City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councillor Hutchison.

I don't think I've met you.

Yeah, how are you? Good, how are you?

Yeah, we found the signs. That's insane. No.

Matt talked to you about the signs. So we have, we want to reach out to you to make sure that we're right. It's an L.A. contract. yeah because your email caught me off guard Yeah. All right. So they're gonna bring the trail kind of around and they're gonna cross it . Thank you.

They're like, what are they gonna do?

okay good evening today is july 7th 2026 and it is 5 30 and we're going to start our council meeting thank you everybody for coming tonight we'd like to We'd like to, oh my gosh, my mind just went blank. Excuse Council Member Saxton. He's not feeling well tonight. We'd like to welcome Council Member Spahr, Council Member Jackson, Council Member Wilson, and Council Member always forget your name whatever i talk to you 100 times a day holbert tonight we have a few consent items that we need to um pass to council do you have anything you want to say about any of these consent items that we need to pass tonight What? Oh, yeah. Right, right, right, right. I don't know where my brain is tonight. We're going to do a moment of silence first, and Janelle Holbert is going to do that. And then we have a special young man tonight who's helped put all those flags up in front of our city offices. His name is Atreyu, and he's going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. So Janelle will start us out with the moment of silence.

Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you.

Audience please rise. Audience please repeat the Pledge of Allegiance with me.

Thank you so much, Atreyi. And now we have consent items tonight, the May 19th council meetings, minutes, and the financial statement and appointment for the arts board member, Christy Bowright and Julene Jorgensen. So anybody have any comments on these consent items?

I just have a couple of very minimal changes on the minutes. That's it for me. And we're excited for the new Arts Council board members.

And I just wanted to disclose that Julene Jorgensen on there for the Arts Council is my sister and it is a volunteer, non-paid position.

Okay, well, she will be welcomed. Any volunteers we can get to help out?

Could we have them stand up and wave just so people know who they are, if that's okay? There's Christy and there's Julene.

Thank you. Okay, now we will have.

And so I move that we accept the consent items with the small changes I've noted on the minutes, which I will get to Brittany. Yes, and all in favor say aye.

Second.

Oh, we need a second.

So moved.

Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, now we'll move on to our business items, the oath of office. Matt Gwynn, Captain Gwynn will be taking care of those.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. I'm going to have Andrew Harper and Cash Ricks come up, please. Mayor, Council, this is Officer Cash Ricks and this is Sergeant Andrew Harper. Briefly, as you know, we recently had a retirement in our department with the departure of Captain Hammond. With that, it opened up a captain position to which we have gone through an interview process and I have recently appointed Sergeant Harper to Captain Harper. That left a vacancy in our sergeant's roster and I have filled that vacancy with what is now who is now to be known as Sergeant Ricks. I'm going to turn the time briefly over to them to introduce their family. Before I do that, a little fun fact I learned literally before coming over here. We talk about line of succession in the police department. We talk about sharing our knowledge and training and our love for the job. I didn't see Captain Perez here earlier on. He's right there. Captain Perez was actually Sergeant Harper's primary FTO. Sergeant Harper's been here for 16 and a half years. Captain Harper was Sergeant Rick's primary FTO. Sergeant Rick's has been with us for 11 years. So with that, I'm gonna turn the time over to Captain Harper and then Sergeant Rick's, they'll introduce their family and then we'll get them sworn in.

Thank you.

So I wanna introduce, I've got my father, Bill Harper and Vicki Harper, my mom here. And then this is my girlfriend, Madison Smith, been together for about 12 years, and her family back here, Nicole, Allie, Chance, and Maddie's twin sister, Annie. So that's who's with me tonight.

I have my wife, Crystal Ricks, my daughter, Charlie, two sons, Calvin and Camden, my brother in the Ogden uniform is Cole, and next to him is my dad, who's a sergeant with South Ogden, Kirk, and then Trina.

I can't tell you how excited we are as a department right now. Moving forward, there's going to be some exciting things happening, I think. So I'm looking forward to it, and I appreciate these two and what they have to offer. And I also appreciate our candidates, who unfortunately will have to try again, but also have a continuous desire to continuously learn and improve. So with that, we'll turn the time over to Brittany, and she'll swear in Captain Harper first.

You can go on the other side of the desk.

Thank you

Thank you.

Thank you so much. I hope your little boys want to grow up to be policemen, just like you followed in your dad's footsteps. It's an honor that you stayed with Royce City, and we're so happy that you got your promotion. So now we are going to have our public comment period. And I want to remind everyone to ask that all attendees treat one another, staff, city staff, and elected officials with courtesy and respect. Outbursts, clapping, shouting, interrupted discussions, or any behavior that disrupts the orderly conduct of the meeting will be not permitted. Individuals who engage in disruptive behavior will be warned. if the behavior continues they will be asked to leave the meeting so that city council continue conducting the public's business we appreciate everyone's cooperation in maintaining a respectful environment where all voices can be heard so right now we'll have public comment period and you get three minutes and you can talk about anything that you would like

Council, Jeff Cox here. I want to talk about lifetime employee benefits. And I appreciate Alexis coming up. We spoke a little bit prior. Utah municipalities participate in the Utah Retirement URS, which already provides retirement pensions and defined contribution plans for eligible employees. If the City Council intends to consider additional lifetime employee benefits, that discussion should have been, I think, part of the annual budget process at the very beginning. These long-term obligations affect future budgets, taxpayer liability, and the City's financial sustainability. I hope to cut that off with what I present here. Instead, we are now more than a month into the budget process. The council's discussion focused on Roy days, where it was suggested that approximately 36,000 would be saved. In the end, the decision regarding fireworks was effectively made by the governor and surrounding communities before Roy acted. What was presented as meaningful savings ultimately produced Very little budget relief. Now the council is discussing employee incentives through potential lifetime benefits. Since this could be easily done at a later time, here are some ideas to hurry this process along. Free access to the city complex and aquatic center for 20-year employees. Lifetime transit passes. Enhanced library privileges. Tuition assistance through community colleges. complimentary city event tickets, wellness programs, wave facility rental fees, discounted golf privileges. These are things that cost nothing. At the same time, many residents have consistently asked the Council to focus on reducing spending, identifying the meaningful budget cuts. As the saying goes, you can put the cart before the horse, but around here we seem to be willing to spend hours debating the price of the cart, cancel the horses to save the dollars, and then expect taxpayers to pull the cart themselves. Any expansion of employee benefits ultimately impacts the general fund and creates ongoing financial obligations. Before considering new long-term commitments, the council should first demonstrate how those costs fit within its fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers. Public records should clearly document the financial impact so current residents and future generations CAN UNDERSTAND THE DECISIONS BEING MADE HERE. MY QUESTION TO THE COUNCIL IS STRAIGHTFORWARD. WHY ARE WE EXPENDING LIFETIME EMPLOYEE BENEFITS BEING PRIORITIZED BEFORE THE CITY HAS FULLY ADDRESSED BUDGET REDUCTIONS AND BEFORE THE PUBLIC HAS A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PURPOSED PROPERTY TAX INCREASE AND ITS LONG-TERM FINANCIAL IMPACT? THANK YOU.

