City Council - Regular Meeting

Audience, we do have a quorum present, so we'll go ahead and get started. Welcome to today's meeting. We're happy to have you here, whether you're joining us in person or online. We hope you'll continue to participate in whatever manner you feel most comfortable. We are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please join me. Okay. Thank you again for everybody that is here with us tonight. Before we move through the agenda, I just want to go through some registration information and our rules of decorum. Just explain a little bit about the reasoning about why we have these rules as well.

So we welcome everyone, regardless of your opinion or side on an issue. Because we have people with varying opinions on important issues, the council's goal is to make sure the meetings are a place where everyone feels comfortable participating. This is the most local level of government, and it is a key value of ours to ensure that we have created a respectful and safe environment so that no one's intimidated out of participating. This also allows us to ensure the meeting can continue and we can conduct the scheduled city business. We invite each of you to contribute to this space, to speak your mind, and to welcome others to do the same.

In order to create this welcoming and safe space, we'll pause the meeting at any time an action becomes disruptive or inhibits our ability to conduct the meeting. We will also stop for any safety concerns that involve threats or unprotected speech. If there are repeated actions or comments, it may result in removal from the meeting. We will not be giving multiple warnings about the following rules. To avoid intimidating others, please avoid the use of threatening and discriminatory language.

Do not insult others based on religion, ethnicity, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability. And whether or not you disagree with someone's comment, clapping, cheering, shouting, booing, snapping, gesturing, or obstructing or discouraging others from commenting is not allowed. As council members, we refrain from reacting or responding to allow everyone to share their opinions freely. This is to keep our reactions from affecting your ability or willingness to share your opinion freely. If you would like to follow-up with any of us, please see council staff or the Zoom chat for contact information.

When making your comments, please address the body and not individual elected officials. If you have a handout for the council, please raise your hand and council staff will assist you. Council staff are available during and after the meeting to help with any questions or information sharing. The full meeting rules are listed at the door and our staff will post a link to those in the Zoom as well. As a reminder of our public comment registration process, individuals may register to comment on scheduled public hearing items up until the hearing is closed.

For the general comment section, we will accept signups until 07:30 p. M. The general comment section is limited to a maximum of one hour and will only include commenters who register before 07:30. So if you're here to give general comments, please make sure and signup before that time. It is possible that not everyone will get to speak at general comment.

This brings us to item A four, which is wait a minute. Yes, sorry. Item A four is that the council will approve the work session meeting minutes of 09/09/2025, 09/16/2025, 10/07/2025, and 10/14/2025, as well as the formal meeting minutes of 08/19/2025, 10/07/2025, 10/21/2025, and 12/09/2025. I will look for a motion.

So moved.

Second.

I have a motion from Councilmember Dugan and a second from Councilmember Young. Is there any discussion to this? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

I'm an aye.

You're an aye? Yes. Okay. Then that passes unanimously with one council member absent. That brings us to item A five, which is the council will consider adopting a joint ceremonial resolution with Mayor Mendenhall recognizing March as National Women's History Month in Salt Lake City. I will turn the time over to Council Member Dugan to read the resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Joint resolution recognizing Women's History Month. Whereas Women's History Month, celebrated annually in March, honors his contributions and achievements of women throughout history and in contemporary society, and whereas Salt Lake City acknowledges the invaluable role that women have played in shaping the cultural, economic, and social fabric of our community, contributing to its growth, diversity, and resilience, and whereas Salt Lake City recognizes the importance of promoting gender equality to ensure a more just and equitable society for all, and whereas the theme of Women's History Month twenty twenty six, Leading the Change, Women Shaping a Sustainable Future, seeks to encourage a long term vision for our future where women's leadership is central to thriving communities and a healthy planet, and whereas Women's History Month serves as a celebration of the progress made in advancing women's rights and a reminder of the ongoing work needed to build a more inclusive future. And whereas the League of Women Voters of Utah has been a vital part of women's political power for over a hundred years, serving as a nonpartisan grassroot organization that works to protect and expand voting rights, ensure everyone is represented in our democracy by empowering voters and defending democracy through advocacy, education,

and litigation at the local, state, and national levels, and whereas Salt Lake City is committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment where women are valued, respected, and given equal opportunity to thrive. Now therefore be it resolved that the Salt Lake City Council and mayor of Salt Lake City hereby honor and recognize Women's History Month twenty twenty six encourage all residents to participate in activities and events that celebrate the achievement and contributions of women in Salt Lake City and beyond. And be it further resolved, that Salt Lake City reaffirms its dedication to advancing gender equality and promoting the empowerment of women and girls in all aspects of life, pledging to continue working toward a more inclusive and equitable society for future generations.

Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Dugan. I'll entertain a motion.

I move that we the the joint resolution with the mayor recognizing Women's History Month for March.

Second.

I have a motion from Councilmember Dugan and a second from Councilmember Young. Is there any discussion to this? Anyone online wanna say anything? Okay, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that passes unanimously with, do we have councilmember who do we have? All

of them?

I'm here, Mr. Chair.

Okay, yeah, got you. I think I hear councilmember Petro.

District One's here.

P5 is here, Erica's here.

Okay. So Councilmember Lopez Chavez absent. Okay, thank you. All right, we will now go to item A6. Nope, no, no, no, no. First, we will welcome the League of Women Voters to accept the resolution, take a photo with us. So if you would like to come and say a few words, you can do that here at the podium.

Thank you

so much. As the League of Women Voters, we will continue to fight for women's rights in Utah and the nation. And that means the Equal Rights Amendment, which we actually believe is the law of the land now. But let me just say that we will also fight for all of the rights of our voters, and we are continuing to do that now. Just know you should all have a voice in your elections. You do. And thank you very much.

Thank you, Katherine. If you would come join us up here, we'd love to get a picture with you.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, now we will move on to item A-six. Mayor Mendenhall will present recommendations to the city council on the uses of federal housing and community grants for the coming year. These include funds for community development block grants or CDBG, emergency shelter grants or ESG, the Home Investment Partnerships Program, or HOME, and the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, or HOPWA. Mayor Manenhall, the time is yours.

Thank you, Council Chair, thank you Council and Council Staff. This is now my seventh year as mayor presenting my recommendations for the city's annual HUD Community Development Grants. And may I just say, in the year 2026, I'm so grateful that we still have CDBG dollars coming in. I also remember this annual process as a former city council person. I am really proud of our city for supporting our residents and our service providers through a range of amazing and valuable activities and programs, some of which couldn't happen without these precious dollars.

This year, I'm excited to also present the city's annual Funding Our Future Housing Opportunity, or FOF, because we like acronyms, awards. This will be the first year of this FOF process accompanying the HUD allocation grants. The city's annual HUD and FOF allocations are an opportunity for us to provide direct services to our city's residents who are principally low to moderate income, vulnerable, and often historically underserved populations and neighborhoods. The HUD funding that the city will receive this upcoming fiscal year, FY 2027, includes the regular CDBG, ESG, HOME, and HOPWA grants, as

you mentioned,

council. Federal increases in funding that support the preservation and creation of affordable housing, and increases in more equitable opportunities such as home and CDBG funding will be particularly important as the cost of living remains at an all time high. The FY 2026 Funding Our Future program set aside by the council will also help cover rising housing costs for clients. The following recommendations advance many of our city's goals that are listed in our five year HUD consolidated plan, which include affordable housing, homeless services, transportation, community services, and business and workforce development. These recommendations also advance the city's housing SLC goals, specifically increasing housing stability and increasing home ownership and equity.

This year's recommendations include agency projects such as ASIST, Inc. Emergency Home Repair and Accessibility Program, which helps local homeowners make their homes safer and more accessible. And the Salt Lake City Housing Stability Division's Fix the BRICS program, which preserves affordable housing in Salt Lake City by strengthening unreinforced masonry buildings against future earthquakes such as we had in 2020. So I present these recommendations to you for your review and your ultimate final determination. I know these are hard decisions.

This also begins our public comment process on my recommendations with a public hearing scheduled for March 24. And I hope that residents of Salt Lake City and the applicants who you'll be considering will weigh in and provide their feedback on these recommendations. My appreciation goes out each year to our resident advisory board for their many, many volunteer hours in reviewing and scrutinizing the applications that the city received for this funding, and for providing their meticulously derived scores for this limited funding. I wish we could fund all of the applications, but these tough decisions were put before our volunteer resident board, myself, and now to you, City Council. I also wanna express my thanks to our city's Housing Stability Division staff for facilitating this annual process and providing technical expertise on these funds.

Thank you, Council Chair, and I look forward to seeing all the good things that these funds are going to do in our community.

Thank you,

Mary Mendenhall. All right. That brings us to the public hearing section of our agenda. Now these are specific proposals before the council that require a public hearing, different than our general public hearing portion which is at the end of the meeting. For this hearing, your comments must relate to the topic that you're speaking on, which is in the public hearing items that we'll announce one at a time as we move through the agenda.

If you're on Zoom, please unmute your mic when your name is called. Each person will have two minutes. Once you reach the two minute mark, the host will announce time and your microphone will be muted. We will call names in order to sign up, so if you hear your name called, that means you're on deck to speak next. If you need staff assistance in the room, please raise your hand and someone will come and help you.

If you're having technical issues on the Zoom, or you need any other assistance, message staff support and Akshay from our staff will help you. If you're unable to finish your comment in the two minutes, please share the rest of your comments via email, mail, or by calling our office. Contact information is listed on slc.gov/council. If you have a handout for the council, please notify staff. They'll assist you in distributing those and bringing them up to us.

Okay. I think that covers all the rules, so let's go ahead and start with our first items. We're gonna hear the first items B1 through B5. Those are all grant applications, so we're gonna bundle them all together and hear those at once. But before we start taking those comments, I'll turn the time over briefly to Sylvia Richards, Council Policy Analyst, to give us a short introduction of these grant applications.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The city periodically applies for and receives grants which fund some city programs. Each grant will receive a public hearing which will give the council and the public an opportunity to learn more about the grants. First is the Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields 2026 grant, and if awarded, the grant would fund the asbestos remediation portion of the Northwest Pipeline Building Rehabilitation.

