City Council - workshop

Yeah, that's a great trip.

But this time, like, I was pretty scared. I have, but it was like...

I don't know if I've ever heard of it.

Sunrise. We have a couple of places.

Are they going to be electronic?

We'd like to welcome everyone and call to order this study meeting of West Valley City Council this June 23rd, 2026. We're beginning our meeting at 4.31 p.m. in the multipurpose room of West Valley City Hall. For tonight, we'd like to excuse Councilmember Whetstone. In person, we have Councilmember Christensen, Councilmember Harmon, and myself. Councilmember Huon will be a little late, and Councilmember Northfield and Councilmember Wood are online with us. We're also joined at the table with our city manager, Mr. Pealey, and our deputy city recorder, Ms. Smith. We have our minutes of June 9th, 2026. Turn those to the council for discussion or a motion.

Second.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Thank you. Those pass. All right, we'll go to the introduction of our new employees, and we'll first have, invite Chief Jacobs to introduce her new employees.

Good afternoon. I have a crew for you today, so I'm very excited. I did, however, forget that Mr. Ponch wasn't able to make it last month and forgot to invite him this month, so sorry about that. Who I do have with me is Officer Brennan.

Officer Brennan, I owned a coffee business three years before this. Something fun about me, I guess.

Officer DaSilva.

I'm Officer Silva from Brazil. I've been in the class for 20 years now. Working. I'm from the center of performance.

Officer Lanier.

Officer Lanier. Fun fact, I believe I'm the youngest sworn officer. Not positive, but I think so.

Sweet.

Officer Merringer.

Officer Merringer. Sorry. That's OK.

I also served in the United States Air Force Reserves. I get to bring my training from this back there.

And Officer Rosebrough.

Hi, everyone. If someone wants to meet, I've got two kids, and they're kind of my old reason for wanting to join the force.

In addition, we have a new crime analyst on our team, Connor Ridenour.

Hello, Connor Ridenour. I enjoy Excel spreadsheets.

Can we have him?

They're awesome.

And also, Kylie Nelson, she joins us as an office assistant out of the Office of the Chief.

Hi, I'm Kylie Nelson. I've lived in Anchorage, Alaska for six years, so that's a week, I guess.

Great. Thank you. Hey, thank you. And welcome to all of you. It was nice to meet you all. You're swearing in. All right, next we will ask, oh, she's gone. So Mr. Flores will take care of, isn't it their new room?

Our two animal control officers.

There we go.

Come on. Just one, just one.

All right. Unfortunately, Mel had to head home today. So you're going to introduce yourself.

All right. I'm Officer Cameron Heiler with Animal Services and It's been fun. Fun fact, I worked with Robert for quite some time, so that was fun. Good little introduction today.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you and welcome. All right. We'll now turn the time to Steve Colbert to introduce his new employees. I skipped a line. Okay, we'll skip that one? Might as well have skipped it to begin with, that's okay. Next we'll ask Steve Pastrick to introduce his new employee.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to introduce, it's Kyler Wakefield. He's our new grant coordinator. He comes from Orangeville, Utah. I had to look that up, I had no idea. South Price near McFerrin and Castledale, so there you go. Joe's Valley, only reason to go. Yeah, that's right. He's now a West Valley resident with his wife, has an MPA, and one of the really helpful things in our office, he speaks Spanish. Awesome. Anything else you want to share, Kyler? No.

There we go. Real, I mean, European football. Football, not football. Awesome.

Have a good time.

Thank you. Thank you and welcome. All right. Finally, we'll ask Sam Johnson to introduce his new employee.

So as many of you know, we had Matt McKellen left West Valley City just a few months ago to follow his wife out to the East Coast for a job. And we were able to hire Muka Tiga. Muka came, we had over 20 candidates for this position. It was a lot of competition. It's easy for me to say that Muka was the clear choice. He's a West Valley City resident, has done videography for over a decade. And we love having him as part of the team. Luca, is there anything you'd like to add?

Nope.

He will have that camera in all of your faces as we move forward, and it's good to have him part of the team.

Thank you, and welcome. You've been here for a little bit.

A little bit?

Yeah.

I feel like it's been long.

Yeah. Thank you. It's good. Well, because I think he was coerced into doing some freelance stuff before he was actually hired. That's why he probably feels like it's been a while. Yes. All right. We'll review our council meeting. There have been a few changes to our agenda this evening. First, we have two more items added to the consent agenda for a regular meeting. Those are the reappointment of two of our PSRB. So Abigail, I never say her name right, Dezen Mangum, as the chair of the PSRB. And the second is Mike Chesed to the Audit Review Committee. And then second, we added one item of new business, Resolution 2683. and we'll ask Brandon Hill to come up and explain that one to us.

Brandon Hill with the national champion Oklahoma Sooners. I also work here when I'm not watching. So this item, we don't have the PowerPoint up, but it's pretty simple. What it is is it is an amendment to the parking structure and management use agreement. And so essentially what this does is a couple of things. Number one is it extends the term of the agreement. So right now it covers all of our natural lives, but we wanted to make sure that our children also have places to park. So this will do that. And over in that extension time, the maintenance costs will be shared or pro rata based on how many spaces you use. So. Right now, we're maintaining the whole structure. Once the extension kicks in, you pay according to how many of the spaces you use. So that's the biggest change, and that's that item. Any questions about that?

