area has already been popular with kids hanging out there so Stop by the library, say hello, introduce yourselves to the staff. They'd love to see you. Thanks.

The furniture does look good. I hung out in the teen area today, so it was good.

Excellent. Is there an age limit?

Yeah, there might be a little age limit, but you know.

Yeah, in the fall, when school starts again, we're going to kick adults out after school.

You would kick me out, OK. Yeah, right?

Unwanted loitering.

It was too comfortable. Chief Brown.

Hello, Mayor, Council.

I had a lot going on in the police department. Your standard DUIs, domestic violence, that kind of stuff. It's regular stuff. But the DUIs, we've got a crew out there that's just Working hard out there. Another one last night, another one at 10 o'clock this morning. So they're just out there. Yeah, so it's happened all the time. A lot of stuff going on. We're looking for a couple people to hire. Did some interviews today. We'll do some backgrounds and get our force fully staffed here shortly. But things are going well. Got a bunch of good guys out there. Our reserves are out there tearing it up. Got some good officers out there. Got the party in the park going on. Hot dogs, Otter Pops, foam, and... We let the fire guys play with us for a little while. But it's a good time out there. So things are going good. Any questions for me? Steve, good to see you. Haven't seen you for a while.

Good to be here. Thanks, Chief. No, I appreciate all the updates on the email.

Yeah, there'll be another one coming tomorrow. This has been a busy first part of the week, so we'll put another one out tomorrow on all things going on. But if last night is any indication on how fast things can go upside down, they just did on our border with American Fork. So at the drop of a hat, you know, things just go... crazy and that's that just happened so uh we'll talk about more that more about that later but uh anyway uh things are going well in your police department so thank you chief appreciate it um megan

we're oddly getting ready for school to start which is the weirdest i swear we just got out so we're kicking into the fall programming um getting ready to go on that um we did hire a new sports coordinator his name is james blake iii he comes from south carolina so he officially started this week um so Wonderful, awesome, really kind guy, and we've really enjoyed having him. So we're excited to continue to have him on the team. A couple of little updates. Diana kind of mentioned it. We have a cool program that we're partnering with. It's called Mikey's League that's out of Arizona that they do an adaptive sports camp. And I think he's reached out to a few of you. So it's on September 5th, but it's actually in conjunction with the Utah Mammoth and the Utah Jazz, and they're bringing players and things like that. It'll be youth and adults with disabilities that get to participate in that camp. Then we're also starting the first adult sports with those with disabilities for adults. So junior jazz this season will add an 18 and older that gets to be a part of a program as well. So we're excited about that. Another little tidbit that maybe is kind of, I think, just as we've had conversations about communication with patrons and members, we've recently started a program called Pidge, which allows people to opt in to text messages. And so we'll now implement that for weather updates, for pool updates. So if you want to know the pool's got to be closed for whatever reason, obviously they have to opt in. We can't add them. So it's obviously not going to get every single person. But I think that will help with some of our communication opportunities when we don't necessarily have everybody's email or programs that they're registered for or anything like that. So we're just kicking that off actually here with this soccer season and just these last couple of weeks we've kicked that off. So we hope to see that help with some communication opportunities. Any questions for us at the REC?

No, but I am going to pipe in on the accolades that were thrown around for a half an hour of my morning. So it was a gentleman. He didn't actually know that I was on city council, but he had come up specifically because they had partnered with the Mammoth before the Mammoth became the Mammoth. from Arizona so literally drove up. They were so excited to meet with you. They said that so many times they reach out and there isn't a response and then for somebody to respond and then just take the horns and move with it. Anyway he he he sang your praises and I was just very very proud. He also said that he had met with you many times on virtual meetings. And so when he showed up, he thought you were six feet tall.

I'm doing something good on Zoom, man. I don't know how I look like I'm six feet tall. That's funny.

He said he was just like, wow, this is like so much power. Yeah, that's hilarious. So cute. That's awesome. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you for being the face of that. Anyway.

Thank you. No, it's been a wonderful opportunity. We're proud to be a part of it.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you.

Deon.

Well, we're definitely ready for some cooler temperatures.

Not this week.