Second is the Bureau of Justice Assistance Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Competitive Program grant, and if awarded, the grant would fund supplies, contracts, travel, and training costs. Third is the Salt Lake City Justice Court Strategic Planning and Case Flow Technical Assistance grant. If awarded, the grant would fund technical assistance from the National Center for State Courts. Anticipated outcomes include the development of a strategic plan, a year one operational plan, and an evaluation of the calendaring practices, resulting in a case flow management recommendations. Fourth is the Sister Cities International US Japan Global Impact Grant.

And if awarded, the grant would fund travel costs for Salt Lake City delegation to Matsumoto, Japan. The grant would also fund workshops and roundtable discussions with stakeholders to develop a tourism model that sustains community benefits from the Olympic Games, both short and long term. Fifth is the fiscal year twenty twenty seven per capita Bureau of Emergency Medical Services grant, and if awarded, it would fund medical supplies used in providing emergency medical services to the public. Thank you.

Thank you,

Sylvia. All right, let's go ahead and start with our first public comment.

Thank you Mr. Chair, we do not have anyone registered to speak to these items.

Oh, alright. Then I will look for a motion.

Mr. Chair, I move that the council close the public hearing and refer items B1 through B5 to a future consent agenda for action.

Second. The motion from Councilmember Young and a second from Councilmember Lopez Chavez. Is there any discussion to this motion? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and proceed to a vote. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. We will go ahead and move to our next public hearing item. Item B6, is for an ordinance for the Rio Grande Master Plan and Zoning Map Amendment. Before we take public comments, I'll turn the time over to Kate Wareit from council policy analyst to give us a short introduction. Thanks, Kate.

Great, thank you. The council will accept public comment during this public hearing and consider adopting an ordinance tonight or in the future that would amend the zoning for 32 properties located in the Rio Grande District between 200 South and 400 South, also between 500 West And 600 West. This project is located within Council District Number 2. The state rezone would change the properties from GMU, or Gateway Mixed Use District, to D4, or Downtown Secondary Central Business District. The proposal would allow for additional building height and it would also, the proposal would also amend the Downtown Plan to include the mid block walkways within the Rio Grande District and update the implementation plan.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, let's go to our first public comment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have about nine people registered to speak to this item. The first will be n Canada followed by David Went and then Frederick Jenny. And you may now unmute.

Hello. N Canada here, District 2. Just want to comment about the Rio Grande plan, to bury the tracks. I think that, especially for the district, it'd be really beneficial to, push for that plan. I'm sure you're gonna hear more details about it, for other commenters, but, you know, all that land will be opened up, and that can all be developed further. So, yeah, I think you guys should I think you might have already recommended it, but, you know, figuring out how to work with the Utah Department of Transportation and, push the plan along. Thanks.

Thank you.

And next will be David Went, followed by Fredrik Jenny, and then Matt Gibbons. David is here in person.

Hello, my name is David Went. I'm here to comment on agenda item B6, the Rio Grande District rezoning. So as you can imagine, I happen to be a fan of the Rio Grande plan, which is the idea that we're going to bury the rails, preferably under 500 West. And when I heard that you were going to rezone the Rio Grande District or surrounding the Rio Grande Station, I thought this could be a very good thing for the plan. However, there is still a need to keep it compatible with the plan.

So ideally, we would want to have a rezoning that does not add any additional impediments to bearing the rails. Ideally, if we could, for example, deal with the utilities that are currently on 500 West, if those could be moved in some way, it would reduce the cost of the plan and make it easier to implement. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next will be Fredrik Jenney followed by Matt Gibbons and then Owen Mitchum. Fredrik's here in person.

Hi there, everyone. My name is Fredrick Jenny. I've a resident of District 4 for nine years now. Crazy. I'm here to support the D4 rezoning of the Rio Grande District, but I urge you to formally integrate the Rio Grande plan's train box into this ordinance's implementation strategy like the Green Loop already is.

The 1998 Gateway Specific Plan made it clear, railroad consolidation is what made this neighborhood feasible in the first place. Yet, thirty years later, the city's own documents still described these surface tracks as a no man's land and a neglected backdoor space. While this new ordinance addresses the buildings, it leaves the no man's land in place. We must adopt the train box to fix this after a century of neglect with a unified neighborhood. This ordinance sets a priority for compact, walkable blocks, but the 400 South Viaduct and surface tracks make true walkability impossible.

We should not settle for walking under a bridge when we could be walking on a restored city street. Furthermore, the city has promised to daylight City Creek for nearly thirty years. You simply cannot restore a natural habitat or champion a green loop where freight trains currently run. Finally, the 1998 plan envisioned this area as the city's primary orientation point for transit. Currently, our transit is split and peripheral.

By supporting the Rio Grande plan, we returned passenger rail to the historic Rio Grande Depot, creating the world class multimodal hub envisioned decades ago. At the same time, we will turn a barrier, the depot, into an asset. I asked the council and the mayor to view the train box as the twenty first century completion of the work started in 1998. Please do not just rezone the surface, fix the infrastructure that remains the single biggest obstacle in our city's cohesion. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next will be Matt Givens, followed by Owen Mitcham, and then Raymond Flores. Matt is here in person.

Hello. I wanna echo what the other commenters said, but I also wanted to say that, so that we I I support the the up zoning of this area, and I think it's kind of like the it's it's remarkable that it it kind of works with the Rio Grande plan because it you know, on 5th West, that would kind of thread the needle there. But I know that the city council in 1998 did adopt language that said 500 West should be preserved underground for future transit use, something like that. So that's interesting, and it means somebody else was thinking about this back then. And I think what's interesting about these two blocks is that, you know, for twenty years or thirty years, nothing has really worked.

And I think it's because of the lack of access to the location, which is kind of ironic considering it's by the main train station. That's, I think, because there's barriers on all side, and one of them is actually a train station. So I would like to see the Rio Grande District plan and a Salt Lake Central station replan, because the public hasn't been able to comment on Salt Lake Central since at least 2018 in any kind of formal way. I'd like to see that addressed too. So support the up zone, I think it's a perfect use, but I'm not sure that it's gonna work as well

as it could without the Rio Grande plan.

Thank you.

Next is Owen Mitchum followed by Raymond Flores and then Will Metz. Owen's here in person.

Hello. My name is Owen Mitchum, and I'm, here today to speak in support of the Rio Grande District zoning ordinance, and I'm a resident of District 5. This sub zoning will provide much needed density and economic investment in the heart of our city. To ensure the Rio Grande District becomes the vibrant addition to our community envisioned by this council, I strongly encourage them to adopt the Rio Grande plan, including the preservation of the 500 rest right of way for below grade rail transportation as is consistent with the 2019 Salt Lake City Council Member Policy Manual and the 1998 Gateway Specific Plan to the district's implementation strategy. Without the Rio Grande Plan, other priorities such as the mayor's green loop would be infeasible due to existing infrastructure such as the presence of I-fifteen on ramps.

I look forward to seeing this district developed with new homes, businesses, and institutional investments, and I hope that this council will include the historic Rio Grande Depot as a vibrant community hub at the heart of it. Thank you. Thank you.

Next will be Raymond Flores followed by Will Metz and then Porter Warren. Raymond is here in person.

Thank you, counsel. I just want to reiterate what my, friends and colleagues have said, that the Rio Grande Plan should remain an important part of the rezoning of the Rio Grande District. And while I do support the rezoning as it currently is, I do want to just voice my opinion and say that the Rio Grande should be brought into consideration for that rezoning as well.

Thank you.

And next will be Will Metz, followed by Porter Warren, and then Andrew Katsoferkis. Will, you may now unmute.

Hi. I'm Will, and I live in Sugar House. And I don't know as many specific details as some the other people, but I am in support of this. And I also am a fan of the Rio Grande plan. I have been to cities like Reno and so on, and the train box in those cities, if that train box wasn't there, that part of the city would feel so disconnected and just not part of it.

And I seeing the Rio Grande District as it is, I can't imagine anything where it would be just not perfect without if it didn't it wouldn't be perfect without the train box. And I'm thinking also, I I keep seeing the reports of of the Utah Olympic delegates going to Italy and seeing these incredible train stations and incredible city centers that really demonstrate why this is an incredible place. And I think Utah would just be really benefited to have something like that for Salt Lake City where we can say, oh, so look at this incredible hub city and how incredible it has it is as an Olympic hub. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next will be Porter Warren followed by Andrew Katsuhirakis. Porter, you may now unmute.

Porter, you there? Okay, let's go ahead and go to Andrew and then Porter, if you come back, we'll take your comment after Andrew's. Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Andrew Katsuharakis. I don't want to repeat too much of what my peers and colleagues have said, but I too am in support of the Rio Grande District rezoning with the of course condition and caveat that we plan it in a way that accommodates for and allows for the future construction of the Rio Grande plan. Upzoning is essential for the downtown core of the city. We need a lot more housing, we need more density here, and in the same way that up zoning solves a major equity issue with the lack of housing, the Rio Grande plan helps solve a major equity issue as well, the East West disconnect of our city. So again, like my colleagues, I urge you guys to support that, and I also would like it on the record that after lots of advocacy and dialogue that we other citizen volunteers had with the CRA last year, we had received a verbal commitment that the CRA would be looking at the Rio Grande Plan more and would even include some more token language in the planning publications and documents for the Rio Grande District.

So we hope that you keep that in mind. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Porter? All right, I think we lost Porter. Okay, anyone else wish to speak to this item? Okay, I'll look for a motion.

Mr. Shearer, move that the council close the public hearing and defer actions to a future meeting.

I have a motion, is there a second?

Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dugan, a second from Council Member Petro. Any discussion? Seeing that, oh, Council Member Lopez Chavez, go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to those that came to advocate for the Rio Grande Plan. I know that on the CRA side of the house, we've been working to both acknowledge and incorporate it into our documents. So I look forward to future discussions on this because I think we have a great opportunity here. And I appreciate the time that you've taken to come speak to us today.

Alright. Any other comments?

Mister chair?

Yes.

You know, there is I appreciate as well the the the passion behind this project. Councilmember Dugan has been the biggest advocate for this issue. He was you know, we have a nickname for the project. We have a nickname for the project. Have a nickname for the project.

We have a nickname for the project. A nickname project. Project. Nickname the city is is supportive of of and generally, like, personally, I'm supportive of the dream. I I made it very clear over the years that that I am ultimately, the city doesn't have the funding for this because and the authority to do a lot of the things that this this project wants to accomplish.

And, you know, we wanna make sure that the right people are making those decisions, but I don't think the Salt Lake City should be, stopping it, and that's where we fit. So I think, council member Dugan has been working on a letter, and I wanna acknowledge the work that he's he's been putting on that, which I think soon is going to come up. So thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. Go ahead and vote. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Okay, that sounded unanimous. We'll go ahead and move on to agenda item B seven, which is an ordinance for fence and hedge height text amendments. Before we begin taking comments, I'll turn the time over to Brian Fulmer, council policy analyst, to give us a short introduction to this item.

Thank you. This item consists of two text amendments related to fence and hedge heights. The first amendment was initiated by the council in January 2025 and called for increasing the hedge height in front yards to six feet. It would also increase the maximum fence height in backyards to seven feet. Planning staff recommended moving hedges to the landscaping and buffer section of city code and defining them as landscaping.

This would not restrict their height, but require them to be maintained. The second amendment was initiated by the Planning Commission to extend the maximum six foot front yard fence height in the M1 Zoning District within the International Center to all properties in the M1 and M1A zoning districts citywide except for those that abut or are across the street from zoning districts that allow residential uses.

Thank you, Brian. We'll go ahead and take our first public comment on this item.

Mr. Chair, there are three people registered to speak to this item. The first will be Cindy Kromer, followed by Derek Dyer, and then Susan Klinker. Cindy is here in person.

Hi, my name is Cindy Kromer, and I just want to provide some information about the historic areas of the city. Front yard fencing was actually pretty uncommon, and when it occurred, it was much lower than what we consider necessary now. While you all were meeting in your work session, I dashed over to South Temple and measured a fence that appeared to be original, and it was a whopping 41 inches tall at the top. And then I measured one of my own properties, a hoop and dart original iron fence, and it was actually less than three feet at the top of the hoops, and the newel post measured a whopping 41 inches. So I have fences in the front yard at two properties.

There is no evidence in the tax records, the tax photographs, that there were fences at my other properties. And so these fences are actually, to borrow a phrase from the planners, a product of our own time when they are in historic districts. So I just ask you as you change fencing heights, certainly the one in the M1, M1A is very warranted, but when you're in a residential district and it's a historic district, remember that they were either not there at all or they were much lower. Thanks.

Thank you.

Next is Derek Dyer followed by Susan Kleenfner. Derek is here in person.

Good evening council members. My name is Derek Dyer. I'm the executive director of the Utah Arts Alliance, speaking about the historic Art Castle at 915 West 100 South. The Art Castle is a 125 year old historic building that we are restoring as a community arts and cultural center. As part of this project, we are developing a public sculpture garden that features several important works, including those by renowned Westside artist, Rafael Plicia, pieces that are truly irreplaceable works of art.

Our goal for this sculpture garden is that it's open to the public during the day, but like many cultural facilities, we also have to secure the property at night to protect both the historic building and the artwork from vandalism or theft. Under the current zoning ordinance, fencing in street facing areas of mixed use zones is limited to four feet, even for non residential cultural facilities. While that standard works for residential front yards, it does not provide adequate security for places responsible for protecting historic buildings and valuable pieces of art. As we've worked with city staff to try to resolve this issue, we've been told that there's currently no mechanism in the code to allow for six foot fence in this situation, and the only real solution would be updating the ordinance itself. We were also advised that pursuing a variance would likely never succeed and would simply be a waste of time and resources as no variance has ever been approved ever.

Cities similar in sites to Salt Lake City already recognize the need for secure enclosures around civic and cultural sites. For example, Seattle allows six foot fencing around cultural institutional and non residential properties including community facilities. Portland allows up to seven feet around properties including cultural institution sites. Denver allows six foot fences around non residential properties, commonly how museums, churches, and schools secure outdoor areas. These cities recognize that schools, recreation centers, churches, and cultural facilities must balance between public access and responsible security. My request tonight is simple. Please consider amending the zoning ordinance to allow six foot

Time.

Thank you. I think we've received that. But any other comments that you didn't get to finish, you're welcome to email to us. Thank you.

And next will be Susan who's here in person.

Hi, my name is Susan Klinker, District 7, and I support the proposed tax amendments, in particular not regulating hedges within the same ordinance as walls and fences, but instead regulating them under the landscaping section of the ordinance. The proposed changes increases allowable hedge height for homeowners and has the potential to increase the overall level of vegetation within the city. So it expands the urban canopy and wildlife habitat, especially for birds. It can improve our air quality and reduce our urban heat island effects. In considering this issue, I'd also like to note the really high number of hedge violations currently found across the city, which are only enforced by complaint.

So the proposed text amendment would reduce the number of potential landscaping violations that come before the Planning Commission into the future and streamline the workload for city staff. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, any other commenters? Okay, I'll look for a motion.

Mr. Chair, I move that the council close the public hearing and adopt the ordinance.

Second. Oh,

wait, oh I'm sorry, wait. Taking that back. One more time, I move that the council close the public hearing and defer action to a future council meeting.

Second.

I have a motion from council member Young and a second from council member Lopez Chavez. Any discussion to this?

Yes, mister Chua.

Alright. One second. So we'll go to

council member Young first and then council member Pui. Go ahead.

I was just so excited. I jumped the gun. So thank you and apologies. I just want to reserve thank one of our public commenters tonight who really helped to at least start the exploration related to the hedgehike component. I know that a lot of times individuals come across something where they're like, this can't be right.

There's gotta be a solution to fix it. And they think, I could just take it to the city, and I'm sure it's gonna be fixed tomorrow. Turns out, no. It takes a little longer than that. And I'm just very, very grateful to have residents who not only took the time to not just bring this to the city, give us the opportunity, but also to give us the grace and space to have the time to be able to do it in a way that makes sense for the entire city, looking at all the different aspects. Thank you for sticking with us. And like I said, looking forward to having a solution that is going to support everyone within the community.

Thank you. Councilmember Bouie.

Thank you, mister chair. I I want to highlight councilmember Young for bringing this issue and channeling the the concerns from the neighbors and and how some of these pieces of the ordinance didn't make sense. I when she mentioned this issue, I mentioned to her that, you know, the heights of the the the fences were also an issue in some parts of my district, especially where we're densifying and the need for to to for a little higher of of fences to match actually the the standard nationally. So I'm I'm glad that we are here today, you know, in front of us an ordinance that makes sense to to adapt to the modern times. And I I'm I'm very excited to see that the neighbors are actually seeing these ordinances adapt and move with the need that this time requires.

So thank you, the chair.

Thank you. Any other comments? Alright, I'll just add that I, for staff and for my colleagues, I'm interested in using this as an opportunity to see if we can resolve the issue with the sculptural garden and the art. So I hope we'll have a chance to have that conversation. Deferring action will allow that. So all right, any other comments? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor? Any opposed? All right, that passes unanimously.

We're on agenda item B eight, which is an ordinance and master plan and zoning map amendment at approximately 05:27, 05:37, and 05:39 South four hundred East. Before we begin taking comments, I'll turn the time over to Austin Kimmel, Council Policy Analyst, to give us a short introduction.

Thanks, Council Members. This is a public hearing for a proposal to amend the Central Community Master Plan future land use map from medium high density residential to high density mixed use, and to rezone three properties at 527, 537, and 539 South 400 East from RMF 45 to MU 5. The petitioner proposes to demolish three existing single family homes and to construct a mixed use apartment building with ground floor commercial space. The proposed ordinance requires the petitioner to enter into a development agreement with Salt Lake City that includes three specific conditions, including that all demolished dwelling units on the property will be replaced with at least three two bedroom units, a minimum of 1,100 square feet of commercial space, and tenants displaced by the demolition must be provided with tenant relocation assistance. The project is proposed to complement the adjacent six story apartment building to the north, which is under the same ownership.

Potential action is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, March 24. Thanks.

Okay. We'll go ahead and take our first public comment.

Mr. Chair, there are two people registered to speak to this item. The first will be Stacy Kurlin, followed by Cindy Kromer. Stacy, you may now unmute.

Stacy? I am here.

Can you hear me?

We can now. Go ahead.

Thanks. Hi, I'm Stacy Kirkland and I live on Denver Street, which is directly around the corner from the proposed site that Thrive Development is looking to build their new property. I understand that because I'm around the corner, doesn't directly affect us, but in fact it does. Denver Street is a very narrow street. If you've been here, you would know that.

Parking is only allowed on one side. Two cars cannot safely pass each other. Since the opening of the Citizen One, which took three years and during that time, constant noise, construction, blocked access, disruption, all the things that come with building a property that big occurred. But since they opened it for residents to dwell, there were immediately three pretty bad accidents on Denver Street, and that caused the city to try to mitigate by putting a speed bump on our essentially alleyway of the street. It hasn't solved the core problem.

The street can't safely handle all this traffic. The existing development has already brought increased noise, pollution, congestion, disruption. It's diminished the livability of our street. The trash for the dumpsters is built in a tunnel that echoes exponentially through the valley when the trash is being picked up. So, you know, what I would like is I know this is going to move forward.

There's no doubt in my mind. I knew that when they built the Citizen One, this was a plan because you would not have the egress only on Denver Street for a building that size if you weren't already planning something on 4th East. But I would like assurances that you are not going to have construction workers parking on a street. There's no room. Please come.

