Hey everybody, we've got about a minute left, but I'm gonna go ahead and start the recording so our online folks can join the meeting.

Recording in progress.

Okay.

So I also heard the open.

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the Sandy City Council meeting of Tuesday, February tenth.

Um appreciate everyone being here, both in the chambers and online.

Um we will be taking public comment on agenda items seven, eight, and nine.

Um so if anyone has comments for those items, save it till then, and we'll have general citizen comment as close to six o'clock as we can, but not before.

Okay, let's start with prayer and the pledge.

Who would be willing to do Ms.

Christensen?

The prayer would be great.

Thank you for that.

Dearest Heavenly Father, we are so grateful to you be gathered together this evening to help take care of the business of Sandy City.

Please bless us all that we would be able to have a spirit and the best interests of the city at heart as we go throughout the meeting.

Uh please bless those citizens that have are in Sandy and that have come to comment and hear the meeting that they would be able to get their questions answered.

We are so grateful for all the many blessings that was bestowed upon us.

All right.

We will jump right into tonight's agenda.

And we have a special presenter tonight.

Robert Spendlev.

Madam Chair.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Do you want to do introduction to the first time?

Stay there, Robert.

That's AOK.

This will just take us a second.

Dustin, go ahead.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair.

Dustin Fraddo with the City Council office.

There are a couple other council staff members in the back of the room, Justin Sorensen and Liz Carriot.

Mr.

Cadell is in was in court today, so he let me know he'd be just a little bit late, but he'll be here so Chris Edwards with the council office.

Chris Nickel, District Three.

Marcy Housman, District Four.

Brooke Christensen, District One.

Cindy Sharkey at large.

Alison Stroud, district two.

Brooke D'Souza at large.

Aaron McKaiser at large coming to you sick from home.

I'm Mayor Monica Zeltansky.

Hope you feel better, Aaron.

Shane Pace, City Administrator.

Lynn Pace, City Attorney.

Robert Spendlib.

Robert Stella from Zion's Bank.

Senior Economist from Zion's Bank.

Thank you for doing this for us again.

I really appreciate this as we head into our own budget season and have to make planning about how to spend money.

This kind of outlook is really is always helpful to me, and I know the council appreciates it as well.

So thank you for being with us and we will let you roll with your presentation on the outlook.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair.

And I I I should point out I'm also a proud citizen of Sandy City.

Last week I started the week in St.

George and ended in Idaho Falls.

And next week I'm in Boise.

So it's great to be local.

Okay, um, so let me just run through this really quick.

Um I gave you the uh a full uh briefing.

Um and then I just want to kind of hit on a few of the high points, um, and then we can and and you know, of course, uh as always, you can stop me or slow me down if you want me to, or I'll try to uh uh uh have some time for discussion as well.

Um, just one thing to point out we've got a new economic product if you're interested.

Um this is something we used to do, and we're bringing we've just brought them back our economic snapshots.

And so if that's something you're interested in, you can just go on to Zionsbait.com slash economy, and we're gonna be up to updating those on a monthly basis.

So one of the big questions uh or one of the big kind of economic movers that we're dealing with right now is uh the change in interest rates that we've been experiencing.

Um the Federal Reserve over the last uh two years has dramatically dropped interest rates.

Uh or and you know, again, I'm just gonna stress when we talk about the Fed making changes to interest rates, they're really just directly impacting this one rate.

Um, but it's the one that uh the Fed directly controls.

This is the the Fed funds rate, and so it's the uh shortest term or the overnight interest rate.

They've dropped that uh about 175 basis points from uh 5.3% at the beginning of uh 2024 till now it's that 3.6 percent.

The big question though is where is the Fed gonna go next?

And um the Fed uh so what what I'm showing you here is it's called the Fed dot plot.

It's the Fed's forecast of where they expect to go, and they're essentially saying we're done dropping interest rates.

And so uh, you know, they say by the end of this year they might get down to 3.4%.

So that's one uh rate cut by the end of this year, and then one more rate cut in 27.

Um, but this is kind of a highly controversial forecast.

Um, and uh you can see that even among the Fed, there's there is uh a lack of consensus about where they're gonna go.

And you can really see that with on the right, um, their dots of the neutral rate.

If there was consensus among the Fed, there would be a horizontal line.

That line is almost vertical, which shows you that there's a breakdown in the understanding of the economy.

The Fed disagrees on how the economy is uh performing and on what they should do.

Now, um when we when we look at market expectation of the Fed, um they think the Fed might go a little bit further rather than going to 3.4, the Fed goes down to 3.2, so that would be two rate cuts.

However, then you notice that that uh forecast is curving up.

So that means the market thinks that the Fed either will go too far and have to re reverse, or that economic conditions will deteriorate enough that the Fed has to change course as well.

Or sorry, not maybe not deteriorate, but change that the uh economic conditions will change enough that the Fed has to reverse course.

But the point of this though is that there is uh uncertainty about where the Fed's gonna go.

Then uh uh one other area just to think about this is so we've got a new uh person has been nominated to take over the Fed Fed, Kevin Walsh.

Um Kevin Walsh uh resigned uh from the Fed over this chart over the not and not you know, not my my chart, of course, but the Fed's balance sheet.

He uh uh has criticized the Fed over their use of this tool.

Um, and uh and one of the big questions is whether the Fed is gonna kind of pull back on that balance sheet uh moving forward.

Um over the last uh four years, they have reduced that balance sheet by about uh you know over two trillion dollars.

The this is a very powerful tool.

Um, and the effect of the Fed dropping that balance sheet from 8.9 trillion down to 6.6 trillion is that is a big part of the reason why uh mortgage rates are higher.

Um it's such a big tool that it can push longer term interest rates, and so that is what what has pushed those longer term rates higher.

Um and if they continue to reduce that balance sheet, it will continue to push uh mortgage rates higher.

If they reverse that and they add to their balance sheet in significant numbers, that is, and you can see that where they did that in 2020, um, that's what pushed mortgage rates down into 3%.

Um but uh uh and this is what we're not sure which direction they're gonna go, but it's a it's a highly discussed one.

And there are those uh mortgage rates looking at that.

Um if you think about these kind of long-term distortions, how distortive uh the this trend has been, where since the 1980s, uh mortgage rates were trending down.

So really for our you know, our our entire working lives.

We were trained to expect mortgage rates to be lower tomorrow than they were yesterday.

That changed three years ago, and mortgage rates now have gone from around three to five percent till now they've been hovering between six and seven percent.

And that's really hard uh for people to adjust to.

And you know, uh we'd like well, some people would like to see those rates lower.

Um the pr I can tell you the President Trump wants to see that rate lower.

Um, but that we're walking kind of a tightrope about what is the correct rate.

If you drop that too low, we're gonna have another overheating housing market.

If you raise it too much, if we got it up to you know eight, nine percent, um, it would stall out and maybe even cause the housing market to collapse.

And so the Fed is trying to thread this needle of finding the right rate.

Um when we look at um another one of the big themes.

I I I forget when I came and spoke to you last time.

Was it before or after Liberation Day?

It was it I forget whether it was after April 1st or not.

But this has been a big trend since April 1st of last year, and it's kind of shaken up the entire world, literally shaking up the entire world.

This is looking at the average effect of tariff rate for the entire almost the entire history of our country.

Ten years ago, the tariff rate, so tariff is you know, a tax on a product coming into the United States.

That tariff rate was one percent ten years ago.

At the beginning of last year, it was three percent, it's now 17%.

So a major, major change in tax policy and trade policy that continues to cause uh distortions and has caused big distortions over the last year.

Um but uh one of the things it does do though is it generates a lot of revenue.

So this is looking at federal revenue generated by uh by uh customs duties.

Uh a couple years ago it was about five billion dollars a month, it's now 30 billion dollars a month.

So it is generating a lot of federal revenue.

Um the question though is does it cause inflation?

And I'll just tell you, no one knows.

You've heard answers, you've heard predictions that it would, and you've heard probably heard people saying that it is causing inflation.

This chart says to me that it is not conclusive.

When you know, when we talk about a big spike in inflation, what we're talking about is what we saw in 21 and 22, where inflation topped out at 9%.

Right now we're higher than we want to be, but it's about 2.7%, right?

So uh we're not seeing now.

By the way, we'll be getting new uh new data on Friday.

So this is what the markets are gonna be watching to see if this reverses and we start seeing that inflation going up.

One of the theories is that it's just taking longer uh for the tariffs to impact inflation.

Um other theories say that maybe businesses are eating it.

Um, and we're it's too soon to tell.

We just don't know for sure exactly what that impact is going to be.

You can see that on specific items.

You see that, you know, in here coffee, beef, bananas, we are seeing some of those impacts, but not across the board.

Um electricity, we are seeing big increases in electricity prices.

Um, but that is not caused by tariffs.

Um, but it is going to be one, and it's been one of those big themes of uh inflationary pressure.

Um especially or specifically with Utah, we're seeing uh electricity prices going up even higher than other parts of the country.

Um but when you strip out goods and just look at services, you see that the inflation is even higher.

So services are not impacted by tariffs, but when we uh look at that service sector inflation, um, instead of being 2% where the Fed wants it to be, it's at 3.6%.

Um I don't think there's a clear sign of the tariffs causing inflation, but you can see a sign of that weakness on the other side in employment.

So this would be consistent with businesses eating the cost of the tariffs, but then having to pull back on their hiring decisions.

Um and I've highlighted that area um uh since the tariffs were imposed and kind of the weakness in the labor market.

By the way, we'll be getting new data on this in the morning.

So the markets are really this is like a big week for economic day.

We get new jobs report tomorrow and new inflation report on Friday.

Uh unemployment is has been trending up, but it's not spiking, so that's a good sign.

We are seeing a lot of layoffs nationwide, a million layoffs last year, but we're not seeing a big increase in unemployment insurance claims.

Um so you know, uh generally, if if someone loses their job, they'll go file a uh a claim for unemployment insurance benefits.

And we're not seeing that move up, so we're not seeing clear signs of distress in the labor market yet.

Um but it's something that we're uh watching.

A re a possible reason for that, uh, and you know, these are just these big historic distortions, the impact of artificial intelligence.

It's moving faster than uh than we anticipated.

Uh this is look this brand new research looking at the impact on the left of software developers on the right, customer service reps, and it's looking at uh employee headcount by age.

Um so it's really being felt in those younger workers where they don't have those soft skills to essentially compete with artificial intelligence.

Uh but this is gonna be um in fact, just in the last couple weeks, uh the stock market has seen a lot of jitters about this dynamic.

Um, our consumer sentiment is down.

Um it it's starting to trend up a little bit.

In the last three months, we've started to see consumer sentiment moving up, but it's still lower than it was pre-pandemic.

Uh and you know, you hear this when I'm out talking to groups, I hear this from people.

Um, but even though consumer sentiment is down, and by the way, this is one we just got new data on this today.

Uh retail sales, they were up in November.

In December, they were flat.

Um, so we're not seeing a clear deterioration in retail sales.

Um it it would it would be one of that indications that the that the economy is clearly weakening.

Um, and this is a big one for you know, especially you at the city level.

Um it's soft, but it's not uh in free fall yet.

Um if you look at GDP, GDP is up.

So our broadest measure of the economy accelerated in the second quarter and in the third quarter.

Um, but when you start to dig in to the consumer and start to dig into what's happening under the surface, we see kind of this distress.

Uh, we call this a K-shaped uh economy where there's distress when you break out consumers by income where the upper income continue to have excess uh spending capacity, um consumer sentiment is higher, but we're seeing distress in the lower income.

Now you can see this with the prime versus subprime uh uh auto or car payments where we're seeing that distress popping up.

At the national level, I think another one of the themes that we may see is the national debt.

Uh looking at the the nation's debt to income ratio.

This is now just servicing this debt is the second largest item in the federal budget, and it's crowding out other priorities.

Um, and then you add on top of that, what are the impacts of the one big beautiful bill?

We'll be seeing a lot of that this year.

And what this what I love this chart because what it says is yes, there are benefits.

It grows GDP by 1%, it creates a million jobs, but it also adds to the national debt to the tune of four trillion dollars.

So uh it's it is truly a mixed bag.

And if you make it permanent, it takes that debt to GDP ratio from 100% to 130%.

And what's that breaking point for the country when we run into a debt crisis?

But if you keep the tariffs in place, then they generate enough revenue to pay for the one big beautiful bill and lower the uh the national debt.

And so that's why I think you're gonna see the Trump administration really strongly defending uh the tariffs in uh in 2026.

Okay, looking at our uh our local region, we continue to see this is brand new data.

Um Utah, we're not number one in the country in population growth, but we're top five.

Um, and our growth rate uh is still about twice as fast as the nation.

Where we are seeing that change though, uh our natural increase went up a little bit, so that's burst minus deaths, but our net migration um is slowing.

It's not dropping, but it is slowing.

It was over 30,000 a couple years ago, now it's down to about 20,000.

Um within the state, we continue to see uh uh you know big growth uh in kind of the greater Wasatch along the I-15 corridor and then the southwestern portion of the state while we have relatively low growth or even some contraction in uh many of the rural parts of the state.

Uh our employment growth also very strong, growing twice the or uh twice the national average in in our employment.

However, that growth rate is slowing, so we're still positive, but both Utah and the nation are seeing that employment growth slowing, and it's something I'll be watching in 26.

Um, our industries, our biggest growth is so you have to be careful about information.

Information is a tiny sector.

So let's let's jump to the actual numbers.

Our biggest growth in actual jobs, 7500 in health care, uh, followed by professional and business services, government, um, and then financial activities, information and construction.

We are seeing that contraction though in manufacturing and in uh this is really wholesale and retail trade.

So we're starting to see some of those impacts in those good producing uh economic driving industries.

Um our unemployment rate is lower than the national average, so we're in a good spot there.

Um we're really in kind of the sweet spot for unemployment.

But similar to that group slowing of the employment growth, our unemployment rate is trending up.

Um, and and it's again something I'm gonna be watching to see if it uh continues to move up even more.

Um that's just looking at unemployment by county um and then looking at our state specifically.

You can kind of see that urban rural dynamic too.

One of the things you need to be careful about is uh anytime you do small area um data like this, you get a lot of seasonality.

So this is for November.

So what you're seeing is you know, November, um, which is why you have really high unemployment in, say, like Grand County.

Um but then uh you know, in in Salt Lake County, much closer to the the state average.

Back to those unemployment insurance claims.

We're also not seeing any signs of distress there.

Um, this is great because it's weekly data.

So if we started to see that, we would see it pretty quickly.

So but uh it's something I'll be watching.

You can again kind of see that seasonality.

That's what explains those spikes.

Um it's uh we're just not able to seasonally adjust this data at this level.

Um our biggest struggle, of course, is affordability.

Um, home prices are much higher in Utah than they were than they are at the national level.

We're starting to see uh slowdown in that home price appreciation, which is good, right?

We had too big of an increase a few years ago, and then we kind of saw a contraction.

Now we're hovering right around zero.

Um, depending on which data you look at, we're either slightly positive or slightly negative, while several states are seeing uh contractions in their home prices.

Um our home price appreciation is right around that zero level.

Um let me just jump by our wage growth is strong.

This is what you would expect to see in this first strong economy is wage growth above the national average, and our median household income is one of the highest in the country.

So we're our economy is well positioned.

Um I just want to end with this one.

This is looking this is from Moody's Analytics, um, one of the the top economic uh uh organizations in the country.

And uh in this, uh, if you can't read it, the purple states they say are continuing their economies are continuing to expand.

Gray are treading water, orange are contracting.

So Utah's okay, right?

We're still in the uh in a good spot, but we are surrounded by weakness in in our region, in the country, and you and we're feeling it, right?

Even though we're still expanding, it doesn't feel like it did in the past.

We went from going 60 miles an hour to now we're going 20.

Um and you can feel like that deceleration.

So that's real.

And uh while we're we are well positioned, um, there is a lot of weakness uh around the country.

Um I'm gonna continue to be watching that consumer sentiment, that consumer spending.

That was today's data.

Tomorrow's data is the labor market.

I think we continue to slow.

The question is whether we start to contract, um, and then that inflation, whether it uh starts to re-accelerate.

Um, with that, I'm uh open to any questions.

I think you've done a really good job of telling us where we are.

Although on your first slide, it does say economic outlook.

So where are we going, Robert?

That's the question.

Well, I'll tell you the easy answer is no one knows, and I no one ever knows, but right now the economic fog is really thick.

It's really tough.

Um I think we are continuing to slow.

I have been surprised by the strength.

The strength in the economy continues to kind of throw everyone off.

Um I was down, I won't say who, I was down in another city about a uh a month ago, and that city came to me and said, we don't know how, but our revenues are up.

And it's actually making them nervous.

They're like, we should be contracting, and we're not.

So that's kind of the struggle is everyone feels like we're slowing down, but the economy continues to be doing well, and I think a big part of that is that uh bifurcation of the consumer.

So the overall retail sales are still up because the higher income continue to spend, but then we're feeling a lot of pain and pressure from the lower income.

I have two questions, Robert.

Thank you.

Very thorough, as always.

Um I just have one question.

You have the uh Americans are falling behind on their car payments.

Do you have numbers for credit card debt and housing debt?

Oh no, okay, so not specific, and you know, this it's inevitable.

The slide that I pulled was the one you're asking about.

Um the reason I included that one is so if you remember back in the the great recession of 08 and 09, it was the subprime mortgage uh crisis that caused the recession.

So it's not that what I showed you is subprime auto debt.

So it's not as big, right?

And it it's not a sign that the economy is about to collapse.

But so it's not as bad.

The housing debt is not as bad.

We're not seeing, we are seeing some signs of distress where we see it.

We're seeing uh the the personal savings rate is dropping, the uh minimum credit card payments are trending up, and uh people are getting more delinquent on their loans.

But if I just imagine a chart where it's going up, but it's nowhere near where it was in 05 and 06.

Awesome, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Um added thanks to you as well.

So grateful um for this every time you visit.

Um so I went to the Silicon Slope Summit last week.

Really interesting panels, amazing conversations.

Um, and what you just described was echoed in a few of my notes, and I just I wanted to like correlate those just a bit.

Check your check where you where you were echoing this.

Um, so they they emphasize one of the panels in particular that you reminded me of, um, they emphasized that the macro environment environment is strong.

That's that's what you're indicating as well.

The overall um economy is strong, it's solid.

Now, one thing they said and said it several different ways, and I didn't necessarily hear it from you, but you probably said it just in a different way.

But they said that optimism is returning.

Um is that what you're feeling as well?

Yeah, that's what we saw with that consumer confidence of those of the last three months going up is some sign of that.

And that was so Friday, uh, we got the new University of Michigan number.

That's the number that I showed you, and it was surprisingly strong.

Excuse me, it was surprisingly strong, which is why um stock market hit an all-time high, you know, uh Dow topped 50,000.

So it depends on your measure, right?

If your measure is the stock market, we're doing great.

I mean, I can just show you the chart going up.

Um, but it is, you know, if that measure is employment, it's a little bit weaker.

If the you know, if the measure is debt, you know, there's some signs of distress.

Yeah.

Um, thank you for that.

Uh the other thing they really talked a great deal about is entrepreneurs, obviously, silicon slopes, tech, and entrepreneurs.

Um, but they indicated that entrepreneurs now have more leverage.

Um, but they cautioned, you know, those who are launching small businesses, entrepreneurs, etc., to to use it wisely.

Um, they said it's a good economy for entrepreneurs, um, but that people want motivated capital.

So those who are looking to invest are are being a little more cautious, but it is still a strong market for entrepreneurs.

Is that reflected, I guess, in some of what you were sharing as well?

I yes, you can see that with um access to capital is still pretty strong.

So uh, you know, after the or because of the pandemic, uh, we saw the money supply.

So this is the total supply of money in the economy went up by about six trillion dollars.

So we injected six trillion dollars into the economy.

That money is still there.

Well, it's mostly there.

We've erased probably two trillion of that, but there's still an excess of four trillion dollars flowing around.

Um, and that money is kind of it was everywhere.

If you think about those stimulus checks, um actually lower income we're we're driving the economy coming out of the the pandemic, and now that money is kind of if you think about it like a water flow, it's flowed away from the low income and it's flowed into the higher income and into like those venture capitals and you know those uh possible investment uh mechanisms, and so that's what you're seeing with entrepreneurs.

Um interest rates aren't as good as they were, and so that's uh you know, less uh beneficial, but then there is a lot of access to that that capital.

Now, I'm gonna give you a little caution since I work for a bank.

A lot of that is outside of the traditional banking system, um, that that private capital, and it um I can tell you that there are people that are concerned that about that being a potential for some risk.

But it's it's an unknown risk at this point, but it's one of the areas.

Like Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan has talked about this, and he said that he's nervous about it.

I I think it's such a such a good conversation to have.

Like you've identified at all levels, and then of course you're bringing this to us, and we're thinking local, and we're thinking small businesses in Sandy, and we're thinking entrepreneurs who are hoping to launch something in Sandy, and and so I just I appreciate sort of correlating that a little bit, hearing your your perspective on that.

Can I give you one other really quick?

Business formation.

I mean, this is why America is great.

Yes.

Business formation.

I've got a graph on this one too.

I got half a million graphs.

Business formation after the pandemic skyrocketed, went up.

Like when we got hit with this, you know, situation, we took on more risk.

