City Council - Regular Meeting

certain level and

they were that good. Yeah. telling my son.

I hope so. I think he is wearing You want to redownload the right out here. my blanket

anywhere in the city. Reporting in progress.

Okay. We'd like to welcome everyone and call to order the study meeting of the West Valley City Council this March 24th, 2026. We're beginning our meeting at 4:32 p.m. in the multi-purpose room of West Valley City Hall. We have all members of the council present. Uh, we have council member Hume, council member Norfelt, Council Member Wood, Council Member Wetstone, and Council Member Harmon are online, and Council Member Christian is in attendance. We're also joined at the table with our city manager, Mr. Peely, and our city recorder, Miss Hammock. We have our minutes from March 10th, 2026. Turn those to the council for discussion or a motion. Second motion and a second. All in favor say I.

I. Okay. Stand approved. We now have our introduction of new employees. So we first we'll invite deputy chief and I know I got taught this but I can't remember. Foo. I knew from the last meeting I did it wrong to introduce his new employee.

Yeah, sorry. We've got four new officers here. One that's still waiting to head off to the post academy. This is Noi Ramos. Come on up here for us. I just told them that they got to introduce themselves. Tell us where they're from and where they're at in the process real quick. Yep. My name is Noi. I am here uh from Salt Lake City since 1997. Originally came from California, but since 97, it's been a while. So to be Utah at home and then right now I'm assigned to street crimes with Lieutenant Levi Lloyd and it's been good until I go to academy at the end of May. Thank you. Officer Rahim, this is Officer Rahimi. He's in our FTO process.

Yeah. So I'm from Afghanistan. Um I move I lived in Iran. I lived in Slovakia time 2012 and I'm in my phase one right now almost out of it so it's been good. Everybody's been nice to me.

Hello everyone. My name is Jose Nino. I'm originally from California. I just moved here back in October. So I'm fairly new to Utah and so far I'm loving it better than California and I'm currently in phase one. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed our snow this year. Hey, good afternoon. Officer Vince Miller. I'm from Lehigh, Utah. So, really close. Um, I'm in just phase one of FTO right now. Hey, welcome. This is Sydney White. She's in our record section. She's also with us as a as an intern.

Hi. So, my name is Sydney White. I started in records last month and then before that I was in II was an intern and I'm from West Georgia. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Next we'll invite Chief Edins up to introduce his new employees. Thank you. I'm gonna I'm gonna introduce I'm not going to be like Mike. I'll help him out. I just want to make sure I got what they name. These are four lateral firefighters that we have. First, we have Enriquei Garcia. He was from Draper City. We have Dean Noble from Casper, Wyoming. Caleb Hodes from Ohio. and Keano Serena from Hill Air Force Base. So, these are new lateral hires that we have. They're out in the field now.

Great. Welcome.

All right. We'll now ask Jan Doan Johnson to introduce his new employees. Employee Good afternoon. Um, this is Sarah Ferro, my new executive administrative assistant. She has asked that I make introduction of hers. So, I will say whatever I want. She comes with a lot of energy. She she's worked in the mental health industry and in uh just as in office administration before this and she has a psychology degree which is helping her to kind of understand certain group of individuals public a lot. So thank

thank you welcome. All right we'll now turn the time over to Mr. Castric to introduce his name employee. This is Tiffany Kalinowski. She is our new administrative assistant in planning and zoning. Has been with us about a great job. She came from South Salt Lake. And interesting tidbit, she actually was a crime scene investigator, so we hope to not use her skills. I also like that. All right. Thank you.

Right. Finally, we'll turn the time over to Paula Miler to introduce her new employee. So, this is Leah Fine. Uh she came to us from private sector a year ago. She started out as a part-time and uh HR administrator and now she's our full-time analyst. She does all our on hire for civilians. does all for public safety and uh she is a Utah native and uh she's resided in West Valley City for the past five years and a very dedicated mom of two boys. Do you have any questions? No. Okay. Welcome.