This kind of weather with the drought that we're having, the no moisture, the hot sun, the wind, really shows us where our weaknesses are on our irrigation systems. Last week we had the remains go down and just being off for a couple days to get those fixed and repaired and glued and kickered and everything and back on, it takes an effect on our lawn. We're grateful we still have water to water. Thanks, Neil. I stopped out at the cemetery this morning. They were digging a grave, and I've never seen the dirt eight feet deep dry. in my entire career here. It's always a little bit, the first two or three inches were a little wet. And then beyond that, it's dry. And that's kind of scary. We've always dug in wet clay forever. And this year it wasn't like that. But we've had a couple splash pad closures. When we had the storms that we never really received any moisture, we have to shut down within seven miles when there's a lightning strike. And so we shut down and then it has to go for a half hour beyond that without any more strikes so we were shut down a couple weeks ago quite a bit this weekend we had a few times we were shut down with some chlorine issues we had a pump that went bad we got that replaced and back up online had to do a couple tests and things like that but we're back up on and then uh dogs in the splash pad that's been an issue so we have to shut down for an hour every time a dog is in the in the splash pad So we've had a couple instances with that this last couple weeks. So anyway, other than that, things are going really good. It's hot. Yeah, any questions?

Is that like a state regulation with the splash pad? It is. For the seven miles?

It's a state health code, yeah. So the pool runs the same. We run off the same as the pool. So, I mean, it's the same requirements for a pool as a splash pad.

Okay. Any other questions? Electrocution is real.

Yes, it is.

Thank you, Director. David, do you have anything for us?

Very briefly, and Scott or Sierra would probably announce this, but just a reminder that on Thursday we're doing our employee summer party. Employees and their families, six o'clock, we're bringing in a catered dinner. Should be a great time, so hope all of you can make it and hope all of our employees can make it too. And then just one other thing, there was a lot of discussion on this at the council meeting two weeks ago. We talked about the police and fire citizen academy. Just wanted to give a quick thanks to all those involved in that. From the police, especially Carl Nielsen, Lieutenant Nielsen from the fire, Kyle Hardy. It was awesome being a part of it, really getting a better appreciation. for the variety of tasks that our first responders do and the trainings they go through. And it was just a first rate program that I would encourage all of our residents to take, any employees to take. It'll give you much greater appreciation for what they do. And it's just an awesome, I mean, there's no cost. And there were eight different sessions. I made a list of all the fun things. Seeing the canine fray in action, seeing the drones, tasers, do a night of detective work. It's almost like you're going to one of those escape rooms or murder mysteries. That was fun to see. Traffic stops, DUI stops, building casing, go to the shooting range. Who doesn't want to do that? And then on fire, got to do first aid. Car extrication, got to use the jaws of life. That was nice, I got a good video of Dustin doing that. And then burned a car, grabbed the fire hose, put out the fire. So it's just a lot of fun things that you don't get to do unless you're part of something like that. So just a big thanks to our police, our fire, all of our employees for the work they do. Thank you.

Neil.

I've seen David want to burn a car before, but we've held him back. It is hot. I appreciate the Parks Department's efforts in using appropriate amounts of water. They've done a really good job. So I think that relationship between us and discussion is working well. And that goes with some of our other larger users as well. They're doing better, specifically churches and schools. I think if you drove around town, you'd actually see that. Occasionally you get a valve stuck and that happens or something goes wrong. We've had some big projects this year, as you well know. Some have wrapped up and some of them are about to be paved, which is awesome on 800 North and 680 North. When you do those big projects, similarly up around the 450, 500 and 600 South area and those areas, contractors hit things and that causes breaks. So you add those instances and those call-outs to traditional statistical water line breaks and there's a lot. And so it's a good thing that we're replacing the lines, but it's also taxing. And I just wanted to read a text message from Drew Hoffman. As you know, he's our Water and Sewer Division Manager. And I'm gonna read it word for word. the kind of update he gave me. Culinary is back on for the night. On PAI we have an 18 inch saddle with broken welds. We don't have and cannot find a replacement saddle tonight and we cannot completely shut off the water in this 18 inch main. We're gonna install a repair clamp over the hole and leave the main off and the trench open and barricade it until morning. Hopefully we can find a replacement saddle first thing tomorrow. We have a pretty large PI shut around 1100 North, 500 East. We may get some calls. We'll be going home for the night in about 30 minutes. When that call came in, that text got to me at 10.30 p.m. So they had started their day at 6 a.m. This is July 28th, and they had two leaks, one on a culinary and one on a PI, and then those parts that are rare. But if you dive into that message, all of the decision making that took place, and Drew, as the water and sewer division manager, I mean, he's on salary. He's not out there getting paid any extra for being out there at 10.30 at night. But the decision making of how to execute is just flawless. And guess where I was? I think I was out on a bike ride. And you probably all were watching Jeopardy for all I know. But the good part is that our staff knows exactly what to do to respond and how to do that. And this is not an uncommon thing, whether it has to do with our water or our sewer or our storm or roads or a stop sign that gets hit, our team is trained and ready to go and prepared. And so I just wanted to give you guys a quick insight into that. Do you have any questions specific to any projects or anything right now?