And in the last year, it's it's been trending up.

So that's what's really cool is entrepreneurs continue to be taking big risks.

Yeah.

And that's what makes our country great.

And especially, I mean, that's what the whole theme of Silicon Slopes was it's it's the 10-year anniversary, we are going to disrupt the playbook for entrepreneurs and make it possible.

Anyone who wants to be can be in Utah.

And it was just a very optimistic um outlook.

And yet I want to, you know, check that out look against what you're sharing.

The dismal scientist.

No, no, no.

Those are your words, not mine.

Oh no, no, no, no.

Come on, economists are the dismal scientists.

We always find we need counterbalance, we need we need full information.

But thank you for that.

I just sort of wanted to check some key takeaways I had from the summit and with what you're sharing, and then my final question really would be what similar to what uh Councilman Sharkey said is you know, you're it's hard to say, totally get that.

But what you mentioned what you're gonna keep your eyes on.

As a city council, what do you feel and administration, like as a city, what do you feel we need to keep our eyes on?

I think it's important to acknowledge the change.

Like, you know, uh the governments had so much excess revenue for the past five years.

Um, and you know, it it was actually hard to budget with all this, you know, this crazy money everywhere, and now it's gone, and it is like it's not coming back.

And so this this is why it feels so painful.

Um, it feels like you know, like we're in I would, you know, depending on your perspective, right?

But you know, when you go from expanding so much to have to having to kind of pull back on budgets, it's really tough.

And but at least right now, we're not actually contracting.

We're slowing down dramatically, um, and but we're still expanding.

Um, and that's true both at the you know the state level and the national level.

Um, but it it is possible.

I'll tell you, it's no one's base case that we're gonna go into recession.

No, I mean, you know, uh uh like consensus.

So no one's predicting that, but you know, after having so many years of so much strength, um, it's gonna be a tough year.

Thank you.

That's all I had, Madam Chair.

I have a question for you.

That 30 billion dollars in federal revenue from tariffs.

Where's that money going?

Right well, I'll tell you right.

Is it going to fund the tax cuts?

So right now they are using it to pay down the national debt.

Um, but okay, so the national debt is you know 40 trillion dollars, which is a remember, uh uh a trillion dollars is a thousand billion dollars.

I mean, these are just crazy money.

So, yeah, you know, I I think they paid down a couple billion dollars in the national debt.

Um but a lot of this depends on what they actually do use it for.

Um I'll give you my opinion.

My opinion is they should not be re-injecting that money, that revenue back into the economy, because I think that would actually cause our economy to overheat.

That's what we saw, just so you know, that's what we saw in 21 and 22.

It was that huge injection of too much money into the economy that caused it to overheat and cause that sky-high inflation, and it would I would recommend against a repeat of that.

Uh, you know, there's I've heard discussion of sending home $2,000 checks to everyone.

So number one, that would cause the debt to go up even more, and number two, would cause the economy to overheat.

So let's hope that doesn't happen.

But is that a potential fix if businesses are absorbing tariff costs?

And if they decide they can't do that anymore, and so the costs, the increased costs are passed along to the consumer.

Is that the potential fix that this that the government will offer?

Is here's some more money to help offset the in the increased costs of goods?

So it could, but I would argue that it would make things worse, not better.

They would feel good and make the situation worse.

So this fog, this uncertainty that you're talking about, and looking at your slides, which look out to about 2028.

Do you figure that this condition could last th through 20 December of 2028?

Or do you think there are factors that are foggy now that will become much more apparent in the months to come?

There are a lot of unknowns.

Um so what the biggest one, I think the biggest one right now is AI.

What is the actual impact of AI?

And is it going to is it gonna be a little glitch, or is it gonna be revolutionary?

So I think no matter what, it's like the dot-com revolution, right?

And so, and and I think there's clear consensus that we're in a bubble, so there's an AI bubble.

We just don't know what stage of the bubble we're in.

Are we in 1996?

So it popped in 2000.

Are we in 96 or are we in like March of 2000 right now?

We don't know.

Um, and then the impact to employment, does it wipe out entire industries?

Does it wipe out entire groups of people, or does it just make us more productive?

And we just don't know.

Um, you know, I guess it depends on your your view of the world, but it is gonna be it it's so big that we really don't understand it.

Um, and then you kind of compare that to immigration, where we have we've had some huge changes to immigration.

Um and that has changed our access to uh labor.

Um, and so it's also shielded some of the labor impact.

So if you think about it, these are all different inputs into the labor market.

Um, and we we've got labor, so this it's really unique situation right now where we've got a combination at the same time of weakening labor demand and weakening labor supply.

You usually only have one or the other, and then you add into that uh a potential uh skyrocketing uh uh weakening labor demand from AI, and that you know can cause a lot of uncertainty in the economy.

Um that's probably the the biggest source of uncertainty.

Um, and then the question of so I'll give you a really nerdy economic term, um, elasticity of demand.

Um, so can so remember a tariff is imposed on the entity that imports the good into the country.

Can they pass that price that cost increase down to the retailer?

And can the retailer pass it down to the consumer?

Or will the consumer refuse to pay it?

Right, by the way, right now they're refusing.

And what you're seeing is you're seeing this trading down, and so well, it's it's it's trading up and down.

So people are either going to they're either shopping at Nordstrom or at Walmart, and Target's getting squeezed.

Or, you know, they're either going to Capitol Grill for dinner or they're going to McDonald's and Chipotle is getting squeezed.

And we're just seeing this, you know, this change in consumer behavior that's making it really hard to understand what the impact of the tariffs are.

Oh, and by the way, there's another possibility is that it's getting pushed up the supply chain to the producer in another country.

And that's certainly possible as well.

But we've never had, you know, in economics, we're always looking at past examples.

We I don't think we ever have had this scenario.

So we just don't know.

You know, I was gonna ask you that question because often you and others will say that the biggest driver to the economy is consumer confidence.

Well, we have this set of conditions that haven't existed before.

The consumer is making adjustments.

Does that mean they're adapting and that consumer confidence maybe isn't the most important factor like it used to be?

Um I was wondering too, price changes by category.

Do product sales do product sales relate to price changes?

What so you just said that in terms of eating out.

Maybe they'll make the adjustment that way, but if eggs go up in price, do they still buy as many eggs, or do they stop buying eggs?

Or these other these other things, furniture.

Do they stop buying furniture?

Is there a threshold?

Or is that not is that not a factor that we can analyze in the same way that we used to?

Yeah, great question.

So people still have to eat, right?

And you still have to live, but maybe the way you eat changes, and a lot of it depends on if it on whether there are substitutes.

Like, you know, there's not an easy substitute for bananas or or coffee or beef, right?

And so you see those, um, and a lot of those are produced outside of the country, or at least um, you know, a lot of it is sourced.

Um, but you know, can you trade down?

Well, and I I was actually just reading uh an analysis about this.

People are trading down from beef to chicken, or you know, you're you're seeing a lot more pasta.

People are buying kind of these alternatives.

Um, and uh, you know, and where where you're gonna run into trouble is this is on kind of the the micro level, is those you know, companies that can absorb those.

McDonald's can absorb it, right?

They they have the pricing power to be able to absorb this, and you know, the high-end uh uh restaurants uh can increase their prices to make up for it.

It's that food truck, that food truck that really doesn't dictate their prices, but their beef prices have gone up, so now they have to charge 20 bucks for a burger, and then you know, you go to like a hotel and you're paying 25 bucks, and you're like, well, maybe I'll just not go to food trucks anymore.

And that's where you start to see those those impacts where uh it and it is those you know, small mom and pop that don't have pricing power that can start to get squeezed out.

Um, but you know, we're not seeing it yet, but that is kind of that that risk that we could see as things start to you know get squeezed.

All right, any other questions, council.

Thank you so much for coming tonight.

We appreciate it.

Every time you come and visit us, we appreciate that.

Thanks for having me, and I have great memories of this room.

Good thanks.

All right, I would say that we are close enough that instead of going to our next agenda item, let's just go to our public comment period.

So this is general citizen comment.

This is where we'll take comments on things other than items that are on the agenda.

Um, and I do have a couple of cards for gener.

Oh, got some more.

Okay.

Let's start here.

Um, Donna, are you gonna speak during general citizen com okay?

Donna Bryant.

Is this close enough?

That's really okay.

I would like to thank you tonight for listening to me.

Last week I watched the city council's budget workshop.

It was amazing.

All the ideas you had, all the thoughts.

I was impressed at what you were looking at and the volume and how you have to combine that into a budget.

From what I kind listen, I gathered, correct me, please if I'm wrong.

Number one is safety for the residents.

And then the next one was transparency, says you can make sure everyone knows what you're doing and what you're thinking.

And that each district knows that you care.

And the last thing was financial responsibility.

So I'm hoping I read that correctly.

Now, my only question tonight is are you listening to the 60% that will voted for Monica to be our mayor?

Are you?

I don't know.

I can't tell.

I would appreciate that to be considered when you pass budgets, make ideas, work together, communicate.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Next speaker is Jocelyn Chu.

Is it Jocelyn?

Jacqueline.

Jacqueline.

Sorry about that.

Hi.

This is my first time ever going to one of these.

But I just had a question because there's a canal that's nearby our residence.

It's kind of it's called on Google, it says East Jordan Canal.

It's by Hillcrest High School and also Seventh East.

And I've noticed that they have been taking down a lot of the trees.

A lot of them has just been derooted and cut down, and they seem to be building a park trail.

And I was just inquiring about the reason for why they were being taken down later.

Ill or something, and if they're going to be replanted as well, especially since Sandy's known as a Arbor uh city.

And so I just had questions about that.

That is wonderful for you to come.

Is there anyone here that okay?

So Jacqueline's um Ryan will meet you out in the hallway and explain to you.

Okay.

And thank you for coming and asking the question.

Hopefully you get your answer.

Okay, thanks.

All right, Mark.

Mark Mason Taylor.

Okay.

So I just have so I just have uh kind of three comments to make.

The first one is um the American Moral Society wanted to thank you for um allowing the vintage roses, those rare, almost extinct roses to be planted in the Sandy City Cemetery.

I've already spoken at one Rose Convention and it was incredibly well received, and I'm going to be speaking at another Rose Convention here in a couple weeks.

So the word is getting out at Sandy City.

Um the second thing is um Councilman Robinson, when I was put in on the Historic Sandy Committee asked me how I could bring my experience as an artificial intelligence data scientist and a former market researcher to you.

And so in the past few weeks, I have seen a couple things creep up just in housing conversations, and I thought that um this would um kind of be helpful.

Um the first thing is I hyper fixated on the planning data that we have, and I found out that people can't tell the difference between high rise and high density.

So a lot of times you'll get comments saying high rise, I don't like high rise, and then say I also I don't like high density.

They can't tell the difference.

So when you actually drill down and ask them, it's um like town homes they don't think are high density.

So what they really mean to say is um keep the housing not above three stories.

So I thought that nuance in the data was really important to bring out.

The second thing is um I want you to kind of push back on the state for the housing needs.

Right now, the message from the state is build bubbl the build.

And when I pull in the satellite data and compare it to other cities, we just don't have the same potential to grow in terms of housing.

And so instead of saying build the build, the idea of build wisely is a better idea.

So for example, um, Councilwoman DeSuiza, you mentioned senior housing or something like that, focusing on specialty housing rather than just on the full numbers is one of the big things.

Also, um I attached the Kemsey Gardner Population Institute here.

One thing that's interesting is they're predicting this huge baby boom.

And I called one of my friends at the US Census, and he said, even for the state of Utah, this is really weird.

This is kind of with Gen Alpha that they're already predicting that baby boom.

So it likely the hard part with forecasting is the further out you get, the more wrong you're going to be.

So looking at that lump, that's very um important to take into consideration.

And more importantly, we have seen um Kim C.

Gardner pull back a little on their estimates just within the last couple of weeks.

That's my time, and thank you.

And if there's an extra rose, I shane, you can have it because you're pretty.

Thank you, Mark.

William Judd.

Be sure you don't want the numbers.

I don't know what to say.

Well, we got a few people here today.

Um we live in the uh Newcastle area off in Newcastle Drive and Sunridge Drive and that whole neighborhood.

And uh we got a few people here that want to talk to you about the fence.

The fence there is getting, it's been there for 30 years, and it's really decrepit, falling down.

The paint's you know, done.

We've painted it as a neighborhood several times.

And uh, you know, it's a major road, it's noisy.

We were hoping that we could get some sound, a new fence with like a long 13th, where they have that uh rock fence, or whatever it is, I'm not sure, but it looks like a cement fence.

Anyway, I think that's what we're all here for today.

Is that we we really think that fence needs to be replaced?

I, for one, um about 15 years ago.

I live on Sunridge in Newcastle, and the road comes like this, and a car came through and hit that fence, went through the neighbor's fence, turned, and ended up in my backyard.

Three fences.

So it's a safety problem, also.

And uh the appearance is bad.

It's one of the neighborhoods that's a premium neighborhood in this uh community.

All the houses are really nice, and they keep it up, and so you look at that fence and you think we're kind of in a ghetto.

So that's what I'm here for is uh want to promote you spending some money on improving that fence.

Can anyone handle that one?

Seems to me we're building a fund for that, but I maybe someone in here knows.

If not, William, we'll definitely get back to you on that.

Okay.

Yeah, we're aware of the parks.

Yeah, yeah.

We're looking at ways for the uh make that a priority as a priority.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

All right, Steve Tierlink.

Hi there.

Hi.

Thanks for letting us uh come and share a few thoughts.

So um, here for the Newcastle fence, also.

In fact, who's all here for it?

Quite a few.

We are huge fans of Sandy, and let me just tell you how happy we are at how well the city is kept.

Very impressed.

We've lived here for 40 years.

We built one of the first houses in that Newcastle area in the summer meadow area, and um the how the fence was beautiful, but not even three months into living there, a car crashed through the fence just behind us.

So we had a lot of cars crashed through there, but it was beautiful.

In 2008, um, the fence was getting pretty old, it was 23 years old.

I got a hold of Charlie, everybody knows Charlie and Dan, great people, and I said, and and the person who initiated this is Nila, right there.

Nyla said we need to fix this fence, and let's see if we can help.

So we volunteered lots of people.

You guys provided all the resources.

We fixed up the fence, we stained it.

It took us two Saturdays with probably 150 people.

We love Sandy, and you do a great job of helping us keep up uh beautiful.

So now fast forward to that was in 2008.

Now we fast forward to 18 months ago.

I got a hold of Charlie and Dan, and I said, fence is looking pretty awful.

And it's really patchy, there's areas where it's been fixed, but it's different colors.

I mean, like uh was said it's looking a little good on.

So I got a hold of Dan and Charlie, and they said, we're gonna see if we can propose that for uh 2025.

So last year in 2025, that budget was proposed.

Obviously, there were some greater priorities at the time, and so that wasn't approved.

What we really hope is that if we can't get all of it going right now, that we can maybe do this in stages.

We're here, we have hundreds of people, hundreds who would come help tear it down, haul it away.

We're here to do anything we can to help you.

There are people here who will even tell you that they're willing to help pay for it, as I would too.

Okay, there are many of us who want to help with this.

So we hope that we can get this going.

If you can't do the whole thing right now, we hope that you can maybe propose something in stages, but we don't want to wait three or four years to get things going if that's possible.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Who will help pay for it?

That's awesome.

Thank you so much.

I'm so glad you guys are here tonight.

I I live near you and Nyla.

It's good to see you.

And uh thank you for good time to be asking these questions too as we're putting our budget together.

Braden Miller.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

Believe it or not, I am also here uh to talk about the fence.

Uh I currently live with my mother, uh Nila, and we live just on that road that's uh on 8600 South.

Well, I guess it's it's close to Newcastle, it kind of turns into Highland Drive, but Sunridge Drive lived really close to William.

Um I will correct William, and it's not 30 years old, it's about a 40 uh plus year old fence.

Um I did some chat GPTing as you know one does, and an average fence should last anywhere for between 20 and 30 years.

So it's about time that we we need to take care of it.

Um, you know, we as kind of Steve was mentioning, we would love to help, but this is kind of out of our hands, right?

So it's something that we can't really help in the neighborhood.

Um, you know, if it requires manual labor or something like that, we'd love to pitch in.

Um, you know, right now, all along the fence line, there's neighbors that have kind of makeshift repairs, so there's just two by fours that are not the same color, you know, barely holding the fence on together.

Um, you know, there's a lot of people that walk up and down the street, in particular, in particular, there's a man named Jim Perry who constantly takes care of our community.

Um, up and down the street every day, raking leaves, taking care of debris that's just along the side.

It's something that he just loves to do and get out and gets out and does that on 8600 South fairly frequently, I would almost say daily.

Um I do think safety is a concern here.

I I've been in my home, we're right along that road when there was a car that has hit a tree and it has completely like shook the whole house.

Um, if the tree was not there, it would have definitely ended up in our in our house.

Um, so I do think safety is uh is a primary concern.

Um for whatever reason people are either not paying attention or something, and that road turns right then just to get up to Highland Drive, and anyways, they they've definitely taken out large portions of the fence.

Um not only that, is the fence does kind of fall down occasionally these days when the wind gets really strong.

So we we have had whole sections of the fence just fall onto the the sidewalk or into our neighbors' backyards, and again, we do our best to kind of make shift and repair this thing, but it's just to the point where we need to fix it.

So that's my case for a new fence.

I hope there's funds from what Steve's talking about, but appreciate it.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

All right, Matt Herbert.

Hello.

Uh I live right on the corner of Newcastle and Highland.

My backyard is the sound wall.

Highland drive in Newcastle.

Uh I've lived in that neighborhood for that house for over about 30 years now.

And before that, I moved into another little house in Sandy just east of there before Newcastle was even there.

Uh I watched those neighborhoods be built and I watched the fences go up.

And I was always wondering why they didn't put sound walls all the way up and down Newcastle.

But when I moved in, it wasn't as busy as it is the last 15 years have just exploded out here.

And I've seen many, many near misses in my own backyard.

And they put trees up in the in the easements on the road, and you'll notice that trees are gone.

They're not there because cars get them and they pull them out, plant a new one.

They just got tired of planting them.

And so there's not a tree there to block my yard anymore.

And I can only echo what everyone else has said about the aesthetics of the fence.

It is, it looks like a patchwork, different color, different wood.

It doesn't look the same all the way up and down.

It is it does need help drastically.

As far as the safety goes, I've seen cars on Newcastle and Highland hit the sound wall, and it stops the cars.

I was the I I would not let my children when they were young sleep in the backyard for that very reason because I was afraid a car was going to go through the fence.

When you turn that corner, if you go too fast, you hit a little snow, it goes in.

I had a near miss where a car went through my neighbor's fence and barely missed her deck.

It took about a month just to get the fence put back up.

If you if you'll notice there, there were kind of like an orange mesh stuff they put up just to keep people out.

But it it is it is kind of a MS.

I I you you can't help but miss it going up and down Newcastle.

So my points are the aesthetics of the fence and the safety of the fence.

I've seen cars go through areas where that fence is and almost hit houses.

I think in the last 10 years I've seen five up and down there.

So I really do I really would like Sandy City to put up the sound walls up on there for those very reasons.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm here on the same topic.

Um my thoughts and things I wanted to mention this uh started a little bit with uh maintenance.

So the you know, the fence as people talked about has has had some issues.

We've got some of the kind of the large posts, so it's a combination of large A by eight posts and then brick every three panels.

Um, and it's it's kind of gotten to the point that the posts are often rotted away at the bottom.

So you know uh there's this kind of borders into a safety thing.

So if you walk along, right?

This is a you know a road that leads down to a parking school, and you walk along and you push, and you can have the fence just it kind of swings around.

Um I mean I I've been able to in my yard, for example, go and you know, kid they they make you know big metal ground posts you can drive in along these to anchor them into the side, shore them up.

So the ones that had rotted off in the ground, we've been able to shore up, but I think that's might be beyond the capabilities of you know a lot of people, you know, who consider routine maintenance for things like this.

Um, and along those lines, it's also the you know the horizontal, the rails in here.

Uh, in addition to the posts have often rotted out enough that it's it's it's not trivial just to brace them anymore.

So maintaining these has become harder as the wood is uh become more degraded.

Um yeah, and like for for me, the safety there is you know, a lot of people mention the car, but for me, the safety is almost more practically like we've seen sections fall over onto the sidewalk.

Um you can just kind of push on them, and they like I said, and they they sway.

So I think it is a safety issue for them, you know, above and beyond cars, just kind of for people who routinely walking along, you bump into something not expecting a fence to kind of fall on them.

Um and I guess the last thing, and this one's been mentioned, so this is not new as well, but it's it's a pretty highly trafficked road, and I think the cars go they go quite fast along it, so it get it does get to be pretty noisy as well.

And this is a combination of kind of the age of the fence.

I think letting some of this through, but the road noise is an issue there.

But I think the maintenance and the safety are the things I wanted to highlight.

Thank you.

All right, David McMillan.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you for your service to our community.

I'm famous because I live at Richard Road and Newcastle, so that's the street that goes down to the school.

We have the Wizard of Oz shed at our at our location.

A car went through, hit our shed, and it ended up propped up, so it was crooked, like the Wizard of Oz house, right?

Uh people still remember that event.

We've had cars through our yard a couple of times.