I'm Alan. This is Brittany Porter. And we're coming to talk to you guys on behalf of representing all the citizens along Midland Drive, the kind of residential zone between Triple Stop 4800 and 5600 South right there. Basically, there's just been a lot of speeding, reckless driving, racing. It's just getting to the point where it's reached a tipping point for sure as far as the safety for a lot of the people who live along the street. I talked to Janelle a little bit. We've sent some documents to her. We went across, last six days or so, we've kind of been going out there, talking to everybody, seeing what they felt, kind of seeing if they agreed with us that something needs to change. And it was really surprising how many families actually said they don't let their kids play in their front yard. It's just simply not safe because of all the kids, sport bikes racing, construction trucks, cement trucks, whoever it is, it's excessive. And that was really surprising. I didn't expect to hear that, but we heard that a lot. Mayor Mrakas, So we presented some we've got about 130 or so signatures for all the citizens along the street that agree with us that. Mayor Mrakas, needs to be something whatever the city engineers agreed needs to happen, but speed humps something along those lines to try and curb this and mechanical controls to kind of get this. remedies to where you don't have to have law enforcement there 24-7 because that's not a realistic goal. It's just a more financially wise choice, I think, to do speed humps along those lines. Brittany made this packet here that has a bunch of the accident photos and stuff from what's happened recently. There was a big one last week, last Tuesday, where a gentleman, I think, had a medical instance of some sort. We're not sure what it was. The thought is the speed humps might have kind of learned him, brought him back up, but he plowed through six yards, took out a boat, took out a forerunner, took out a house, took out a RAV4, and almost took out one of my good friend's wives. It was within a minute of that happening because she's normally unloading her kiddos out of the forerunner. And luckily that day, he was picking up the kids from daycare. So things worked out well, but they were very close to not working out well. And that was kind of what pushed us to jump in and just try and make something happen. I think Brittany probably wants to say something, but that's kind of what we want to do is bring this to your guys' attention and represent everyone along that street that has the same feelings that we do about what's going on in that area.

Thank you. Can you leave that folder with like our city manager? Of course. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

So this is not only the first accident, but August of last year, so not quite a year ago, we've had another accident. on the same, unfortunately, it was the same house that was hit. His truck was hit and then the person went through some yards and ended up going through two sets of fences. Also, it was inches from hitting the house and our neighbor had just taken out the garbage can. So had she been there 30 seconds sooner, that would have been a totally different story. We... talk to a lot of people. When you guys started doing the construction right there by the canal, people started using that R Street to go through. And then they thought, oh, well, there's no speed hump. It's a straight through road. And so people are just flying by there. The traffic is horrendous.

Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, Melissa Conkling. I've talked to you, Diane. Some of you, I wrote to the city council about this 55% tax increase. You're gonna see me a lot. You're gonna hear from me a lot until we find a solution. Giving all this stuff, for employees is frankly ridiculous. You want to give them more money, you want to give them more stuff. My husband worked for 21 years for the United States Air Force and then another 16 years for civil service. We don't have this kind of stuff. Come on, are you serious? Seriously? You gotta have these people paying more than the top employee in Roy, where the average income is 90,000, and some of us make a lot less, especially us retired folk who don't make more money. That's ridiculous. I would do this job for half of what you guys are paying without any of the extra bennies. It's ridiculous. It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to make you guys rich. It is not. It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to make sure that whomever gets a brand new truck every year is not our responsibility. You guys need to cut some stuff out. I'm sorry. Everybody wants more money. It's great to have more money. I would like more money, but that's not realistic. We are Roy. We are not Riverdale. We are not Clinton. We do not have tons and tons of businesses to support this stuff. We are little rural Roy. And people need to realize that and stop putting it on the taxpayer to cover everybody wanting new and fancier and more money. It's not realistic.

Thank you. Thank you.

shelly polston we just celebrated 250 years i was so excited i went to sunset we had a wonderful barbecue my kids and i my grandkids we had fireworks the neighbors had fireworks it was wonderful drove home roy's a ghost town but that was your choice whatever One of the reasons we celebrated our birthday is because we didn't want to pay taxes to the king anymore. And that was one of the big reasons we split with England. Taxes are a theft. You guys are not appropriating the money properly in the city and you want more. We are not your money tree. You have a complex. that goes in the hole every year. If it was a regular business, it would have gone bankrupt years ago. You know that. I don't know if you're hanging on to it so you can give free perks to people, but you are asking us to give you money to continue a business that's a dump. It's a cash cow. And to me, you're stealing my money. If you can't have the will to make the cuts in this city, you don't deserve a tax increase at all. You do a little salmon dinner and you'll cut a little of this out. Sorry, that doesn't cut it. New trucks every year, perks for all the employees. You chose the complex over our fire department. You've chosen the complex and the aquatic center over our police officers. I'm sorry. I got a big problem with that. You're not doing right. Brian said, you raise this tax, it will be historical. And you know it is political suicide. And I'll just remind you one more time. We're done. Get it right. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, Deanne Chaston. I would like to thank you guys for talking about cuts. I feel like you should have been talking about it before you were, but you're doing it. Thank you. I sincerely appreciate that. You're talking about little cuts. You know, we're talking, and I'm glad Alexis was put into perspective for a cent, 10 cents here, a cent there of that 17, you know, increase per month. Thank you for putting that in perspective. Little cuts add up, right? So I feel like you're taking, saying one cent isn't, enough to cut that or 10 cents isn't big enough to cut that so we're not going to but they all add up keep putting them together right and i i've seen you guys doing that thank you but when can we talk about big cuts like big big cuts um i was kind of dismayed to see in the media that it was said the council has felt that there's not an appetite in the community to cut community services I don't know what you're listening to. I hear it. I hear there's a lot of appetite to talk about big cuts. Can we talk about when? When can we talk about, I think it's very timely now, when can we talk about if the citizens want nine parks? When can we talk about if the citizens want three separate water features? Not a lot of cities have that many. When can we talk about if that is something they want? And I'm sorry I needed to go back and look. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I think, Alexis, you said $10 out of the $17 if we cut every single rec program, every single park, complex. Okay. Thank you for adding it all up and seeing. Do we have an appetite out there for people to only pay $7 a month instead of $17? hearing that but and another thing I'm hearing that really dismayed me is that we get up and talk about these things and you guys say we don't hear an appetite for that I don't know what we're saying that I'm hearing it I hear it every meeting pretty much but you're saying I get the feeling that you guys are saying but you guys are uneducated so we don't need to listen to you you don't understand of the issues going around and maybe we don't you guys do you can get real-time data you can do it quickly you don't have to pay $25 for a grammar request you don't have to wait 10 days to have that given to 10 business days great you have access to that data educate us don't dismiss us and say you don't understand so I'm not listening to you please educate us thank you for the new website that says the transparency thing you're educating us We need a lot more of that so that maybe you will listen to us. We're trying to go through the learning curve. I know some of you guys are, some of you guys aren't. Some of you guys have been there for a long time. You understand. Don't treat us like serfs and like we're in the feudal system, that we don't have to listen to you because you know nothing. Bring us to your level so we can all talk about this. We want interchange, not just three minutes here, you don't talk back to me. I email you all, I've gotten maybe two responses back. Let's talk and be educated, please. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Ty Chasten. I'll first have to apologize. I didn't clap. Maybe I should have, but I've been told not to. So I didn't. So I have no disrespect to the new police officers for their rankings, but I didn't clap because I thought it was disrespectful. So I was just obeying commands. That's the problem. The communication between city council and city employees is like zero. I'm glad that we finally got something on the website where we can start to communicate. I wish there was more. The reason why you guys aren't getting the information from the residents is because you cut them out. You've made a divide. This is the divide. You against us. There's a large following. Trust me, a large following. They're not happy with you guys. They don't believe you. and they feel like you're not willing to communicate with them. The transparency is dead, but thank you, Alexis, for getting someone to do that to the website. We asked for it. We're getting somewhere. We need more because it's falling on deaf ears. The people want to know, but how do we disseminate the information? Through grammar requests? It costs us money and yet we're gonna tax us more. And the people are saying they can't afford a Dr. Pepper. We shut down communications, can't comment, can't respond. The people want the information. And it's just not people in the city of Roy. I've seen people, I've heard people clear from Logan that are watching what's going on here. KSL reported on Roy and Ogden Valley. We have the two major problems of the entire state with taxes. We got a problem. I've made my recommendations. A lot of people aren't gonna agree with it. But the complex, it hurts us. We should have taken that and shut it down, let Roy High School build its parking lot so the students have a place to park, taken the donations, taken the funds, had one place where we're doing chemicals at the Aquatic Center and compete with Clearfield with their Aquatic Center and have something that's open year round where we're doing electrical in one place. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody have any more comments? Okay, we'll go on to our resolutions. Our first resolution is 26-20, a resolution of the Roy State Council honoring Marge Beecraft as the 2026 Roy Days Parade and Grand Marshal. First of all, I would like to, Marge, would you just stand up so everybody knows who you are for a minute? And so we're honoring Marge tonight. She served on four terms in the council and seven plus years she's been the chair of the art department. She started the poetry contests and the gingerbread house contests and had countless volunteers that has helped her. I'm sure it was a hard decision for her to step down but We want to give her a vote of thanks for all the many years and countless hours and phone calls. She doesn't even have a cell phone, either. She called everybody on her landline. She's just been a fantastic volunteer for this city. We're so excited that you're going to be the Grand Marshal of our Roy Days Parade, very much served. If you come up here, we have a little something we'd like to give you, Marge. It's not enough, but something for our gratitude.

and she was in charge of all the history all those historical signs just keeping roy together and keeping us connected she has definitely made landmark moves and kept roy going thank you marge very much plus a school teacher for 30 years 35 years to be a school teacher that's an amazing feat right there Oh, that's right. We've got a couple more to put up. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, so sorry, I was going to tell you right after the meeting, but Brandon said they are at the Public Works, and they're going to talk to 56, or UDOT, I guess, about 5600 and put them up.