Council?

There is one other item of update I wanted to just give our streets crew. They put up some signs right there on Locust crossing from east to west and west to east at the corner of where you would go up into the high school parking lot, a new crossing sign there that has the rapid flashing beacons. You push the button and it flashes. And then we also updated school advance warning signs on 1300 West. Our staff and team have done a complete audit of all of the school signs across the city and We have a large list of areas to just routinely update and and put up new Signage, so that is in process Mayor asked me about a couple of things and I somewhat smugly responded with you know we do other things other than just put up signs right and But I don't say that to be curt or smug, but I say that in that we do have a priority list and we're going through them. We will get to emergencies and we do when they are there and guys stay out 16 hour days in order to accomplish that. But if there are other things that are wear items or routine items, we put those in the queue and then those come up with work orders. Thank you.

Where are we at with the secondary water as far as what we have left?

Our supply? We are watching that on a daily basis and right now we're doing pretty good for average. We're a little under average on our use overall. We do have some peak days that are brutal, not to be unexpected with weeks on end of triple digit temperatures. But some of the preparations we've made are going to help us feel like we can make it through to the end of the year. And I also feel like there are a lot of residents who are heating it. And if you drive around, there are a lot of lawns that look stressed. And while we want them to have beautiful and perfectly green lawns, that brings a smile to my face when I see a little bit of brown. And to add to that, we are out actively enforcing overuse as well and wrong day use. So.

Do you, what was I gonna ask about? I really haven't gotten a lot of complaints this year about the filters and like a lot of sediment coming through. I don't know if that's just me, but have you received a lot of complaints about that this year? Very few. Compared to like other years?

Yeah, so.

It's just no water to begin with?

Well, no, the couple years ago we had that extreme runoff and the water was dirty from every source we had. The Provo River was a chocolate mill and our Battle Creek and Grove Creek Springs. So much sediment came down in those and those are going to make it into the system. And a big part of the last few years has been we have turned everybody's water off and on a few times to install secondary water meters. And when water that generally will flow from A to B now gets reversed because of reverse flow and B to A, that pushes the sediment that's built up over 20 years out into the system stirs it up and then that makes it into the filters we are actively as well throughout our capital project process development process keeping on the radar secondary water flush locations where a strategic location of secondary water flushing matches up with a storm drain because we can't turn a big gusher of secondary water where we don't have a storm drain. And in order to get that flushing velocity of water, we've got to put out like a four inch, six inch, like a fire hydrant worth of water to do the job, but that is something that we have budgeted for, and we have put in a couple of strategic locations, and one of them was right down at Shannon Park, where we've had success with not only that filter, but a flush location there as well.

Okay, great, thank you.

So I hope that answers your question.

Great, thanks, Director.

Yep.

Chief Hingeman.

Mayor, council, hope you guys are doing good, having a nice hot summer. Things are going good at the fire department. I know last time I talked to you a little bit about our SWAT medics that we do. They go out and I have Captain Nish give me a report of kind of when they go out. This last weekend they went out, got a drug lab and another assailant that was kind of barricaded. But Captain Nish has kind of created this team to where he It's got quite the reputation kind of across the state, across the board at this point. So to the point where Post is asking to be a adjunct teacher for him at Post to help some of these medic SWAT guys get going and have it create another class for other departments, other cities to do the same thing. They're doing some pretty cool stuff and some awesome stuff. And they're super well respected. And just so you guys know, they're doing an awesome job with the sheriff, with Mike, with Sheriff Smith. And they work real good together. And I think we've got a good relationship with those guys. And so it's been a fun thing to watch as they go through this thing. Just busy at the station. Wildline guys are out. They came home last week for a day. They got back a week ago, Friday or Saturday. Had to take the rig in, get it maintenance for a couple days up in Salt Lake. They came back. went on the board and 20 minutes later, they had signed up in Oregon. So they were gone the next morning. So they've been in Oregon for the past three, four days. And I think it's the, oh, it was the campfire, but it's like 270,000 acres right now, what's burned already up there. And so they've... Yeah, the Coleman Creek fire. So they're up there right now, helping with that. We'll see what happens in the next little bit, whether they ever come back here or stay there for a little while, but they're keeping busy.