We'll be kind today. All right. We have our review of this evening's regular meeting. We've added one more new member of the prof professional standards review board, Jennifer Olsen, to the consent agenda. Any questions on that addition? Okay,

we'll now go to our awards. Turn the time over to Craig Thomas for leadership academy recognitions. Good evening, mayor, council. Um, um, this kind of a review what we talked about at the budget retreat. Um, but our class is coming to an end. Uh, our first round of interviews or not interviews, but presentations was last night. Uh, the final eight or nine will present next Monday. Um, so as a reminder, uh, the leadership academy was started as a way to help build community um, participation, community ownership, community pride. Um, but also to help residents learn more about being leaders within our community. Um, giving them the skill sets they need, giving them the reinforcement and the understanding that they have the ability within themselves to become community leaders. Um, also to give them a working understanding of West Valley City, our government structure, our city departments. Um, Mayor Lang and Cindy uh came to one of our classes one night and presented to the team uh to the class. Our city department heads all the entire executive staff came on another night and met with a lot. So, had some interaction with a lot of people. They've been learning a lot about the city government um and what they can do as a community. Um you can skip over this. Um so some of the projects that are coming forward that we're going to be approving. Um they range from a field day over at the cultural center. Um that resident happens to live at River's Edge. Um so she wants to use that. Painting fire hydrants in a neighborhood. Um you know cleaning up the neighborhood, making it more desirable, more pleasant place to live. Um park strips. Some of them are going

to do the kind of the rip the strip type concept. um pull out park strips and replant them with native plants and uh zeros escaping so they're water more water wides. A few bike projects. Um Jim is working on a flag project in his neighborhood. Um some parks programs as well. Um Jamie's been working hard with two or three of the teams just on parks. Um stepping up the parks a little bit. So um next week we'll have them all here. No, not next week. On the 14th, we'll have them all here next meeting. Um, so, uh, this is our class. Uh, as you remember, we started with about 35 students, uh, or 30 students. This is these are the people that actually made it all the way through. Um, and these are the ones that have submitted projects for review and will most likely all be receiving funding. Um, the funding, as a reminder, does not come from the West Valley City general fund, but actually comes through private donation. Um, so City Strong has um collected all the money sitting in the bank account with City Strong. Um, and then we'll pull from that account and pay for all these projects in the neighborhood. Each project is eligible for $1,500. Um, with some leniency to maybe go up or down a little bit if we need to. Well, obviously down, but a little bit more if they need to. Um, some of them are joint projects like Ann Wilson, Chad Wilson, and Dorma Lindsay. They're all working on one project together at uh the back nine golf uh back nine park. Um so they're working on improving that so it's actually a community space rather than place. Anyway, next week they'll be here next uh next meeting they'll be here uh we'll have a short reception in the lobby starting at 5:45 and then we'll come in and they'll be presented with the awards like we have done in the past for other programs.

Good. Thank you. Any questions? Okay, thank you. See you. All right, for our first public hearing, we have turn the time over to Mr. Welch for our reopening of the budget. Council may I need to speak softly. Thank you, Eric. That's really awkward for me. And why are you speaking? because the microphone apparently is very sensitive. Oh, okay.

Yeah, nothing personal. I'll stand back a little bit and then I can speak in my normal tongue. Um, this is the uh third quarterly budget opening which is an amendment of our um amendment of our budget as required by law and state code. It's to recognize new revenues that have come in, rollover projects have been completed or projects that have come in since the original budget was um was proposed. Uh I'll point out a couple of the larger ones in there and then I'd be happy to take any questions if you had any of these tonight. We do have um consideration of two other uh budget openings. One will be for the building authority and one for the RDA which have to do with some land and projects. But uh that's the only addition next to these. Um the first one is a larger rollover from the ARPA grant that we had for uh the wetlands park project. My understanding is these funds have been uh already spent because of the grant. This is a rollover from previous years. This is an accounting function so that we can clean that up and be done with it. Um then under grants, I'll I'll skip over some of the other smaller ones. We have the liquor and beer tax grants which are actually sales tax that we receive from the sale of alcohol products within the city. uh those are specifically come back to police and to our legal department for the enforcement and the prevention of alcoholrelated uh crimes and and offenses. Um then we have a couple of budget openings that have to do with the veterans memorial project. We had landscaping that was completed and uh some of this is to recognize donations that were received and also some of the completion of that project. I know there are multiple phases on that. Someday we'll probably see more, but as it currently sits, this is the budget opening to complete those. We have some money that we received from the state due to uh action of the legislature in