Besides all the other things, I think for me, because we're on the corner, Richard Road, a safety issue for our children.

Uh, that's the crossing walk.

A lot of children through that area.

Uh, so they're walking along that fence and the issues that are there, worried about our house as well, because it has the same kind of issues uh just as far as the quality of the fence.

So I would just add that to the criteria to consider.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mark Brown.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Uh I walk Newcastle quite regularly.

I walked it last Tuesday, and being a retired builder, I thought I'm gonna start counting locations in that fence that need to be repaired right now.

Uh, many of which are life safety issues for pedestrians along the east side and the west side of that road.

Uh I found 119 locations of six by six posts leaning either inward outward, braced by homeowners, uh, braced on the outside by two by fours.

There are bottom two by six rails that extend out into the sidewalk, talk about a tripping hazard, and I would think the city would really be concerned about life safety for the pedestrians along that road.

Um, as a retired builder, I also always analyze life cycle cost, and when I think of the maintenance that has been done of that fence for traffic accidents, just wear and tear, getting old, uh, and four different stain colors right now, bare wood right now, that the ongoing cost that the uh parks and rec would have to do on that fence would make me sit back and say there's got to be a better way, and so uh I just appreciate the consideration to do a sound wall.

I do back on that road too, so I have a personal interest.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Vernon Liu.

Are you guys tired of us talking about the fence now?

No.

Are you recording all our comment?

Yes, good yes.

Well, thank you for allowing us to uh speak up our concern, our neighborhood.

Uh I live in Sandy here for more than 35 years.

My house was built here, and uh all my children grew up here, and we love this neighborhood.

My house is on the corner, the backyard is up butting the new castle, and a lot of traffic going on, and uh I already planned ahead in case the car would crash into my backyard.

We planned trees along the side of the fence, and also I view a rocky trayo on the west side, sloping up to prevent any crash, but it did happen, and uh one time uh a car crashed through the fence and dragged along about 100 feet in my backyard and finally come to a stop about 10-15 feet before hitting my house, and that's the first time broke all the trees, some of the trees, and then a second town, it's the same thing, and it crashed through the uh fence in the middle of the night, two in the morning, and this time the cart did not get out my backyard because the rocky trail appeared the car was uh raised up at the tide, no traction on the ground.

They have to call it their friends that come in to help them lift up the car to push out my backyard.

So we can do any possible to help the safety of the neighborhood.

It's a good place to live.

I'm not gonna move.

I'm too old to move.

So uh for future generations, the safety of the community, please help us.

Also, every time when the fence was crashed, we try to fix ourselves.

They said a sandy city, we'll fix it.

I assume the Sandy City's property, and but it takes about a month or so to fix it.

So it could be a problem, will be a problem continue on.

I hope you guys will uh help us to solve this problem.

Thanks.

Thank you.

That's all the blue cards that I have in the room.

Um, Dustin, if you want to tell anyone online how they can participate in this general citizen comment period if they'd like to.

Of course, thank you, madam chair.

Uh, if you're joining us virtually via Zoom this evening and you'd like to comment on any city business, uh, now's the time.

Go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen, and I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

Madam Chair, first up is Jeffrey Haber.

Jeffrey, I'm gonna allow you to begin speaking.

Please remember to unmute yourself, and you'll have three minutes.

We're not able to hear you, Jeffrey.

I can speak down here.

Oh, there we go.

We can hear you.

He just looks like he just muted himself.

I'm going to send you a request to unmute.

Okay, how's that?

Can you hear me now?

Speak up.

We can hear you.

Speak up loudly.

All right, I'll try to talk as loud as I can.

Perfect.

Our house backs up to Newcastle.

Probably we have one of the wider exposures to the fence.

We have tried to repair it numerous times.

And it's been an expense.

We've also painted the inside of our fence.

I'm really happy with Sandy.

I've lived in Sandy just about 28 years in the same home.

We moved from another state.

And the services have been phenomenal, whether it be uh snowplowing or having pro having an issue with trees.

The city has been extremely responsive for which I'm extremely grateful.

But I think this is an issue that even if there's going to be a fund that needs to be juiced by some of the people living in the area.

I think that might be beneficial for all of us.

And I do think it should be done sooner rather than later before somebody gets hurt or somebody has some major damage done to their homes or their yards or to themselves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I don't see any other hands raised.

I do have a comment that somebody sent in that they've asked to be read into the record.

Go ahead and read it.

Just gonna go ahead and set a timer here out of fairness.

This is from Marcus Haroldson, who's a Sandy resident.

Says, Dear Mayor Zoltanski and members of the city council, I'm writing as a longtime Sandy resident of over 13 years to respectfully urge the council to move forward without further delay on proposed changes to our city's accessory dwelling unit regulations, specifically to allow detached ADUs on appropriate sized lots.

Like many Sandy families, we have aging parents and young adult children who would benefit from flexible affordable housing options on our property.

The ability to build a detached ADU would allow us to provide dignified independent living for elderly family members while keeping them close for care and support, offer affordable housing for adult children as they establish themselves, age in place ourselves while maintaining our family home for future generations.

Workshops were completed in December 2025.

Staff reports are pending.

The legislative session is cited as another reason to wait.

However, we are now entering the prime building season of 2026.

Every additional month of delay means months or even another year that Sandy families cannot pursue this housing solution.

While I appreciate thorough deliberation, nearly two years of workshop studies and waiting feels excessive for a policy that many comparable Utah communities have already successfully implemented.

Salt Lake County allows detached ADUs on 7,000 square foot lots.

It represents a measured first step that addresses concerns about neighborhood character while expanding housing options.

The current requirement essentially limits the housing solution to larger, more affluent properties.

I would encourage the council to consider whether this threshold could be lowered in the future to make ADUs accessible to more middle-class homeowners.

But I recognize that any progress is better than continued delay.

Move forward with the current proposal rather than waiting for state legislative action.

Lead proactively on housing solutions rather than deferring to other jurisdictions.

Thank you for your consideration and your service to our community.

Marcus Haroldson.

All right.

Seeing no more online participants and no more speakers in the room.

I'll close the general citizen comment period.

Thanks to you guys for coming.

Your statements about your own efforts to maintain that fence.

I can attest to that.

Thank you for what you've done over the years.

I've seen you out painting, I've seen you out repairing, I've seen you guys doing maintenance.

It's not just Jim out there doing the work, although he's there all the time, right?

Thanks for all the efforts that you've put into it.

You mentioned Charlie and Dan, and they've both recently retired, but that doesn't mean the subject of replacement of that fence isn't still alive.

So I'm glad that Ben introduced himself.

We will definitely follow up with you.

Thanks for coming and visiting us tonight, and you're invited every Tuesday night.

We're here every Tuesday night at 5 p.m.

All right.

And Ben is up to bat for the next item.

That's the Parks and Rec department providing an update on construction and the naming of the new sports center.

I don't know if it's right.

I'll say to council, it's great to be here and presenting on this topic.

Uh kind of a positive uh outlook on where we're going.

Um we have two items that we were going to cover uh during this time frame.

The first one was a construction update.

Um of the things I want to add before I go through the construction update is we would really love to get the council on site.

Um we're gonna work with Dustin tomorrow and talk about that about a date that possibly get the whole group, or even if we do it individually or in small groups.

Um, any one of you can call me and my staff and we can get you up there and walk you around, put a hard hat on and go.

Um so let's go through a little bit of a construction update.

Um this here it would be as if you're standing in the middle of the basketball gym and looking east.

So this is a cement uh wall that then you can imagine a track, the walking track will be right at this level.

So when you're walking around on the track, you'll see that beautiful uh beautiful view of the east.

Um looking to uh the left if you're facing that or to the right if you're facing that way is more pouring of construction that's happening in the locker room and uh adjacent area.

Uh this is the back side of that wall, so you can see the uh you can if you look to the far distance, you can see the field house uh back wall, then the gymnasium back wall, and then that how that wall that is now being uh poured with some more foundation being poured behind it.

This is the surge tank.

Uh, this is the mechanism that allows the water to come in from the outdoor pool and get treated and then pumped back out into the pool.

And so right now the pool is not circulating because it has nowhere to go, but this is uh the search tank will fix that problem as soon as it's uh ready to go.

I think that now it's fully completed with cement.

That hole is actually really deep.

Uh if you come on site, you'll see just how big it is.

You look at the small people down there, they're they're kind of starting to look like ants.

Uh, this is this is a fun picture.

This is actually the elevator shaft.

Um, so you can when you walk into the facility, you're coming in from uh this direction, and then you you'll you would make your way, you can see the pool be in the background there.

So you make your way to the elevator so you can get up to the track.

Uh the other thing that you look really closely in this picture is you can see a pipe running through.

This is a um a uh let me think a plumbing pipe coming from water sources to get to the locker room.

And so those those things are going underneath the gym floor and underneath the the filled house floor.

So they're already they already got the plumbing pipe in there.

Uh then speaking of the other type of pipes, we've got electrical pipe uh piping going through uh conduit so the the electrical can get throughout the entire building.

This leads into the mechanical room so they can uh port uh pull it throughout the entire building.

Uh, this is from if I'm looking uh south and uh to the north wall, uh, what we're facing on the outside, and you see how far it's already being built up about halfway there.

Um, and we'll look at this exact same wall, but we'll go inside.

Uh so we're now we're standing inside the filled house where we'll have the artificial turf and now we're facing that wall.

Um, what it looks like on the inside.

So a lot of concrete, electrical plumbing, um, all those things going on, and and it continues to go.

I mean, if you blink the next day you're up there, there's more stuff going on.

So excited to share that update with you.

Uh one of the main reasons we wanted to come tonight is to talk about the proposed public feedback plan.

Um, what we want to make clear here is that this is there's nothing set in stone at this point.

Uh, we wanted to come and get council's feedback before we move any further.

Um, by getting council feedback, that means we want to get the public's feedback and really uh get some uh energy generated towards a new name.

Um as I'll share later on uh in this presentation, there'll be a time frame, and so I can walk you through that time frame and understand how we can move forward and some hard dates that we need to probably hit.

We have some flexibility as we start this out, but the hard date of wanting it a name in place by the end of March around that time is really important because we need to be able to order the signs, start marketing the building and start getting everything ready for an opening a little less than a year from now.

Um I also want to point out that uh our assistant director of our department, Jetta's online.

Uh, she wasn't able to be here tonight, so she might chime in if I forget something, or we'll ask her to provide some feedback.

So let me go through a couple of these slides, and at the end, I we're well, we're here for a bunch of questions.

So here's the the proposed plan.

Um, first of all, we want to include uh Sandy residents to be invited to share their thoughts about the future name of the center via via an online form and get their feedback.

Input will be gathered uh from the community and uh the official name of the for recommendations of the official name of the new facility, and then reminding them that that it will guide the process, it will guide the naming of it.

We're not doing a contest to whoever gets the most votes, that's what it's gonna be named.

We just want to be uh input and then guide the process because the ultimate final decision will be made by the Sandy elected officials after considering that public input.

So this is kind of our slogan or uh our marketing um approach that we'll be taking as a name badge.

Um you've all gone to meetings where you go, hello, my name is, and we write in our names.

And so we've got hello, my name is, and then we've got a picture of the new recreation uh center.

And we'll be pushing this out into multiple different outreach channels, uh, including the city's website, social media campaigns, city newsletter, email updates uh through the city's list as well as the parks and recreation, press releases, and on-site uh displays.

A lot of QR opportunities to have people just scan a QR code and go right to the survey.

Um, the key message that we're trying to present here is early next year, Sandy City will open its newly rebuilt recreation center, help us determine the final name that best represents our community's future.

And and I really like how that's kind of worded because when I think of the the slogan of Sandy Rising, like you've got to be able to go, okay, where can we see this happening?

And there's no better place to see this in our department in Parks of Recreation than the rising of this new building.

It really is echoing the Sandy Rising idea and getting more of a community fill to the building, too, to where it reaches more of our Sandy residents and having that play a factor in what we're doing.

So here's that proposed timeline that I talked about.

Um on January 30th, we already had a meeting with the Alpha Cannon Advisory Committee.

Two members of the city council there, appreciated uh both of them attending, and we basically went over this same presentation.

We have now since updated it because of their feedback and and wanted to start there with that community appointed board.

Um then today we're here uh we took that feedback so we'd be more prepared for tonight, and we're here presenting this to city council.

We've got a two-do uh to be determined TBD on the next item because we're ready to go.

We've got everything in place, and we if everything goes smoothly tonight, we're ready to go tomorrow.

Um, it doesn't have to go tomorrow, it could take another couple days for us to fine-tune these things and take your feedback and implement it.

Uh, but that next date, March 11th, uh, would be the hard date that we wouldn't want to um push past.

So we start tomorrow, we'll have a full 30 days.

If we start in five days, it'll just be a little bit shorter than 30 days, which is going to be totally fine.

Um after March 11th, that would give us time to compile the survey results and put that in a good form to be able to present that, share that with you before the March 24th City Council meeting, and then we'd we'd bring uh similar report to this and show you the results, and we would hope at that meeting that we could have a consensus and have the elected officials vote on a name and say, Yep, that's it, let's move forward.

Let's move forward.

We still have seven days from the 24th would be the 31st.

So we do have like a backup plan.

We could probably go another week, but we would be pretty hard pushing our contractors past that date.

So this is the survey.

Again, you when you when you go to it, you're gonna see this hello, my name is, and we're actually gonna click on the survey, and Liz is going to walk us through this, how this looks okay.

So this is the actual survey once they scan a QR code or click a link.

Um so again, hello, my name is, and then we're inviting everyone to participate in this uh as a guide.

So the first thing they'll do is are you a Sandy resident?

If they click yes, it will ask them what district they live in.

There's a map showing uh of Sandy showing uh where the districts are, and that hopefully will be helpful to remind them.

Most people are a little uh unsure of what district, so that's why we provided a map.

Uh whatever whatever they click on will be fine.

That just gives us some ideas.

We're we're really wanting to make sure we get a broad um idea of all the if all the votes come back into one certain area.

I think that's just this telling of of certain things.

Um the next item would be would you like to remain anonymous?

If you click no, it would it's not gonna do anything.

Um I mean if you click the yes, it wouldn't do anything, no would allow you to fill in your information.

This way we can uh use this to push out other items and and uh follow up if needs be.

Um then we're gonna give them two options.

Pick your top two options, and so as you pick your option number one, so you and this is listed in alphabetical order, and I've got this blown up in a slide that we'll show you in one of the final slides.

Uh, you click the one that's your your top priority preference, and then we want you to give us a brief explanation of why you selected that name.

Um that again is gonna take us some time to read through all those, but it will be really helpful in the end result.

So, option two will do the exact same thing once you collect once you click on one of the options.

Um, it will ask you again why did you select that as your second choice?

And then we gave a third option to where we would like you to provide another name that we didn't that maybe we didn't list.

So, whatever you want to put in there, it will then open up another um box to say, well, why did you pick this one?

Um, and maybe we because we're not voting, maybe someone will.

Maybe someone will just come up with this great idea and we'll bring that back and say, wow, let's talk about this.

Um so we want to leave it open-ended so that can happen.

So I think that's that's everything we've got so far on the the survey.

So Liz, if we can go back to the presentation, um again, that is all has not been pushed out yet.

There is still room for us to maneuver and add and take away.

So we we want to provide feedback on that as well.

So if I go to the the final slide here, this is those six names that we had listed in the survey.

Um when we brought this to the advisory council, we had five.

We added one from their feedback.

And uh we wanted to keep it in the range of five of six five or six.

So the the feedback we want from the council tonight are are we close?

Do we we got the right names?

Is there one that you want to add?

Is there one you're thinking, why is that in there?

It seems repetitive, let's take it out and have a little bit of dialogue there so we can get that survey ready to push out to the public.

And then again, if there's any questions, you know, Jeddah, I or Lois and our team can help um with anything, whether that's a tour or the survey or or the names.

Council.

Any comments, any questions or any ideas for other facility names that we might want to add to the list.

Ms.

Housman.

Not answering any of those specific questions, um, but just kind of sharing that uh when our packet went public and these options you know were posted.

I included that in a uh my city council newsletter that went out, and I'm already receiving some feedback, even though the survey hasn't yet gone live.

They are looking at the lists and sharing like initial feedback, which so that's just an indication that that people are excited and and want to be a part.

Um, and so far, I mean I I've handful of people who've responded to my newsletter, but um definitely seeing the value of Sandy City, like for the name Sandy, um, and simplicity.

So Sandy Recreation Center is is something that seems to be some immediate feedback.

So I'll follow up, I'll push out the survey link once that's live and you're able to share it.

But I do I do anticipate um some good engagement, and I appreciate the adjustments that have been made since since we met, and um I love that that they're giving that they're given the opportunity to provide a why right after they pick.

Here's my first choice, here's why, here's my I I think that's that's great.

And I like the that it's we've got community in there now, rep and complex that represent so we've got a lot of mix.

So I'm very excited to see what the public shares so we can deliberate.

Yeah, I think we've got the name here, maybe not in one line.

It could be borrowing and stealing from each line, but I think the words are all here, but they could be mixed around.

So it'll be good to hear the feedback.

Thank you for the effort on this.

That's all I have.

Ms.

Stroud.

Thank you.

Um, I just had a question.

So on the survey, and this is just a general one, but why have remain anonymous?

I mean, I'm and it's just kind of a question.

I mean, it's you know, they don't have to put anything in there, or they can put Jane Doe.

I I'm just I'm yeah, and exactly they put the.

I can see somebody going in and you know, I'm gonna remain anonymous, so I'm gonna put in 57 votes for this, you know, this specific name.

I and it's it's more of just a curiosity type of thing.

Yeah, and we asked the same question, and it came back from the communications team that that's important to have in there to make people feel safe, that they're whatever they're they're not gonna end up on some list or some uh well and that's information.

That's kind of my next question.

Um, you know, at the top of the survey, is there some place to put on here that hey you're not going to end up on a list unless you check this box because you want updates?

I think that you could be missing an opportunity to say, I mean, you're just asking for information, you know, hey, give us, you know, no, you don't want to remain anonymous, give us your name.

You know, I saw a phone number on there, but who answers phones from strange numbers now?

Um, but you know, looking at email, but maybe to say, would you like to receive parks and rec updates on the news center or you know, anything, I mean parks related.

I mean, it it's it does give them that chance, and if you're telling them that's why you're asking for their email address.

Yeah, I really like that.

We maybe in that little top section just adds something that says this is why we're asking these questions.

And that's and I think you know, to have that on there, you know, enter in your email address to receive future updates for you know, when we get a little bit closer, you know, we're gonna have a ribbon cutting, we're gonna have a grand opening, um, you know, looking at memberships.

Uh and and that's you know, and then I guess depending on kind of the level, you know, maybe at some point too, as we can point them to a place, you know, at the end to receive uh more broad updates on parks and rec in general, right?

Click here because then they could sign up to to become a little more aware and engaged with all of the you know the programming and services that we have just as a whole.

Yeah, the parking lot.

And I think in the advisory meeting, we also have that same question.

We we had the announc um remain anonymous earlier on, and so now in this survey, we're still asking you for your name and what or are you a resident or not a resident?

Um, and then what district you live in, and then do you want to remain anonymous?

So basically it's saying we still want to know if you're a Sandy resident.

That's really important for us and what district you live in.

But if you don't want us to come after you on some newsletter, then don't put your information here, which we can make clearer.

And that's I think making that clear at the very beginning, but also adding in at the bottom something where if you want updates, please check check here, and then maybe some way to point and say if you want more information about parks and rec or getting on a broader parks and recreation service list, then you can go to this website.

You know, something where residents, oh I parks sends out, oh soccer updates, and you know, I I see hockey thing.

I mean, a lot of those things that it just gives them that chance, whether we get any takers on that, but I mean, if this is if people are clicking on it, it you know, it's just another way to try to get out, you know, what you guys push out as it is.

Love it, thank you.

Ms.

DeSouza.

Thank you.

I um I was just gonna echo what uh council member Stroud said, and my thought after the advisory council meeting was on the survey in that particular question, and it does feel odd to ask the question the way that we have, you know, and so like if the intent is to provide an opportunity for people to be updated in the future, um, you know, just having the the boxes open and um I mean not necessarily required uh as optional inputs would be better, but I also remember um uh it coming up.

How are we going to use the information?

And so council member Stroud hit on that.

I think you know, data privacy is um important, and I think that it would go a long way at reassuring people that when they provide this information, you know, how are how are we using it?

And so I guess my question is you know, how are we using it?

Is it strictly a parks and rec email list?

How is is this if is the information provided uh going to a broader city list?

Will will they be potentially um uh uh contacted for other city things outside of parks and rec.

What is the intent there?

Yeah, and I'm not sure I know exactly what that is, but we need to follow up on that, and I think explain that would be really important, whatever that is to reassure that this is what it's being used for.

I don't know if Jeddah, you've got a comment on that or Lois, or anyone on the communication team.

Yeah, I do.

So I think the way that we can do this is if we put the question at the end and have people like kind of like are you a Sandy resident, yes or no?

You know, are you interested in receiving updates on this project or you know, parks and recreation or city information in general, yes or no?

Um, and then perhaps we can have a drop down that they can select which email lists they would like to get added to because there is a general city list, there is a parks and rec list, um, and we could even create a third list that's just specific to this project.