So everybody that helped her on the Arts Council, is anybody here that volunteered? I see Jolene, Jolene Zittle, and she.

okay and lynn said she was couldn't make it as well but yeah she's had a lot of people help her so thank you so much marge thank you so much for the this whole arts council and the inception of it so thank you very much

Okay, do we have a motion for consideration of resolution 26-20?

I absolutely jump in and move that we adopt that resolution 26-20.

Do I have a second? So moved. Okay, Brittany, a roll call vote.

Councilmember Jackson?

Aye.

Councilmember Spahr? Aye.

Councilmember Wellstead?

Aye.

Councilmember Holberg? Aye. Okay, now Brody is going to tell us about consideration of ordinance 26-6.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. Ordinance 26-6 came from the Planning Commission. It actually started with a couple of families who wanted to have some chickens, but their house was in, I believe, an R2 zone, and that wasn't allowed. Planning Commission took it up, took public comment, worked on it quite a bit. And essentially, the recommendation from the Planning Commission is that what the change is, is that if you have a single-family residence, Here in Roy, and you can meet the setback and requirements, you can have chickens, regardless of what your zone is. Some of the zones like the R2, 3, and 4 are the ones that are, and 5, excuse me, are specifically added, provided that you have a single family home to have the chickens. Just for kind of some information, There are currently about 70 active chicken permits here in Roy, but there's about another 10 that we are either in process waiting or have communicated with staff based on this ordinance that want to have chickens in these other zones. It was unanimous in Planning Commission. Pretty much everyone was in support of it. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Otherwise, I'll turn it to you guys.

Okay, Council, do you have any questions for Brody?

No, maybe just discussion amongst ourselves, but we know where he's at.

I know I work at Roy High and our attendant secretary has chickens and I buy all my eggs from her. So, and she lives in Roy, so it's nice to get fresh eggs. And so, do I have a motion for consideration of ordinance 26-6?

I just want to make a little discussion about it for just a second. When I was at the Planning Commission meeting and they were discussing that, Steve Parkinson initially submitted the proposal as any single family home that meets the criteria of chickens, which is coops have certain setbacks from homes and side yards, would be available for that. And I agree with that. It did get changed to 6,000 lots of 6,000 square feet, but I don't believe that that's necessary. I believe that the discussion really is if you've got room and you have a single family home, you should be able to have, and if your lot is smaller than 6,000 and your home is tiny and you've got room for chickens and chickens are that important to you, then I believe that that is an option that should be available. So my discussion, maybe we can talk about that a little bit, is that instead of having the 6,000 square foot limit, I would just say all single family residential properties shall be allowed to have up to that number of chickens that are in the table. Which means that the parcel size, that top line, instead of saying 6,000 to 15,000, you would just say less than or equal to 15,000 square feet. I just think that there probably won't be many people that meet that requirement, but if they do and chickens are important to them, why not? You know, things are... you know, people like to have fresh organic produce and allow them that option. I don't know if other people have some ideas or thoughts in regards to that, but I think that would be a nice change to that.

I remember when I was on the Planning Commission and helped write the original ordinance to this, the chicken rabbit bee ordinance, and we knew ahead of time when we were writing the original one that there was possibly going to be some amendments needed as we were going along, and we were going to have to figure this out as we're going since there weren't too many cities our size that had this same ordinance going on. The biggest consideration that we had when we were looking at it was making sure that your neighbors weren't going to be annoyed with crowing birds with roosters and that the setbacks for the coops were set the way they were recommended by the UV extension center for smell so that you wouldn't have an issue. So as long as The property can support the setbacks and the other current ordinances. I personally think that a lot of the newer houses that have been built are smaller backyards. And so I think it's perfectly fine as long as they can meet the setback requirements of that and keeping the no crowing birds as it is, which it is. Of course, that's not changed. So that's my opinion on it.

Yeah, there's been lots of... just on the last couple years really lots of feedback from citizens about chickens and and lots of them came to the city and worked with the city and things like that so and i think that what you're saying and what diane said probably falls in line with a lot of the things they were asking for and talking about and the feedback they were giving so okay so

Well, are you ready for a motion then? So we'll have a motion with the changes. I move that we approve Ordinance 26-6 with the changes noted that it would omit the minimum square footage. So the change would be all single family residential properties shall be allowed to have up to a number of chickens. and then on the table the parcel size would say less than or equal to 15 000 square feet and then um if there's and i with that intent i believe that covers all of the things we need but um brody is there anything else we would need to to include in that and so that would be my motion okay i have a second so moved and so brittany roll call vote council members

Aye.

Council Member Wilson?

Aye.

Okay, so now we'll go into consideration of 26-7 and Matt Andrews is gonna discuss this.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. In front of you, you have Ordinance 26-7, as Mayor Jackson indicated. The purpose of this is it was recommended from our auditors to consolidate all the fee changes throughout the year, so the intent of this ordinance is not to change anything to increase decrease fees it's just to consolidate for the audit process just to make it an easier process so they're not gathering multiple ordinances throughout the years throughout the year so um I I can agree that there can be some cleanup some obsolete fees in there we can do so throughout this next year but we would recommend uh adopting the consolidated fee schedule as written okay Council any comments oh do i have a motion yes a comment um question who recommended this the auditor yeah we were going through an audit process and and what would happen is if we charged a fee they would have to go to the ordinance that could be adopted in the 90s and pull that record um so when you adopt the fee through an ordinance like this they can go through that process very quickly consolidation of the fee schedule for auditing purposes and who put it together

um multiple departments but brittany put ultimately everything together okay okay okay so do i have a motion to approve consideration ordinance 26-7 so moved do you have a second i second okay brittany roll call vote council member wilson hi council member holbert hi council member jackson hi council member spark hi Okay, now we'll go on to our discussion items, and Councilmember Jackson is going to discuss the lifetime employee benefits.

Yes, so just a little background on where this came from. I had been hearing in conversations with residents, alleged perks or rather fringe benefits that were put in in well i don't know how to exactly say this because it was kind of hearsay i i hadn't i needed to look more into it but i i was hearing concerns from residents that when an employee separates from roy city that they would be able to take with them access to certain facilities among those were allegedly access to the dumpster on the aquatic center and some other kind of things and so i wanted to look into that and my my reasoning for looking into that was that if we if we did permit access to so many things after employees are separated with the city that that might hurt our turnover because there's no incentive. Oh, thank you. Because there's no incentive for them to stay because those kind of fringe benefits that were there when they were with the city and employed with the city would follow them. And so it doesn't really incentivize them to stay. And so I wanted to look into it if there was truth to that and whatnot. And so I wanted to do it as quickly as I could. So I put it as a discussion topic for today. We won't be making any changes, but just so we can discuss it. So what I found is that there was a single benefit that a separated employee could possibly access with some stipulation. So this is per the personnel policy, I guess a handbook, or just personnel policy page 38. Yes, 38. And there at the bottom, it will explain that the, okay, you showed this to me, but then tell me exactly what I just wanna read the language correctly. Oh, thank you. I could summarize it, but I'd rather read it straight from here. Was this just the first, I understood it ran to two pages, so it would actually be then, the separation clause is per page 39 then?