Thank you Stacy for your comments. If you can finish, if you can email us or mail us the rest of your comments, we would be happy to include those as part of the public record.

And next will be Cindy Krumer who's here in person.

This is a larger scale rant about the concept of community benefit. When this came through the process, there was wording, I remember it, the word was commensurate. I need to go back through the record because it's not in the ordinance and the math doesn't work, okay? An unrestricted view in perpetuity to the Wasatch Front is not something that you can trade off for a bicycle rack. And two bedroom units are not in short supply in District 3, and the developer came in with 80% of AMI units, but it morphed.

So the cake is getting baked in planning in terms of the acceptance of the community benefit. In this case, before you tonight, actually we're talking about waiving a community benefit for one of the houses because it was vacant. I almost erupted in the meeting. The fact that it is vacant is a function of what the owner decides to do with the house, not its benefit to the city. It is exactly the kind of housing people want, a small single family residence.

So I am asking you to intervene and try to do something about this concept of community benefit because there is completely inadequate math involved in the value of what the developers are bringing and what the city is providing. Thanks.

You. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

And I'll come through for this item.

Okay, anybody else wish to speak to this? Okay, I'll look for a motion.

Mr. Chair, I move that the council close the public hearing and defer action to a future council meeting.

Is there a second? Second. I have a motion from Councilmember Lopez Chavez and a second from Councilmember Pui. Anyone wish to speak to this motion? Councilmember Lopez Chavez.

Yeah, thank you. Again, thank you to everyone that took the time to speak. Some of the neighbors I've been able to speak to over the years and actually met with the developers that are planning this project today specifically to talk about the egress points, the increase in transportation, the noise pollution, as well as looking at other amenities such as dog stations, making sure that there is attainable and affordable commercial ground floor spacing to make sure that that doesn't sit vacant. So we have more opportunities, I believe, to work together on this project, but just wanted to recognize those points as well as thanking those commentators today. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Any other comments from council members? Okay, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. All

right, that is unanimous. Seven in favor. Let's move on to agenda item number B9, which is an ordinance for recurring nuisance properties. Before we take comments on this, I'll turn the time over to Michael Sanders, Council Policy Analyst, to give us a short introduction.

Okay. The Council was briefed on this item on 09/09/2025, and February 17. This ordinance introduces an administrative process to both declare property as a nuisance and force. Nuisance conduct is defined broadly as behavior that interferes with the health, safety, or welfare of the community materially and repeatedly infringes on the quiet enjoyment of neighboring uses or results in the harassment of patrons or other persons. Examples of possible nuisance behaviors are included on lines 48 through 86 of the legislative draft.

Since the last briefing on this item, an updated proposal was submitted to the Council Office. And since we didn't have time for another briefing, we wanted to share some more detailed notes on what this updated draft includes. The updated draft removed parking violations and excessive loud noise as specific examples of nuisance conduct. However, these could be covered in the definitions of what constitutes a nuisance. Additionally, there are other sections of code that would address these types of violations.

Also, the proposal added new nuisance examples, for example, graffiti, viewable from the public way, and idle and unfinished construction. As the council may remember, the draft ordinance included steps a property owner could take to address nuisance issues. The updated draft includes a few additional potential steps to resolve nuisance issues. Additionally, the updated draft narrowed the thirty day ongoing violation standard to only specific violations, established daily fines for specific violations, which escalate from $25 to $100 daily depending on repeat violations within a twelve month period, and it clarified that the city may petition the administrative appeals officer to order an abatement plan, issue an abatement order, and or grant judgment for the accumulated civil fines. These updates were shared in an updated staff report in your packets.

Additionally, today council staff reviewed over 20 comments that were emailed to the office. Staff could provide more information to clarify how this proposal is related, but separate from the city's ordinance related to unruly parties and events. The council may wish to take action this evening at the close of the public hearing or wait until March 24. Staff is happy to prepare a follow-up briefing if needed or requested. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's go ahead and take our first public comment on this item.

Mr. Chair, we have five people registered to speak to this item. The first will be Jared West, followed by Rishi Madhiradi, and then Jen Colby. Jared is here in person.

Jared. Okay, I don't see him. Maybe he stepped out for a minute. Let's go to the second commenter, and I'll circle back.

So next will be Rishi Madhirati, followed by Jen Colby, and then Mary Glad. Rishi

Hello, can you

hear me?

Yes. Okay.

Hi, my name is Rishi, I'm a student at the U studying emergency medicine. I've decided to speak today because I've become aware of the unfair rules that are trying to be passed, and I couldn't sit by without trying to represent the other side. On that note, before anything else, I'd like to address how self serving it is to schedule this discussion during our spring break to reduce the number of students their ability to represent themselves. The heart of my argument is that I truly believe that by coming down on students in their social gatherings, you say you've been making a terrible mistake. I understand that families and non students do live in this neighborhood and have for a while, and I have absolutely nothing against them.

My roommates and I are upstairs neighbors to this wonderful Venezuelan family. And on the last snow day, we slided with them and their kids the whole day till it got dark. When we're too loud, they let us know. We always accommodate them because we understand the needs of, you know, a family and their jobs. We also we always solve problems together. We communicate. The reason I chose the U is the amount of people that I can have the to meet. We love hosting gatherings at our house to meet new people and make friends. These gatherings are important to people our age. Me relations are a pivotal part of college.

And with the rules I hear being proposed, you're severely trying to limit congregation of any sort, and I can't stand by that. Personally, we've gotten noise complaints for playing music and playing darts in our backyard at 7PM. That's not disrespectful or disruptive. That's people having fun. I think it's unreasonable for residents to expect total silence in their neighborhood twenty four seven. Friends should be able to have barbecues outside. That's not excessive noise or disruptive gatherings. That's people making memories and friends. I think this level of disregard for students' personal lives can only do negative things for the school. What helps schools grow is alumni that love the institution and the things surrounding there.

That's the reason that university is allowed things like Greek life and clubs despite the problems that may arise from it. I don't mean to compare our our gatherings to frat parties, but they serve the same purpose of the culture for the university. They grow institutions through morale and spirit. I really implore you to schedule another meeting students have a chance to represent themselves. Thank

you. Jen Colby?

Jen Colby followed by Mary Glad and then James Williams. Jen's here in person.

Here.

Jen Colby, District 4. I am on the East Central Community Council, but these are Board, but these are my personal comments. I just want to reference the letter that our Chair, Esther Hunter, sent today. And while I am sympathetic to the previous caller, I once was a student myself and also am an alum of the University of Utah. We are not talking about general gatherings here.

We are talking about the most unruly egregious, massive, drunken, out of control, scary scenes that have really increased after the pandemic. I'm not sure what happened, but our neighbors, many people tried just to directly address this. A lot of us love having students in our neighborhood. We once were, as I said, it's not about general gatherings, although it sounds like some people are a little more sensitive to noise than others, but that's not what this ordinance is addressing. The level of and scale of these out of control gatherings is beyond what the neighbors could just manage directly.

And we really appreciate the involvement of the city and our police force, even though it's a real regret for me to even have to think that we need to engage the police in these sorts of things. But the kind of illegal behaviors going on just cannot be tolerated. We're also starting to see real retaliation against neighbors, including desecration of property, hate speech, really, really egregious things. And again, I'm sympathetic to general gatherings, we have them ourselves. That's not what we're talking about here.

So I certainly encourage the city to move forward on this. I think noise should be included. And also, I think underage drinking is a reality. We've become the East Side illegal underground bar scene, and I think that really needs to be gotten under control, especially since a lot of these kids when this breaks up jump in their cars and head out driving, which is super dangerous. So thank you for your time. I hope you will update this and I'm sorry this is happening and then hopefully we will get it under control. Thank you.

Next will be Mary Brad, followed by James Williams. Mary, you may not unmute.

Hi. I have laryngitis, so I'm going

to have my husband speak for us. So we are appreciative of

the comments. We'd like to let everyone know that we are alumnus of the University of Utah as well. This is a residential neighborhood issue and not so much a campus issue. It involves late night parties that typically don't start before 09:30. It also sometimes involves late night construction issues and noises. So it's not necessarily restricted to students. But

as a result

of some of these recent and multiple parties that have been very loud starting late, we've seen public urination in our front yard. We've had public brawling on the sidewalks and sometimes spilling over into our front yard. And a lot of it involves underage drunk drinking and pump public drunkenness. And so the lack of of having something that's enforceable when we call the police to respond is very concerning to us. We've we've called the police, and they don't respond unless there's a fighting going on or or something that involves

Safety issue.

Bringing things in under control. Right now, I think the time for these is 10PM, which is which is fine on the noise noise ordinance, but it needs to have some teeth into it so that we have a way to not just talk to our neighbors, but have the city enforce things as well.

People are moving. Fine.

Thank you.

And next is James Williams who's here in person.

Okay, and then I'll circle back to Jared at that time. So Jared West, if you're here, you're on deck. Go ahead, James.

Hello, my name is James Williams. I live near the University of Utah. I'm a mechanical engineering student there. I believe that while noise can be considered an issue around the university with gatherings becoming inconvenient to neighbors, it should be dealt with person to person without the need for the city to spend time covering what is considered excessive noise. As a resident within the Salt Lake Valley, I believe that we possess a right to gather and socialize on private property even outside quiet hours.

While noise from gatherings may get loud, it is improbable for residents to know how much noise is considered excessive without direct intervention from those neighbors. I believe that as a student at the U, gatherings should be less restrictive at the areas surrounding the university as university students need to be able to form long lasting relationships with their peers, and that would require having others besides residents at their house without the risk of police intervention. I would also like to mention how many people affected by this ordinance are unaware or would have problems attending this meeting due to this university spring break. I would like to thank the city and the council for their time and considerations.

Thank you.

Jared, last shot. Okay, Ollie will look for a motion. Oh, sure, yes. That's okay. When you're finished with your comments, will you fill out a card just so that we have your name and contact information? But yes, you can go ahead and speak for two minutes.