Perfect.

Mr.

Pace, did you want to add something?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, I think one of the main reasons for uh getting the information is that we're constantly refreshing our survey pool.

And so um I believe that they that yeah, the information would go in go into our general uh survey pool that we use on our surveys.

I think to add to that too, that the the survey or the feedback that we're providing will go through the the survey process, and I know that that's being reviewed by admin and the council.

Um but I think we were waiting to have this, and then it'll be approved before we we do anything tomorrow.

So they'll get a that group will have another set of eyes on our revisions.

All right, council.

Anything, any last thoughts.

Thank you, Ben.

Thank you, Lois.

Thank you, Jeddah.

Appreciate it.

Madam Chair, may I just comment on the survey process?

Yeah.

So they have sent us the survey.

Uh Alice and I, Alison and I, and I apologize, Councilmember Stroud and I are the are your appointees to the survey approval team.

And I noted that we just wanted to wait until this meeting to get council feedback, and Councilmember Stroud and I will discuss briefly tomorrow and send over our approval based on tonight.

Good.

We'll move forward quickly then.

Thank you.

All right, next agenda item is about the Arbor Plaza Office building.

And Dan Nelson, thank you.

Good evening, City Council members.

Let's see.

All right.

Uh yeah, today we're here to talk about the Arbor Plaza office building, which um, yeah, for those who haven't followed this, is the property just adjacent to City Hall there on the corner.

Um just starting with a recap of how we got to this point.

Um we looked at the needs the city has for office space, uh, looking at all the different buildings and concluded that or the tally is police needs about 10,000 square feet of office space, parks and rec 12,000 square feet, and the arts guild 7,800 square feet.

So those were primarily the needs that uh you know administration has been uh looking at to try to solve just a summary.

Uh this building was built in 2008, uh, currently has 14 separate suites and 66,000 square feet.

And of those, there are four vacant or available suites totaling 13,844 square feet.

Just an update on uh on this transaction.

Uh the purchase price is 12 million dollars.

Uh there was the bond parameters resolution vote in January, which this council uh voted to move forward with.

Uh, we have a city council discussion today.

The final vote on the purchase will be next week, and then our due diligence deadline is two days after that, and then potentially closing uh March 2nd.

I'll just read through the due diligence summary of the things we've been working on for due diligence.

Uh we've looked at the rent roll, all the different leases, all the different tenants, reviewed the seller disclosures.

We've had our building facilities people going through that building in detail, just inspecting it.

Looked at operating statements, the parking lease, title commitment, making arrangements for the bond, figuring out a management plan and an operating budget.

The things we're still finalizing, building repairs, our facilities people identified a few problems that we're having either fixed before closing or that we would get a credit towards the purchase price so we could fix them after we take ownership.

Tenant estoppels, those are just documents that the tenants signed confirming the terms of the leases.

So far, it's been very positive.

The common feedback I've got from several of them is that the building is cold, and that's largely due to the one of the boilers has not been working.

So that was something our facilities people flagged, and yeah, I told them that that's something that uh we're fixing, but um, yeah, I told them that we're having this professionally managed.

Um, I gave them my card and said they could reach out to me if there's ever any concerns, um, and I think they appreciated uh the contact.

Uh like I said, we're having this professionally managed.

Um, so we're finalizing that contract right now, and then there's been a lot of discussion about exactly which city department would go there.

And we're I'll I'll show you kind of what our our thought is right now in a second.

And then the last uh you know, due diligence item is just city council and RDA approval.

So this is, and I I don't expect to go through all this, but uh just to show you that we're thinking about it.

This is just the operating budget that we would anticipate based off of the prior operating budget uh from the current owner for last uh for last year.

Um the management company we've been working with going forward has kind of put this together, uh just showing some standard escalations, and then as far as the source of funds and the bond, um Brian is going to talk about that in a minute.

So I'll defer that discussion, but if I'm fine to look at specific questions if we want.

So this is just in terms of um how we would manage this building.

Um obviously the appeal for this building is that we could purchase it without uh tapping into the general fund that it could largely pay for itself.

Um people have asked, or city council members have asked, you know, what are what's the worst case scenario here?

And so I wanted to address it.

Um I think first we would look to an accrued fund balance.

We're looking at setting aside, I think 250 or 300,000 just as an escrow to cover, you know, tenant improvements, uh shortfall for debt service or lease commissions if we do need to replace a tenant.

Um, and then uh accrued reserves.

I think you know, we will be operating in the black, um, and so we're gonna be setting aside a little bit of money also for that.

Um, third would be uh see if the RDA could help or look to the general fund, and then fourth would be sell the building, and exactly you know, in what order or what that would be.

Um, you know, that would be decisions probably down the road, but uh certainly for the first couple of years.

I think it's it's looking good, and um the one lease that I think is supposed to roll in October.

We're as part of our due diligence, we're having that renewed.

So all the others are at least a couple of years out.

Um then, as far as facility management, and this just goes to our intentions for the building.

Um, and this is something I communicated to all of the tenants that it's our intention to keep this uh you know, high-class building that um you know, the city uh departments that go in there would be very um, yeah, it would have the same look and feel as some of the tenants already there.

Um, so we would be having it professionally maintained, professionally managed.

Um we are looking at switch city departments will go in there, and I know there have been a lot of questions about this.

Um, but I you know, I think we've ruled out some, we're not you know putting police department in there, and um you know we want to keep it a high class building.

Um, part of that is just tenant relationships that are uh our property managers, you know, they'll be talking to these people all the time, and they have our contact information also.

Uh several of the tenants actually see a lot of synergy with having the city um partner on on some level with them, and I think um that would be something that we would yeah, probably make it a little bit more marketable.

Um let's see, also just adequately funding the building, making sure that our uh that our lobbies and everything uh look nice, and so that would just be kind of giving ourselves a tenant improvement allowance to make our our front look like the other ones, and then uh reporting.

We'll be getting monthly reports from our property management company, and they'll also put together annual reports and budgets and reconciliations, and you know, we're happy to share that with the council as much as the council wants.

So this is currently the alternative that administration's looking at for the for the vacant suites.

And I don't I don't have a pointer, but anyway, uh on the left side uh there would be recreation would occupy all of one suite and then the back portion of another suite.

You'll see there's a yellow shaded part there.

Um that is gonna be a shared kitchen and break room that all the city departments would have access to.

Uh the RDA would have that front suite just opposite Brighton Pharmacy.

That's a really nice uh really nice space there.

Upstairs, uh, there's a large shared conference room and uh patio up there, and then ArtSguild and Community Events.

That's the current administration plan that we're looking at.

And then as far as how this would affect City Hall, part of the bond that the council approved, I think a million dollars was to go towards city council renovations.

So as I understand it, you know, city council would uh potentially move up to the RDA space for now, and then City Council would be renovated and currently take the space occupied by the Scope Clinic, which would move over to the Arbor building.

Um public utilities would move out of their space on the second level here out to their facility on 150 east, and then police would up expand upstairs into that space.

So, yeah, as far as I see it, these are the things that the city council would just need to evaluate and and decide.

Um the advantages of this building are you know, you would block up your city campus pretty well.

Uh this is something that could happen quickly, you know, March 2nd or sorry, March 3rd, departments could start to move into this space.

It's not something that's you know one or five years out.

It's it's pretty immediate.

Uh the funding with the combination of the RDA kind of down payment and then the bond financing.

Uh, this is you know, pretty it almost free basically from a general fund standpoint.

Uh flexibility, you can move departments around.

Um, and again that goes to the immediacy of it.

Uh potential advantages, you know, this will appreciate over time.

Uh, there should be some some growth in the value of it.

And then that last one, general fund.

Um, that's you know, which I talked about earlier.

The questions as I see it, there is some market risk here.

You never know if the market's gonna go up or down.

Um, there's tenant risk.

Buildings like it's a multi-tenant office building, and you are gonna lose tenants, and you don't know when that's gonna be leased again.

So that's just something you're you're taking a risk you're taking as a landlord.

Uh tenant improvement allowances, you know, for this property.

The feedback we're getting is that that would be between 20 and 40 dollars a square foot, which adds up to a lot.

I mean, if you had to put tenant improvements in that whole building, you're talking six figures.

That's obviously not going to happen all at once, but um as you do lease this to a new tenant, it's gonna be expensive.

Uh lease commissions also when you when you have a a new tenant come in, you should expect to pay lease commissions.

Capital improvements, I think we feel pretty comfortable as far as the condition of the building, um, especially with some of the repairs that they're making now.

But at some point it's gonna need a new roof, it's gonna need a new boiler, it's gonna need things like that.

Um then the other question is just the suitability of the office space for the specific departments.

You know, we have a need for police, but we've decided this doesn't this isn't an ideal space for police uh with it, you know, with trying to maintain the the similar culture with for the other tenants.

So that's a question that the council, you know, would want to discuss and debate um as you look at this uh as you evaluate this purchase.

So anyway, yeah, happy to take any questions you might have.

Um yeah, Ms.

Nichol.

Okay, so today plan is different from like everything we've seen.

It's cool, I like it.

Um have a question.

So public utilities would move into their facility, which do we have to build a building first, or are they capable of expanding in their building with offices?

Because we were told that they were not.

Let me pass that question off if that's okay.

I think I believe they can expand within the existing space.

Permanently, I don't I don't know, but I know that they can expand into that space.

Not permanently, because yeah, I mean, what was anticipated before is building them an office building in front of their building right?

That's correct.

That's correct.

So the time frame on that is undetermined.

Undetermined.

Okay, no problem.

Um does either scenario give police enough space to move their satellite um school resource office that is not even in on Sandy Campus.

Does that facilitate them moving under two roofs?

Um we'll leave that up to police.

Okay, we'll give them additional space.

Okay, and um they'll use it to where they believe is the best possible use.

Okay.

Um we've also asked them to um look at the bottom floor of uh the justice court building and to be able to use the space in the center more efficiently so that uh they're able to use more of the space.

Perfect, thank you.

So since the the targets moved on this, and again that go bodes well for the flexibility of the building have and having it.

It just it's nice to have some ideas, but for me personally, I'd like to have a better idea, but I know you can't do that right now because everything's in flux.

Those are my comments.

Thank you.

Miss Halsman.

I saw Mr.

Hughes's hands.

Madam Chair, may I make one clarification?

Okay.

Um you saw that it was that recreation was the proposal uh currently in there.

That does not include parks, just recreation staff, parks staff for right now would stay in the old city hall.

Ms.

Houseman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, your presentation answered several of my questions, so thank you for that.

Um, but I do have just a couple of additional questions here.

Um, first of all, I want to thank you for kind of providing backstop planning.

I think that's I think that was really helpful.

I'm I'm supportive of this.

I think it's I think it's a smart, a smart approach.

I think it really for our taxpayers, I think it's it's wise they're protected.

We're not this is this is covered by the tenants.

Um the lease revenue is gonna cover our bond obligation.

I think that's great.

I think it does re provide a lot of flexibility for the city.

So the question I had, um let me find it now because you answered several of them.

So non-traditional, you you kind of mapped out the plan, but the beauty of this is there is flexibility, so as other things change, we we might consider other options than what you've sort of mapped out here.

But um my question would be like what non-traditional uses have we have we forecasted?

Like what what could the space do?

And if you don't want to answer that, because you're like, I'd rather focus on the what we are planning to do right now, Marcy.

Um, I just want to plant that as a seed, like what what are some non-traditional uses, things that we can't do right now that we could do.

And so the seed I'm planting as an example is have we considered exploring offering child care to our city city employees, for example.

Um there's other things in the works that that could make that happen, state legislation and and tax um incentives, etc.

So just curiosity around like non-traditional, what what not just not just trying to replicate what we are already doing, but what could we be doing that we have not yet considered?

So that any thoughts on that, or you want to punt for later.

I will punt, but I I will say um, yeah, I mean, from a real estate standpoint, we just want to make sure that whatever we're putting in there is consistent with the look and feel of the other tenants, you know.

So, you know, I mean, that's that's the reason why we concluded pretty early on, and we've had some feedback from leasing agents that it's probably not a good idea to put police in there, just when you're relying on, you know, I mean, you know, we're occupying 13,000 of 16,000 square feet.

So it's really mostly a lease office building.

Um, so from a real estate standpoint, it would just whatever's consistent with that look and feel, as far as which departments goes go in there, that's where I would punt to administration.

Yeah, well, before you punt, um again, just brainstorming, there they're because there are tenants in there, they could they could potentially um do a co-op of some kind, so they are offering child care to to their employees as well, so it could be seen.

I know we want to be very professional and mindful of of that same culture and feeling of that office space that's gonna be really important to the current tenants.

Um, and this could be you know down the road a bit, but it's just something I've been been wondering.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Do you want it?

I'm okay with Madam Chairman.

I speak um we only have uh 13,000 square feet going in.

It could be many years before any more space by the city is occupied.

So we really haven't taken a lot of time on that now.

As things move around in the city, you know, there's uh even more proposals tonight.

So it as things move around in the city, uh that could change.

Um you know, we can look at those types of options, but right now we're just um we've got 13,000 uh that we're we're going to fill.

And frankly, our hope is that all the other spaces, I mean they're all they all have automatic extensions.

They everything that Dan has received from them is they all intend to stay and and uh continue their leases, and so our hope is that they all continue to stay um uh for uh for the extended future.

Thank you for that.

Um the other question I have has more to do with um effective like feedback loops and communication loops with the with the council.

Um so in terms of changes in occupancy, you know, you said that the automatic renewal is great, but should there be some type of um occupancy change or um lease a change in lease revenue or those kinds of things, or even the state of the building and and the performance of the buildings that meeting and meeting needs, etc.

What is the plan for continuing to keep the city council updated on all of those things and and receive like feedback on potential next steps?

Should should we need to be made aware of things?

What's that process going to look like?

I mean, I would think we can give as many updates to the city council as as we want.

I mean, we'll get a monthly report, you know, income and expenses from the management company.

Um, and yeah, I don't know why we couldn't pass those along.

Okay.

Um I think that's everything.

I I really feel like it's it's a smart investment.

Thank you for the diligence you've put into answering over time, you know, all of our questions and coming back with recommendations, but also here's here's some of the risks that need to be considered.

So thank you.

That's all I had.

So I have a question for you, Dan.

Back in on January 13th.

So we're going back a month.

Okay.

Um we had established in another presentation that the unmet square footage needs were 41,000 square feet.

Yeah.

And now we're talking about 29,000 square feet, and the change seems to be in parks and rec.

The square footage need in parks and rec was cut by half.

So tell tell us what that's all about.

Yeah, I think some of that was just uh going through that building in more detail, cutting out some of the hallways, um, there's a gym that we excluded from that.

That building's just very uh well.

Yeah, I'll pick your adjective, but um it's not very efficient.

Um so you know, we actually started looking at how many people work there, how many, yeah, how many desks are there?

Um 12,000 is an estimate, it's not um you know, down to the square foot, but I would say you know, we think that's pretty accurate at that time too, in that 41,000 square feet, that didn't include an estimate that we had for future growth of another 6600 square feet.

It just um even when the number was 41,000 and adding for future growth at another 7,000 for 48,000, even a 66,000 square foot building was bigger than we needed.

Yeah, but it also added some flexibility that if we can't continue to lease, there would be just income that could go to the general fund.

Um we've nailing it down, fine-tuning down to a smaller number, still I that doesn't add growth, so we'll add another we'll say 35,000 square feet or something like that is our estimated future need.

Yeah.

Um 14,000, 13,000 eight, 14,000 square feet is available to us in the Arbor building now, and 4,000 that we'd be adding from uh public utilities vacating their spot.

So 18,000 new square feet we'd have available at some point in time, depending on how quickly public utilities could vacate their space.

Um 18,000 square feet of the 29 we need.

That's making a lot of progress.

That's a big dent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um I just wanted to make sure I had the math all right and to ask you that question about the difference between the original number and the new number.

Just something I think we take into consideration that this building go Arbor would go a very long way to providing not only what we need, but the future needs too, and still have excess and whether that excess is a good thing or a bad thing.

Um just something to consider in the overall picture.

Did you have something else yet again?

Just one comment, thank you, Madam Chair.

Um so where it's at right now, um, you know, you you see up on the up on the screen three departments who need additional space.

We don't solve any of those problems completely, but we make we make good progress on all three with the current plan that we've uh presented.

We and it gets us uh a step further on what we're gonna do at the parks and the old parks and recreation building or old city hall.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ms.

Stroud just wanted to throw in.

I I really do appreciate the you know providing us with that backstop.

You know, I it so what if, you know, in that worst case scenario, um, you know, I'm I'm very comfortable with this, you know, hearing from the very beginning that the current tenants pay for it for us.

So it's just a matter of of waiting that out and and I mean we keep them, and you lose one, then you get somebody else in there to replace that.

We do have some empty space in there.

I mean, if it came down to it, then you know, and we're not completely moved into those spaces over there, then we can you know try to look at at renting that out.

But you know, having you know those four different alternatives there, you know, that's a that's very comforting, I guess, you know, and and um you know gives that at that layer of security that you know that that we have a plan in case something completely turns upside down.

But you know, I'm very comfortable with this, and you know, and and know that 20 years we may be using the space very differently over there, you know, especially as right now as it's just kind of little bits and pieces, you know, of where things are and what it looks like, and even just the size, the need of whatever we have within current departments.

So, you know, I I'm very supportive of this and appreciate all of the work that you have done with this, and and uh you know, and and helping us move through this, you know, working you know, administration as well.

So thank you.

Ms.

D'Souza.

Thank you.

Um I don't have anything to necessarily add to this.

You know, I appreciate the updates and the presentation.

Um I just wanted to voice that um I do have an amendment coming up in the RDA portion of the meeting to um address some of the uh additional risk that I feel that this proposition provides with regard to the investments.

So I'll talk about that more then.

Thanks.

I realize that this was just informational and that the final vote happens next week, but I too would like to say that I I really appreciate I appreciate for you, Dan, for Brian, for Shane, whoever else was involved, um, the creativity involved in presenting this solution.

It resonates very strongly with me personally and as at professionally as a council member because it costs the taxpayers nothing.

And I don't know how often we get to realize that scenario where we get to acquire a very substantial building at no cost to the taxpayers.

But all day I'll settle for good enough if it's free.

So I do from the beginning.

You guys have been very forthcoming and news, especially, Dan, the good, the bad, and the indifferent.

All the information is what we're looking for, right?

For good decision making.

So I appreciate all along bringing us along on this journey and uh involving us.

And thank you for that.

Any other comments or questions before we move on?

Looks like not.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Ida the next item on the agenda is Miss Nickel, item four.

Okay.

Council member Nickel.

Just to give a little background on this.

This idea came from the experience of going through the process of the Arbor building.

I had the best way to not need the Art or Arbor building.

It I had it, I had it, and we wouldn't need to bond for it or for the Arbor building.

But this idea spawned from that, and I think that through this process, I learned that police is in the greatest need I feel for space.

Spread across, they have very little evidence, storage space.

And so my proposal is going to be that we start the process of building them a building that suits modern day policing.

And so what that would my proposal would be it's it's not happening quick.

A two-year plan that includes education of the public as probably the number one thing in the robust education campaign going out to the public.

And I did put some numbers in here that it would but I'm sorry, I'm skipping ahead.

So and I looked at cities around us, and almost all of them have updated buildings.

Some of the cities are newer, so they do have it's obvious they would have updated space.

But West Valley has built a wonderful building, and I didn't think of calling them to find out what the cost was per square foot for their building, but it's I one thing that we can look into.

I think this is really good for the police department.

Some of the police department areas are very gloomy, and it's a gloomy profession sometimes, and I think they deserve a space that they can have natural light and ways to relax.

Their gym in downstairs, it's shared with the with the city, and it's a hospage of things picked up at garage sales and that type of thing.

It's not ideal, and it's not ideal from the perspective that is that uh chief doesn't think it's um people going in and out, just regular employees, it's probably not the best practice to have people in and out of a police department that holds some pretty tricky evidence and needs their private space.

Um a new building would allow them to integrate technology and more efficiencies and streamline their option operations as a whole.

And construction versus retrofitting.

I know there was a plan to retrofit the justice courts with police.

Problem one, it's not big enough, and even with an addition, the addition was about $15,000.

So and I think that estimate that happened on the justice court would be it's $15,000 to make it $15 million, yeah, to make it yeah, I know, right?

$15 million just to have that space work for them.

And who knows it could be more, I don't know.

And that is a 10 to 20 year build outlook.

So this proposal gets them a built-to-suit building quicker than any of the other options.

It would allow for flexibility in City Hall that we could put we could leave public utilities could stay, we could move parks and wreck in here, we could move uh the Arts Guild under this roof.

But I realized in this, I found I kind of shoot myself in the foot because everyone was saying first words out of their mouth when I just kind of broached the subject with them.

Well, why not both?

And because and so I see that now, and that was not even my thinking, so I'm trying to keep an open mind to that too.

But I think we can actually do this with our bonding capacity, and just um closing out Hale Center leaves us still in a good position to do that.

And I think any way we go, whether it's public utilities, the justice court, we're gonna have to bond anyway, and it's gonna be bonding pretty much for police or public utilities.

Both necessary, but I feel that we're gonna bond anyway, and the plans are pretty out there 10 to 20 years.