2025, about 37 $3.7 million. That's the 40th West improvements. Mr. Johnson's working on that diligently along with his many projects. Uh we also have fire department reimbursements for deployments to other fire uh fires throughout the state through the country and those are pretty familiar with you. Uh they come back and those funds are used for infrastructure well for equipment replacement as they take our equipment out to these fires and then also for overtime to help cover those costs. Uh on the next page we have uh some more public works projects. Most of these uh have to do with things that are money that we're receiving from the county and participation or else from the state. Um and then that's pretty much it for the general fund. Be happy to take any questions you might have on these.

Any questions?

Oh, thank you. Yeah. So if you go um it's a way of kind of coordinating the key sheet which is what I just read with you with the accounts that are affected by those adjustments. So some of them you'll see like the one that says 30 all the way down if you have those. There's one budget opening that affects many many projects and that's how you can tie those out. If you wanted to go back and look at all of the the numbers that's those are the accounts that they're affecting. Good question. Thank you so much. Thank you.

All right. We'll now turn the time over to Mr. Bunderson for some adjust adjustments to our code.

Yeah. Council Eric Bunderson. Thank you. This first one is fixing what Brandon Hill called the uh Steve Leman problem. Uh it's just it's just an an amendment to our uh business license board and um what we'd like is a little more um leeway in how to pick these people. before we had to have one city employee, one person with a substantial interest in business license by the city and then one other person. And what we're proposing is that we have two residents and one other person that'll just give us um that'll just give us a broader swath of people to pick from because from my understanding it's kind of hard to fill these these roles in this board. So, two residents, one other person is what the new proposed language is. Any questions about that? um business license uh board hears um appeals from um when we don't grant business licenses and um we we have them a handful of times once a year maybe

I think yeah every other year. Yeah, there's been like three. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it doesn't happen very often, but it's important when it happens. And um it is sort of a pre-litigation uh board and so we want to get it right and we want to make sure we have right people making good decisions on it. We think we can do that with this proposal. So, it's the leave problem because he retired. Because he retired, but he's a resident, so he could still be put back on. Did we think about that, Steve? We did. He doesn't want to be

we miss him dearly in a great number of months but especially on boards like this where he's just very reasonable and knowledgeable. So yeah. So he decides

so um we'll that filters up through EVO and then you guys will give your uh consent once they pick the right person just like all the other Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of that that's how they they wanted to set that up so they could find kind of maybe a business person, but they're not West Valley resident or but they are and they're still a resident. They just want that flexibility in that third spot. We think that'll we think that'll help find the right person. And

if you know anyone that's interested on our website, you can actually fill out a form and say that you're interested particularly in that board. just if you know anyone. Perfect. Okay. See any other questions? And then we'll go to resolution 2633 and turn the time to Mr. Bunderson. Thank you. Uh once again for the record, Eric Bunderson, city attorney. This is another franchise agreement like we had a couple weeks ago. Um same thing. U it's it's our form agreement. We just have to have the council approve it. Nothing special about this one. Any questions on this?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We'll now turn the time over to Mr. Johnson for the next two items. Ace disposal and then some real estate purchase.