So do we have enough crew to fight- Yeah, those are all my- No, but do we have enough wildland fire guys to help with Utah?

Yeah, Utah watches that really close. Okay. They keep track of who's leaving, how they leave, how many are leaving for that exact reason. Because I know we have some fires in Sevier and- Yeah, last year we had the same fight with the state chiefs and the US force and the state about- who can send people out, who can't send people out, and all this stuff. We got an agreement to where they know who's going where, because they don't want to deplete the state to the point where all of a sudden, hey, there's nobody here. And so they watch that pretty close. And so they keep track of our resources. We keep track of, we're supposed to send stuff into them weekly so they know what we have, who we have, and what equipment we're able to work with. So it's been working out pretty good. So at that point, yeah, we have no worries about statewide state resources. They're doing well with that. Just getting busy. We interviewed, went through about 40, 50 interviews this last couple of weeks. Got them down to a few. I talked to a few. We offered three positions this last week. And so we'll get those guys put into service this next couple of weeks. And we'll kind of keep moving on there and hopefully get back up to full staff here in a little bit. Keep plugging along. This last month, I think we had just under 190 calls through July. So we're still averaging six, six and a half calls a day. It kind of slowly keeps creeping up on us. But yeah, just having fun, trying to stay cool and keep going, so.

Awesome. Thank you, Chief. Thanks. Daniel? Nothing? Okay then. Denise, do you have anything for us? Wendy? Tina, anything? Soad? Sarah?

I do. Our applications for our Youth Council program for the school year are open. They'll be closing August 30th. So we just wanted to let you guys know. If you guys know any great community members that are going into ninth through 12th grade, we'd love to see them apply. You can find the applications on the Youth Council Instagram page or on our city website. But we're just excited to have that started to back up this year.

You have one other announcement. I think you handed out something tonight.

Yes, you guys were invited to the mayor's night at the Ruth, and there's invitations at each of your seats for that. So we're excited to have you guys attend that as well.

This youth council, sorry to revert. Yeah. Tell me about that. What is that?

Yeah, so last year we started back up our youth council program. We just had a about four month kind of pilot program essentially. But it's open to any members of the Pleasant Grove community going into ninth through 12th grade. They're able to come work with the city council as well as have kind of their own initiatives. to help serve the city. So they participate in some of the city events as well as they actually we met today and they're going to start kind of their own initiative for this year and do some service projects around the city surrounding that. So it's just a great way for the youth to get involved in the community as well as learn how kind of city and state government works.

Yeah. They actually have a day where they go up to the Capitol. It's fun.

We will finally be on the map. I am so excited. I'm so excited.

They're excited to come this year.

We talked about it today.

Scott is just really giddy about it. He's excited.

Hey, if they're learning how state government works, maybe I better come join the council.

Yeah, no kidding.

I hope nobody's listening to our meeting. That was a joke. Oh, they will now.

All right, we'll, we have three public hearings tonight, so we'll have, Daniel, are you presenting all of them?

Do you want me to go over my stuff?

Yeah.

If that's all right before we get on.

Yeah, sorry, nice try, Daniel. Here we go.

So just calendar-wise, I think I've sent appointments for all these, but there's a ribbon cutting tomorrow at two o'clock. The Vista Bank, or yeah, Vista Bank, used to be Hillcrest Bank, they're changing their name and they're gonna do a ribbon cutting for that. This Thursday, the pool party was mentioned. That is families, bring your families and dinner will be provided as well as the swimming. And then Monday, the 17th, the Historic Commission is doing a walking tour along Second South. They're meeting on the southwest corner of downtown park. That's at 630. I've also sent you an appointment for that. Did you say Monday? Monday, August 17th. Oh, 17th.