Okay, and I'm sorry, I can't read it from here.

Can somebody read the separation clause for me so that it's just, so it's on record what the language is in the personnel policy? Someone who can see it?

If an employee in good standing leaves Royce City employment after 20 years of service and or retirement, the employee and their spouse, children not included, may continue this benefit if requested at the time of separation. Employees terminated for cause shall not receive this benefit. In the event the separated employee dies, the spouse can continue the benefit until their death.

So that's the one that I found that actually could continue possibly. So again, and now I can summarize, it would be the separated employee and their spouse. No dependents are included. The Roy Rett Complex is the only access that they have. And it has to be a 20-year tenure and or retirement according to the way that it's written now. And so when I was looking into... what we what we do offer because that was all you know that was just all things i was hearing at the time um i i had in my mind i wonder if if that's something that city wants to continue extending to actually maybe put a length of tenure on there and then or retire and that's what i actually found when i looked into it that was what was actually written into the personnel policy already so um i would recommend a change and we can talk about this and then we could possibly bring it back if we intend to change it and that would be to amend the retirement clause to include a required length of tenure as well. And so, and I don't know that this has been done from what we heard, like no one has done this, but I suppose you could call it a loophole as it is written, that someone could potentially retire from somewhere else, come to Royce City and retire again or stay here like a year and then retire just to get the benefit, which I don't know. I guess someone could do that. So in order to prevent such an action, I would recommend that we kind of, I guess, discuss adding a required length of tenure prior to the qualifying retirement in order to qualify for this benefit. I don't know. What does the council think of this?

maybe we can just ask Matt what the Andrews what you know is this a hot topic hot item is this used frequently is this something that needs a lot of attention or address to it what would you

MY TIME AS CITY MANAGER OF SIX YEARS, I'VE HAD ONE EMPLOYEE RETIRE AND REQUEST THIS. RIGHT NOW, MICHELLE DID PULL THE DATA TODAY, WE HAVE 14 CURRENT CARD HOLDERS THAT HAVE RETIRED FROM THE CITY AND THAT ARE ACTIVELY USING.

AND THE COST REALLY, I'M PERCEIVING THAT THERE REALLY IS NO COST TO THE CITY IF THE COMPLEX IS OPEN BECAUSE WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE

Yeah, you could argue that there's an opportunity loss that they could be paying, if not, to say that they're going to the complex and going for free. It's not adding any real fixed cost to that because we already have the employees. We already have everything like that. Mm-hmm.

just some of my thoughts, you know, to how relevant is the change necessary, you know? I don't know.

So I'm curious when it comes to, you know, because when you retire, there's, like you said, we have the policy and stuff, so people that already have that, so if we discontinued that, would people that already have it continue because that was their agreement, or how would that work?

That would be my understanding is that because it's in the personnel policy adopted by resolution and because the employee vested into that policy, meaning that they fulfilled the requirements of that policy, that those benefits would still be extended. If we cut those benefits off, we could do so and then here on out exclude those from any other future retirements or separations.

So 14 people qualified for it in the six years you've been here?

I think there's much more. A part of that policy, it reads that they have to request at a time of separation. And so if they're gone for a couple years, they wouldn't be able to come back and say, can I get this?

And you know of one who's actually used it?

I've only had one request that I recall, yeah.

But 14 since this was adopted?

Michelle might be able to explain that better.

Yeah, I can try and clarify a little bit. We have 14 active individuals that are on the employee retirement path. Eight of those were the actual employees. Six of them were their spouses.

So it's possible the combination of the two.

And of those 14 that are currently active, we make them renew every year and re-sign the liability waivers and all of that. Only six of them used it the last fiscal year. Oh, okay. Okay. That helps.

Well, I think part of the conversation is, you know, our wage goal, certainly not where we're at now, is average or median anyway. I think the potential and the possibility of that benefit is nice. I don't think that it cost us as a city anything. I don't believe that the lost opportunity cost is probably a real valid amount. And so for me, I think we need a few possible attractive benefits. And even though it sounds good, it doesn't sound like a lot of people use it, but at least it would be there. That's some of my first thoughts. And I don't know that a decision has to be made tonight exactly, but I think part of the discussion, that's where it kind of fits for me.

Yeah, I would probably just say eliminate it going forward, just because not that many people use it. So I'm not sure how... much it really plays into people staying or anything. So, I mean, but that's a discussion we can have.

Yeah, I guess for me, I would say continue it because at least it's an opportunity, even though people don't take advantage of it. We need, you know, we do need some opportunities, but, you know, like you say, not a lot of people use it.

I don't know. I think that could go either way. I mean, you could look at it and say, Because there is a potential loss. What's hard is that I don't know that we can really know exactly what it is. That opportunity cost might be if the people that are using it were planning on buying it anyway. And I just don't know that there's a way to... measure that but so you could say well it costs very very little or you could say well it's utilized very little so i could see an argument either way to either keep it or kick it um i guess after i i do want to clarify though that i think there was some misunderstanding is that i wanted to expand um you know lifetime benefits and that was never the intention the intention was actually to reevaluate what was currently happening and whether you know offering lifetime perks or whatnot might actually hurt retention because it eliminates the incentive to stay with the city and so that was what I was looking into and and so this when I found that it was it was the policy was written basically as I would have done it anyway with a length of tenure and or retirement my one change that I would say if we keep it would be to require length of tenure prior to the retirement so that just to keep people from which again is probably not going to happen but why not write it in like what will it hurt to add that as a safety um to write it into the policy because that's what people can expect and so that would be my one change I think I would say if we did keep it but I mean again it's just a discussion for tonight I'm gonna agree agreement with that one I mean I'm fine with getting rid of it or either or um keeping it but like you just said limiting it

based upon the time of service that they spent in the city so that, yeah, that doesn't have somebody coming here for a year and then getting the benefit.

Right. And if someone retires here, I mean, I think they could, they don't have to retire here with 20 years, but, you know, maybe we had said you can either spend 20 years of service and or retire with eight years or however many. I don't know. We could put a number to that as a council if we decide. But, again, I think there's an argument either way. It's not utilized much. Is it an incentive to actually stay? Oh, I'm going to stay here for 20 years because of this. I mean, the value is nice. I'm sure that's why the people who do take advantage of it do take advantage of it because it is of some value, but I don't know that it's really such a, like really, I don't know, like, you know, like it wouldn't be why I would stay because after I'm done, you know, like I think there would be other incentives to work in a city or work in a, you know, for an organization than just that one thing. So it's probably nice for the people who do take advantage, but I don't know that it's necessarily the reason that people stay. So I think I'd be okay either way. Well, maybe we can at some point in time discuss that in the future, but... Yeah, I mean, yeah, and the mayor was just wondering if I could clarify, too, that some of the things I did look into because they were things that I had heard are, you know, access to the dumpster or the aquatic center or there were some other things, and I found that those are not in the public... are not in the personnel policy and so they're not they're not they don't have access to them and so and if there were cases of of anyone accessing dumpsters when they you know weren't a current employee because that is a current something that's offered to current employees um if someone who isn't a current employee would would be able to i mean that would be what theft like they could be prosecuted for such a thing like that's that's not allowed so we would certainly want to know about that if anyone had information about that um as just one example so

right because you have to have a key fob in order to get into the dumpster so you have to be an employee or a council member and we don't get in free to the aquatic center um retired employees or any employees like yeah that was not something i found so right and there was those are just again things that i had heard concerns from the public so i wanted to take them seriously and i wanted to do it um as timely as possible so i started to look into it and then i found that there wasn't much to find there was this that i found

And then I bring to the council today a discussion on how to maybe proceed changing it or not moving forward.

Okay. Well, we're going to have another discussion about it and figure out if we're going to keep it and grandfather in the people that are already in it and do away with it from

forward on so yeah we can do that yeah if this council so i mean can i ask them if if if they want to like pursue that or proceed with that as a as to change the personnel policy going forward i mean does the council feel like that's something you want to do is change it or leave it as it is or take it out.

I mean, I'm okay to leave it as it is. I don't think that it's harm. If we were going to change it, then I think then it would just be that small change of, you know, work here so many years before you retire, but... Yeah. Okay.