Thank you. Um so this is we this resolution is uh to award a new contract to the existing contractor. But the first proposal from that we'll talk a lot a little bit of of the uh the history. So you can see there kind of who our our contractors have been over the years. We've had it waste connections, ACE disposal, waste management, and then ACE has been for the since from 2019 present. And so now we're bringing to you this as this existing contract comes to a close, we issued a request for proposals to the market. And um we we bid it with uh the terms of the agreement were it was a six-year deal with two optional two-year extensions that the council um and the contractor could agree to extend it. So ultimately this ends up being a 10-year deal potentially. So it's no small uh element that we ought to take thorough. So um so really we when we issued the RFP we did not change substantially. We didn't really change any of the services as provided. We we came and met with the council before we prepared the RFP and and we felt like the council was satisfied with the services. So, we'll pick up the garbage every week and recycle every other week and continue bulky waste pickup and uh the neighborhood dumpster program stays essentially the same and the glass recycle. Um, as you recall, we have three dumpsters throughout the city where we our contractor will collect the glass and then we also have the optin glass recycling and curbside service that that's provided through Momentum Recycling that uh that the residents can opt in, but that's completely separate from from what we're doing here. And then the community service dumpster program that we do, that's essentially

that's really the biggest change in this contract is that we we put in um the community service dumpsters that we that we help with certain programs throughout the city and then the Christmas trees and the city facilities and the city parks. So those are those that's an overview of the services we requested in the RFP and oh we've got a question from Mr. West. Mr. Redstone has a question. Go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. I just had a question I saw in the agreement. But on the rec on the processing recycling up to a certain point, it was by the contractor. When that price exceeds a certain point um then the city steps in and covers and then when it gets to a point above that then we share a 5050.

Yeah. Processing for recyclable material and it flu

quite quite a bit. Yep. Quite a bit. So I'll give you a little bit of background on how we we ended up here and how this particular contractor proposed this. In fact, we'll talk about it a little bit later in the presentation, but but several years ago, um the the recycle market changed substantially. China used to take a whole bunch of plastics and a lot of things like that that they ended up not changing and it kind of threw the the local recycling market into a an upheaval. And at that point, the ACE disposal came to Russ Willardson, my predecessor, the public works director, and negotiated essentially the same type of cost sharing agreement where they cover a base level cost and then um to help them to manage risk, they we come into to play and when prices rise and then we both share that and uh it's actually worked out quite well. as as fluctuate there are bit there are months when we pay nothing for the recycled material processing and AE covers every bit of it. I'd say that's actually most most the case like for the most part the time that we've had this cost sharing arrangement with them. Um it's it's been quite favorable for us. So, um, so that's some of the background on how we ended up there. And they they essentially proposed, we didn't dictate that that was a term in this RFP. That's just what ACE disposal proposed um for for their uh for their um for just how to handle the fluctuating prices in that recycle market. So, I'm not sure if I answered your question.

Okay. So moving forward, so we we received two two proposals, one from ACE disposal and one from uh waste management and very great proposals, very competitive proposals and and it really was we were grateful for um for the process we went through with with both of these contractors. And as we bid this um we this is how the uh this is the criteria that the proposals would be evaluated on. 50% on cost, 30% on capacity, equipment, facilities, and experience, 10% on customer service, 10 5% on safety, and 5% on operations plan. And so, uh, as we went to evaluate them, those were that's how the scores would kind of shake out. And this is a summary. Maybe I can move that so you can see more of this. But, but, uh, up at the top. So, so ACE disposal we match their corporate colors for fun and ACE is in red and waste management is in green and so the top number that's their that's the price and so ace oneup price which is a huge part of this as well and you the council may or may not be aware several years ago the council directed staff and actually passed an ordinance in our procurement code that uh uh directed us to to provide uh two types of preferences that that we use in bid evaluation. So, one's a local provider preference for local companies and one is another preference for companies that provide insurance and kind of a hiring program for batteries. And so, in this particular procurement, uh, ACE disposal got one point percentage preference for being a local company and one point for having the other desired programs. and Waste Management got one point for having the desired program, but they're not a local company. So, ASUS