17th.

And then just I wanna talk about next week, which is our Truth in Taxation hearing. By law, it can be our only agenda item. So what it will be, in fact, it will be more treated like a special meeting. We probably won't do the opening remarks and the pledge and all that stuff. We'll just get right into the meeting. There's no open session. We'll start it off by having Denise read our tax statement that we're required to do. And then I will do a quick presentation as to the need and things that we've gone over with the council the last few months. So I'll take care of that. We'll spend a few minutes on that and then we'll just open it up to the public for their public hearing. That's next Tuesday.

Next Tuesday.

Yeah, 6 o'clock. And for that, the council will not be taking any action. So the following week on the 18th is when we will adopt our final budget. So that's when the council will make the decision for sure whether they're going to adopt the new tax rate or stick with our current tax rate. Steve has a question.

Yeah. yeah so i'm just wondering with the process on the 11th is there um and i don't know maybe the council can chime in on this i'm just thinking that i wouldn't mind having a little bit of an open house where we can handle discussion before we just hear them talk at us and then we you know then we don't really talk back to them and then they just leave. I would rather, I wouldn't mind having an open house so that I can actually discuss people's concerns before we're just up here at the lectern and kind of on, you know, in our formal kind of setting where they speak at us for three minutes and we nod at them and they go sit back down. Like I kind of wouldn't mind having a little bit of an open forum if it's possible, like a little bit more informal. I don't know, Tina, if that's allowed.

It just has to be a separate meeting. So it'd be, in essence, it'd be a work session.

That's what I'm talking about. More of like a work session before. I don't know how the council feels about it.

I just. Work session or you want just like an open house where people can come in?

Well, sorry, we'll notice it is a work session, but it will be advertised as an open house, if that makes sense. Because the council.

On a regular work session schedule?

I would say let's do that at five o'clock.

And then can we take action that night or do we have to wait till the next week?

You have to wait till the 18th.

We can't take, by law we can't. By law.

My preference would have been is if the council was okay with it, that we just adopt the budget that night. Law says we can't, the only thing we can do is have our public hearing.

So at five o'clock.

Tina, did you have a thought on that?

I was just gonna comment that we're taking the safe route. So the new statute is a little unclear. I know some cities are planning on adopting the budget on the same night they have their Truth in Taxation hearing. But the Truth in Taxation statute has always said that's all you can do that night. And so we're playing it safe and we're just gonna

do the action the next week is there a way we can we can find out like if we're able to because some cities are and some aren't i would prefer to take action that night because i feel like when the public comes they want to hear what we what we're doing and then they leave and it looks like we're doing stuff behind closed doors it's so unclear we're getting conflicting direction from the league and we're getting conflicting direction from the league

And so it's just unclear right now this year since it's the very first year that they've got these new rules in place. And in one place it says one thing and in one place it says another. And so as city attorneys in Utah County, we've kind of done a poll among ourselves and we've chosen to keep it separate just to be safe.

So along those lines, I mean, after the public hearing, the council will have an opportunity to share with the public how you feel. You just won't be taking an official vote.

I just feel like a lot of people come out that night and they want to hear the final results. And then it just makes it look like, I don't know.

It's still an open public meeting the week after. And if they want to tune in online or if they want to see the final verdict, there's a way to do that. But like I said, if they're here because they want to hear what the council thinks, you'll have, I'm assuming, the mayor will give you opportunity to speak, that after the public hearing, you guys can share how you feel, where you're at. But it will just be short, this shy of just taking a vote. So again, we've been super cautious through this whole thing. We're reading our property tax statement because it says every meeting we talk budget, we have to do this property tax statement. I don't know how many cities are reading it on their Truth in Taxation night, but we're gonna read ours. And so in light of what Councilmember Rogers is saying, what I would suggest is at five o'clock, we'll notice a work session. It will publicly be talked about as an open house where people can come in and they can come in and ask questions and then Council can have any sort of discussion back and forth with them. We're not gonna give anybody the mic. It will be an open house format where people can just come and ask questions. We'll have some informational material, and then when we get into our meeting, then we'll review the informational material for those that are there at the meeting, and then we'll do the hearing. Does that make sense, kind of, the process? I don't know.