It's a need that they have now, and I'd like to cure that for them through this.

Any questions, Ms.

Houseman?

Uh thank you, madam chair.

Uh, quick clarifying question.

Yes.

Because I I think this was your intent, but I I don't want to make that assumption.

Okay.

Um, this would this again it's first reading, so we'll be talking more.

But yes, much more.

Um this would come before voters.

You're talking about a bond that would um be supported through a public process, right?

Voters would signal support or lack thereof.

Yeah, I skipped that part.

It it's the education part for the bonding to really show the residents the the necessity to have this.

And and it's important that the people really vote on this.

I think we have the support.

There was some hesitancy with uh how police are being viewed now.

Um valid concern, right?

But I think our public is generally supportive of police and fire, but I still want to keep it that around that two-year mark to let things educate and maybe cool down in that realm too.

So the timeline would be educate inform leading up to a public vote on the bond supporting the bond or not, okay.

Just like the fire station, yes, yes.

So okay, I just want to make sure because that was um key to my next question.

Uh so you already covered communication plan, which is always one of my first questions, so thank you for leading out on that.

Um a key question I have it by definition, the bond would like when it sunsets, the taxpayers are no longer obligated, et cetera, et cetera.

So that is something I I value about this proposal, potential proposal.

Um, but my question would be what commitments could we have that funding this new facility doesn't get shifted internally in some way.

Um, how do we continue to confirm for taxpayers that the vote they they made to support this specific facility that's that's where the funding stays and that anything, any changes would come back to voters for authorization?

Well, I would assume it would be the same process that the fire department um used in their bond.

I don't believe that any bond money can be used for anything else other than what the bond is issued for.

So I could we can talk through that, but Dustin, do you know the answer to that?

Uh so my understanding is when you put a general obligation bond on the ballot and it's voted on, you're saying, hey, there's a specific purpose for these funds.

And the voters are saying yes or no to that, the use of those funds, right?

And so uh that's what they can be used for at that point in time, right?

And you were right, Councilmember Houseman, once the bond is paid off, it falls off of their property tax notice at that point.

So that's kind of the difference between you know raising property taxes to fund a sales tax revenue bond, for example.

Um, you'd have to decrease taxes at that point, where with a general obligation uh bond, you don't have to do that.

Goes away once the bonds paid off.

Thank you.

And and I I was that was what I was hoping the process would look like.

It's just basically replicating what we've done.

I just wanted to for the public who's who's watching, make sure they understand.

Um, and then the last kind of question I um had was more something you and I brainstormed, and I just kind of want to share it with with our colleagues.

I I really like exploring this idea as we are exploring this.

I'd like to revisit something we talked a couple years ago.

I sort of brought up and then we we didn't do a lot with it, and that's that's okay, but maybe it's the right time to bring it back up.

Is an actually uh an actual dedicated fund.

So obviously the revenue bond can only be used for this, and I get that.

But I'm talking about a dedicated public safety fund.

South Salt Lake does this.

We we explored it, and then we sort of hit pause.

Um but but essentially, instead of public safety being part of the general fund, we would have a public safety fund so that um any time there, for example, if there were to be a property tax increase that is um set that again, you explained it well, separate from a general obligation bond.

But the the reason or the why that is given for that property tax increase is for public safety.

Well, it it would only live in this separate fund.

It is a fund dedicated solely to public safety.

So I I kind of want to like to mention that.

Yeah, I kind of want to explore this.

I did look into how they did it, I don't really understand, but I know the why.

Um South Salt Lake takes three times the calls that Sandy takes.

It is a um high intensity city, a high public serve or uh police and fire user, and the costs were um they were holding back on wages and compensation for quite a few times to try it quite a few years, 10 years to balance um the needs that what they could, you know, with tax money, and they ended up doing a hundred percent tax increase.

That sounds large, but um they wanted to be more transparent, and they thought it was a better way for their residents because of the huge need.

I don't know if we need that, and I see it as a very separate item.

Yeah, but I'm if we want to go down that road, I'm I'm willing to walk down that.

So yeah, it I agree separate but related.

And so while we were talking about this, I thought, why don't we revisit that conversation?

The conversation you as you all recall, um, came because of our efforts to really address concerns and needs with fire, and I wanted to think about police and fire and what that that public safety fund could look like.

So I'm I'm willing to re-engage in that conversation.

It might still be that it it doesn't align with what we're trying to do, but it's worth it's worth if we're talking about a building, might as well also talk about a separate fund.

Okay.

Um, but I I say let's continue to explore.

Awesome.

It's worth looking into.

Thank you.

Miss Christensen.

I like the idea.

We've talked about this.

Um the things I especially like is that it's voted on.

I think that's really important because I think that um I mean our economic outlook we just had, right?

Like I think that's going to be a little bit of a concern, but I I see this roughly in correct me if I'm wrong, but the same increase is the fire station loss.

So it's like what 60-70 dollars a year.

And it was overwhelmingly approved by the by the or yeah, by the public.

So with the I mean, I'm not opposed.

Okay.

So I just I really want to go, you'll you want to go down this walk down the road and see what it brings?

Yeah, for now, I want I would be very interested to see like what a little like better costs if we get that, you know what I mean, and like what we actually are talking about and how that affects other like properties we have in the city that we might need to like.

Oh, it could lead to hastened adjustment or timelines on the historic Sandy building.

Yeah, you know, exactly.

Is that good or bad?

It's it could be either way.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

No, I'm open though.

Okay, Ms.

Strapp.

Thank you, um Madam Chair.

And you know, reading talked a little bit about this, um, you know, and that's and I love the idea.

Um, and I'll raise you, and very similar to what Marcy brought up.

So, you know, towards the end of last year, I started moving and you know, had meetings with chiefs, um, you know, staff as well on so a couple of the options, um, and I think what you're trying to do here is trying to fix the size issue that we have within the police department, and that's and they're just sitting on top of each other.

Yeah, and um the their need in the that was in the building study, they have uh, you know, yes, all of their needs could be met by yes building.

Um and that's and I think so.

You know, when I started sitting down with staff, so that's where I'll I'll see and I'll raise you on it, is looking back, so kind of those two options, you know, and that's um so a special service district, you know, of looking at that is a possibility where it's a public safety um a service district, or there's a special revenue fund, which is you know, I and that's and I'm not sure exactly which one that you're kind of referring to, but we looked at both of them, you know, and identifying the pros and consum to both, um keeping it limited to public safety.

There was another option that we started looking at that talks, you know, specifically about capital buildings, you know, because that could be future, you know, as as we look at what the fire management study outlined in the future, the distant future, you know, well, not too distant, you know, of looking at different buildings there.

But you know, with those two primary different things and they have different paths forward.

Um, one of them would be designated a little bit more, you know.

I mean, that's so the special service district needs to be voted on by the public, and then the other one would be something where there is a certain amount of percentage set aside from the general fund, you know, but it is dedicated to public safety.

And so that's where I mean, I I like where this is going.

Um, you know, and I I mean I'd like to kind of raise you on this, you know, and say, hey, you know what, let's let's throw in and let's evaluate all of the possibilities moving forward so that the council is well informed on everything.

You know, Marcy hit a little bit on that, you know, and some of the the meetings that I had um you know, three months, and we just didn't have enough time with the old council headed out to bring something forward and say, well, do we do this right before a new council comes in?

Let's just give it a little bit of time, you know, and get the new council in and looking at it.

But um, you know, both of those they had once again they had their pros and cons.

Um, you know, and and different paths forward, but could do this with it, and then um you know, just looking, you know, longevity-wise.

So, you know, I'd love to be able to kind of explore all of those so that as you work on this that you know, once again that the council has something to look at, you know, with everything to be able to to uh you know kind of pick from a menu of what's you know what what sounds great because it is you know right on the long or along the line of uh what Ms.

Houseman you know is discussing, and you know, we have you know a fair amount of additional research um you know and data from that, you know, I'm gonna say it was probably October, November last year that we're looking at.

So again, I see those as two separate items.

The bond is gonna look the same, even without or you know, a special service district or pulling PD and fire out and putting them in in their own.

So I would consider that two separate items, and I think it would actually muddy the process if we looked at all of these things that don't pertain to the building or bonding in we have these other two things that you guys want to do, it may become a more complex and um item and take a lot more time than what this time frame would be, because I think like I said, they're just they're two separate things, and really it's it's in my you guys can bring that forward 100%, but I'd like to stick to just the bond.

And it it so it's not two separate things, it's just a different way of looking at it.

Um and I think it's you know, we look at it and to show you you know what it is, so that if it ends up being different, but it is still it's getting the same thing done.

Um, you know, but the other option to it's score in the building is still be paying for the building and build is still one item.

And I I I I just disagree with you that it's that it's flows with this.

And so I'd like to learn a lot more about it, and I do actually see it now as a hindrance if we do it.

Um it it doesn't give us flexibility in the future, those two items that you're talking about, with the little I know about it right now.

And that's why I think you know, just exploring to make sure that if there is, I mean, if it if it is the geo bond, but at least to have that and say, okay, you know, I mean, that's I I mean it was intriguing to hear a couple of years ago.

So do either of those things um create a geo bond doing those things you guys won't do.

Um a special service district, yes.

It create it just creates the district to oh you're saying a special service district to pay for this.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, this it would pay.

And ongoing costs.

Right.

Yes.

Gotcha.

Okay.

That's where it was the discount.

So it's and that's yeah, so it just, I mean, I think to look at I don't like that idea at all.

It's another tax and taxing entity.

Um we have to have a board.

We have to we are not in control of that, a special service district.

A special service district, yes, a special revenue fund, no.

And that's where I mean there's there are some different options, and I think just to be aware of it to see what exactly they are to get this done and to look at it.

And that's I I mean it's we started looking at very high level, and I don't have the information to it, but I think you know, I mean, I'd love to sit down and say, hey, let's just look at it.

Maybe the geo bond 100% is the easiest, most clean cut move quickest path forward.

Um I I think they'd be probably the same.

You know, I mean it's I I don't think one is going to be a little more you know, expedient.

It it they would happen at the same time they could happen.

So just a different funding mechanism is what I think just to understand the pros and cons.

Um, yeah, I mean it's and geo bond, I mean that's we just did it for 31.

And it's with a uh fund that continues to collect, um it it continues to collect.

This bond would be specific for yes the yeah the building.

Yep.

So your option would also end.

It's um there are other uh the sp the special revenue fund is very different, and that's where I'm just saying, you know what?

Let's look at this.

I'm I love the idea that you're exploring this.

There are some other possibilities, you know, just to all research other funding mechanisms to look at and say, okay, you know, is this something that we do or is it not?

And we let it go.

Like just some options to it.

Cool.

Ms.

DeSouza.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I I like the idea of this.

I do see why you've come up with this proposal.

Um so I would like to learn more about it.

You know, I don't have enough, I don't feel like I have enough information for myself to adequately answer some of the questions that I I think that you're um eventually looking to have answered.

Um, and so kind of like what others have said, um, I I think it's important that we evaluate, ask all the questions, evaluate all the options, and I think that's how we end up making really good decisions.

And so to me, this is just another part of getting information, educating ourselves so that we can um determine whether or not this best serves our city, our needs, and if so, how, and put that plan together.

And so um it does make sense to continue to um how do you look into it?

And then in listening to some of the comments, I um wonder if maybe this may be a good candidate for a future like council workshop item where we can have more conversation less formally with those experts to help answer some of the questions that have come up.

But anyway, I generally support looking into this more.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Does Aaron have any comments?

I've been watching for his hand to go up.

Council member De Kaiser, did you want to add any comments and unmute yourself if you do?

Yeah, I think I did.

I just um I do want to applaud council member Nicole on working to solve the problem.

I think it's really neat uh in terms of framing it as a legacy project that um accomplishes um things in you know the near term and uh focuses on the public site safety priority of the council this year.

So thank you very much for having that vision.

I I um don't think it's necessary excuse me, right now, to have um more input from the administration and the police department.

I'm just not so uh aware of the the technical intricacies of what they need in a building and things like that and whether whether they could get that um as we shift stuff around or you know, uh as council member Sharky was saying, like if we can get close enough to meet the needs without um burdening the the residents for the tax payment, but I I do think it's really great and appreciate the vision and um like council member D'Souza's idea of maybe doing a workshop or just uh collecting lots of information.

I I would be very open to having um you know many more meetings on this um this this year.

Thank you.

Thank you, Erin.

I think that during this process we should take a tour of of the space that they occupy.

It will help.

That's how I ended up with that.

So for me, just to clarifying question.

So are you you're advocating for building a $33 million public safety building instead of purchasing the Arbor building.

That was my initial thought.

I had this great idea, but I do see the advantages of the Arbor building.

Um the city did own it at one time, you know, and when we sold it.

So I do see the advantages.

I think this is a better solution, a quicker solution.

And I'm not opposed to buying the Arbor building, because I mean, you know, it's it's getting paid for, not by tax dollars.

And I I can really appreciate that.

So it wouldn't be an either-or.

That's not my scenario.

And so in terms of both, we've established tonight that we were short twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and two square feet.

Building the building you're proposing and buying the Arbor building is one hundred and thirteen thousand square feet.

So we are acquiring three times more square footage than we need.

None of the square footage that we're proposing to buy or here gives the amount of square footage that the police actually need.

So and the building, as stated, the Arbor building, the leases, police are never going to go in that building.

The Justice Court is not big enough for PD.

So we're going to have to bond it sometime in the future.

And that building to me and to others is valuable not as putting other sand into it necessarily.

It's having the property again that is on the Sandy City campus without the taxpayers paying for it.

I know where you're coming from.

You're you're looking at all of the space, right?

The Arbor building will never ever suit the needs of PD.

We we understand that.

I think we've established the justice court will never truly ever fit their needs today.

And I I think that's where we kind of disagree.

So remodeling a justice court that really doesn't get PD where they need to be, doesn't factor in for here's here's the thing.

If so, you're pro you're proposing to build a 47,000 square foot building, which is I'm sure I I don't know what PD occupies now.

What do they occupy now?

Do we know in the building study is that's where I got the 47,000 square feet from.

So currently there you've got the bottom level of city hall, which is approximately 27,000 square feet.

You've got 5,000 square feet that they're occupying over in the Justice Court building, and then you've got all the satellite offices.

And I don't know the exact numbers of those.

So the 47,000 is the same.

The only way this isn't spending more taxpayer money than we need to is if the proposal to build the building, instead of moving people into Arbor, we move them into the space that is being vacated in City Hall.

Yep, which means we don't need the Arbor building.

In my mind, yeah.

So we spend $33 million instead of zero.

See, that's my that's that's my issue.

I that I just I can't get over.

So all right.

Madam Chair.

Yeah.

But I just wanted to say uh part of the success of the bond for the fire station, Miss Nicholas we had a uh the management study, a comprehensive study that not was was not just focused on the building space but overall vehicles, personnel levels.

Councilmember Houseman had the foresight to order that, and that was really the foundation of the citywide education campaign, and that's really what brought home the the votes to support that.

I welcome any any investment in our police department, our space limitations, our staffing limitations, our training.

Space is one component, uh, but I wouldn't I I would encourage the council to consider doing a police management study or accelerating a scheduled management study to make sure that we're hitting the mark.

So we're that we're spending the dollars where it's needed.

Um as I see the the Arbor building relieves some pressure because we can move things around like uh dominoes move our departments around as space becomes available that will relieve some immediate pressures.

Short-term, uh it's not the permanent solution, but it is a short-term benefit.

And as we do a management study, if that's what the council decides to do, we can move forward.

But I am really excited to hear the council discuss this and seemingly be open to moving forward and the idea of a public safety or police uh building.

We need it.

I mean that the time has come, and we but I don't want to just look at space.

I think we we need to look at all of the resources for the police departments so that we're funding, we're putting our tax dollars where they're needed most would absolutely be a part of this.

It's it's pretty in-depth of the the need in the process in here.

So yeah, I agree.

Thank you.

All right.

Yeah, what you need.

All right, council items number five and six are on the consent calendar, and those are minutes from January 6th and January 13th.

May I have a motion to approve the consent calendar?

I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Motion and a second, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, moving on to um num item number seven public hearing on the bonds.

Public hearing on the bonds.

Mr.

Kelly.

Good evening, Council.

I just wanted to introduce this agenda item.

As you mentioned, it's a public hearing.

On the bonds for maybe people that are new to this process.

A bond essentially is a type of a loan for the city.

It's the most efficient way we can borrow money to be able to finance different projects.

And this one, as we've been talking about, is um is for the purchase or acquisition of the Arbor building, which is located uh adjacent to us.

Um we've also made an amendment that would include a million dollars for the improvements of the city council chamber.

So the parameters resolution that was approved by the city council, which is what this hearing is about, was not to exceed certain parameters.

So the the not to exceed amount was nine million.

Um the interest rate was not to exceed 6.5% per annum.

Um the term was not to exceed 22 years, and that allows for some flexibility when we go to the market, which um by the way, we have solicited to about 15 financial institutions uh for their interest on this.

We should receive bids by the end of this week.

And um, so those are kind of the overall parameters that we would need to operate and close the deal on if we were to go ahead with this bond.

Um I did also include in the pack an updated debt schedule uh for your review that includes the one million dollars that we added, and the way that we are structuring this potentially with the financial institutions is to do a series A and B.

And the reason we're doing that is because the improvements to the chambers would be taxempt, whereas the building would be taxable because we are leasing that to outside tenants, and it's so it's for non-governmental use, the majority of it.

So to get the most efficient use of our money, we're breaking it into two.

Um it saves us on interest costs.

So we have the series A and B, but the combined payment is about 700,000 per year, and based on our modeling of the lease revenue, if we're able to keep the tenants, we we would still be operating in the black under that scenario.

So I'm happy to address any questions now, or if you'd like to turn it over to public comment.

Council, any questions for Brian still.

This is a public hearing, and so we will open the public hearing to public comments.

I have no blue cards in the room.

Dustin, would you like to invite members that are watching online to provide comment?

Of course, thank you, madam chair.

Uh, if you're joining us virtually this evening via Zoom and you'd like to comment on tonight's public hearing item number seven, go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen now, and I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

Uh Madam Chair, up first is Steve Van Marin.

Steve, I'm gonna allow you to begin speaking.

Please remember to unmute yourself.

Thank you, Dustin.

Good evening, Council.

Steve Van Barron, resident of Draper.

I'm sorry.

Um really looking at this bond, you're gonna pay more than more than 50 percent of the principal in interest over the 20 years in bold case on both bonds on each bond, so significantly more on the non-tax exempt one.

Why can't you just rent the space until some other things are sorted out?

I I don't I I don't recall how the availability of the Arbor building became apparent, but um I'm sorry, I just can't see investing in that property at this level with that much extra cost, even though you will earn a lot of it back as long as you have tenants in the building.

There are other options.

I know you don't like to rent, but that's basically what you're doing running from yourselves.

Thank you for your time today.

Not seeing any other hands raised, madam chair.

All right, we'll close the public hearing on this item.

Brian, I do have a question for you, real quick.

Like any amortization schedule, it's really shocking how much you pay an interest on any loan you take out, right?

I mean, even on buying a house when you figure out with the interest included how much you're spending.

But in I just want to make sure that I'm reading it right.

So in the presentation that Dan gave, there was an operating budget.

And the operating budget showed income of 1.3 million dollars per is that should be per year or something.

Per year.

Yeah.

And uh and the expenses of 512,000.

So profit of 812,000.

The bond payment is costing us under 700,000.

So every month, the way I'm looking at it, every month we're operating in the black.

Yeah, every year is how we're looking at it.

Every year we're operating in the black.

Now obviously that is dependent also on the continuation of the leases.

We know that.

But I just wanted to shortcut the math that I had done to show that it and there's even a little bit of cushion.

We are setting money aside for management and for tenant improvements and for different maintenance of the building and things like that.

We're paying the RDA back over 20 years as well of million dollars.

So we're still operating in the black, we're giving ourselves a cushion.

There's still a little bit more cushion in there.

Have I just said anything that is?

No, that's accurate.

I would just add that the cushion will grow as time goes on because this is a fixed payment with our debt, which is the biggest part of the cost of owning the building.

That stays the same.

Our revenues will increase the lease and built into the leases or escalation.

So our costs will also go up, like our maintenance costs, but the biggest part of the of the owning cost of owning the building is the debt, and it'll stay flat.

And so that net black that we have each month will grow as the years pass, and our fund balance should grow up.

So all right.

I see no more comments from the council.

Thank you, Brian, for that presentation.

Um item moving on to item number eight.

Is anyone feeling like they need a short little okay, a really short little recess, and we will be back in five minutes.

Thank you.

Garlic.

Recording stopped.

The recording going.

Let's go ahead.

Recording in progress.

All right, we're back, and we're on to um item number eight.

Miss Nickel.

Thank you.

I wanted to uh make clear up front because I I watched the meeting again, and there was a lot of um ask about salary, and this has nothing to do with salary or setting a salary range for the council or the mayor.

This is strictly the fringe benefits in the wages and benefit packages that we offer.

So just to make that clear.

Um, I want to also note that the administration sent us some numbers of some cost comparisons, and I wanted to note that um the amounts were never really a consideration of bringing this forward.

It was really for the five stated points in my original presentation.

It's can um continuity between elections, public trust, alignments with our budget statements, transparency, and it gives the council this um the ability to set pay and compensation.