headquarters are here in West Valley City. And so, there's an advantage for uh we give them an advantage. So, that's just in in the evaluation criteria or that's so that 2% reduction, we essentially reduce the the uh we take 2% off the the bid price for evaluation purposes only. And uh didn't really matter in this case because Ace won um on price anyways. But but uh just so you're aware, we also include that in our construction contracts as well. And normally it doesn't make a difference and it really didn't make a difference in this case, but but there it is. So the section below is the the evaluation the points that the selection committee um gave the the teams and and all in all honestly both both contractors could have performed the the the services quite well and would been fine with either one of them. But there were certain things that that ACE proposed especially on the customer service side that we like quite a bit better than than waste management that kind of things that you might expect from a very large corporation. So and then as those scores were weighted that's the bottom half of that spreadsheet weighted with against proposal criteria like the waiting that we that I showed you a few slides ago. So at the end of the day, we uh we recommend ACE. They they were our they won this this uh procurement and and so this slide talks about the thing that we that I mentioned that Will was asking about. And so this is just a discussion of that uh cost sharing proposal that ACE included in their bid. Um and uh waste management also includes something similar but a little bit different in their as well. But but this

was ACES and then they also proposed a future price escalation uh clause to be included in this and so we we gave them that option they could propose something and so they proposed two different um price escalators. One of them is on the disposal only. So they take their their their garbage all get they haul it to a transfer station and then haul it to Utah County out in uh Fairfield Fairfield.

And um and that's where the trash goes. And so we have a a a first year price of $33 a ton and then they proposed to increase it by 50 cents a ton for each year during throughout the the life of the uh the agreement which if you do the math on it it's roughly one and a half and then it gets slower lowered down to 1.3ish percent through the life of the contract. So we're quite pleased with the cost escalation. If you compare that to what we've seen on in the uh the CPI, it's it's a pretty uh reasonable proposal. And then for everything else for the collection services, you'll recall we've seems like almost every year lately, we've come to the council requesting a cost increase for our hauler to kind of account for rising just cost in marketing business. So they proposed to increase those costs every year um by using it's called the it's a bureau of US bureau of labor and statistics water sewer and trash collection services consumer price index. So there is such a consumer price index that kind of tracks the uh the prices of those types of services and so that in fact uh waste management proposed the same type of of they actually propose the same. So we felt like that's a pretty good way to approach the the rising costs throughout the life of this contract. And other questions to this point? So, so you know, this is kind of the the big news you're probably all waiting for. It's it's more expensive than it was before. Roughly $700,000 more between hauling and disposal. And so, if you look at this last, this is my last slide, but I just wanted to talk about

the status of the sanitation fund and our and our current fees. So in 2023, we came to the council and kind of we're kind of giving an overview of of costs and and uh the council thought it was a good idea to and and we agree it was a good idea to uh to raise the fee at that point from so they raised it $1 from 1550 to 1650 in January 2023 and at the same time you elected to also raise it a year later by another dollar to 1750 where the fee currently stands. And so as it sits right now, the the sanitation fund has a roughly $ 1.5 million fund balance in available cash reserves that we can use. And what we're projecting in fiscal year 2627 is a budget deficit of $900,000. And so we will be so with the the rising cost of we were already pretty at you know close to um to breaking even even but but probably a little bit under underwater and but with this new $700,000 cost increase we're definitely going to be needing to do a a fee increase at some point and and you know the council maybe you guys you guys can think about this and decide when the best time would be but we would at a minimum recommend recommend waiting, you know, or at least having the conversation no later than this coming January to see where things have are sitting and and how things are looking after about a half a year of living under this contract. But you could also have that discussion whenever you want. So before but that really concludes my my presentation on this contract and I'll take any questions you might have.

Any questions? I think you explained it well. Thank you. Thank you. And I've got the next thing. The next one is 2635.

Yep. So, we are proposing to sell a fine piece of property out at the old salvage yards. The city owns a parcel of land that's adjacent to the right of way. Um, and UD do has owned the property on either side and has sold it to this 5700 West WC owner LLC, uh, who intends to acquire this property from us to make their property contiguous. And so the the appraised price is $101,000. and and it's also our intention to come council and recommend that this that section of 2300 south west of 5700 west be vacated as well which would essentially give up any rights that we had to the roadway as a roadway and it reverts then to the adjoining property owners. So that that second part the vacation is a future action but right now we're we're here to recommend the sale of this property.