So, it sounds like we want to bring it back at least as for an action item, something that we can make a change to at a future time. Okay. Okay. I'll make note of that.

So, Councilmember Wilson? Okay, thank you. Well, we'll have a few points of information again as we have questions and and comments. I think one of the first things we can talk about is we do hear about the fleet. Again, that those concepts keep coming up. And I want you to know that I appreciate people being interested in education and wanting to learn. And so it must be, you know, not everyone hears everything at the same time. So many of these things will be repeated. And so I think one of the key things that maybe we'll start with is the fleet situation, because people do seem to get a little excited about the new vehicles, and they are wondering how that fits in fiscally. I was there when it was determined that there could be a concern, but because it was fiscally responsible, it was more important to be fiscally responsible. And then some concerns have been, Well, what about all the add-ons because of police cars and stuff? And Jason Sfar, Councilmember Sfar, has done a very nice workup and evaluation, so he'll go ahead and kind of just expand that and repeat some of that information.

Excuse me. So any of the vehicles that were that when I've discovered or asked more questions about which vehicles were done, any of the vehicles that were purchased and on the one year program, there's not any equipment that's attached to those vehicles whatsoever. So the resale value on them stays really high. So what happens with those vehicles, those ones specifically, just how my understanding is, is when we purchase them, we're getting them at fleet costs. So we're getting them below what market value normally is. We're able to get them fleet. And then after the one year before any repairs or even tires can have to be replaced, we're able to sell them because when they're only one year old and with certain accessories on them, the depreciation is less than if we would have been paying a yearly lease on the vehicle. The other vehicles that do have toolboxes and other stuff attached to them, we tend to keep those ones a lot longer, and they do have depreciation attached to them, because any of these vehicles you buy, you figure if you pay 60 grand for a truck generally, and by the time you sell it 7, 10, whatever years later, you get $5,000 for it. You can account for the depreciation yearly based upon that on its own, so the vehicles that the city has chosen to do the yearly. purchase program on is evaluated yearly and if it doesn't make sense, based upon current market conditions. that if we sold the vehicles after the year, that now the depreciation drops so much further that it doesn't make sense to keep or to do that, then we would keep the vehicles longer if that's what we would need to do. And so it's a constant thing during COVID because of all the trucks, the factories and the plants were shut down and nobody could buy trucks. when the city actually sold our trucks one year later we were making money on the sale of the trucks we weren't losing money we were making money on the trucks and so um that continued all through covid for the most part until the factories were up and running again because you could buy fleet vehicles but the general public could not But when we sell the vehicles, we're also selling them at market value. They're being auctioned at the auction, but we're getting top dollar for them. And it's, like I said, it's evaluated all every year. A lot of the papers about the sales and the purchases of the trucks and what's been the depreciation on them. And some cities lease the vehicles and they lose, depending on the vehicle, on the truck, roughly $5,000 a year leasing a vehicle. And the depreciation loss that we get on these trucks is less than that. And that's part of where, when we did a few council meetings ago, when we had to transfer some money, from the previous year to this one. Part of that is from the sales of those vehicles that's transferred from the previous year that will be used to purchase the vehicles in the next year. So that wasn't free money that we had available. That was reimbursement for the trucks that we were moving from one year to the next year forward. So anyway, that's the current idea of what's been going on. There are a lot of large companies that do this. I think it's Gerber. There's a few other large companies that do manage their fleets this way. So they're usually not very open about it because they don't want all the other companies out there to know that this is an option for them. So it's usually been kept pretty quiet when it comes to fleet management type stuff. So some companies are going to have to add all kinds of stuff to the vehicles. We're not going to be able to sell them for the market value afterwards because they've drilled holes in them. They've mounted equipment to them and whatnot. But the vehicles that we're able to do this with, the resale value is really high on them after only one year. Each additional year that you keep the vehicle, it increases exponentially the market or the depreciation of the vehicles. So that's where we sit.

Thank you. Appreciate that and that expansion of it. Hopefully that word gets out so people can do it.

Can I just add that when I've went out with, because I've done some, I guess, job shadowing or whatever of some of the employees, that there is a wide variety of, you know, there's the vehicles that you were just talking about that are sold about every year, and then there's some that they've had for years that the seats are, you know, looking kind of rough and different things and and then there's obviously the police vehicles and those things they don't resell every year whatever they have to keep those for a certain amount of time before they put them through as well because like you said there's so many modifications that go into a lot of those so i believe that's like a six to seven year cycle and that we usually sell them in about 10 years so so that we get we're able to use it all up so all right thank you very much

can i uh add to the uh vehicle discussion and actually question about the there was a recent i.t truck that was added and that is not one of these rotation trucks can can you explain a little where that came from why it was added what it's for and what its um life is expected to be here at the city so the the i.t truck has is part of the rotation has been part of the rotation yeah

There was a year that there was a gap because of some issues with the electrical components in the IT truck. And so it was in the shop for quite a while. But yeah, it's been in the rotation for four or five years now. I'd have to check.

So it's like it's back because it's now been.

It was different in the budget because it's in its own fund. So it was kind of it's in the data processing fund. and so it looked like it was different but it was actually the similar thing like we're gonna he has a truck now that will be sold when this one comes in okay yep and then we'll late at a later date um adjust the revenues accordingly to what we get so you'll see that in a budget adjustment

yeah that question does come up frequently so hopefully that information will help those that haven't heard it before the next thing i would like to really go over is is uh we are constantly hearing about cuts and i'm i'm kind of sad to hear the misconception that we haven't talked about cuts my entire time here on the city council that's actually been the priority any time we talk about budget the first things we do are cuts we talk about cuts it's the first number one priority on the list. And so I'm just gonna go over a few of those so we can reiterate those cuts. And one of the first things is, For the last three years, we've had 7.5% cut across departments, and I'll just go ahead and read what some of those cuts include. For the police department, that's ammunition, training, equipment, security cameras, subscriptions, radio, radar, repair, traffic school, SWAT equipment, community relations, the fire, overtime is for all of these, EMS fire training and equipment, fire prevention, personal protective equipment, FIRE VEHICLE FUEL, FIRE VEHICLE MAINTENANCE, PUBLIC WORKS, IN THE STREETS. WE'VE GOT EQUIPMENT, STREET JOB SUPPLIES, VEHICLE MAINTENANCE, PART TIME, OVERTIME, CDL TESTING, TOOLS, SUPPLIES, HVAC UNITS, OVERTIME, LIFT RENTALS. ASC certifications, tools, cleaners, hardware, welding, parks and rec fertilizer, cancelled functions such as Halloween, adopt a tree function, decreased Easter, decreased hand wash stations during Roy Day's signage, different competitions, no candy in the in the parade, weight room equipment in the complex, different program supplies, preventable maintenance has been discontinued. And I guess one of the high blinking light, flashing light concerns I have is when we start cutting these operational costs, we are cutting services to our public. We talk about big cuts. The big cuts have been made. We've already cut three three positions. We talk about cutting the complex. It has already been brought up that every dollar we put towards the complex saves a minimum of four dollars in courts, police, fire, other things, but that's at least very specific. And a lot of this data comes from state or from national you know studies that have been done but we've kind of done our own little anecdotal study in regards to the complex how important it is how much it really saves us in money and I'm going to ask Chief Police Gwynn if he would maybe just address a little bit of that and how sometimes cuts actually we lose more than what we're actually cutting and some of that. Maybe you can go on with some other topics that fit into that.

Thank you, Councilwoman Wilson. I'll speak to the complex specifically and the data that we found. And then if there's any questions, I don't wanna belabor the point or go somewhere where you don't intend. But the ask of me was to look at our juvenile arrest rates. prior to the complex closing, while the complex was closed, and then post-opening. I don't have the data in front of me. I'm hoping you have it for me. But what I will say anecdotally is that we saw arrest rates in juveniles while the complex was closed actually higher than pre-closure. Now, I did caution that causation is not correlation, but we did see a spike. Now, I didn't look at the juvenile arrest rates pre-COVID, and the complex hasn't been open long enough or reopened long enough to get any longitudinal data. And that is something I can look at as I prepare last year's annual report and moving forward. So we actually have some longitudinal data, and maybe that will tell more of the story. But anecdotally, we did see a shift when the complex was closed.