Hello, my name's Ben Engel. I live on 100 South, kind of more in the downtown area. Not really so much with the university partying, but we just have a lot of recurring nuisances that may be kind of out of the scope of what this is, and I'm not quite sure how this will be applied to things like that. We've got like the old Northern Pipeline Building, which just got approved for the Salt Lake Housing Authority. That's a regular gathering place for lots of people and a lot of activity, a lot of litter.

Around my home, you know, urination defecation's pretty regular, so we've got to clean that up. I generally talk with people that are in the neighborhood and usually just having attention to people that are potentially going to be doing damage to our neighborhood. You know, they generally are compliant and they don't hang out very long. But in these other areas that like we can't really pay much attention to, it seems like it's always the police that have to go and pay attention to those areas. And I don't think the police are really, I don't know, the the best people to be able to to deal with some of that stuff.

Seems like a lot of times we need more just attention, and I don't know how it is that we like find the right resources to be able to handle those things. Like when we had a property that was owned by the city and the city can't manage those things, it makes it really hard to understand how it is like a residence is going to do that when it's something that's at the house next door. But again, some of these things, seem like to have the police show up, you know, it's kind of like have a threat of violence in order to be able to make peace doesn't always seem to work real well. And a lot of times that's the response. I just think that if we think about this more carefully, maybe we can find the resources to be able to deal with it appropriately. Thank you.

Thank you. I will look for a motion.

Mr. Chair, move that the council

Sorry about that. Did you want to speak to this as well? You may. Yeah, you can fill out a card after, but go ahead and make your comments first. You have two minutes.

I'm only gonna play a twenty second video.

Okay.

And that's it. I live near the University of Utah. I'm a long time resident. I've lived there fifty years. I've lived in my home thirty.

This is inside my bedroom at 01:30 in the morning. I could let that play, and I have multiple others. I need to sleep. I don't know what else I can do. I've tried asking officers to come help.

I end up having to deal with it myself. It's dangerous trying to deal with people that are inebriated because it starts at usually 09:10 o'clock at night, and by the time I'm so frustrated, I need to go over and try and work with people. And it's not just my home. It's the home across the street. It's the home four doors down. It's the home five or six up the street, and I just don't know what else to do. I need some help in order to do this. I'm a graduate from the University of Utah myself, so is my wife. I've tried over the years to try to work with this, but it just keeps getting worse and worse. And I'm all four students getting together.

It just doesn't have to be one house to another. I've walked out of my front door in the morning to caution tape from somebody that was shot across the street because they tried to take beer out of a party at night. Here we are. I don't know what else to say. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Mr. Chair. Yes.

I move the council close the public hearing and defer action to a future council meeting.

Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dugan and a second from Council Member Pui. Is there any discussion to this? Councilmember Lopez Chavez.

Thank you, and thank you again to all of the individuals that took the time to comment. I just wanna remind folks in 2025, in August 2025, due to the complaints and concerns from all types of neighbors that are shared in District 4, we passed the unruly parties gatherings and events ordinance. And what it did is it created, it ended a loophole specifically for university adjacent neighborhoods that see the struggle of after hour parties that are unruly. It created property owner liability for the actual homeowner or property owner. It included a $1,000 fine.

And it really defined what unruly gatherings were. For this ordinance, I just want to remind folks this came at the behest and request of our police department. And that is because we didn't have a process where we could regulate a process in which we could deliver and remove different citations for business licenses that were being utilized to promote after hours activity. If you remember, this was back in September 2025. The original proposal included limiting alcohol consumption after 2AM.

That is not included in this ordinance that's been amended, and that's due to the good work of Councilmember Wharton and Councilmember Pui. So thank you for taking that and amending that ordinance. What it did though is it provided very clear examples of what is new nuisance. And the reason why loud noise is not included in this ordinance today is is because we have multiple iterations of it already. There are clear violations and structural changes within the police department, thanks to the work of the mayor's office, of Chief Red, and the different departments.

Detective Stewart has taken this on to make sure that there can be proper fines, citations, education, and also the opportunity for the residents to learn about these citations, to learn about these ordinances, and participate and gather in a way that's healthy, safe, and promotes the well-being of all neighbors. So I'm very supportive of this, and I just wanted to, again, commend the work of our two council members that led this because it's been a long time coming, and it's been an ordinance that came out of the work with community members that are throwing these parties like Fervor, BlackVoid, Plumhouse, other businesses. And now we have a real process that is very clear and definitive so that we can engage and participate in healthy recreational activity. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments?

Yes, mister chair.

Councilmember Pui.

Yes. I I just wanted to, like, highlight to to some of the neighbors over there that we we we hear you. We we know the concerns you are experiencing. The city has taken action, and, you know, it really is very hard to regulate every single behavior, but we we have enacted some ordinances that that tackle some of these issues. I also wanna highlight, council member Mano, council member Chris Wharton, and myself who worked very hard to make sure that this ordinance in front of us, that is focused on commercial, in commercial areas, and business licenses that are acting in with you know, within the law or within the spirit of the law.

So this this, ordinance in front of us, closes some of the loopholes and some of the issues that we have seen, to ensure that those businesses are acting correctly for our neighbors. So, this is the right, type of bonus that I'm very thankful that is here in front of us, and we can close this chapter. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you. Any other comments to this from the council? Okay, let's go ahead and proceed to a vote. All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Alright, that passes unanimously. That brings us to our final public comment other than our general public comment later, which is item B10. This is for an ordinance that would temporarily close two streets abutting Temple Square for the 2027 Temple Square reopening. Before we take public comments on this, I'll turn the time over to Nick Tarbett. Nick? Oh, no. Austin? I'm gonna turn it over to

I'll do it from here, Mr. Chair, if that's okay.

Oh, okay. Then, yeah. Great. Go ahead.

Okay. As you noted, this ordinance, this public hearing, is about an ordinance that would temporary close portions of streets adjacent to Temple Square for six months in 2027, approximately March through October. The proposed temporary closures intended to facilitate public safety and crowd control management during the reopening celebration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saint Salt Lake Temple.

Thank you Nick. We'll go ahead and take our first public comment.

Thank you Mr. Chair. There are 17 people registered to speak to this item. The first will be Jake Cstrand followed by Jen Colby and then Anne Palmer. Jake, you may now unmute.

Good evening, council chair Wharton and the members of the council. My name is Jake Cstrand, and I'm a resident of the Guadalupe neighborhood within District 3. And I currently serve as the vice chair of the Capitol Hill Community Council. And I just wanna say that, these points represent the primary concerns gathered from many of our neighbors and residents at our last February 18 meeting. But these don't reflect the entire broad sentiment, but and they don't necessarily represent the official voted upon position of the community council as a whole.

For those of us in District 3, North And South Temple are not just traffic routes. They are lifelines. Closing both corridors for six months effectively cuts off our primary access to LDS Hospital, the main hospital for our neighborhood, as well as other grocery stores and essential businesses on the East Side. To ensure this project is a success for the city and the residents, we propose four collaborative solutions. One, we asked the city to commit to keeping at least one major East West connection open.

Residents must be able to reach emergency medical services and downtown core without being forced into nightmare bottleneck. Two, parking protections with teeth. Most of our neighbors rely solely on street parking. We need a temporary permit program with real active enforcement to ensure that residents aren't displaced from their own front doors. Three, equitable mitigation funding. The city is collecting several million dollars in fees from the church for this project. We believe these funds should follow the impact. We would like dedicating a portion of these to an enforcement fund. And finally, we'd like some accountability on transit. We want to see how the data on how visitors are being incentivized to lease cars at home.

We need a proactive plan that prevents residential side streets from becoming overflow lots for downtown traffic. We look forward to working together to protect our access and quality of life while our city grows. Thank you for your time and for your service.

Thank you.

Next will be Jen Colby followed by Anne Palmer and then Sarah Jamieson. Jen, you may now unmute.

Yes. Jen Colby, District four. I strongly support open streets events and pedestrianized urban zones. Looking closer at this proposal, have serious concerns and ask that the ordinance be revised. We're still a year out, so please do not rush to vote on this until these issues are resolved. I'm glad to see that event organizers recognize that it is the cars that are the problem and safety threat, not the people outside of cars. If only they would argue for safer streets by design more broadly. Anyway, my concerns here include the exclusivity clause, the proposed fencing, the scope of the closures and potential discrimination. I object to the apparent closure of the streets to bicycles, especially in the critical West Temple lanes. The 10 acre blocks make walking and bicycling detours burdensome, especially given the lack of a complete, safe, protected biplane network downtown.

I ask that car traffic be blocked with appropriate barricades, but no fencing be allowed. I do not think Salt Lake City should sell out the people's rights of general public access to our streets. The city should simply temporarily restrict the ability of car drivers to use them. I also suggest considering only the closure of eastbound North Temple in both blocks and only the northbound car lane of West Temple. Several UTA buses use North Temple and celebration visitors should be able to use them.

I'm particularly as well as residents. I'm particularly worried about potential discriminatory actions against certain groups of people, especially if the exclusionary zones are fenced and access points are controlled by the church. President Oaks has led the legal charge to maintain religious privilege to discriminate. This is currently aimed mostly at people who identify as LGBTQIA plus All people should be able to use our public streets and sidewalks freely without fear of bias or discrimination. Please do not sell out these rights even temporarily.

Therefore, I ask that you modify the language of the ordinance to remove the word exclusive. Please add a section that specifies full non discrimination during the closure for all people. Restricted access should only be for private cars. Please also forbid fencing. With these changes, this could be a wonderful open street season that truly celebrates the restored Salt Lake Temple and welcomes the world. As it is, unfortunately, it may risk driving more division and community conflict. In times such as these, peacemaking is sorely needed. Thank you.

Next will be Ann Palmer, followed by Sarah Jamieson, and then Stan Parrish. Ann, you may now unmute.