Sid made some good comments. Steve, what's your thoughts about it? I mean, Tina, I guess if other cities are doing it and are not doing it, I'm just... Most of them are not. Are not, okay.

There's very few that are, and they are interpreting the statute as giving the cities a choice. But most of us are saying...

Playing the safe route.

Keep it safe. Like Scott was trying to explain, we have kept a very cautious approach throughout this whole process. We have overdone what we feel like the statute requires because we do not want to have any risk of the state tax commission coming back afterwards and saying you did it wrong and voiding the tax.

Because they did that last year to a couple of cities.

And so if it's a choice between making sure that we are 100% in line versus a gray area, I'd rather be 100% in line.

And it is consistent with how we've done it in the past. I mean, the last couple of times we did this, I mean, the council had the public hearing, and they did not adopt the budget until the week after.

It is, but that's what is frustrating for residents is because they come that night to see, they think there's going to be a vote, and they ask why there wasn't a vote, and then it just doesn't look as transparent, and then no one really comes the next week, so I don't know.

Yeah, and that's fair.

That's how we've done it, but that's not, it's not always been the best feedback. Yeah.

So I think we make a statement multiple times that night, this is why we're doing that.

No, and we'll have that prepared. The criticism we got four years ago was, or the reason we did it is because the criticism was is you didn't listen to us. You had your public hearing and then you went and did the tax increase anyway. And so we always had a separation between the hearing and the action so that the council did have time to deliberate what was being said before they made a vote. But what you're saying, Council Member Lamone, is true. There's some that I'm sure would love to have closure that night. Me personally, I would love to have closure. I'd love for us to be done and we're on our way, whatever the choice is. But again, as we've been reviewing this, when we were deliberating this, it's like, that's how we did it four years ago. That's what we're recommending doing Put on the agenda and the notice that we're doing kind of bullet point highlight that we a vote will not be taken Yeah Yeah, we can make a note at the bottom of the agenda and we can as mayor Jensen saying at the beginning of the meeting I can state just to make it clear. This is a this is public hearing that the action I like the open house idea to

The question I have on that, though, is, you know, typical work sessions, we've got all of our directors here. Would it be the same? Like, would... No.

Okay, that's why... No, we'll have the director, we'll have the chiefs here. Okay. And we'll be here because it's a meeting. The open house, we won't be streaming because it's going to take place here.

I was gonna say, we'll have the room set up differently with some information and kind of more conducive to us being able to have one-on-one conversations with people.

And maybe have some information, education materials so that they can read.

Some of those flyers that were shared with us before that kind of give us statistics.

Yeah, Tina was just saying that it will be advertised as an open house, not a work session. So people won't be confused. Because the idea is if we're going to have you together, more than three of you, then it does need to be a noticed public meeting anyway. So it will be noticed appropriately. It will be advertised appropriately. We'll have this probably about 5.50. We'll probably... bring out the tables and the chairs for people that are here for the meeting but we'll have this cleared out to start so that we can uh more conducive to mingling as we're going over that stuff okay thank you all right dan you have three minutes

Okay, Mayor and Council, so we have three public hearings today, okay? So I'm gonna go over them. in the next 15 minutes really quick, but I'll probably, if you guys have questions, this will be an awesome time to answer some of those, okay? So the item number one that we have is a proposal from St. John's Properties to include the U6400, which is out of mobile services to the BMP zone as a permitted use. So just to be clear, what happened, a little bit of a background on this application, is I talked to St. John's Properties representative, and he informed us that he is working on a business to bring to PG in this area right here, which is the BMP. All this quadrant is the BMP. So he's talking to a business to come over here, which is a car wash, okay? Car washes are not permitted. It's not a permitted use in the zone. So then we start looking into it, and as we start working on it, then the applicant says, and now that we are working on this, how about we open the umbrella a little bit more and we allow more uses for vehicles, for automobiles, okay? Then we start working on it, we start reviewing all the uses under that umbrella, under 6400 Automobile Services. And we realized that the hardest use, the most difficult use, or one of the hardest uses, not the most, but one of the hardest uses to keep and maintain and keep it in control is mechanic shops. It's a complicated one, and we have a clear example right here on 200 South. When we can send code enforcement, clean up the mess, because it turns into a mess, and after a month that is being cleaned up, it goes back to the previous. It's an intensive use. Mechanics shops are intensive. The nature of the use is intense. So, Staff proposed at the Planning Commission that we look into other uses, the rest of them, and the Planning Commission did, but to exclude use 6411 mechanic shops, okay? So the Planning Commission reviewed this. They talked to the applicant. The applicant had his opinion regarding this. But at the end of the day, the Planning Commission forwarded a recommendation of approval to include use 6400 with the exception of 6411, which is mechanic shops.