Yes, so the numbers were 30 and 40 arrests before. They doubled when the pool was closed. They tripled when the entire complex was closed. And then they didn't fall back to exact numbers, but they fell over half or about half. And so they actually match right up with a lot of the other criminological studies that have been done over time. And so I think it's a really good example of how What we think a cut could save us money actually will cost us more money in the long run. Do you have some other ideas in regards to cuts and just the cuts you've had to make in your operational expenses and what that's done for your department?

Well, the operational cuts, so the more we task people to do other things, the less they're focusing on the things we want them to do. You guys, as a council, get the same emails that I do. No one's responding to my complaints. I'm not seeing officers in my neighborhood. Those kinds of things. I will tell you that there's over 220 miles of roadway in this city, and at minimum manning on a peak shift overlap between swings and graveyard weekends, there's the potential for only six officers to be on duty. Our minimum manning during the day is three. Our minimum manning on graves is three. We actually have less officers now than we had you know, a decade ago, by one. I was actually able to bring one back, but as the city grows, we're not, but the demands grow, and we're not. And so we'll do whatever is asked of us, just know that if we're focusing on something over here, then we're not focusing on something over here, and so we have to prioritize what it is that you want the police department to focus on.

Any other comments or thoughts that you want to share with that?

I have heard the discussion around higher density housing and crime rates. Crime rates are not the same as call numbers. They're not the same. I think I've talked to most of you briefly about this. The idea that higher density housing in and of itself creates higher crime rates is actually not true. Socioeconomic status is a better indicator of crime rates or increasing crime rates. Now, as a population grows, the number of calls will grow proportionate to population, but just because we're moving to higher density housing doesn't mean that the crime rate is actually going to increase. Call volume will go up. the crime rate doesn't necessarily go up. Does that make sense?

It's associated to a different factor and that would be the socioeconomics status of that. Great, thank you very much. So I guess what I'm hearing is where we're at now, we're at bare minimum services and when people talk about cuts, if we make more cuts, we're gonna be below bare minimum services and that's kind of where we're at in regards to that.

I will tell you, and I haven't been shy about it, especially with this group, right? The number of officers and the number of Rutgers clerks we have, we've had for 20 years.

And the population has.

And one less officer potentially, right, than what we had a decade ago. So cuts are being made. Staff have been cut previously. I've been fortunate to bring that back. But there's other departments where staff hasn't increased, and those demands have. And those have been unfunded mandates, right, through the legislature and the tasks that they're required to do. As the demands on the city grow and change, our staffing levels haven't.

Thank you, that's a nice summary. So I guess the key is services come at a price and we have to decide, citizens and council, what services are our goal and that associated price tag must then be paid. So there's a cost to that service. Thank you very much, appreciate that. So I guess that's one of the key things is, I just want everyone to know, public, citizens, we have gone item by item. Cuts have been the priority. Cuts have been discussed. But unfortunately, it hasn't hit the media, right? Cuts don't have the same appeal, the same sensational value. You talk about a tax increase percentage, now that's got misleading sensationalism. In fact, there's a technical term for that. It's called base rate fallacy. And so I just thought I'd give just where cuts and taxes come in with that, I just wanted to give a couple of examples. Right now there's a lot of sensationalism about the 55.45% tax increase, but what I want you to realize is because it's not related to anything, the meaning is very, very minimal. For example, for us right now, in Roy, at our tax rate, that is $17 a month. That exact same rate, for example, in North Ogden, would be $26 a month. So the percent itself, if we don't have the fire department, 55.45% tax increase is $5 a month. So using 55%, is sensationalism it doesn't give us the information we need and it does cause unfortunately a lot of misconceptions and it causes people to to kind of get excited about that so i just wanted to bring up that piece of information because understanding and education is very important and i appreciate you know dan being willing to ask for that and be willing to have that education because it's uh it can definitely change the tide when you actually have understanding and i've said this before 10 years ago, I was here, no more taxes, tighten your belt. I have been over every line of this budget. I can absolutely verify we have very cost-conscious, very frugal people that are on our staff and as managers. We are more frugal than most cities. And one of the things I just wanted to bring up is we at one dollars and one dollar and sixty if that tax rate went through it would be a dollar 64 a day for city services so that's fire police a lot of public works a lot of parks and rec there are other things and i'll go into that in more detail at some other time but when you take a look at other um insurance policies or other features that people buy, it's really a fantastic deal. But we just have to remember, if those are the services we want, then we need to pay for them. And then, if we don't, we just need to realize those services will be less, they won't be sensible services, they won't be at the level that people are expecting. And so I just want to bring that to light for those that may not have heard that before. So those are some of the topics I wanted to bring up today. We may definitely repeat those. I don't know if there are any other topics or points of information anyone else wants to bring up for today.

I guess... So when we talk about making cuts to the budget, the money is being put towards things. And so when you cut out funding for something, you cut a service. And it's certainly open as a fair discussion on whether or not that service was worth paying for in the first place or whether it wasn't. And that's what the balancing act of the budget is, is that realizing that just making cuts doesn't just mean finding more money or eliminating costs, it does mean impacting services and so and so some would say well you know I don't care about this I don't care about that and that's totally fine I think that's that's a discussion we can have and so what I what I intended to show with putting in perspective how much each of each of the little things that were being brought up by many people actually would save is to say that just by itself, like it wouldn't save much, but it does impact a lot of value in what people. And so that's why actually this is kind of a good example because where we just talked about the personnel policy and how I was saying it doesn't cost much, but also I don't see that it does, I don't know that it does have a lot of value because it isn't utilized very much. And so for me, I see in just taking that as an example, that's something that doesn't cost much, but also doesn't have value. And so to me, that's why I say that is something that could go either way. To me, I think the salmon bake is probably one of those things that doesn't have a lot of cost, but for most of the city didn't have a lot of value. i still kind of think it's cool that that roy has something for everyone and so maybe not everybody goes to salmon baker everybody goes to this or that but there's something for everybody to enjoy and so that can is part of kind of the discussion but one one thing i think that's important is to remember that just cutting out funding or or cutting out expenses doesn't just mean that that's just gone like you do have an impact on service and whether or not that impact on service is worth it is the discussion at hand that's what we're all trying to figure out and so um i i will keep we'll keep working on it um there are there are a couple things at least for me coming up that are um Well, one of them's a little bigger, and if I find out more information about it, and I think that it would be in the best interest of the council to discuss it, then I'll proceed with that based on what I'm learning about the matter. And so we are still looking into it, but I do think it's interesting how when I went back and I asked each department head to outline what specific items they had cut in that 7.5% discretionary cuts a couple of years ago, that I found those, and I thought, OK, that like that's interesting because at the time I wasn't on the council and I didn't know that. And those are the kinds of things that don't they don't make the news. People don't know about them. They just know that the department heads know that that was expected of them and they followed through. But this council now has seen what has come before us and say, here are the steps that they've taken to prepare for for this budget and try to get it as low as we can. And that has been done. So many of the emails that I've been receiving have been before you ask for more, before you consider raising taxes. cut first and that that that was done but that was not what was what was published or publicized and so people don't know that and so that's something i hope to show was was what has been done prior to this this this uh this budget year you know and everything that has happened leading up to it because i think that's important part of the story that that what wasn't what we didn't do and this is not the discussion that happened is oh we're going to do nothing about the current budget and we're going to not cut anything we want to hold on to everything and we want more and that's not the reality the reality is that there were cuts leading up and there's still more to come it's possible we could find a little bit more here and then here and there and then you're going to start talking about what kind of a police department you want if you want nine parks if you want any parks at all We could talk about that. That's really fair. I think that's a fair part of discussion. As long as we agree on how much things cost, we can talk about what people value. And if people in Roy don't value parks, then for me, it's on the table. And that's something that's fair. But what you just need to realize is when you cut out expenses, you cut services, and deciding what you're willing to pay for and what you're not is what we're talking about.