Hello. My name is Anne Palmer. I am a descendant of John Rowe Moyle, the stonemason who carved the words holiness to the Lord on the east side of the temple. I'm a district three member, and I'm extremely concerned reiterating what was previously stated about access for important places such as the avenues to the airport, to the hospital, to City Creek Centre, and to LDS Hospital for people in my neighborhood. I am concerned about the lack of attention to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints providing the same kind of thoughtful advance planning and transport from LDS Welfare Square to visitors of the center, and importantly, I think that we need to think about not only mitigation strategies, but the prospect of modifying temporary access leading to permanent road restrictions, which is evidenced in Gold Gate Park JFK Kennedy Drive.

I think that really the important security access issues are preeminent, but secondarily, what other identity group would receive the same kind of consideration that has been given for the special observance of the temple to other identity groups, which we've had in the Olympics when the Dalai Lama was here and in other times in our community with important economic impacts such as this one upcoming. So I hate to see a little bit of Paris impeding the future of accessibility by multiple forms of transport downtown in Salt Lake City. Thank you.

Next will be Sarah Jamieson, followed by Stan Parrish, and then Dee Brewer. Sarah's here in person. My name is Sarah.

And I am the owner of Grim Ghost Tours, a small tour company that operates in downtown Salt Lake City. For the past fourteen years, we have provided both residents and visitors with a fun, unique way to learn about Salt Lake City's history and some of its most iconic locations. Beyond our tours, we have always tried to give back to this community. We provide free educational classes for schools and libraries. We offer free field trips, and we help with fundraisers for local nonprofits.

Supporting the community that has always been supportive of us is an important part of our mission. I am here today because the proposed street closures will directly harm my business. The streets being proposed for closure are exactly where my pickup locations and ePoints for my customers are located. If these streets are closed, customers will not be able to find us, and we will not be able to safely pick them up. These closures will also make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for us to access several of the historic buildings that are key stops on our tours.

We have already experienced the impact of temporary street closures in the past. When customers cannot reach us, we lose bookings and revenue. However, these situations were always short term. What is being proposed is now very different. These closures are expected to last six months, and they would occur during our busiest season of the year.

The time when we earn the revenue that helps sustain our small business during our slower months. This would not only impact my ability to provide for my own family, but also would affect my employees who depend on this work. While I understand that these events may bring more visitors into the city, and safety is important to us all, the reality is that with these street closures, my small business will not benefit from that influx. Instead, it will be directly harmed. And once those six months are over, we will have very little time left in the year to recover the revenue we have lost during these closures. I simply ask that the city consider the very real impact these closures will have on a small business like mine. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next will be Stan Parrish followed by Dee Brewer, and then Scott Anderson stands here in person.

Thank you Mr. Chair and council members. I'm Stan Parrish. I wondered if I could make a suggestion of the mayor before my comment.

You can make it

as You part

can be very briefly.

Go ahead.

Okay. Had an experience years ago. I had an appointment where I was appointed to a position in Washington DC. And I went back there and I found out they spoke a completely different language, and it was called Acronym. And, I was trying to familiarize myself with all the acronyms. I was in a meeting with several people, and the person next to me had a loose leaf that said ASIA on it. And I said, Excuse me, I'm not familiar with that particular acronym. Could you tell me what it means? And she said, Yes, Asia. Need a little lightness here.

Been pretty heavy all night, so thank you. Does that count against my time? I'm here to speak in behalf of this wonderful opportunity we have for our city with the coming of the opening of the LDS temple. It's a historic temple that had been iconic for one hundred and thirty years. It's the first time this will have that many in the world will have an opportunity with over 5,000,000 visitors coming.

Except the benefit of this to the city is it won't be like the Olympics, although similar in nature. It will be spread over a period of six or seven months instead of three or four weeks. And so this will have an opportunity to show off the city and welcome a lot of international guests that will be here to appreciate what we have. But also, it will be a real benefit for the downtown business people because they'll be able to have exposure to a lot of new customers. And the marvelous thing about this with the structure that you have in place now is that it won't cost us All

right, thank you sir, appreciate it.

Next will be Dee Brewer, followed by Scott Anderson, and then Rob Cortez. He is here in person.

Hi, council members. Dee Brewer on behalf of the Downtown Alliance. I'm also speaking on behalf of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce tonight. We have been working with downtown merchants, restaurants, performers, and artists welcome new visitors downtown during the open house months in 2027. Tonight, I speak in support of the comprehensive safety and traffic plan that the city and the church have developed, including the road closures immediately adjacent to Temple Square.

We have reviewed the mitigation plans for transportation and parking. We will continue to work with the church and the city to ensure that these plans support access for everyone coming downtown. Thank you.

Thank you.

And next is Scott Anderson followed by Rob Cortez and then Michael Porcelli. Scott is here in person.

Thank you. Mayor and mister chair and members of the council, I appreciate this opportunity to speak in support of this proposal to close these streets. I think the Temple Open House will give us a great opportunity to showcase our city to the world, and I hope that people will leave not only awed by the restoration of the temple, but they will leave having fallen in love with our city, wanting to come back again and again. I'm involved in a community committee to encourage visitors to the Temple Open House to spend time in Salt Lake City, to visit our shops and retail establishments, to visit our restaurants and our bars and our museums, and I think the closing of these streets will help do that. The closing of these streets will provide the best opportunity to make sure that our visitors are safe and that the community is portrayed in the best way to the world.

These road closures and security parameters will help prevent incidents to mar our visitors to the city, and it will also speed up the security clearance of those visiting the temple, and this should give them more time to spend in our downtown area. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next is Rob Cortez followed by Michael Percelli and then Brett Watts. Rob's here in person.

Evening. Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to comment here on the proposed street closures. My name is Rob Cortez. I live right across the street from Temple Square, and I serve on the board of the Downtown Community Council. I'd like to share our council's thoughts on the proposed street closures associated with the Salt Lake Temple Open House.

First, we want to thank the Church, Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, for its clear efforts to be a good neighbor as it prepares for this event. We especially appreciate the staggered workforce schedules, the transit passes offered to employees, the attention to pedestrian safety, and the plans for off-site parking and shuttle service. These steps show a real effort to reduce pressure on downtown streets and parking. At the same time, closing several streets for an extended period of time raises important questions about balancing major events with everyday downtown life. Downtown Salt Lake City is not just an event center.

It's a neighborhood where people live, work, and run businesses, receive deliveries, and depend on reliable street access. The North Temple closure alone affects several five UTA bus routes and one of the key connections between downtown and the West Side. For these reasons, we echo the concerns already expressed by city council members in their work session and encourage the city and the church to continue working closely with residents and businesses to ensure clear timelines, strong communication, and dependable access during the open house period. We also see the closure as an opportunity. Temporary closures could help the city evaluate whether more

Time. Thank

you, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Next will be Michael Purcelli followed by Brett Watts and then George Carajalos. Michael's here in person.

Hello council members. My name is Michael. I am a Capitol Hill resident. My comment today is regarding the closure of public streets for the Temple Square open house. The proposal I read mentions the closure of the public's right of way for the duration of the lease focusing on the context of vehicle access.

However, as I read it, that would also seem to eliminate legal access to Capitol Hill Marmalade neighbors on foot or bicycle. This could wall off a half mile of access to the northern boundary of downtown. Doing so would add an unreasonable detour to commutes and access to local businesses for residents on foot. It is my understanding that there will be a permissible access for us to get through, but I worry particularly about fences or gates that close or lock after certain hours or a private security company determining how and when I have access to the city. I ask that it gets specified in the official agreement that pedestrians and cyclists retain a legal right of way on these streets to access downtown for the duration of the open house closures.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Brent Watts, followed by George Carahelios, and then Rabbi Benny Zipple. Brent is here in person.

Thank you, council members. It's a privilege to be with you this evening. I am in support of the closure of West Temple and North Temple. I've been a three decade owner of downtown, a business, and have traveled the world and had an opportunity to visit some of the great cities of our world. And as we welcome neighbors and friends to this event in 2027, I've been encouraged with how the Church is focusing on celebrating and bringing neighbors downtown in a safe environment.

And in the process of doing that, I think if we've ever fallen in love with any city, we've fallen in love not in our car but as we walk the streets. And I think as we focus on the opportunity to invite our neighbors to come and celebrate this great event of all faiths and all beliefs. I am in great support that we can invite our neighbors to come in a walkable and safe environment, and I know that the church is focusing on that as their main intent, and also the desire that we would consider this proposal to make our streets safe for this event.

Thank you.

Next will be George Carahallios and then Ravi Beni Zipple followed by Senator Luz Escamilla. George is here in person.

Good evening. Excuse me. Mayor, members of the council, thank you so much for allowing us to speak tonight. I am here specifically representing the Greek Orthodox Church of Salt Lake City, and I am in favor of the road closures, mainly because we do large events ourselves, and we understand the importance of security, safety, logistics, flow. It is important that everybody this is gonna be a major event.

This isn't just gonna be a small event. If you don't have a perimeter where you can do your security and safety checks, then your logistics inside don't work. Your flow just gets hammered. I've been to several other events, large events outside of the state of Utah. Road closures are normal for them.

There is a way I kind of read the plan a little bit. I haven't reviewed it completely but I believe there is a way that logistically you can make the traffic flow work. You could also make the pedestrian flow work. I think the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints has done a good job of presenting a good plan. I, once again, have not read the complete plan, but I truly believe that this can happen and that it can happen wisely and very safely for everybody to come and represent who they're representing to see the temple and this grand opening next year. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next is Rabbi Benny Zipple, followed by Senator Luz Escamilla, and then Amy Rees Anderson. Rabbi Benny is here in person.

I saw the rabbi leave, so unless he's joined virtually, then we'll go ahead and go to Senator Escamilla.

Good evening, counsel, madam mayor. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Luz Escambia. I'm a Salt Lake City resident, a state senator representing Senate District 10. Thank you for the opportunity to share just my full support on this agenda item.