So yes, car wash, no mechanic shop.

Yes, pretty much. It's car wash and window tinting. There's a myriad of uses, but mechanic shop is the one that we decided that is not appropriate for the zone. Now let's keep in mind this is a manufacturing zone. It's a light manufacturing zone. It's not the most intense manufacturing zone. That one we can see. The change is right here, it's almost intense. This is kind of like a buffer, still manufacturing, it's light manufacturing, but a buffer between the growth and the manufacturing zone, the BMP. That's item number one. Any questions about that?

I did have a question. I don't know if that's okay, Mayor, right now. So it actually relates generally to some of our policy making on some of these changes. We're asked to change uses, it seems like, fairly regularly. I know that some cities will say, hey, we'll change the use, but we'll limit the number of locations that can operate under that use within any kind of a zone i know american fork for instance says hey you can have a tattoo parlor but you can't have one within another mile of another tattoo parlor i know tattoos are coming up later but but what i'm asking for is we have for instance in some of our divisions we're just getting like prime real estate for retail locations taken up by banks that don't provide any kind of sales benefit to a sales tax benefit to us car washes, soda places, is there something maybe that we can create so we get a little bit more, and I know we're getting into maybe a little bit government oversight, but I guess what I'm asking is as our policy, is there a way to maybe encourage more of a mix instead of just slam whatever we can in there and we can have 10 car washes along one street, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Yes. Let me see if I can address that question. I've seen that those buffers, and the majority of times I've seen it, is for cash checking places. I've seen that. Actually, we had something like that. I mean, it's something that it will require a little bit more of a study because we need to figure out which uses we want to restrict. It's a huge list of uses we want to restrict. Now, I understand that for retail commercial sales zones. This one is a manufacturing zone. This is a little different zone. So I want to just make the distinction today. We're focusing on the manufacturing one. But that's an idea, for example, that we can look into it for the growth or the commercial sales or the retail sales zones where we still allow retail in a mix of services. But in this case, for this zone, it's a little more complicated because it's our second most intensive zone, if I can say it like that. It's a manufacturing zone. But we'll discuss it with the staff and we'll see what we can do for the commercial sales, for example, in the growth.

Okay?

Yeah, I mean, so why weren't car washes and other things allowed in this zone initially? Why are we having to change it? You know what I mean? If this is one of our most intense zones, then why were they excluded initially and why does it make sense to now include them?

The list of uses is more than 2,000 uses. So when the use was created, they included the uses that they thought at the time was appropriate. When staff reviews this and we don't think that a use fits into the zone, for example, if it was a car wash into the Grove zone, then that'll be a different situation. We'll probably look into that a little bit more. In this case, with staff at least considers that a car wash is a use, a perfectly good use for a manufacturing zone. Unfortunately, not all the uses were included at the time it was created.

Car washes are only like 10 years old. We had one in town, period.