Any questions on this? this issue. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. We'll now ask if there's any of the resolutions you'd like to add to the consent agenda. Okay, okay, there we go. I think four hits. Okay, now we have a review of our agendas for the redevelopment agency and the municipal building authority. We'll time turn the time over to Mr. Welch for that.

Thank you. We have one item on the redevelopment agency. Uh this is some money that was provided for a roads project in the Northwest EDA. Uh this also showed up in the uh the regular general fund budget in as one of the CIP projects and that's the only item that's in the RDA. Okay. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. No.

Oh, I thought you were doing both at the same time. So, yep. Sorry about that. I didn't know if I was going to just read the sign. The uh building authority one is a budget opening to authorize spending money for the repair and replacement fund to complete the elevator upgrades and other uh equipment that was in critical um need of repair and that's what that is and that's the only item that's in the building authority. And is that the Maverick Center or that is at the Maverick Center? Okay. Okay. Any questions on that? If you've written it, you know it needs it. Okay. Thank you.

Yes. People's eyes, they just kind of get bigger as it does its movements. Yeah. Lurches back and forth. So, okay. Um, any we'll go to the council calendar. Were there any concerns on that? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to our potential f future agenda items. Did anybody have anything online? Okay, council reports. I did get a little busy last couple of weeks. Over to Granger High School. They invited you because the other two presenters were the county clerk, county sheriff. I'm trying to show women in public and I filled in for you.

They apparently was a government class. They had some good questions. I didn't really impress him when I said I went to the old green school. Ever since then, I've remembered a few things like putting the principal's vehicle up on the second floor of the high school. I wasn't a football player, but I knew how to watch the hallway. That might have impressed him.

Giving him some good ideas. Uh but it was a good program. They had a lot of good good questions. Oh, good.

Enter them specifically to each person. So then did the scavenger hunt or at least went to a couple of their locations on Saturday 14th. organized. I haven't felt as welcome in city hall since I any place since the last time I went to Cece's Pizza in uh Albuquerque. Everybody there when you walk in the door says, "Welcome to Cece's." And as I we walked in the door, "Welcome to West Valley. Well, coached and uh trying to see Shakespeare in the schools and they had a real good program. Can't remember the play. I can't remember way after I made it anyway, but they could have used a little more vi volume on the microphone on the stage there. I'm sure that they performed it for the schools themselves and I'm sure they got a little closer and a little more volume out of them, but kind of a quiet play. So,

they kept me busy the last couple of weeks. Thanks for taking care of the Granger High School. Anybody else? Yeah, I went to Oh, yeah. Herman Scott. Council member Harmon.

Hey, thank you. Um, I attend the special council and last week and it was a good meeting and we had a presentation from the back cities across the state. So I'm going to send a PDF and I'll send that to everybody. But it was a a good wrap up of those concerns. few things I'm sure that Steve and Sam are ming over how we address some of that but um it was good

good thank you okay council yeah I went to one of the boarding house task force meetings very good veryformational now so I learned something that was great and then today I went the chamber last because of the draw of the speakers there. So the drawer to make sure the ladder

yes and I just appreciate him so much and the work that he does for our city and where we are as far as our economic development. My heart fills for Karns and Magna who are just starting out and trying to figure out how they can create an economic base in their little towns. So yeah, it was good. No one else went to comm last week. Pretty much the same as Scott's meeting. Um the league came and spoke. WFRC came and spoke of all the different legislative opportunities that were given and taken away and it wasn't that bad of a year as far as the legislature I don't think. So they felt like they kept it in people in line. So that was good. I'm glad we're back on the league and think they help us out a lot. Okay. Say no. So, um we don't have

I don't have anything. Yeah, that's why I'm saying you don't have much. So, um we don't have a need for a close session. So, we just have one more motion. Motion to adjurnn. All in favor say I. I. And we stand a journ. Thank you. See you at 6:30.