Thank you. I just wanted to mention, you know, and we already said it, but at some point you just need to remember you lose more than you gain when you're starting to cut into the meat of things. And I think the question begs to be asked, what type of city do you want to live in and what type of community do you want to be a part of? And I think that's part of that question as we're trying to balance out what that is. And that is absolutely critical section of questions that need to be asked.

I would also, I think, I believe Council Member Spahr, last meeting, I think, gave an intriguing thought. And that was that, I mean, you could take the complex as an example, but really, I think it could go for any major service in the city. But we could take, let's just talk complex, just as an example, because it's a common example. And that's that Councilmember Spahr suggested that something that would have that big of an impact to the community, that we just, I don't know that we would know that without like a survey. We could survey it or a ballot initiative, because that's something that's a big impact. And Councilmember Spahr, the way he put it, I just liked it, that five people here Like we can make some decisions and we can get information, but that's a big impact to community. So like something like selling every park or getting rid of every rec program, like something like that, that those are big impacts to the community, a significant savings at that point. But we would want to know for sure that was the right decision. And I think any one of us would be willing to make that decision if we were convinced it was the right one. And part of that for me is going to be seeing people really, really show me, you know, either with a ballot initiative or a survey that that would be the right decision, and I would be willing to make it. But I like just the way that Councilmember Spahr put that, and it's something I hadn't thought of it, I guess, that way before. is that I do consider myself an informed decision maker here. And I do put forth a lot of effort in order to be that person. But at the end of the day, something that will impact that many people, we would want to know that that was it. And so I like that idea as far as like a ballot initiative or a survey. And we should do a survey anyway. There's more than just that. But there's a lot of things that I think that we could have a better finger on the pulse of what Roy community life should be.

Right, I know that the complex is used for the high school. We host, I mean, three swim teams use it, which the school district pays the city for those. Westfield, Bonneville, and Roy High use that as a swim team. and then our para classes, our special needs kids go over there. That's part of their curriculum to go over there and use that pool. There's a lot of people that aren't for the complex, but I hear a lot of people We've had a few of the senior citizens come here. We had almost 7,000 swim lessons given this year. They train our lifeguards. It's used for so many things. Those who haven't gone on tour of it since it's been remodeled, I've talked to the mayor of Clearfield, the lady that ran the Clearfield pool for 20 years, and talked about the Layton pool. The Clearfield mayor told me at one time they were considering selling theirs and they looked into it and there wasn't one person that was going to buy it. We didn't raise taxes to do that complex. It's a beautiful facility and it is very utilized. I know when it was closed down, All those kids that go right after school from Sand Ridge and will go up there and play basketball. I mean, like Chief Gwen said, then those kids had to find something else to do. And the rec programs, those kids that utilize those rec programs and use those parks, I mean, it's getting them out of the house, getting away from a computer off a phone, and it's teaching them a skill, giving them friends. Sports teach kids so much. And I just think that that would be, I mean, everybody that I've talked to, I guess everybody has their own opinions, but the rec program in Roy is, I mean, usually every sport is full. My grandson's playing softball on Tuesday nights, and all the leagues are full. It's so important to have those parks, and they're so well-maintained. If we can just get people from quit vandalizing the toilets and doing things like that. I just think that a lot of people move here because of the amenities that we have, the complex, the aquatic center, the recreation programs, our beautiful parks. I mean, I just think that that's why a lot of people come to Roy and because of all the amenities that we do have in it anyway.

There are many people that say yes, many people that say no. For me, it's too close to call. That's something that really should be a collective decision. That's the way I figured with that one.

I'm on record when the when the complex was initially talking about when we were talking about doing the remodel a long time ago, I was on the planning commission and I'm on record even talking at a council meeting saying I was against the remodel and to get rid of the complex. So, but one thing that I wanted to make sure the public understood too, is that when I was running for council, at all of the meet and greets that I had and anybody, the citizens that came up to talk to me, the vast majority of any of the older citizens that came up and talked to me, their number one question was, do you support the complex? Because I will not vote for you if you want to get rid of it. and so that led me to that same thought that you know we do have a low voter turnout the people that show up to the votes but I've seen the social media posts about it and there's as many people I think that has probably said to get rid of the complex is that I have experienced myself them talking to me personally wanting to keep it so if it were to be a decision like that like I said that's why I would support it to be more of a ballot initiative something that people either be a we're able to get a good canvassing of the citizens about what they would really want with that in that regard. So that's why I feel my job is, even though I have strong feelings one way or another about a subject, I do think that the majority rules. So if they want me, the majority of citizens want me to vote for something a certain way, that's how I'm going to vote. So, but I have to know that that is for sure. The majority of the citizens want this before I will vote that way. So yeah, I would support. I would support being able to get a survey out on that. I also do still support doing the. A salary survey that we're still looking at doing. So a lot of these things we're still considering, so making big cuts. I. It's kind of hard to point a finger at one certain thing because so many people are passionate about any one thing. So anyway, that's my two cents.

So do you have any other thing, anybody? So then we'll go on to Council Member Hulbert. Thanks.

So something I wanted to discuss was trying to, I guess, rejuvenate our youth council. Traditionally, we've had just the SBOs at Roy High be the youth council. BUT I THOUGHT THAT TO GIVE MORE PEOPLE AN OPPORTUNITY, IT WOULD BE NICE TO MODEL IT MORE LIKE WHAT OTHER CITIES DO AND HAVE KIDS APPLY AND BE PART OF THAT AND EVENTUALLY HAVE SOME ADVISORS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. SO THE PURPOSE OF THIS DISCUSSION ITEM IS JUST TO INTRODUCE THE CONCEPT THAT I'M KIND OF LOOKING AT. to gather feedback from you guys in case you have suggestions or questions, and then seek consensus to continue developing the program and recruit some volunteer advisors and pursue private sponsorships. I wouldn't be asking for any money from the budget. I do have some people that have I guess offered or said that they know some people that would be very interested in supporting this. And so those are kind of the things I was looking at. I also had someone reach out and say that they have a free youth leadership training that our youth that participate in this could be part of. And so I was hoping to get a good, if you guys are okay with me moving forward with this, I'd like to bring it back probably beginning of August, sometime in August, so that we could start getting applications and things like that from students. and I was thinking to do ninth through 12th grade, and some of the funding that we are asking for sponsorships for would be some educational field trips that would include even just to the county maybe, like if we wanted to go see the, election office, see how that works, things like that, a trip to the capital probably at least once a year, and maybe a trip to waste management services, things like that, and they could, and the idea is to have two meetings a month, One would be focused on civic education for the youth, and they might meet with Brandon or someone, one of his workers, and they would teach him about what Public Works does. And that's just one example. They could also come see what the police do, fire, just any of the departments that we offer, just so they understand how their I guess their government works, their local government. But also we would expand sometimes to county and state to some level, but mostly it would focus on local. And then the other meeting each month would focus on some kind of service project that they could do. I know that I ran into, I think it's, Daughters of the American Revolution, and they do some service stuff that they do, and there's lots of different service organizations in the city and in the area that they could participate in projects for, and so I think that that could be a great thing. So if you guys have any questions or feedback for me, and I'm also open to feedback, obviously, from the public and anyone that has ideas, because this will be an ongoing process, so.

so would you wait till school started and then um reach out to the schools to try to get applicants is that how you would do that yeah i would so 9th through 12th so i'd have to do the ninth graders in the junior highs and then the high school as well so we would do that but we would also just open it up to you know any student that lives in roy yeah not necessary because it'd be a charter school or whatever or homeschool or yeah just so about how many do you want on your council

I was thinking to start with six or eight, just because we don't wanna be, the first year, we're kinda gonna be learning as we go. I have met, with a few other council people. I ran into a college friend that helps run the Layton Youth Council, and so she's given me a few things, but I'm gonna go see how some of their meetings run and some of the things they do. And I also talked with Brian, and he suggested I talk to the Layton one too, and I was like, oh, perfect, I'm already gonna do that, so.

And so would that council person take turns sitting on our council or we still have our student vice president do that?