This is our exciting times, and I'm very confident that your logistical commitment to helping all residents feel safe through this process, but also our millions of visitors are expected because of this incredible opportunity. I've been in this downtown area working for twenty five plus years of my life, and I've seen everything from construction, protests, festivals, everything in between. One thing is always true. When people are in downtown, our city thrives and we unite, which is, I think, a great opportunity with this event. The reopening of Temple Square will bring many visitors into Salt Lake City.

That means people walking our streets, eating in our restaurants, and supporting our businesses that have some difficult years between COVID and other disruptions. From my perspective, this is also a good opportunity for the city to practice as we prep for welcoming the world in 2034 with our Winter Olympics. Hosting big events required a commitment to safety. These are difficult times in the world, but it's coming all of us together that is gonna make it better. This open house will be meaningful for many around the world.

People will be able to experience a historic part of our city and highlight the capital of our state and the beautiful mountain backdrop that we have. At the end of the day, I also wanna say that we, I think the state is also committed to helping all of you make this possible, and we should be supporting such an effort that will open the doors and allow visitors to see how Thank beautiful Salt Lake City

you.

Thank you, Senator.

Next will be Amy Reese Anderson, followed by Tom Merrill, and then Andrew Katsarakis. Amy is here in person.

Good evening, Mayor Mendenhall and Mr. Chair and the rest of the council, and thank you so much for your service. My name's Amy Reese Anderson. I am a resident of Salt Lake County, and I'm here to speak in support of the proposed street closures for the twenty twenty seven Temple Open House. This is truly a once in a century opportunity for Utah and Salt Lake City to showcase to the three to 5,000,000 international visitors that we are an incredibly organized, safe, and well run city.

The Salt Lake Temple hasn't been open to the public in over one hundred and thirty years. In order to ensure this historic event is world class, it's imperative that we prioritize the visitor experience. By streamlining security checkpoints and creating a walkable, inviting environment, we'll provide a better overall experience for visitors, and we will encourage guests to stay longer and support nearby restaurants and shops. This will directly benefit the city's tax base and local economy long after the open house concludes. I want to commend the plan's emphasis on sustainability.

Utilizing the church's lease payments to provide park and ride lots, and free transit for ticket holders is a great way to handle the temporary population surge without overwhelming our downtown streets. Yesterday, had the privilege of speaking at the International Women and Diplomacy Day in Los Angeles. In attendance were Consul Generals from numerous countries who all shared with me how excited they are to visit Utah for this historic event. For these leaders, as well as other world leaders, dignitaries, diplomats, business and faith leaders, along with the millions of other visitors coming, this will be their first and only time to our city. We never get a second chance to make a first impression.

A temporary street closure is a small price to pay to ensure this international event is safe, world class, well organized, and reflects the very best of Salt Lake City. I would urge the council to approve this ordinance and move forward with this plan. Thank you.

Next will be Tom Merrill followed by Andrew Katsuher and Len Cott. Tom is here in person.

Okay. Thank you, City Council Mayor. Good night. Tom Merrill. I'm a downtown resident, and most importantly, a father of two young pedestrians and bicycle riders.

And we're not churchgoers, but we love the temple, and we often walk to it and around it after dinner, and we're actually pretty excited for this. We think that this will bring a lot of benefits to downtown, so I'm generally in support. The Merrill family is generally in support of it all, but I do think it's worth recognizing that this is an incredible sacrifice for a lot of people. But I do think that also underlines the ability that this city has to do big things, and we can make this place safe for all the visitors. We can have an amazing experience for the international community that's coming here.

And like Senator Escamilla, I think this prepares us for another upcoming big event, but not the Olympics. I think this prepares us for the official closure of Main Street, the Main Street Promenade. This is our opportunity to create a pedestrian first experience downtown and see what that's like, and like this, bring incredible benefits to the downtown business community. So with that, I'll leave my support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next will be Andrew Katsuhirakis, followed by Cynthia Lipincott. Andrew's here in person.

Hi. As a Salt Lake City resident and an urbanist, I am in favor of these closures. This is gonna be a huge event of massive international cultural import for our city, economic benefits for surrounding businesses, and just overall a great way to put Salt Lake on the world stage, and I'm obviously in support of having safer streets and having more opportunities to pedestrians more downtown. I would just like to say respectfully that in a time when it seems as though the legislature is not really in favor of lots of these kinds of things and these accommodations are being made for some stakeholders and not others, I would hope that this opens the door for the legislature and other Salt Lake City stakeholders for making some of these changes more permanent and more, I guess, equitable to the entirety of our city. Thank you.

And next will be Cynthia Lipincott, who's here in person.

Good evening. I am in council member Chris Wharton's district. I actually live on the corner of State Street and South Temple. I have been able to meet with the people who are in charge or planning this event. I'm very concerned about pedestrian safety in my area.

I want to tell you that I am very happy with the information that I received from Juan Pacerra and others. I realize that my issue just to get the orange flags at my corner, UDOT will not do it but perhaps I can talk the city into doing it so we can have safety measures across the two areas. I look forward to also perhaps having more green space downtown, calming our large downtown, perhaps closing Main Street. I am grateful to live in Salt Lake City. I'm a Chicago transplant, but I do think that we can have greeneries in our city along with the plan that the LDS Church has created.

And I think I would like to continue to live downtown, but to be safe. Thank you.

Thank you Cynthia. We will be in touch about those flags. Anyone else wish to speak to this item? Yeah, go ahead.

Hello, again, I'm Ben Ingle. I live a couple blocks away from the temple. I'm not Mormon, and I'm not Jack Mormon, so I love to celebrate what it is they're doing with the historic building, the foundation work that they were doing. I was joking about it while I was up at the Capitol, where we had a picture of Joseph Smith working on the foundation of the temple and I thought, Wow, I wonder what he would think of what we're doing with the foundation now. And the joke was lost and not a whole lot of people realized that there was all this foundation work going on.

I think we need to work better on the communicating because I think that was kind of the problem where we have business owners that are saying that their business is going to be shut down when I know that there's a considerable amount of thoughtfulness and work going into making sure that this is a benefit to all the businesses. Same with all the routes, how it is that we're going to go around these areas. I know that that's been given a lot of thought, but not carefully communicated as well. So having something like this where we're going to have the wording of what it is that we're going have this road closure without all of those details I think is what probably makes people a little bit worried about whether things are going be done well or not. In regards to safety, understand this is going to be a colossal event with colossal amounts of people, and that means there's potential violence.

We need to make sure that things are safe so we don't have explosives and guns and things like that, so not having fences I realize will be a little bit of a problem, but also I think there's a lot of common ground that we have here between maybe

we should be able

to talk about guns and that maybe we have too many of them around, and that when we have events and we have safety that sometimes we should really be thoughtful about how weapons are going to play into that. And we have a lot of common ground too as far as the state legislature's been wanting to push a lot against our safe city streets and having them walkable, and suddenly a lot of those

people that are not from the downtown area working on that kind of stuff can maybe.

Yes, so do you wanna come? If you'll just fill out a card after so that we've got, oh great, thank you.

Hi, my name is Sue Quorth and I live right behind the Capitol. And I can hear how everyone's very excited about this event and there's a lot of needs, but please remember that a lot of us live behind the Capitol in the Marmalade area and we have to access our services, the hospital, getting kids somewhere, and I just want you to remember that, to keep that in mind when you're making these plans that we need to be able to go about our lives also. Thank you.

Anyone else wish to speak to this item? Then we'll look for a motion.

Mr. Chair, move that the council close the public hearing and defer action to a future council meeting.

Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dugan and a second from Council Member Lopez Chavez. Is there any discussion to this? Thank you

everyone for the comment. I just wanted to recognize that there is an administrative website for more information, slc.gov/mystreet. And there's a few forward slashes, but if you Google Temple reopening street closures it does pop up with the exact information, what streets will be fully closed, what partial lanes will be closed, from which dates. And it will talk more about how this might impact you, businesses, other friends, I know that we can communicate better. And so I just wanted to raise that point again.

Thank you. I am gonna just say a few words to this too as a representative for the district where two of these streets are. And just say that I really understand the sacrifice and how big of an ask this is for not just my constituents, but for me personally and for my family. This cuts off the road to two grocery stores where we get our food. This, for anybody that's in the avenues that has kids going to West High, this is going to make that extremely difficult for anybody that's living in Marmalade and Guadalupe, have kids that go to Bryant Middle School, this is going to make that extremely difficult.

I know for me personally, this is between my house and my child's day care. And as I was thinking about this the other day, I live in Marmalade on 2nd West, my day job as an attorney is on Main Street and 2nd South, it's about eight blocks total. And that this is going to be coinciding with construction that's going be happening on 2nd West, gonna be coinciding with construction on 3rd West. So for me and my commute to work, if there is, if State Street is full on that one lane in that area, and 4th is full as it goes down to one lane or two lanes, excuse me, and goes past the gateway, and so it's pretty congested in that area overall, It'll actually make more sense for me to take the freeway to get those eight blocks. And so I completely understand how this is going to impact our day to day lives.

And so I want people to know that as we move forward with getting more details about this proposal and considering this, we do have some time that I'm going to be looking at all of those details. I'm going to be thinking about how this impacts our district on a very day to day level. I'm going to be thinking about the parking, because I know that just during general conference that the parking gets all the way up to my house, and that's only two weekends out of the year. So I definitely understand the magnitude of this request. At the same time, I understand the great opportunity that this represents for our city.

I also am not a member of the LES church, and there's going to be some even bigger changes that would have to happen that would allow me to get into the temple under other circumstances. I'm going to keep all of that in mind, but I do think that this is a really big opportunity for our city and has the potential to, we have the potential to learn a lot about the future of our city, about the future of transportation and cars and pedestrians and walkability and bikeability. And so I'm going to be looking at all of that as we move forward with this proposal. I really appreciate everybody coming and commenting. I know I've been receiving a lot of comments on this personally and I hope that I continue to receive those because those are gonna help us make sure that this is well thought out and that we are accounting for every detail as we consider this.