So to clear that up, and thank you for the information.

Um everything is pretty much the same.

Some of the language had to change, but this is how it will look in the employee handbook, is the red line, and the ordinance just puts this into code, so it doesn't have to have all of the things listed out.

Um the exact uh numbers are also codified in the employee handbook.

There were some when I watched the video again.

There were two item or two items that um about the there were two issues with car allowance.

One said we may want to think about keeping it in, and one said, what about abolishing them all?

So I thought as a compromise, we could put some language in as um maybe, and we don't have to do this now.

Set the parameters in which you can receive car allowances.

The state puts in whatever the IRS rate is for the certain year.

And again, looking at the state, I didn't have time to look at um county.

The it the state says 50 miles from your home or office, is that's when the mileage reimbursement kicks in.

So I don't know if that's amenable to you.

Um there was another comment about possibly having to use a city device, a telephone.

I don't know that that's not a bad idea anyway for transparency.

So I'm I'm my original proposal stands with all of the things in it at this point, so but I did want you to know that I took those into consideration.

Any comments, Ms.

Halsman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um so I kind of wanted to like uh partition out one piece.

I want to make sure I thank you for uh sharing the fact you know you went back and watched the videos, and but if I could focus on merit pay first, um, and then allowances, like the I the benefits maybe is as I'm curious to hear what others think about that, but specifically merit pay.

Um we had a long discussion about that last time, and I just want to confirm for public, etc.

That that merit pay is fundamentally a management tool.

If I remember you didn't hit that as one of your five uh key points, but I felt like that was an emphasis you made last time.

I think we all expressed that yeah, you so that's what it should be for.

Yeah, right, right.

Elected officials were not subject to managerial uh performance evaluations, our evaluation comes from the public, and whether you know we get re-elected or not.

So I just wanted to confirm that that is why it doesn't feel appropriate.

I still agree, I still feel that it's not appropriate for for mayor pay um for elected officials, and um then the question I had is and I think you I think you addressed it at the beginning when you were saying this is this is a separate conversation from salary, and so when we think about cola, cola is attached to salary.

So if, for example, um in the budget adoption, you know, we have improve a percentage increase for COLA, that is relative to the salary.

You're that's not connected to merit pay.

Correct.

Okay, okay.

Just want to make sure we were we were we were what I'm understanding as far as your biggest point is um where elected officials uh should should not like the the performance evaluation aspect of the full the whole if we if we want to call it the benefits package, like there are aspects of that that just don't apply to us, yeah.

And the the fringe benefits that we offer to employees to keep them our long, you know, longgevity still needs to be deserved because they're topped out of their pay range too.

So those are ways that we do that, and specifically for employees, right?

Right.

Okay.

So just clarifying that.

Um see if I had any others.

Um, yeah, this this question.

So sh if we were to move forward with this, um, and a future administration were to reintroduce this and and and and try to say, well, uh, elected officials should should have merit pay.

What might be the guardrails?

Have you thought about what guardrails we could put in place so that it's clear that we have we have said elected officials, their performance, their managerial evaluation comes from the voters.

Merit pay is a tool of performance evaluation, it's a tool of recruitment and retention, therefore it does not apply to elected officials.

Like, if you thought about future guardrails, the guardrail is that um the statute is how it is worded right now.

There is no longevity to this.

It would, if somebody wanted to bring it back at any time and change it, they could.

You need to get the majority vote, and but I can't put a guardrail in this that could prevent that.

Okay.

Um allowances I'm gonna pause on because I again I wanted to sort of talk about the merit pay component, and so I'll be quiet on allowances and come back to that after I've given others a chance to talk, but thank you for those clarifications.

You're welcome.

I want to hear what Marcy has to say on the rest of her thought.

I'm kind of compiling thoughts from kind of my thoughts.

Yeah.

Well I just did so much talking.

I want to get the others.

Did you do more?

Do more time?

Yes.

Okay.

Uh I was actually intrigued by um this this analysis of allowances.

Um I I think we're wise to kind of again, that's why I started with merit.

You mean the supplemental information?

Yeah, okay.

Yes, yes, which I didn't have a chance to look at till so I'm I'm not fully versed in in all of this, but but I'm noticing some interesting data points in here.

Um in particular that you know there are cities that don't have an allowance.

Um there's also I you pointed it out already, the fact that uh city phone is given.

Um I I probably feel um that there's an opportunity to consider cell phone, but to be honest, vehicle allowance, I really like I like the idea of what I consider as precedence, which is a reimbursement model.

I really like the reimbursement model.

I like using the state rate for that.

Um we don't I mean that's that's what we do.

Like if we um for example travel, we drive to St.

George for the ULCT, we can um if we have our budget, now that's the thing is where I noticed uh uh it not necessarily spelled out is we have a limited budget, we decide how we are going to spend our budget in terms of uh travel and and conferences, et cetera, and once we hit our budget, we're we're done.

And then it's on our own.

And we we make that choice.

We we know going in, okay.

I've I've maxed out my budget, but uh this conference in St.

George is still really important to me, so I'm gonna drive and I'll just I'll just pay my own gas.

But our process for um reimbursement when we do have the money still in our our city council individual budget is a reimbursement process.

So um I I would be open to discussing that approach and having it be um the the cap of this of the the state's cap that you mentioned of the 50 miles start yeah 50 miles from home or office yeah the the clock not the clock the measurement begins at 50 miles.

Now I know it's a little different because we're traveling within the city, I mean driving from our house to City Hall, how many times you know, uh sometimes day, but definitely week.

Um and we technically the IRS doesn't allow you to know that's what I'm saying.

Okay, yeah.

So so technically we could not we could not get reimbursement for those.

So where we're where we're looking at reimbursement is for the larger scale um travel that that's not that's above normal.

Above normal, yeah.

And and 50 I think is kind of high.

We can debate that number, but I just thought it's you know it's in code now, so and that that's how the state manages that aspect of it.

Yeah, but I don't know if the 50 miles came from the IRS or not.

So right.

So the question comes then, we don't currently have uh an endless like we're very careful with taxpayer dollars as a council.

We know what our budget is, and we don't go beyond that.

And if we do go beyond that, then we we make the choice that we will cover those costs.

Um so in this discussion, are we thinking um that needs to there needs to be a cap across all elected officials, or are you thinking if we were to consider a reimbursement approach?

Um that that we're talking about you can get reimbursed regardless.

No, it would there would be a cap spending cap.

Oh, a spending cap on reimbursements.

I don't know that anybody travels regularly more than 50 miles.

Well, for example, on our current process, if if I have um use my personal city council budget for conference travel, conference, etc.

And I've hit my cap, but I still want to go to St.

George for the ULCT conference, I won't get reimbursed for any travel because I've hit my cap.

That I guess I'm trying to explain.

Are we thinking about changing that, or are we saying all elected officials should have a travel budget and following the not included in our budget, just in a general line item?

I don't know.

Or like I don't know.

I'm I'm just that in terms of thinking about it.

But let me ask let me ask Dustin, would mileage come out of the council members 2,000 that they have to spend in a year, or would it come out of a different line item?

So when we have done mileage reimbursements for like you're traveling down to ULCT, it's all come out of your discretionary spending accounts.

Maybe we can talk about um increasing that because 2000 really doesn't cover the conferences, even just the ones in state.

So we can talk about that at budget time, but I don't know of book.

Do you have a question?

I um on the state's code, it says commute.

Mileage is 50 miles.

Okay.

I is that different than if you're commuting in the normal.

But it's not like I think no, it's just if you're commuting to your place of work, is it I think is what it is.

No, there's a different section.

Okay, so yeah, that's a different section.

Yeah, I had to look.

I had to search for that section too.

Okay.

Nope.

So I don't do you want, do you have a recommendation or want to throw something out?

I don't know.

Um that I have a recommendation aside from if if we are looking to be very transparent with the public, which that's the core work we're trying to accomplish with this, is um we want taxpayers to know that as elected officials, we are being extraordinarily frugal in um in our efforts.

So the first thing is it's not appropriate for us to receive mayor pay.

Elected officials should not receive mayor pay.

I fully support that.

Then there's this idea of allowances, and so in again, in in that dedication to transparency to taxpayers.

If we're considering a vehicle allowance, and if we're thinking reimbursement is the right tool for that, then what does that look like?

I don't know that I well.

The city has a policy on mileage reimbursement, but it doesn't give the parameters, it doesn't, I don't know that it states an amount.

I don't even I don't know if it states the amount or uh mileage limit or you know, starting point.

So a little bit more confusion on that, but I think generally, I mean it would be if we drive more than 50 miles, and depending on what budget it comes out, it comes out, you know, this would kind of be the same.

Okay, and I didn't think about which budget would come out, but um and I don't think it's gonna be hugely impactful in the number.

So maybe let's dig into that at budget time and and um put some hard stops on that, starts and stops.

So your your original proposal though was sort of absent of those benefits, right?

Yes, it was absent of any kind of vehicle allowance.

Um so I guess that's sort of what I'm work shopping a little bit.

Oh, okay.

So is if we were and the original one said we are still eligible for mileage reimbursement.

Okay, so the original one said that it's not a big change, but okay.

I in looking at it, if we did want to um maybe use that as the compromise, and if we did want to put guardrails in or any other um language that states the hard and the fast, you know, we could do that now.

Um we could do that later too.

But if you're more comfortable doing it now, I'm cool with it too, or just leaving it right as is.

Um I feel like that could be a continued, like I feel like we could come back and make that adjustment, but what I am interested in moving forward on is is the merit pay.

I don't think elected officials should receive mayor pay.

It's an it's anticipated in this, so okay.

I think that's all I had.

Is that enough talking for all of you?

Council member De Kaiser.

Oh thank you, madam chair.

I just want to voice my opposition to uh removing the phone and vehicle allowances, thanks to Shane for sending that out.

All those cities offer it for a reason, and I think it's a tool that the mayor, you know, uses to do the job effectively, and I understand council members nickels' reasons like continuity and promoting public trust and transparency, but I think if we're real, stripping these allowances doesn't um build trust or uh align anything better with our budget statements.

But I think if we're real, stripping these allowances doesn't build trust or uh align anything better with our budget statements I as I see it, it creates more confusion and it makes it harder for the job for the mayor to do our job effectively, like we're talking about 50 miles and reimbursement, like any CEO that would have to be do mileage reimbursement, like what a pain in the ass, like worse than the pain in my neck.

That that's just like that to me, this just feels more like micromanaging the mayor and taking away tools that she can use to do her job effectively.

Um as the commenter pointed out earlier, the very first person at public comment, are we gonna throw up roadblocks or or lift each other up?

And and this this to me just seems like you know, you're gonna save 5900 bucks or something.

We haven't even investigated whether reimbursement could cost the city more or whatever.

Um anyways, on these two items, I'm specifically a on the on the merit pay, I could be willing to go along, but generally I just would support the position not to tie the hands of the mayor and and provide her with the resources that she needs to do the job, and we can do that in a tran transparent way.

Thank you.

Ms.

D'Souza.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, and again, this is a this can be a very sensitive topic, right?

Because we're we are talking about ourselves in this conversation as elected officials.

Um I feel a little frustrated by the phrasing of the conversation to bring up certain individuals, certain um positions because that's not how I see this.

Um this is for elected officials, including ourselves.

Um, our jobs, while they may be different in in statute, like we are all doing the job of the residents of the city um in serving them.

And so some of my thoughts on some of the information that's been shared and um some of the comments that have been made.

And I just kind of want to frame it in terms of how I'm thinking about this.

Trying to be more objective, you know, less subjective, less you know, personal feelings hurt.

Um we are public servants.

This is a public good.

I see this as policy refinement to maintain the integrity of public service being for the public good and not for personal gain.

And so with that, this is these are not competitive positions where we are trying to steal, you know, the best and the brightest from other cities.

And so the comparison with other cities to me doesn't have a whole lot of weight in in the context of the elected officials of the city.

Um so that's that's kind of number one.

While I while I think the information that that was referenced um is interesting um and and worth a look, I don't necessarily feel that it's material to the conversation that that we're having, or that in the way that I'm thinking about it, because again, you know, this is we're not talking about traditional employees and benefits and retention and you know, recruitment.

This is this is really providing uh providing uh enough um I don't know what the right word is, you know, reward compensation for for stepping up and doing the work of the public.

But there's a fine line in my opinion between public good and private gain.

Um, and so how do we uh the other thing that I think um stuck with me from our workshop, our um budget workshop was the idea that the council sets the policy the vision for the city through policy, you know.

How do we want like what vision are we wanting to set for our city and those electeds, you know, now and that come after?

And I see this as an opportunity to set a vision that aligns with how we see or would like to see those in public service.

Um so that's that's another thought that I've had um as I've gone through this.

Overall, you know, I I I don't think um, you know, one of the comments that that council member Kaiser referred to in public comment was you know that the the roles for those individuals, you know, that the mayor was elected to be the administrator, and each one of us were elected to uh make policy to make laws and set the budgets.

And so our roles are are very different there, but again, we're all doing we're all working for the same purpose.

I think that there should be more equity and continuity um with regard to the the uh policy around elected officials and compensation and whatnot, um, with you know, understanding the nuances of some of the different roles and departments.

Um listening to council member houseman.

To me, I I feel like the conversation about you know the reimbursement and the how like this is more I see this as policy where that's to me comes across more budgetary, right?

Like that's we're just setting the overall policy, and then we can adjust the budget, you know, if if that's needed to accommodate the policy.

Um I've only ever previously worked in private um enterprise.

I've never worked in in public.

Um I'm now self-employed and an independent contractor, and so that's a little bit different.

I don't have mileage reimbursements outside of you know my my tax return claims, but um in the private sector, very frequent uh I never saw um car allowances and um phone allowances.

I didn't see people that needed to use their phones for um extended use received a phone that the company paid for.

I also think that that was a sign of the times because um cell phone plans were different than they are now, they're not you know now it's it's pretty much unlimited, unlimited text, unlimited calls, and so the the out-of-pocket burden on the individual isn't the same as it was then because of some of those previous limitations.

And so, like what problem are we trying to solve with some of the the policy that maybe exists right now.

Um speaking on the travel um like the car allowance.

Again, I I just I I feel like that's the 1990s calling wanting their HR policy back, you know.

I don't know that it makes as much sense in today's world, given you know, some of the other um the other things that are available, like the mileage reimbursement, that's what we did, and it it was for there was a mileage uh qualifier.

I think that if we're going to do that, that we need to have a mileage qualifier, um, like you know, 30 miles, 50 miles, whatever, you know, that signifies uh travel outside the ordinary course of business.

Um the other thing too with the job of the elected official, not even just speaking about each of us, using you know myself and and what I know of all of us as an example, we don't execute the duties of our office in the exact same way.

You know, everybody has maybe a different idea of how it's best done, you know, where their time's best spent, where what they have available to them because of you know, other um prior not priorities, but other um obligations or whatnot, right?

Um and same goes with the mayor, that there's no job description, you know, you don't have to have any special talent, any special um qualification or experience to be in our position outside of put your name on a ballot and convince everybody that you're better than any of your opponents, right?

And so I don't know, I think we just like let's be real about what what this is and what we're talking about.

And I don't think that what you've put out in here is outside of what I view as um ordinary and kind of sets how I see public service, and so I would support this as written.

I would also, but I would put in a mileage qualifier of some sort.

Um, otherwise I think there's too much ambiguity and it kind of defeats the purpose.

So those are my thoughts.

Thank you.

And it one of the things that is said, and it's not it's you know, it's the truth is that's the way we've always done it, and I don't like that personally, so we don't have to put that that that's the way it's always been done.

We realize that that's the way it has been done, but we're putting some parameters around that now.

So Marcy, go ahead.

Somebody else wants to.

I just wanted to state that we must have a mileage reimbursement policy already because we get one.

So there has to be some kind of since we do receive one when we go out of town, there must be a policy.

Whether we want to tweak it, we could certain we could certainly do that, but it's not like we would have to invent one because since we're getting reimbursements, they're already.

Yeah, parameters on it.

So Miss Houseman, go ahead.

Thank you.

Um kind of the the previous statement sort of triggers something else in my mind.

Um I think it is important to I like the comparison you made, Councilman D'SUSE around you know, expense reports.

They are a pain.

I won't say the other part because but they are a pain, they're a pain.

But that's what you do in a in a in a um private corporation, for example, expense reports allow for clear transparency.

Um, and so having some accountability in terms of this is this is where I went, this is why I went there, here is how it connects to city business, therefore I am asking for this, you know, uh mileage reimbursement or whatever.

So I I I like I like how you shared that.

I think it is appropriate.

in a in a in a um private corporation for example expense reports allow for clear transparency um and so having some accountability in terms of this is this is where i went this is why i went there is how it connects to city business therefore um i am asking for this you know uh mileage reimbursement or whatever so i i i like i like how you shared that i think it is appropriate um so if we were to and i know you've not built this in and in the proposal in its current state um is sort of saying elected officials we don't need all of these other benefits um outside of like you're not touching salary i get that cola um but if we were if we were gonna think um about allowances and maybe maybe the right step is adopt as is um and then continue to explore what my policy because i i agree and i like that correction directed at me i so totally appreciate that let's have the policy conversation first and then later we can figure out the budget conversation so I appreciate that um distinguishing factor there so policy my thoughts around the policy or are um if we were going to consider allowances what what would we put into policy um that required clear connectivity between um the the reimbursement that is being requested and the city business that was performed I don't know that we have that in policy right now aside from I I went to a conference or whatever anyway so that's that's some clarity that if we were gonna change what you've proposed and and and consider allowances outside of what you're putting here I would like to see us look at that aspect of policy that there needs to be and I think the public deserves that if we are spending taxpayer dollars it is appropriate to have a reporting an accounting for how that expense connects to city business I think that's what you're looking for is clarity transparency right exactly I agree I think I will uh keep that at the top of my mind during budget time to talk about some parameters around a couple things council member de Kaiser I just want to note that the argument that now it's good to have transparency and do all the recording that's a pain in the neck flow the opposite way in the campaign finance item when it was too difficult for a PAC to register with multiple cities even though it would increase credit transparency.

I also want to note that it was stated that this is not out of the ordinary but I think to the contrary it quite is and I just want to point out for the record that Salt Lake City South Salt Lake Provo Ogden Murray West Jordan Draper in Park Cottman Heights and South Jordan all offer a cell phone allowance and a vehicle allowance to the mayor I understand like that we want to make this continuous for the or we don't just want to make this about the mayor but about the council too and I think there are some discussions to be had about the stipend that we have and we can do some more research on that and maybe like I don't know you get to a point where council members can document their mileage and use part of their stipend to make it equal I don't know I would love to just have more money to travel but um excuse me the point is I just wanted to be clear for the record that in my perspective it would be out of the ordinary because that's how all of those cities do it and it would be a huge burden on the mayor to document all this travel it would actually just be a huge huge waste of time thank you mayor do you want to comment yeah first let me say I respect the council's role and examining this in all areas of compensation it's completely appropriate to do so but I I will say that under the proposal Ms.

Nichols you eliminate certain things that are already pre um prescribed that elected officials are not qualified for such as PTO bonuses and spot awards under their current policy so I don't know if you are just restating that for clarity but that is not something that elected officials qualify for I've checked with legal and been informed and Mr.

Pace can confirm this that the city cannot require an employee or an elected official to provide services of value to the city without paying for those services and while some may have an altruistic idea and I think we all share that as a full time this this policy impact on the full-time mayor who as you know works over 60 hours a week on the regular sometimes 70 80 hours a week my responsibility is take me to all points of the city and beyond on the daily and so in order to be nimble it is more cost effective HR has done the studies year after year of whether we should have a re mileage reimbursement for employees or the car allowance and consistently since the car allowance policy is established in 2007 and the amount has not increased since it was originally established too so it's not some escalating amount it makes more sense fiscally for the city to go with the straight car allowance than the reimbursement

HR has done the studies year after year of whether we should have re mileage reimbursement for employees or the car allowance, and consistently since the car allowance policy is established in 2007, and the amount has not increased since it was originally established too.

So it's not some escalating amount.

So now paying for the services that an employee or elected official provides is not compensation, it's reimbursement for an out-of-pocket expense.

And as a city, Sandy size statute, the responsibilities of administering a hundred eighty-five million dollar budget representing 97,000 residents being on call 24-7.

The expectation of this position is to have 24-7 access and accountability.

Everything outside of City Hall needs to be covered by providing either a city vehicle, by paying brideshare services, or a mileage reimbursements.

And since we've begun this discussion the past couple weeks, I've just done a quick survey of my daily route.

Um right now, going to the Capitol, going to meetings all across the valley, the lowest Uber fares at the times when I'm I'm mobile, which is mostly during business hours and many evenings, would cost over a hundred dollars a day just on my regular schedule.

So that would quickly usurp the car allowance, the 450 dollar car allowance.

Um expect that the mileage reimbursement will also exceed the car allowance.

So as part of the annual budget review, we studied these cost savings to the city's mileage versus the car allowance, and it's consistently in the city taxpayers' favor to op for the vehicle allowance.

And a few um items of note.

But the vehicle um the vehicle allowance has not risen for Sandy employees in that time.

And then this uh survey that you received the information today, and I'd be happy to share this and make it public for the residents too.