It doesn't look like it.

Thank you. All right. I'm here all night for baseball.

I know. Up the Port Talbot Hills. But the Tar Heels were second place. They were. It is a, you know, that's where my daughter went to school. That's the only reason. Finally, a special redevelopment agency meeting has been scheduled, and we'll ask Dan Johnson to come up and explain that one.

I need a mirror so I can see if they're actually there.

Good evening. Earlier this year, the gas company, Enbridge Gas, came to us requesting a limited-term easement to use some of the property that we have. It's the Jordan River Marketplace property on 33rd South, and it's a cultural center drive for the installation of a gas line. did that, and that easement has come and gone. But they have additional needs, and we're hoping to be able to use that property again. And so this is an easement that will bring in the city $3,000 per month for five months while they use that property for a period of time, and then they'll restore it and move on their way.

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

Thank you.

Does the council have any questions on any of those things on tonight's agenda?

You'll tell me if somebody don't mind.

Okay, we'll move on then to our first resolution, 2677, and we'll turn the time over to Mr. Welch.

Thank you. I've been looking at that slide for a while. I wonder if we'd ever get to it. Speaking of wondering if we'll ever get two things, this is for financing with a company called J.P. Morgan. This will be the first financing that we have with them. So what's before it is a master lease agreement along with an addendum that will be the financing of a Well, it's actually a tower truck. This has been on order since October of 23. So we've got a long runway before we get our vehicles delivered. For future reference, we also have a couple of other trucks that are on order. We've got two ambulances, two fire trucks that we're hoping will be delivered in 2027 and 2028. So before you is the financing with J.P. Morgan. They've offered us an interest rate that's very attractive compared to the other entities that we looked at. We looked at over half a dozen other companies that had to submit proposals for financing for us. This was the most attractive. They've given us a preliminary rate based on where rates have been and where they're going. We will not receive the final rates until we get a couple of days right before the financing because of the way markets have been. If it's not attractive when we get those rates, we won't execute the agreement. However, at this point, it's been almost a half percent below what we received from the other entities, and we feel like that was a good-faith estimate. I've had conversations with the company about that, and we feel confident that we will have beneficial financing. The term on this is 10 years. Payments will be approximately $120,000 a year, and we recommend this financing.

Any questions for Jim? So is it just a monthly payment or just one year? I mean, one payment per year?

We've done this a little bit differently than the others. We have had some of these that are semi-annual payments. This one is proposed to be an annual payment with the first payment due up front. That will save us $50,000, $60,000 of interest and also get us a preferential rate. So we felt like that was a good decision on this one.

Thank you. All right, we'll now have Mr. Pastor come up and resolution 26-78. Thank you, Mayor.

So this is a development agreement that's a little different than most of the ones we're bringing to you. So the property here, 1251 West, 3300 South on 13 acres. So to begin, the standards in this agreement are not proposed to change. Essentially what's happening is you have the Village at River's Edge project that has a number of apartments there, and the council a few years ago approved a change to the development agreement where there would be some townhomes on the east side of the property. Those townhomes have yet to be developed. And the owner of the apartments is looking to refinance their apartment project. And the financing would be a HUD-backed loan. And basically, HUD wants it clear that the obligations for the townhomes are strictly for the townhomes, and the obligations for the apartments stay with the apartments. So not long ago, this drawing here shows They actually apply for a lot line adjustment. You'll notice in this image there's actually four partials involved in this property, which is where we usually have this one, two, three, four here. Basically, to simplify it, they created one large parcel for the apartments and then one parcel here for the town. These condos are actually not a part. So, in summary, the development agreement says that the townhome obligations apply to this parcel and the apartments obligations apply to this parcel. So it's just making that distinction.

Okay. Any questions for Mr. Pastrick? Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. We have our consent agenda. We have four items scheduled for July 14th. One for the appointment of Steve Lehman as an alternate member of the Planning Commission. and the other three are our usual purchase agreements, deeds, and easements. Did anybody have any questions on these items? Seeing none, we'll move on to, are there any of the resolutions that you would like to move to the consent agenda? Lot line for the master lease.

I'm good the way it is.

Okay. I don't see anybody else. I'll just leave them as is. Okay. We'll now go to our communications and have a presentation for the sign ordinance discussion. And I'll turn the time over to Mr. Pastrick. And I know it says mayor's request, but I can't remember why.