So thank you again. Anyone else? All right, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Vote's trickling in. Anyone opposed? Okay that passes unanimously. We'll go ahead and move on to our next item. Okay. Oh yeah, we're, wow. We're already to the consent agenda. I will look for a motion.

So moved.

Second.

I have a motion from Councilmember Lopez Chavez to approve the consent agenda and second from Councilmember Dugan. Is there any discussion to this? Okay, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor? Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, any opposed? Great, that passes unanimously. That brings us to our last item on the agenda, which is our general public comment period. This is the time that we set aside for you to comment on any topic, whether it was on the agenda or not, whether it's a city issue or not. I am just going to remind you all to please keep in mind the restrictions and the rules that we talked about earlier, that if you'll refrain from clapping cheering, or snapping, or anything like that, we want to make sure that people have an opportunity to express themselves whether there's 99 people in favor of one thing and one person against them.

We want everybody to feel equally comfortable sharing their comments. And so we'll go ahead and start the general comment section. This is limited to one hour, so depending on how many people have signed up, we may or may not be able to get through them. Oh, I think we will. We will. Excellent. So glad. Okay, let's go ahead and get into it.

Mr. Chair, there are seven people registered to speak. The first will be Tina Shea followed by and Olive Peterson Jacoby. Tina's here in person.

Tina? I think, what? Oh, she left. Okay. We'll go ahead and move on to the next.

Next will be Jen Colby followed by Olive Peterson Jacoby and then Sabra Enrig. Jen, you may now unmute.

Yeah. Hi. Jen Colby, District 4. Me again since I'm still here. I just wanted to express my ongoing and total frustration with what happened at the legislative session. I know there's a lot of topics we could discuss, but I'm going to focus on SB two forty two follow-up to SB 195 in the egregious backward looking

and

totally inappropriate usurpation of Salt Lake City's ability to design and control its own streets. I find it particularly interesting given this discussion that you have all just had about the street closures for one very powerful and important corporation downtown, whereas our streets otherwise are going to be remaining, especially our large dangerous arterial streets, dangerous car sewers that really degrade our quality of life and turn us all into criminals. Frankly, you cannot go out on these streets, I don't care what mode you take, without excessive speeding, illegal flipping right turns on red, red light running, every single person in a vehicle, probably myself included, basically becomes a criminal on our streets because they are designed so dangerously and badly. We have apparently, I mean, across the city, we have people putting in CIP applications to calm their streets, but then they want to drive through everyone else's streets really fast. And some very influential people seem particularly able to persuade suburban legislators that that's the case.

So anyway, I'm just expressing my dismay and protest that we can't have really good streets by design. We have the Olympics coming in eight years. Every great city has made enormous progress to make truly livable multimodal streets. Paris dropped its air pollution by 60% by all of the changes that they made. And instead, we are forced to go backwards. We are not going to be welcoming the world. It's going to be looking like we're decades and decades behind unless something changes. I ask you to really speak out for safe multimodal streets for all. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next will be Olive Peterson Jacobi followed by Sarah Enwig and then Claire. Olive, you may now unmute.

Hi. Am I unmuted?

Yes. Go ahead.

Beautiful. My name is Olive Peterson Jacoby. I'm from District 5. I'm here tonight to ask the city and its council to be more proactive in defending its citizens from the state and national government. There have been confirmed reports of bailiffs assisting ICE agents and arrests at Matheson Courthouse.

I understand that there are certain spaces that immigration enforcement can't be denied access to, but active and willing cooperation is beyond the pale. I don't want to believe that members of my community would be so vile as to enjoy collaborating with ICE. Surely, some are, but I'd rather believe that everyone is just scared. We don't want to attract attention from anyone higher up on the political food chain, so we acquiesce without any of the fight. The council tells us the people dependent on you to seek aid from within and not from above.

In so many places, Salt Lake has shut doors in its own face or walked away from closed doors without checking to see if they were locked. There are a 100 things that we could do to we could start doing today, a 100 places that you could put money into instead of giving the cops more overtime. We can open free clinics and rehab facilities. We can raise the local minimum wage to be consistent with the cost of living. We can divest from war and genocide and invest in the community.

We can make willing cooperation with ICE and all other acts of police and state violence career ending offenses. And if a problem arises that doesn't have an easy answer, you can get creative. If the spirit of the law but not the letter prevents you from taking an action to protect us, swallow your discomfort and act. If the letter of the law but not the spirit prevents you from taking an action to protect us, do it anyways and see how much you can accomplish before the state intervenes. Please don't stand still while the water rises around us or thrash around or try and swim to the top. Reject the system that's trying to shove all of us under. Work with the people who put you on that council, and build a boat. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next will be Sabra Ewing, followed by Jeff Bear, and then Brent Stephenson. Sabra's here in person.

Okay. Where's the microphone? Great. Okay.

Evening. My name is Sabra Ewing. Salt Lake City funds and integrates the K7XRD repeater system into its emergency and public service communications. The city designates the Crossroads Amateur Radio Club as its operating partner. Each time I challenged Crossroads disability framing and disclosure of my medical information, access restrictions followed.

Crossroads has now expelled me and restricted my access to the K7XRD repeater system without review, appeal, or documented neutral standards. The public safety and the mayor's office declined review. They said the city has no authority over this city integrated system. How will the city prevent disability based exclusion from K7XRD?

Thank you.

Next will be Jeff Behr, followed by Brent Stephenson, and then MJ Powell. Jeff's here in person.

Good evening, Mayor Mendenhall, council members, and Jill. Good to see The Planning Commission Planning Department is having open houses and they're looking to increase density in existing residential areas.

I couldn't help but smile when I read gentle density, which is

a term I've been sharing in this room since 2018. The original ADU ordinance was passed in 2018. I've been trying to build an ADU on my property since before then. It had large setbacks that vastly restricted the buildable area, couldn't be taller than the main residence, and it led to Council comments I heard in this same room of, We passed an ordinance. Why isn't anyone building ADUs?

So it was modified in 'twenty three. Setback was reduced. For an ADU, it was set at three feet setback up to 17 feet in height, and for every foot you add in height, you have to add additional set. So to build a two story, I wanna replace my 1922 garage and put a one bedroom apartment above it. To have 20 foot for a two story building with a shed roof, that means it has to be six feet from the property line.

That completely shoves it out of alignment with the driveway, and yet at the same time, we're building slot homes with 23 inches of setback, 35 feet in height, and huge windows overlooking the neighboring properties, putting the residents on display 20 fourseven, three sixty five. I didn't see anything in what's proposed to address this, and I just want to raise it because it makes no sense. There's this disparity. 35 foot buildings

Time.

Thank

you.

Next is Brent Stevenson followed by MJ Powell. Brent's here in person.

Evening, council members. My name is Brent Stevenson. I am a Utah resident and a Salt Lake City property owner. I wanted to address short term rentals. So I bought a property last year, tail end of last year, in District 4 that is zoned D3, primarily as an investment property, property that we would short term rent, but then also with my wife and four children when it wasn't rented to use after jazz games or other events downtown.

I'm not overly affluent. This was a major purchase for my family and I and put our, you know, blood, sweat, and tears into making the property operational for, again, short term. In our discussion with the city and due diligence, we were led to believe that it was legal in our area and building. As I'm sure you are aware, there exists some discrepancies today, and depending on which department you're talking to, you'll get different answers around short term rentals. Now, understand that the city is actively working on an ordinance for this, which I greatly appreciate, as there certainly is an opportunity here to improve the clarity as well as the consistency to the current framework around short versus long term rentals as it is confusing and somewhat inconsistent today.

So again, as a father of four, I will say that when we travel, staying in a traditional hotel room is absolutely impossible and a nightmare. We've tried that previously. So with tourism exploding and some of the points that we've discussed today, there is a need for both traditional hotels and Airbnb type of short term rentals. I would say that introducing some sort of a business license for short term within Salt Lake that is in line with both the general plan and current zoning laws that exist today would bring a number of benefits, primarily, one, management and enforcement of short term rentals in all zones within the city Second, a scalable, legal, and sustainable

Time.

And next will be MJ Powell. MJ, you may now unmute.

Hello, city council and mayor and community members. My name is MJ Powell, a District 3 resident as well as a former longtime resident and multigenerational resident

of

the West Side Of Salt Lake City. I wanted to take a brief moment tonight to recognize that today marks the one hundred seventy fifth anniversary of the Salt Lake City Police Department as well as the one year work anniversary of police chief Brian Redd. Someone who spent much of my life engaged in community work and racial equity advocacy, I've also had the opportunity to see the department from another perspective. In high school, I was a police explorer, and that experience was deeply formative for me. It allowed me to see firsthand the level of commitment, professionalism, and humanity that many officers bring to their work every single day.

I'd like to give special recognition to lieutenant and watch commander, lieutenant Cody Logie. I had the privilege of taking his law enforcement class in high school. And while he was actually the reason I joined the explorer program in the first place, Over the years, we've crossed paths several times in the community around the downtown and central city areas, and he's always taken the time to have a warm and respectful conversation with me even as early as last week. Those moments matter. They represent the kind of community centered policing that builds trust and understanding between residents and officers.

So tonight, I simply wanna say thank you to the officers serving every day, to those who served before them, to the members of the city's commissions, staff, and elected leadership who've worked to ensure that Salt Lake City continues striving to be one of the strongest and most forward thinking law enforcement agencies in the West. Public safety is at as is at its best when it's grounded in partnership with the community. I appreciate the continued work to move in that direction. Thank you for your time.

That was the final register commenter.

Okay, thank you. I realized that I forgot the questions to the mayor, which is what we usually do right before public comment, but I wanted to make sure that we circle back to that, because I know it's always a hot topic. Anyone have any questions to the mayor? Well it's important to cover because you never know. Okay, I think that is the last item on our agenda unless I'm forgetting anything else. Okay, great. Thanks so much to everybody for coming. We appreciate you being here. Our meeting will be adjourned.