Um I'll put it up on my mayor's page tomorrow so our residents can see.

It shows cities um offer most cities offers both vehicle allowance and phone allowance.

It is the norm for the mayor's position, and I know we're talking about all of elected officials generally, but this has been such a long-standing reimbursement for the full-time mayor, it really does resonate with the mayor's position more than the city council in the part-time status.

So Sandy's current policy is aligned with our surrounding cities of cities uh like size and our like um form of government, but even in mayor council forms of government and part-time mayor's forms of government, it is the standard.

So changing it would make this policy that not only would it increase cost to the Sandy taxpayer, it would make Sandy the outlier, and in doing so diminishes the value of the executive branch, diminishes the uh sends a message to the residents that the city doesn't provide the mayor the essential tools for the job, and it would uh ultimately could ultimately discourage others for seeking office.

So just ask the council to consider that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have some counterpoints to that.

Can I ask a clarifying question or yeah, sure.

Um, so Lynn, does that mean that the city is breaking the law by not providing cars for all the city council?

The I think the point that the mayor was making is that the city can't require employees to provide services or value to the city for free.

Um there's been a conversation about a 50-mile threshold.

I don't know where that comes from.

I just talked to asked Katrina.

We don't have a 50-mile threshold for reimbursement.

If I buy a box of Kleenexes for three dollars for the city, the city has to reimburse me three dollars.

We can't just say we're not going to reimburse you for anything over 50 bucks.

So that's that's the principle.

There's a big difference between a full-time employee and a part-time employee.

So different laws apply to part-time employees in terms of paying them for their the city's business.

The I I don't I don't know the answer to all that, and Katrina may be better positioned to answer that.

I just didn't I didn't want to suggest that the because you eliminate the car allowance, you won't have to pay for transportation.

The city city will still have to pay for transportation for whatever the job requires that did not answer my question.

Okay, I yeah, I uh that's interpretation, and I would welcome if this passes, I would welcome a challenge on it, but uh um it's interpretation of the code and you interpret it's very differently.

Yeah, no, I'm the point I just wanted to make is that the car allowance is a substitute for at least as I understand it, I wasn't wasn't around with this, but it was adopted.

But most cities, a car allowance is a substitute for calculating actual mileage, and so it's intended to be in lieu of actual dollar for dollar reimbursement.

If the city eliminates the car allowance, that's fine, you have every right to do that as a policy measure, but that won't change the city's obligation to pay for the transportation costs associated with your full-time employees' transportation needs.

Hold on, Tracy.

Then oh, I I have one more thing I wanted to add.

Hold on one second.

Is can you weigh in on that?

I'd be happy to.

I so if the if the council decides that um that you don't want to do mileage reimbursements uh anymore and you want to eliminate eliminate that, um the mayor and other prof just like all the other professional staff, we we have to get them from point A to point B.

And so um that would be within the course of their official duties.

So it very well might be that um that the mayor or any other senior staff member would have access to the fleet of vehicles we have here, for example.

Um it might be that um some cities provide uh rather than do the mileage, they provide a vehicle that the mayor uses, for example.

So we we we don't expect any of our employees, regardless of if it's in the executive branch of government or on our side of the ledger, to be able to do the essential functions of their job without providing a mechanism for them to do that.

And if that means them getting around, we provide a mechanism for them to do that.

Now that doesn't mean that we have to we have to pay for mileage, it doesn't mean we have to have that specific policy.

It may mean that there's a pool available for vehicles or something like this.

Um and a lot of that is sort of for that's sort of an administrative question.

But if you don't want to do the mileage because you're concerned about that, um, it's more about the uh the car allowance claim.

Yeah, and and the car allowance, so you just look, but that doesn't mean that that still means that within the course of the mayor's job, if she needs to get from point A to point B.

She can't drive her personal car.

Well, she could, but we don't we wouldn't expect her along with any other employee to get from A to B and not be compensated if it's a function of the job, right?

Why can't compensation come in the form of their regular pay?

Well, because it's not I mean the way the IRS views this is it's not compensation, it's a reimbursement for actual um for costs, not it's not considered it's not considered compensation necessarily.

It's it's a French benefit in my mind, right?

I I think you you you know you're the policymakers, you can choose to see it that way.

But the way the IRS treats it is it's not a benefit.

Um you don't pay taxes, it's not a taxable benefit.

Yeah, I mean you could choose to see it that way, you could choose to see it as it's a reimbursement, right?

When you put wear and tear in your vehicle and you use it through the course of your employment, right?

Uh the IRS has determined a mileage amount every year, and that's it.

This is what's fair.

Um, you know, there's a schedule for other things like that too.

But um my sense of it is that you may say that we're not gonna do a reimbursement anymore, or we're not gonna do a car allowance anymore.

But what that means is is that the mayor hasn't to do her job, she can use a car in the you know, in our motor pool, for example, to do it.

We've got extra flee.

Maybe we can put that in there.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Dustin, did you have a comment?

Madam Chair.

Yes, please, Testin.

The only other thought that I would add is I mean, you guys set the departmental budget, right?

For the city council department, for the mayor's department.

And I'll use us as an example.

If you set a budget and you said, hey, uh, there's a thousand dollars in your budget for mileage reimbursement, for example.

Um, and I got to that amount, or our office got to that amount, or or the council members got to that amount, um, you could say at that point, well, there's things we still have to do, and maybe they're maybe they're we're just not gonna travel to do those things at that point since we hit that's what you think would happen, yeah.

That budgetary amount.

Now, you know, there's a lot of negatives there, I think, obviously.

But that's the reality is you set the budget, and you know, if you set it for me and I said, Well, hey, I'm gonna go drive a thousand miles anyway, you know, to do XYZ that's related to my job, but I exceeded the budget that you set.

I mean, that's a problem because I've exceeded the budget at that point in time.

Thank you.

And Madam Chair, can I just clarify?

I want to make sure that I was clear about about this, because I might not have been like so.

There's basically um there's there's three buckets that are options, right?

For the for the for the mayor's transportation, right?

Uh bucket A is the mayor gets a uh a car allocation.

Bucket B is the mayor's reimbursed for mileage.

Bucket C is is the mayor uses a uh a car that's here part of the motor pool or gets a car designated for her, right?

Um re so let me just make sure I clarify this.

So if she's using a vehicle here, that's not necessarily that's not a taxable event, that's not necessarily considered um a benefit necessarily.

Mileage reimbursement is under the IRS isn't necessarily considered a benefit either.

Now a car allocation, it very well can be, and a person may have to pay a percentage of taxes on top on on that mileage, I mean on the car allocation.

So you could choose to see the the IRS does see that there's more value in a car allocation, say than mileage.

Um so if if you're thinking of it in terms of the public policy part of it, and you're concerned about how the IRS might consider it a a car allocation, there's some taxable element to that.

Claire's mud.

It's not considered a reimbursement, right?

It's taxable.

It's it's yeah, portion of it.

My understanding is a portion of it is for a car allocation, but mileage reimbursement is not.

It's reimbursement.

Right.

Yeah.

It only applies to full-time employees.

Is that in our policy?

Not necessarily.

Is that in our policy?

Or I'm asking.

Yeah, I know.

Not not necessarily.

You could have part-time employees be reimbursed for mileage, you have part-time employees use the motor pool vehicles.

And if you had a policy where a part-time employee could have a car allocation, sure.

Madam Chair.

Can I?

Yes.

So just to add to what um Mr.

Calderrell is saying, uh, an employee who receives a vehicle allowance, it is treated as a benefit except for if that employee writes down the miles that he is traveling for the city on behalf of the city, that goes against their taxes.

So in other words, in the end, the only bet the only part of that vehicle allowance that's a benefit is what the difference between that and what an employee would write down for mileage.

So most employees don't do that.

Most employees just pay the taxes on the on the vehicle allowance.

But an employee can write down all every every mile that they travel for business, and that can go against their uh taxes at the end of the year, which then so it's a mixture of both in the end.

She had another question.

So is that that for all full-time employees?

Anyone in the city?

I don't think I'm not sure what you're asking, but what so anybody who has a vehicle allowance, they can write down the mileage that they're doing for work, and and that can go against their taxes at the end of the year.

So they're getting the port that they're using for work, they get reimbursed for the part that they're not, they don't get reimbursed.

In other words, that part is a benefit.

The other part that they're writing down is just the reimbursement, yeah, just the people with car allowances.

Yeah, just the people with car allowances.

Um I've known plenty of employees who did that who did that through the years.

They wrote down every every mile and they they wrote it off on their taxes.

The uh when I get I get it, yeah.

I just have I have a question for Tracy.

So using that logic, and the stated that we need to supply employees with a way to do their work, does that apply to all employees regardless of whether or not they are allowed a car allowance?

Well, yes, I mean I mean, uh when I worked in the parks department, yeah, I mean, you I had a job to do, I had to I I'd come to work, I'd park my car and I'd go get a truck out of the motor pool, and I'd go do my job.

Um in fact, I wasn't allowed to use my own car for obvious reasons.

Um but yeah, I mean we we do, we we as a in order to we have to provide people with the tools to do their job effectively.

And for some people that is having access to a vehicle, for other people it's AutoCAD, for other people it's a computer and access to Word.

So is there uh the word necessary?

That's when it becomes the debatable question.

Some of it is like, look, I mean, it is true.

Say if a person is can it be abused?

I think maybe that's really your question, and sure it can be, right?

I mean, and and to a certain extent, there's only so much you can do with that, you know.

Um if you're worried about certain abuses, in some ways, the best thing to do is to just have a mileage plan, you know.

Um, if you're worried about it, and then you and then you scrutinize the mileage.

Who sets the parameters of which what is necessary for somebody to do their business?

Well, depends which branch of government we're talking about, right?

I mean Well, it shouldn't.

We're separate but equal.

Well, well, the answer is is that if it's say if it's the police chief, then that's the mayor, right?

If it's Dustin, that's you clear as my dusty.

Okay, it's really complicated, you know, and you and you're it's a it's a it's a tough decision.

And my best advice is that you we have to provide a mechanism for all the employees to do the job, including the mayor.

Mayor's job by nature does require driving around, going to the Capitol, going to other cities, going to meetings, making appearances at different places.

She has to have an ability to do that.

And so we can do it one of three ways.

One is car allocation, two is a mileage reimbursement, three is a motor pool option.

I mean, the mayor maybe we could say what you can ride your horse too.

She might prefer that, right?

But it's like those are we can say no vehicle allowance and roll the dice.

Well, Dustin?

You know, you're talking about elected officials, we're not talking about employees, right?

Or we're not elected officials or employees, but we're we're talking about specifically about elected officials.

So, you know, Tracy's point of hey, the mayor says what the police chiefs, right?

Mileage reimbursement can be, and you guys say what mine is.

Well, the the issue you have is you using you guys as an example.

You're the only ones who have oversight over you.

The seven of you.

There's nobody else.

And so if you if you I would really discourage you guys from from sitting down and saying, okay, well, let's come up with some comprehensive list of these parameters for elected officials to base mileage reimbursement on.

Because when it comes down to it, it's going to be nearly impossible to enforce.

You're each gonna have your own opinion.

The mayor's gonna have her own opinion, and and what what's gonna happen to resolve it at the end?

Nothing good.

And so I would encourage you that if you are if you find this important, if you find, hey, let's let's think about what you know parameter we truly want to set upon, uh, you know, mileage reimbursement or a vehicle allowance or whatever it is outside of your proposal, just look at it from a budgetary perspective.

What is what's the amount that we are going to appropriate, right?

You do that right now.

You appropriate a specific amount to the mayor and a specific amount to yourselves to yourselves at zero, right?

For a uh vehicle allowance, but you do make an appropriation to yourselves for for travel, right?

You say, hey, we have a discretionary spending account as elected or as council members, and we are not going to exceed that.

And I I think it was maybe Marcy who said this, but once you get past that point, you guys have opted to say, well, we're gonna we're gonna pay for this stuff personally now.

Because you've exceeded your budget.

And so in my mind, I mean that's where it's at.

You set the amount in the budget, whether it's a vehicle allowance, whether it's a reimbursement amount, whether it's an amount for motor pool car, you sent the you set the amount in the in the budget.

And you have to understand the mayor does have some budgetary authority within her department.

And so you may set a line item.

But the mayor does have the authority to move money between line items within a department, and so that's something that is just part of our form of government.

I have a question for Katrina.

Do you mind coming up?

Thank you.

So are elected officials categorized as full-time employees and part-time employees strictly for budgeting purposes.

Um budgeting purposes, yes, I mean we budget based on the number of hours we're paid, right?

For benefits purposes, um, for retirement, for life insurance, there's a difference between how you're you're classified.

Um but I'm not sure when you're talking about like Burke was saying, like, is this does a part-time employee get mileage reimbursement?

The policy is any employee who drives on city business is eligible for mileage reimbursement.

Now you may not take it, I may not take it, but the city has said I am eligible for that.

So it doesn't matter if you're full-time or part-time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

You have a qu another question.

I do, Katrina, I'm sorry.

So I'm just curious too.

So like I want to say that I recognize like legitimate reimbursement for official business.

And I think the point that I was trying to make earlier with, you know, there's not a job description for each of us that we have to follow, and we can't be fired if we don't do it the way that it, you know, it's supposed to be done.

And so the way that this particular mayor has chosen to execute the duties of her office is different than I would say her predecessor.

You know, she may work, you know, more hours.

He may have not worked any hours.

I don't know, right?

So, but my point is like there's there's a line um between what's necessary for you and what's you know, maybe necessary.

My question is in in the conversation of all of the different options and ways to reimburse somebody for their legitimate business use.

Can a person who is receiving a um car allowance also seek mileage reimbursement?

No.

So the car allowance is in replacement of mileage reimbursement.

So you know we analyze everything, right?

When we bring the compensation plan to you, we've analyzed everything.

The point of an allowance is that the city has said you drive enough that we think we will save money by giving you the allowance rather than paying you for your mileage.

Like they're they're not making money, it's saving the city time, and it's saving the city effort having to calculate the mileage.

Um that's why we give allowances.

It is in the policy that the department needs to analyze the each individual employee who gets an allowance and how much they need.

Um, it's not just a blanket thing that we give people.

Well, and I guess you know, from just exactly what you said, in the position that's we're talking about with elected officials, we're kind of at the top.

You know, who's going to evaluate us in the same way that we would evaluate you know, other employees, right?

No one, thank you, Dustin.

And so, like we have to police ourselves.

Like this is we are in a position where we have to police ourselves and ask those questions.

And so, you know, I I don't think that this is a bad conversation to be having.

I again I um I'll go on, but my other question is I'm glad to know that that you can't double dip because I had seen at one point um somebody that I believed had in the budget that had also sought reimbursement, and maybe that was reversed after it was input.

I don't know.

Um, and so I just wanted to make sure that we have a policy against that.

You know, one of the other things that um like that this is a this is all about fairness, and I think the hard part is we all have to play fair here, and there are times when you know that's on my question for you.

Thank you, Katrina.

Sorry.

There are there are times when you know we drive with each other, and we're still potentially receiving benefits, and so I just think that we need to do a better job of representing our positions of public service for the good of the public and not for ourselves.

I don't know whether it could be a fair statement to say that someone is not making money in a car allowance.

You would have to gauge all their mileage and compare it against that.

I don't know that you one could make that statement in a blanket way.

Um I'll tell you in the private sector, car allowances are negotiated, and people negotiate for bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger ones.

And it's not because if they it's not because it's because in the end it's income and they just want more of it.

So it's something that's negotiated in the public sector.

I think we do have an obligation to make sure for the benefit of the taxpayers that we are not spending more money on something than we need to.

Now, if there's an argument to be made that we would be spending less by applying a different kind of payment schedule, that would be very interesting to be proven out.

Um but I think in all things we should be careful to make sure that we are not spending more money on things than we need to in consideration of the taxpayers.

Um public private sector is different than public sector, and we need to remember that.

I have one comment about the information that Monica wants to post on her Facebook page.

This has not been verified.

Um there are discretions.

I verbally verified some of these, and they're and they're not correct, and also four of them are not eligible for cost of living raises.

So just wanted to put that out.

Out there with the information, it needs to be made public that it has not been verified and may not be correct.

Verified by our HR well were the numbers teased out of the budgets that were online.

Um most of them were provided by the human resources departments of those cities.

Okay, most of them there.

I can't remember for sure.

I would say all of them, but I did you ask off the top of my head.

If cost of living uh if these people were eligible for cost of living.

No, that was not part of the request.

Thank you.

Ms.

Christiansen.

Okay, here's where I'm at.

I agree with number one a hundred percent, right?

I don't have any problem with that.

Um hundred percent, no issues with that.

Um, I mean A1 and A2, sorry.

Um it sounds like to me from both of our legal experts here that I'm not willing personally to roll the dice on that.

And honestly, I think that if the mayor has a car allowance and she takes her staff with her, she's driving her car, so we're saving money in staff turning in mileage, would be my assumption.

So assuming that's happening, it's all you all your staff gets a vehicle at once.

They don't my executive staff, yes.

Yes, and uh after 18 miles a day, that's the average where it's saving the city money on the car allowance over reimbursement.

So that's the threshold 18 miles a day, so it's not hard to achieve.

No, I don't disagree with that.

I just sorry that surprised me.

Um cabinet members, um I assume department heads, chain division directors, yes.

So people whose job is essential to be mobile, yes.

But yeah, I mean that's up to Madam Chair here.

But sorry, that blew my mind a little bit, you guys.

Yeah, well, yeah, yeah.

So is everyone driving separately to everywhere?

Well, no, it depends on where you go come from before and after.

So many times we are attending a same event, but we're coming from different places.

Okay, regardless.

Um I don't think it's worth the possible legal issue to throw the um C to A3 in there personally, but I don't have any problem with the rest of it.

Okay, I'm just gonna pretend are you ready?

Ms.

Strapp, go ahead.

It's getting late, so my numbers may be off.

But so the IRS at 2025 reimburses at 70 cents a mile.

Um with what we're currently paying, that's 41 40 miles a year, which you divide that out by 52, so it's about 80 miles a week.

Um my guess is that you're driving 80 miles a week.

Um I I'm not sure.

I I think there probably needs to be some, and we're hearing that there's there are issues with the different buckets, whether that's a fleet vehicle, whether that's mileage reimbursement, or whether that is a vehicle allowance.

I'm wondering if we just need to pull out three until we get that a little more clarified.

Um, you know, hearing, you know, we've got you know, if that's straight vehicle allowance, I I don't know where we get the 5916.

Such an odd number, um, you know, where that comes from, but knowing that we don't receive that, you know, is that's you know, and and you know, the information that was provided earlier, where we have I mean, a variety, I mean it it goes from I mean it's all over the place, you know, what numbers, you know, a high of being 10-4, you know, down to not applicable, you know.

The county mayor, I I would assume that it's included in her salary, the cell phone allowance and vehicle allowance, but now hearing from both of you that that's county mayor has a staff of security detail that drives there.

Okay, so then the cell phone allowance not applicable.

I don't I I mean, so hearing that, I mean, I I don't know.

I there just seems to be a lot of question with this, and I think ultimately it's where we land dollar-wise, you know, what is it?

Because we do need, it sounds like we do need to account for something.

Um I I mean that's what I'm hearing, you know.

I that's you know, we can roll the dice, you know, and and figure that out, but I'm not sure if we want to over $6,000, or if we find, you know, if if we're not comfortable with six that five thousand nine hundred and sixteen dollars, um, if we're not comfortable with that amount, then what amount are we comfortable with?

Um, and and then to make sure that that's applied, you know, pervasively throughout the city, you know, and then the same thing with the cell phone allowance.

I mean, that you know, looking at that, you know, it seems to be a little more in line, um, you know, comparing other cities, and I know you mentioned you know, kind of other cities and looking at that, but you know, I I know how much I use my phone, you know, just for city business.

I mean, that I when I was looking at this, um, I pulled up and I went over the past seven days, and between residents, staff, council members, I had over a hundred fifty texts in the last seven days, and I quit counting.

I quit counting.

So I know, and that's just text.

That's not phone calls, that's not checking email.

I mean, so phone, you know, and and I think that that is something to look at as well.

You know, is that a city provided phone?

We see a couple of cities that are doing that.

Um, I I think there's just still a lot of where do we land, what does this look like, what do we do?

That that number three is very muddy.

The other two very clear, very straightforward.

I think we have a pretty you know, a unanimous you know, understanding and support of that.

But number three does seem to be.

I mean, even with the legal advice here, seem to be more of a challenge.

So Ms.

Housman.

Thank you, Adam Chair.

Um I I wonder, and and I I kind of support where we're headed, is maybe tabling number three unpacking it further.

But the one thing I will say I feel needs to be clear in policy, so maybe this is what the next step of this iteration looks like, but um is clarity around connection to city-related business.

I think that's the piece that is missing for me.

Um, if if like whatever the vehicle allowance ends up looking like, I think it's gonna be essential that the policy reflect um you know, evidence of clear connection.

And I really I really like what you shared, Councilwoman D'SUSA, around there's individual decisions we make about how we are exercising our job description for lack of a better word.

And where I feel like there is fuzziness is that that interpretation of you know there's there's there's the driving we choose to do because we're choosing to do it and we're not gonna get reimbursed for it.

Um and then there's the driving we do that is absolutely definable as within our within our role and executing city business, and and that's that's the threshold.