You know, Councilor Rogers, in the past, when the Grove was created, for example, when the Grove was created, there were some uses that the City Council were very specific and say, hey, these are the uses that we do not want in the Grove. Now, since those are uses that are listed as uses not permitted, because usually you have permitted uses, conditional uses, that's it. But in some cases, we have not permitted uses under no circumstances. So when an applicant comes to me and say, hey, I want to do a car wash in the Grove, I immediately say, that's not a use that we're thinking about it. Some zones, intense zones, we left them open a little bit more. Some of our more restrictive zones, we listed specific uses that we do not want in that zone. maybe something to review, to take a look at it, we can do something like that, okay? All right, the second item that we have, it's tattooing, okay? Now let's change zones. Let's go into the growth, okay? This is the growth. Hopefully, let me change. Okay, this is the growth right here. And in the Grove, we have three sub-districts. And I'm going to say the most restrictive sub-district that we have is the interchange sub-district. So it's the area by the freeway. We try to keep there a lot of retail uses. We don't even allow used car sales, for example. We don't allow that in that zone. We may allow it in a different commercial zone, but not in this one. So I had an applicant that came to us and actually Code enforcement went to the business and realized there was doing some tattooing activity was going on, and immediately we informed the business owner that unfortunately wasn't permitted using the zone, so we have to tell them they cannot operate in that zone. Now, having said that, and the applicant as well, then I would like to propose to add the use of tattooing into the zone. Tattooing, or body art, is a use that many cities have one, two zones where they allow it. We have the same. We have two zones where we permit this. Actually, recently, in the last year, we approved the use of tattooing, or use 6295, in the Grove, but we say, hey, we understand that, and it has to be on State Street, because as you can see, the growth extends all the way to State Street right here. So we say we're gonna allow it, but on properties fronting State Street and associated with beauty and barber services, okay? So where is tattooing permitting in the city? Right there. on this strip of land and also in the CG zone, the general commercial. So on State Street, everything right here is permitted. So we have uses. that are permitted in specific zones, but not everywhere else. Now, this is not a retail use. This is not a retail use. It's a service use, and it's for our most exclusive zone, if I can say it like that, okay? Staff considered that wasn't an appropriate use for the zone. We think that those type of services should be offered in the different zones, and we already have those zones designated. And... Let me see, yes, the same applicant that allow it right here is the same one that is now proposing it in this area. Now, something to keep in mind is that once a use is permitted in a zone, we cannot be super picky about that use. In other words, if we permit tattooing, that means the entire building can be tattooed. It's a use that occupies the entire zone, okay? It's complicated to define, and I know there's multiple, in the artistry of body art, there's multiple I don't know how to describe this. There's multiple lines, there's multiple approaches. It's difficult to define that in a code, in a city code. In a city code, actually, we say tattooing, and any type of tattoo will be permitted on the zone, okay? So we present this to the Planning Commission, Staff recommended denial, and the Planning Commission reviewed this, studied it, and they also recommended denial. It wasn't a unanimous decision, though. It was a split decision, but it was a recommendation of denial as well, for this one. Not as well. For this one, it's a recommendation of denial. The previous was approval with an exception, okay?

With an exception, yeah. Okay.

That was item number two. And item number three, is a rezone for this property that we can see right here. This property is bigger than two acres. It's a new resident that wants to move into Placent Grove and they would like to do some type of vineyards and they would like to have a couple animals.

Like what animals?

Cows, horses, and some farm animals.

Really? No.

They want a self-sufficient farm.

They want to be, yeah, so. So they presented the idea, we brought it to Planning Commission, and to our surprise, we have more than 10 of the neighbors showed up, all in support of applying an overlay zone. Pardon?

Repeat that again.

I don't think those two heard that. I didn't see the, which parcel are we looking at? This one right here. That's what I thought.

A little longer than the two acres.

So you said neighbors came in support. All of them. But were all of the neighbors notified? Do they all know? Is there any concern about smell of animals, things like that?

None of them brought up that concern. I invited them to come to the city council as well, but I easily counted 10 people of the neighbors. We sent notices. The city sends or own notices to buffer around that, but then also the property owner went and knock on doors and talk to them, okay? So that's what the proposal is. Planning Commission reviewed this. This is a little north of 1100 where we have bigger lots. It's not the same as having it in the lower area right here where we have smaller lots. As we go up more north, we have bigger lots. And the actual zone for that one is R120, which is almost half acre lot. This is bigger than that. It's 2.18, I think. Anyway, so the planning commission reviewed this. The support was overwhelming. And they sent a unanimous recommendation of approval.

All right. Thank you. Questions? Any questions? Okay, thank you, Director. My pleasure.

Well, when I do my presentation later, it might be repetitive, so I may jump some of the details, unless you guys have questions, I'll go back to it, but I'll try to be a little more condensed during the city council, during the public hearing, okay? Appreciate it.

Scott, do you have anything in the last two minutes here? No, I don't. Okay, then I'll entertain a motion to adjourn from work session. So moved.

Who? Oh.

Motion by Councilmember Phillips and second by Councilmember Rogers. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

We're adjourned.