At least in my mind, we could do it however we want if you guys had suggestions. But in my mind, we would invite... one of the kids each time to come sit so they could sign up for a time that works with their schedule or whatever and then we would still invite you know the sbos from the high school i know that they like to come and tell us about you know when they do the service projects during christmas time and then uh also like homecoming and some of those types of things that they can still come and we can invite them to come tell us about those things but it wouldn't necessarily be part of our youth council okay

I think it sounds like a great idea, Janelle.

I think that the hardest thing is to be the sustainability of it. You know, that's going to be a challenge. And then maybe how we implement it so a council member is liaison with that program. You know, maybe that turns into just another one of the list for liaison. I think it's certainly a good program and we need to get our youth involved. And with the sponsorship, that certainly makes it easier to move forward.

Right. And I wouldn't be able to move forward without that sponsorship. So I'll have to make sure to secure that. And my goal was to try to secure some of those by August 1st so that we could move forward in August, just because that's the beginning of the school year. Okay.

You could consider, too, having the Youth City Council Like it says here community service, but like you could give them a specific, I don't know, like a project or something during the year. I know, for example, some cities will have their youth city council will do the Easter egg hunt. I can't think of, like, just, like, one of, like, the events. Or there's, like, a Youth City Council-sponsored event where this is done by the Youth City Council.

Yeah, I know in West Haven I've been paying attention to all the city events because my kids are in different things. We've been to several, actually, in the last month. But, you know, I've noticed that we've went to the Pumpkin Walk in West Haven before, and the Youth Council helps a lot with that. And then they had the Youth Council helping with some of the, different activities at West Haven Days as well. And so I think there's lots of ideas there that we could do and I think that we could help the, I think the kids could kind of direct what they want to do as well as long as it falls within our goals or whatever, so.

Okay, good ideas. So any other comments?

Okay, Matt, do you want the manager's report?

Yeah, just a couple of save the dates for you. This one's a little far out there. It's October 26. You should all get a calendar invite. You should have gotten this today, but it's for Wasatch Choice Vision, the Southern Weaver County Fall Conference. It's at South Ogden City, like I said, October 26 from 4 to 6 p.m. It's hosted by WFRC, UDOT, and UTA. Okay. That's an annual event. And then also, don't forget next week on July 16th, the concert at the park at 7 p.m. Thanks.

Okay. So I just want to thank the council for all their hard work. And I know that you do communicate with citizens because I see the emails that I get in the I was on the phone for an hour last night with the citizen giving me his concerns and we do respond. to emails and I see that you guys do also and it's not a twice a month job for sure. We all are active in trying to work together to figure out ways to bring our tax rate down and I know you guys, I appreciate all your hard work. I know it was hard to not have the fireworks. It was a tough decision to make. I had a fire right down the street from my house, had a barbecue with my grandchildren and my children and heard the fire trucks come and I run down there and then somebody had lit off a bottle rocket, landed in my neighbor's yard across the street and they were out of town and so luckily the other neighbor seen it and got a hose could have burned their house down we had a few little incidents throughout the city and I know most people are careful but and I knew we would probably get fireworks I mean people like it's just a tradition but I stand by our choice that we counseled them that night and We don't know what we're moving forward for the 24th yet. That's a discussion that we still have to have. But I just wanted to tell you about a lady that I had the honor of speaking about, Stella Shield, and she's 90 years old. A grandparent and read 25,500 hours she donated at an elementary teaching kids how to read. I had the honor of speaking on her behalf since she is a Roy resident. There were many awards, but she had by far the most. There were 5,000 hours, 500 hours, but a whole group of volunteers that came to that luncheon and just wanted to mention her name because it was an honor for me to be able to do that. Then we had a grand opening of a new business right up by Harmon's called Smash It. You should go check it out. It's a really nice facility. They have monitors in there where you can fly F-16s. They have a room that does that spin art paint. Then they have all these rooms where you can go in and take out your frustrations on anything. They have things that you go in there and you just smash. and the owner, it's a beautiful facility, and he's way excited to come to Roy, and it's just on the north side of Harman's, kind of down by the fishing store. So I encourage you to go and check that out and support that new business.

i just wanted to tell everybody thank you for all your hard work and um that's all i have to say so we'll have something for a council report if you don't mind um so um my understanding is that i this is it failed but it was a resolution that came to us about a development project AND THE DEVELOPER, IT'S THE BRAD BROWN PROJECT. AND MY UNDERSTANDING IS THAT THE DENSITY WAS CHANGED. AND SO BECAUSE OF THAT CHANGE, I WONDERED IF IT BEHOOVES THE COUNCIL TO TRY TO CONSIDER A SPECIAL MEETING FOR THAT THIS WEEK. WE ARE ACTUALLY IN A TIME CRUNCH. IT'S NOT SOMETHING I REALIZED UNTIL THIS WEEK. BUT TO RECONSIDER IT, WE WOULD NEED TO DO THAT THIS WEEK IF WE WERE INTENDING TO JUST BRING IT BACK TO THE TABLE BECAUSE THE DEADLINE WOULD BE MONDAY BY 5 P.M. is something the council is interested i want to bring that up as a possibility to reconsider um now that there are some different details and i personally would want to do more research before doing that so that's why i didn't put on the agenda for tonight because i didn't feel like i had enough time to uh speak with the people that i'd like to on planning commission and such so um i just wanted to see if there was any interest in reconsidering that and again that would need to be something that we would need to schedule for this week a special meeting in reconsideration of that development agreement

I think that they've made some efforts to, you know, they've listened to the concerns of the citizens. They've gone out of their way to try to reach some, you know, reach that direction. So I definitely think that it's worth a reconsideration. I think that there are a couple of things. It gives us a type of development that is hard to come by. single-family home ownership and I think they're doing it in a way that maximizes that opportunity for people and I believe that we're talking about budgets and that helps with budgets as well but so I certainly would be willing to reconsider that so I guess we'll just

could have Matt could reach out to all the council members and see if there's a time that everybody could meet.

I was hoping if we could try to get that now if there was even any interest. So if we would need at least what just a quorum we would and that's and then oh and Brian's not here so we could reach out to him certainly electronically and see if if I guess yeah maybe that's best since he's not here today. I don't know, is that something we could get done first thing tomorrow, just because we do probably need to get it in Thursday, Friday, something, and we've got to have staff there too, so.

Yeah, what the requirement would be is a 24-hour notice for the meeting, and so we would have to, let's just say it's potentially Thursday, it's too late for anything tomorrow, right? So we'd have to advertise something tomorrow for Thursday, or likewise, something for Thursday for Friday.

Okay. okay that sounds good um so it sounds like you would be up for a reconsideration to know or any other interest any other interest and i mean if there's if there's not a quorum here well and then i guess brian and he could he could be part of the court who may be interested but i just if like if if there is enough interest in just reconsidering then we would maybe look for a time that that that uh works for a quorum of us but i don't know would that be something you'd

I don't have a problem taking a look at it again and seeing the changes they've made and seeing if that's something that maybe will work better. So I don't have a problem with re-looking at it.

Okay, well, that's at least a quorum. Not a guarantee of how old they'll be. Sure, but is it worth reconsidering now that there's new information that's here?

Always. New information is always good.

Okay, that's what I was wondering. So it sounds like at least we'll still send that email out to everybody on the council, but it sounds like there's at least a quorum of interest to reconsider. So we'll maybe try to see when it works for us then.

Okay.

Okay. So. Oh, thank you. Oh, okay, thank you. Okay, thank you.

You mean for Thursday, is that what you're meaning?

Whenever we figured it out, but yeah, okay. Sounds like all five would need to be there. Okay, but I did wonder about that.

Do I have to be there? Because I already have a meeting Thursday night that I'm already on a board for, so. Okay, okay.

So that means Mayor Pro Tem would conduct it and she still votes. Okay, so we would still be able to have enough voting power. Okay, okay.

Okay, then do I have a motion to adjourn?

A motion to adjourn.

Second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, thank you, council.

Yeah, that's my daughter. I didn't think you were having it because of the board, but I texted her today.

But it's funny because, you know, I have my big Raiders fan.

Thank you.