Like what is the threshold?

What do we feel comfortable with?

That would be normal and appropriate exercise of the role.

And so it feels like maybe there is an opportunity to like keep unpacking that.

Um so I I just want to make sure that we are we are setting in place some policy expectation that there is clear evidence that the allowances are directly tied to city business, have no connection to personal gain whatsoever.

Hey, Lynn, what's the code that you quoted about must be supply?

The code that I quoted, I didn't quote a code, I was just the what code states that we need to uh supply.

Well, the I don't know that it's a specific code.

The what you would where did you get it from?

What is it?

Well, the the the concept is that the city has to pay for the services and the supplies right.

I got you.

Where is it?

So you can it's it's I don't know that it's a specific code section, it's that you can't require employees to donate their car or to donate gas or to donate supplies, so unless you're hiring a pizza driver and you say we're gonna pay you five dollars an hour and you bring your own car, and that's set out at the outset, right?

Um but generally speaking, the city has to pay for the services and the uh and and the equipment that the city needs to be.

Uh it probably is, but I'm trying to I don't know off the top of my head where that would be.

We can have thresholds, right?

Like, this is the I just want to know specifically what it takes to do your work and where you're gonna disagree.

There's thresholds by which we say I'm not I'm not sure what your question is.

Hers is like the threshold, my question is completely different.

I want to know what code you are quoting when you say that.

Yeah, I don't it's just a general legal principle.

The city has to pay for the services that the city needs to run.

So it's nothing but think of it.

And Allison may help me here.

Lots of teachers volunteer supplies, right?

But this the school district can't require teachers to donate supplies at their own cost, so it's voluntary is what you're getting.

Right.

The district cannot require it.

When you get the code or something that wraps your comment around that in specific code, would you please email us?

My comment was that the city the city is obligated to pay for the cost of the of the function.

And I want to know where it says that.

Yeah.

I would be happy.

I'll have to do some more home.

Thank you.

Tracy, did you have any last thoughts?

I want to make sure that the council um understands my advice.

You can pass this as written, and you can pass three as written.

I I don't they don't have any concern about you doing that if you think that's the best policy decision.

But here's the thing.

Um we can't expect the mayor to drive her car around and do her job without an option, right?

And so I you know, and look, her job's different, she works here full-time, right?

And you shouldn't necessarily do that, which is a whole nother discussion.

Um so here's you can pass it as is, and then you eliminate the policy on the car reimbursement.

But remember, we also Katrina reminded us that we have a mileage policy.

So she could turn in her mileage or she could use a motor pool car, but you can pass this as is if you think this is the public policy that you want to pursue.

We can also turn in mileage reimbursement.

Yes.

Also, yes, yes, you can.

Yes.

Okay, and any employee.

Yes.

So a person doing it or a person not doing it.

There and one other thing to think about is that uh Katrina mentioned this, and Katrina's staff has studied this issue, and in some instances, it is cheaper to do the allocation than it is to do a mileage, especially because now it's what like 72 or 73 cents or something.

And then of course it's easier in terms of the technical issues that the staff doesn't have to process certain things and reimbur checks and audit the you know the accounting on mileage and things like this.

But look, I want I wanted to be crystal clear.

I believe that you can pass this as is.

That's not the point.

It's just um going back to the five points that I made before.

And I think public trust is has become paramount in the conversation.

Madam Chair.

Just may I follow up on that really quickly?

Just in an abundance of clarity.

So as written, the way that I read the ordinance is you're not eligible for a vehicle allowance.

You're not eligible for a cell phone allowance.

You're still eligible for reimbursement for travel, etc.

Um, when you're doing things that are within your official duties.

And so I mean, the way it's written, that I think you could interpret that to be hey, I'm traveling to go to the Capitol to go to LPC, and you know, that's related to my official duties, and I'm gonna submit for mileage reimbursement, and that would apply to you, it would apply to the mayor as well.

You guys have set again a limit on what your discretionary spending is.

You're welcome to submit for mileage reimbursements, and it'll come out of the discretionary spending account that you've appropriated for yourselves.

Madam Chair, may I?

Ms.

D'Souza.

So I was just kind of gonna follow up with some thoughts um, like Dustin had presented, and and one of the ideas and and trying to kind figure out how we can move forward, come to some decision that ultimately you know makes sense and and maintains the integrity of the the reason that you've um looked into this.

There I think there's two options, maybe three options.

You know, we we pass it without three, or vote take a vote on it, right?

To um pass it without three.

We pass it with three.

Um and maybe maybe mileage reimbursement gives all of us as budgetary authority policy makers more information with which we can make those decisions in the future, or we maybe table the whole thing for a minute until this whole thing is like we want it.

I don't know what direction everybody wants to go.

I will maybe leave that, but I think that we are probably at a point to make a decision one way or the other.

Ms.

Nickel, do you think yes, it is so leave it alone for now.

Yes, we will go to public comment if you're not ready to make any more comments at the moment.

All right, this is a voting item.

So we um I have no blue cards on it.

If anyone would like to make a comment, you're free to come up to the uh podium and let's go ahead and call for online comments as well, Dustin.

Thanks, madam chair.

Uh, if you're joining us virtually and you'd like to comment, hit the raise hand button on your screen, and you'll have three minutes.

Okay, first up is Kirby Croyle.

Kirby, I'm gonna allow you to begin speaking.

Please remember to unmute yourself, and you have three minutes Kirby, you are still muted.

I just sent your request to unmute Madam Chair.

Can I move on to the next commenter?

It seems like ahead, yeah.

Okay.

Uh okay, next is Steve Van Marin.

Steve, I'm gonna allow you to begin speaking.

Please remember to unmute yourself.

Thank you.

Good evening again, council.

After listening to this, I think uh mayor's car allowance is appropriate, and I think you ought to also vote yourselves one.

So you don't have to file those reimbursements.

Maybe uh maybe just 150 a month, and uh then you can drive everywhere and not fly.

Thank you for your time.

Okay, madam chair, we'll give uh Kirby Croyle just one more opportunity.

If you want to go ahead and unmute yourself, Kirby Madam Chair looks like she's having not able to unmute herself, so um I don't see anyone else with their hand raised.

All right, it's too bad we lost Kirby now.

Okay.

All right, I will close public comment for this item back to the council excuse.

What is the ordinance?

It's 2603.

I'll make a motion to pass ordinance 2603 um taking out item three.

I will second you said taking out item three, correct?

Just to clarify for the record, that's uh section A3.

A yes, section eighty three all right.

Any discussion ready for a roll call vote, Miss Edwards.

Ms.

Nickel, yes, Ms.

Houseman, yes, Ms.

Sharkey, yes, Miss Christianson, yes, Ms.

DeSusa, yes, Mr.

DeKaiser.

Yes, Ms.

Stroud, yes, Madam Chair, that motion carried seven to zero.

All right, thank you, Miss Nickel.

All right, we're moving on to item number nine, which is an RDA meeting.

So I will make a motion that we recess the city council meeting and convene a meeting of the Sandy City RDA.

Second.

All right, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

All right.

Good evening, madam chair and board members.

As always, thank you for the opportunity.

I will be quick on this uh first item on the RDA agenda.

I think it's pretty straightforward.

Uh Dan Nelson and Brian Kelly have uh I think explained this pretty much in depth on the intention and the use of this RDA out of the of these RDA funds to go towards the acquisition and the purchase of the Arbor building.

Um as you'll find in your packet, the interlocal agreement just basically formalizes that and allows you as an RDA board to approve that money to go to that use.

The other thing in that is just the reimbursement of 50,000 per year with the first payment if the birth building is purchased coming back to the RDA starting in August of 2027.

Other than that, like I said, it's just very straightforward, and I'll entertain any questions.

And this is an information item tonight, it'll come back next week for a formal vote on the IPA.

Thanks.

Council, any questions for Casey?

It looks like not.

Ms.

D'Souza, you are proposing an amendment to the ILA.

Do you want to speak to that?

Yes, I would like to, please.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

So just a little bit of background on this for all of us here and anybody online.

Uh in a previous meeting, I had shared some concerns about the added risk that I believe that this deal added beyond the normal market risk, um, because in order for this deal to uh work the way that we are talking about it in terms of no taxpayer dollars, it pays for itself, we get the revenue right.

Um, we have to manage there, there is an element of risk, and our interjecting uh potentially less compatible municipal tenants in a private free market um investment situation where we need this this investment to generate market revenues consistently, right?

Um, as an element of risk aside on top of just the regular market risk.

And so um I had mentioned it, I kind of gauged the um interest in other council members from that meeting and in other conversations that I had, and I had worked with um our city staff or city attorney or um council attorney and the RDA attorney Kyle Fielding to create this amendment to the um ILA.

And so I guess what I'm asking tonight is for um I do j Dustin and and Casey, maybe sorry.

Do we need to vote to have the amendment added tonight?

Or what is the maybe procedure that's best in this situation?

May I, Madam Chair?

Go ahead, Dustin.

So I I think the council could do a couple of things.

Um you could um add it on as a voting RDA item next week following the adoption of the ILA since it's an amendment, or the council could give administrative direction to RDA staff this evening to include it with the uh ILA next week.

Either way, I think it accomplishes the same thing.

Okay, thank you.

And I'll just add what Dustin said.

We uh we are prepared either way if this moves forward that there is a resolution for both, so you can do it as Dustin said, there is a resolution prepared and would be ready as a separate voting item, or we can just add that on into the interlocal agreement.

Okay, thank you.

Um so really quick, I'll just go through what the amendment is, um, get that out there on the record.

Uh this amendment um is narrowly focused on protecting the revenue stream that will be used to serve as the bond associated with his acquisition because the purchase is being financed in part through a five million dollar investment from the RDA, the lease revenue from the property is what supports that debt and the municipal occupancy decisions, including which departments move in and how much space they occupy can materially affect the building's marketability, rental rates, and overall revenue performance.

So this amendment simply requires that while the bond remains outstanding, so it's temporary for as long as there's debt on the bond, um, that any minute municipal use of the building be reviewed and authorized by the RDA board through a formal resolution, and so it does not apply to any of the commercial tenants, it doesn't apply to the day-to-day operations, and it automatically sunsets, you know, once again um when the bond is paid off.

Uh and we are just I'm just looking to ensure that policy level oversight exists for any decisions that could impact bonded revenue during the life of the debt.

So that is that is it.

Does anybody have any questions on that?

It would be my preference to maybe give direction tonight to RDA staff if we are in agreement that um we'd like to move forward in this direction, and so I would like to make a motion to give RDA staff direction to include this amendment in the ILA for next week.

Second motion and a second.

Are you is there discussion?

I don't know.

Yeah, okay.

Any discussion.

Council?

Uh just clarifying question if I could, Madam Chair.

Um, so we're providing direction that it will be inserted and not separate voting.

That we're inserting the amendment into the ILA, so we will have a single vote on the ILA next week.

The the language, the language yes, we're gonna be including yes.

That was my intent, but if if that doesn't feel comfortable, then sorry.

I'm just clarifying what I'm supporting.

It doesn't change.

No.

I I like the idea of it of the direction we are given is it gets inserted in so the language is added to, and it's a single vote on the that was the intent, yes.

Okay, that I'm just clarifying.

Yep, that's all.

Any further discussion or questions?

Okay, Madam Chair.

I know that um council member SUSE did did mention this, but I think it's important to note that uh RDA council did review this language and didn't have any concern with it.

So he proposed some language, we looked at it, Dustin and I did, and we sent back some uh proposed edits, and then he he reviewed it immediately and said that he was okay with it, so he's not concerned about about any of the provisions.

Uh just wanted you to know that and get it on the record.

Okay, Casey, do you want to conduct a roll call?

I can't remember who was first.

Was it board member nickel?

One last minute question.

Go ahead.

The only thing it and this is like some weird off, you know, but you do have the temporary in here.

For some reason, there was like some major flood or some issue, and we had to use the I mean, I guess we just come back to the council and then we'd vote on it.

Yeah, never mind.

Nope.

Okay, I'm good.

Never mind.

Yeah, report whatever kind of vote you want.

This is procedural, not so whether you want to take a roll call or a you know all in favor, say uh or you know, whatever you want to do.

Uh let's do a roll call.

I think board member nickel were you the board member SUSE.

I made the motion.

Okay.

I did.

You made the motion.

All right.

Sorry.

Board member D'Souza.

Yes.

Board Member Nickel.

Yes.

Board Member Houseman.

Yes.

Board Member Christensen.

Yes.

Madam Chair.

Yes.

Board Member Stroud.

Yes.

And I'm I don't know if board member De Kaiser still on or not.

He's not.

He's dropped off.

So that moves forward six to zero to include the amendment into the ILA.

That's our direction.

The next item on the agenda is just approval of minutes.

I will want, I do need to note.

Madam Chair caught this.

There was a uh mistake on a January 13th minutes, I believe it was.

Um the intention was to have an approval, a motion to approve the minutes, and then a motion to adjourn.

And there was, I believe, two motions to adjourn.

So we've made that a change, and I believe Dustin has already included that update, but that was the one change, and we've and we've sent that to the council office.

I just wanted to make note of that before you change or before you vote to approve.

Motion to approve the minutes for January 13th and January 20th.

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

That's all I have.

All right.

I will make a motion to adjourn the RDA meeting and reconvene the city council meeting.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Madam Chair.

I need to go.

I've gotten a family emergency.

So okay.

All right.

Okay, we're gonna do a closed session, but we'll do standing reports first before we go into a closed session.

So Dustin, can you lead us off on uh standing reports?

Uh yes, madam chair, and uh just really quickly.

I'll be fast tonight.

Uh next week.

Uh we'll do our uh training on the rules of procedure that you've required every other year.

Uh we'll have the final vote on the Arbor building, and then um we have another RDA meeting as has been mentioned.

Do you want to know?

But I I don't have anything else to report uh tonight, madam chair.

Yeah, I was gonna look to okay.

You're leaving okay.

Marcy, anything for standing reports?

Yeah, um I I already mentioned Silicon Slope, so I won't I won't revisit that.

Uh the only other thing was to say, you know, thank you for the event, the legislative night um at the Hale last week.

It was um great to interact with the greater community that is in many ways intersecting with the work we are doing in Sandy, um, and just to have that opportunity to connect.

So always grateful for the the community community building that uh Hale Center Theater does.

That's all I have.

I just want to thank um the economic development department for the business appreciation lunch.

It was much appreciated, very good.

We all had a great time.

Thank you.

Thanks to Hannah for organizing it and uh putting it together.

So I want to thank um the Thursday afternoon legislative update meetings, the internal meetings on teams have been working out really well, and thanks council members for in every case so far adding in another person to um to join the conversation.

We just have I guess three more of them left, so we'll uh continue those.

Um just really quickly.

I uh I was able to um sit with Representative Okerland for floor time at the Capitol last Friday.

So I was there with him on the floor from 2 to 3:30, and then we went to committee meetings together.

It was a great experience.

I would suggest I um any council members that want to do that.

I think uh he'd be happy to uh host somebody on the floor.

It was a great experience, and I would recommend you do it if you can find the time to do so.

Um I'll wrap it up there.

There's a lot more, but I'll just wrap it up and move on.

Umison got something just uh wanted to let the council know that uh youth council will be touring station 31, brand new 31 on Thursday, and uh you know, inviting any other council members that would be willing to join the youth council myself.

You know, we can only have a couple there, you know, it's a total of three, but hey, all right, Britt Christensen.

And if anybody else would like to to take a tour with them, um you know, a great group of kids, and uh get a chance to see 31 put on the slide again.

So if you're interested, uh let me know.

But we can only have one more, so make sure we don't have a quorum.

Thank you.

Yep, thank you.

I don't have anything, madam chair.

Yay, I would like the following individuals in the closed door if possible.

Uh that would be myself, Dan, Lynn, Brian, and Ryan.

All right.

Okay, we all make a motion that we have a closed session to discuss the purchase, exchange, or lease of real property, and thereafter to adjourn the city council meeting.

Second.

Go ahead.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your vote.

I just wondered if you wanted to get the legislative report before you go into closed session.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry about that.

Sorry.

Indeed, you might be sorry.

It's I've got five pages of single space uh, but in low of the time, I will do the best I can.

Um, I'll go thematically like we've done before.

So I'll start with property tax.

Uh Senate Bill 97.

This has now gone into one substitute.

Uh so it was changed.

This is uh Senator McKay's bill.

Uh it does still take the fund balance from uh 35% to 25%.

So there's a lot of underlying concern about that.

It's not for us per se because we keep ours at 12.

Uh, but the uh league is opposing the bill.

Uh next one, House Bill 484.

The league is also opposing this.

This is uh property tax changes by Representative Christofferson.

And uh, what this does is it limits the taxing entity going through truth and taxation to a max of 5%.

And if you want to go beyond the 5%, you have to take it to a vote of the people.

So that uh so the league is also opposing that.

Uh 449 um taxpayer oversight of government spending.

This basically takes um it requires a voter approval for any increase in taxes.

And so there's no um uh you know, there's no discretion on your part if you wanted to do the tax increase, it would have to go to a vote.

Uh that uh the league is also opposing that.

Uh there are some uh process change, so this is still within the uh property tax realm.

Um the uh House Bill 236, uh truth and taxation amendments.

This is the one that requires the preliminary uh tax um uh that there uh requires a meeting, so this is a little bit problematic for uh uh cities who have a city mayor form of government uh because the timing doesn't quite work out and it assumes some things that might not be the case.

Nevertheless, we've talked to Brian.

If the bill does pass, which it likely will, uh we're not overly concerned about our ability to uh be able to operate on a you know have two budgets basically.

The ones that's got the tax increase version, the other one that is that does not.

Um the uh House Bill 238 is kind of a cleanup bill.

There were a number of uh cities last year that were going through a truth in taxation process that didn't have their funds or that didn't have their uh tax increases approved because of a number of of checklist things that the state put in.

Uh so this would simplify some of those and eliminate some of the confusion on that.

So this is one that uh we're supporting.

Um I'll just do two other categories and then I'll finish up.

The the second is housing and land use.

Uh the uh House Bill 184.

This is one we've talked about before.

There's a second substitute on this.

This is still a lot of concern.

This is the one that has the preferred land use regulation that if there was a preferred land use regulation that it would be uh we could still say no, but it would be very difficult, and it doesn't really follow any kind of process that currently exists.

There's a lot of procedural problems with the trying to make that happen.

So the league is still opposing that one.

Uh House Bill 492.

This has to do with transportation and infrastructure.

This is one that we're supporting because uh this is one that the league and uh property rights and other folks were working on during the summer.

This has to do with the state housing infrastructure partnership or ship SHIP.

Um it's basically to create a revolving fund uh that uh is gonna open up some infrastructure opportunities.

So there's still some amendments, they're not completely done with it, uh, but that was House Bill 492.

Uh House Bill 477 is also one that uh that we uh spent time during the summer to work on.

It uh only has I would say version A right now, but this is the one that deals with accessory or detached ADUs and uh whether or not on 10,000 square feet lots uh is kind of uh the issue, so it's not done.

Uh though there will be another substitute on that.

Uh last topic I'll hit is uh homelessness.

So this is not a bill as of yet, but there's a lot of conversation about mitigation funding and uh what that would look like.

And so basically the state kicks in seven and a half million dollars, and then another ten million dollars is ponied up by cities across the state.

And so this proposal basically would set a value per bed, and there would be a lot more reporting requirements around this.

So it would say, you know, the beds that you are using is worth this amount, and the state is only gonna the state is going to cap itself at seven and a half million, therefore uh whatever the cost that ends up being is going to be distributed through the rest of the city.

So this kind of sets up a very uncomfortable position for the league itself because you've got some cities who are shelter cities, you've got other cities who are not, but the money where uh it's gonna pay for the shelter cities is gonna come from the non-shelter cities.

Uh so that's um that's what is uh you know they're working on right now.

Anyway, I will pause there as always.

If there's anything that you want to talk about, don't hesitate to give me a call.

Brian, I thought I heard that HB 184, which we were very concerned about.

That's Ward, right?

Is that Ward?

Yeah.

I thought that was held in committee and therefore did.

It was yesterday held in committee, and so there's always a possibility that it might, you know, another substitute might come up.

I don't know.

Uh but it it was held yesterday.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, can I ask a question?

Yeah.

Ryan.

Ryan, um I think it's HB 501.

It's the water.

Yeah, yeah.

Is that the one where there's the one and a half percent charge for water connections and for sewer connections?

Yeah, this is this is a very bad policy for us.

It puts us in extremely difficult position.

There has uh two provisions in there, one that would go into effect in 2027, another one that would go in effect in 2031.

But basically, at the 2027 level, or those cities who are interested in getting money back from this fund would have to contribute to the fund, meaning that the water rates would go up in the uh in 2031, it becomes mandatory for everybody.

So whether uh and there's a threshold for the amount before you, in other words, you've got to raise your rates up to an amount based on your uh median income of your area, and if you haven't uh raised the rates to that level, then there's no way you're gonna in other words, it's a fund you're gonna pay into, but you're not gonna get any money out of.

Yeah.

Have have has our public utilities department figured out how much that would impact our average.

Uh this one just came up.

No, I no, unless Tom was setting we we just barely uh had some initial conversations, but I was my mind was blown when I ran the numbers based on our connections, so yeah.