So refresh my brain. Absolutely. So we had a homeowner that's on 31. Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay. For home businesses. Right. At the request of the council to put this together. So I wanted to just kind of go over what's in the site code now as it relates to residential zones. So first of all, I think it's important to make the distinction between commercial and non-commercial signage, right? So we generally we can't regulate based on content but this is an exception where with commercial signs right if they're trying to sell something you have pricing logos products that kind of thing then it's it's a commercial sign non-commercial sign would be things like you know vertical signs religious message those kinds of things right so i think it's important to make that distinction as we talk about the different types of signs so with brock anderson's Found some illustrations here. So these are the types of signs that are allowed in a residential zone, okay? So you have flags, which obviously you have the U.S. flag there. A new development sign. So we have really two types of development signs. We have ones that are off-premise. We actually do allow off-premise development signs where it's like, you know, people to new projects. And then those are taken down when the project is done. And then next to that is the residential construction sign. Those are the ones that are actually on the site where the construction is actually happening. Then you have a plate sign, which is really small. It's that one at the bottom left. It's like two square feet. The top right, the property sign is obviously if you have your home for sale or for lease, right? You can put that in your yard. And then finally, the temporary non-commercial would be like your political signs, right? So those are the kinds of signs that are allowed. And I think it's important to point out that not only do we have those regulations as far as the types of signs, we also have a provision that says you can't have signs on a fence. So even if, let's say, It's a political sign. Our code basically says those ought to be on fences, right? So basically the sign code prohibits any kind of signage on fencing. So the sign in question that resulted in the code enforcement action was these are the couple signs that were put up on a fence that The first issue is the fact that it's on a fence. But then second, again, just given the size, these are about probably three by five-ish. So they would exceed something that would be allowed in a residential setting for a house. So beyond that, I don't have anything. just to, again, just to emphasize, I think the point of these regulations is that in a residential zone, we're trying to minimize the amount of signage so that it's not like you're in a commercial zone where you're much more flexible on the kinds of signs that are allowed.

Well, and in the email I received, he asked that we change the ordinance to allow the signs to be between 5 and 15 square feet in size.

Three by five is a pretty big sign. Yeah, it is. That's basically what these are.

Yeah. And for myself personally, I thought that was too big. But I just thought we needed the opinion from the council if there was any appetite for changing the code. No. One no. Anybody have a strong opinion to change it?

I have a strong opinion to keep it the same.

Thank you.

I don't think we need to change it.

Okay. I will return an email to him then and let him know that that's the desire of the council. Thank you. Oh, did everybody get it? Okay.

Great.

Okay. Yep. Thank you. All right. We have our council calendar. Are there any concerns or changes that anybody has? Seeing none, any potential future agenda items?

No?

Okay, council reports.

West Press was a great success. Yes, I thought so. I think the parade, I think there's more people at the parade than ever. but yet I still had candy left, so I needed to be better at throwing.

Yeah, because I bought and brought four extra bags, and I still ran out of candy. I might throw too much.

But I gave away flags.

Yeah, you gave away more flags. I didn't give away any flags.

Yeah, it was a great weekend.

It's interesting because I ran out of candy last year. Yeah. This year. They handed me a bag to take home. Oh, well, that's good. We can't take three bags back. Yeah, I definitely throw too much there. It did seem to be a bigger crowd. Yeah. It was a crowd at West Fest. I went back over Saturday night after dinner. I kind of felt like going over and watching fireworks.

Mm-hmm.

We would have had to park at least four blocks away on the street to park anywhere to watch the fireworks. I drove through the entire parking area, you know, and there wasn't an empty spot anywhere. We went home and said, we'll listen to the fireworks and have fun. There you go.

We're lucky we can see them from the back porch. Couldn't see them, couldn't hear them.

I wonder if we can ask for kind of a debrief at some point of security and... How things went? Safety.

Friday also. And the officers of the... You know, how did our new regulations go for you? We made it much easier last night.

And we're pretty excited.

Do you want to do a closed session?

We can come back with stats. I mean, not only that, but other things with West Fest, too. We can come back. Chief mentioned this the first time in 29 years. There wasn't an altercation. A lot had to do with their proactive.

I heard they had to carry somebody out, though. I mean,

Well, there wasn't. It wasn't me.

But they did a great job.

So it would be nice to have an agenda to talk about. My only ask is if it can all start just as the parade ends.

Because I sat around until 11 and there wasn't anything. And so I went home and I didn't go back for the rest. So if the vendors would be there at least 11. So that everybody that's there for the parade just goes in and starts. Yeah, because they're already there. Let's take advantage of it.

Timing was a lot different this year than it has been in the past.

Was it? Yeah. Yeah, because I thought I walked right through the vendors. years after the parade. I bought a plant for me. Two years ago I bought a plant. A house plant. I don't do house plants. I bought a really cool house plant.

So, yeah.

And then we had two police retires that I went to and the five that just were introduced swearing in. Those were all good. Well done by the police department. And there's always great cake at those things. So if anybody else wants to come. Great cake.

All right.

And then.

I did have a comment. Can you hear me?

Yes. Thank you.

So I went to the fitness catalog. They posted soft top. I invite you people to come and . Okay, thank you. Is that Park and District 2?

Yeah, it's really close to district two. Real close.

Yeah. Okay.

Okay. I'm seeing nothing else. We'll move on. Do we have a need for a closed session? Okay. So we just have one more motion.

Motion to adjourn.

And all in favor say aye.

Aye.

And we stand adjourned.