I'll be your uh I guess you can send it to my face.

I mean I don't think that's the other one you have to talk about.

Well you're welcome.

I know we're actually that's a last and I still I've never done it.

Yeah, I don't know.

He said you're gonna torture me, right?

He's like absolutely not seeing that.

Well, is it are you managed by all the shortness and system?

Yeah, I should have already got the crowd.

Oh yeah.

And then is it well?

Is it covered?

Council.

Just be aware I'm gonna go ahead and start the recording.

Recording in progress.

Sorry, there are some changes.

I don't have the first time.

I know, right?

Two, yeah.

Oh, yeah, right here.

I don't have any problems.

Yeah, but I always control it.

So it's already got toward us.

Yes, you have first.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Soundy City Council meeting.

Today is Tuesday, March thirty first.

We have an agenda tonight that consists of a special recognition, two information items.

We have a lengthy consent calendar, and then we have one council voting item.

We will do general citizen comment at or as close to 6 p.m.

as possible, but not before.

And then we'll also take public comment on the one council voting item on the agenda.

As usual, we are going to start with a prayer.

So I'm looking for a volunteer for a prayer.

Ms.

Houseman, would you go ahead, please?

Thank you.

Our dear Father in Heaven, as we gather this evening as leaders in the city, we express our gratitude for the opportunity to serve.

We're grateful for all of those who serve in the city, both elected and staff members.

We recognize the experiences our residents have within our community are because of the diligent service provided.

And we are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of that service.

We pray that thou will guide us tonight, help us to listen and learn from one another, as well as from those who will present to us.

May we seek to make the very best decisions possible and seek to have thy guiding hand in all that we do.

We are again grateful for those who we will honor and celebrate tonight for their service and for those who we may not recognize tonight, but we we understand their service continues without the spotlight.

We are grateful for our Savior, grateful for this week in particular as we reflect upon his sacrifice and his love for us, and we pray that we may all feel his love for us and pass that love on to others.

And we say this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Thank you, Miss Housman.

And we're pleased to welcome the Sandy Explorers honor guard tonight, and they will present the colors for us and lead us in the pledge.

So if everyone would like to rise, we'll welcome the explorers.

Phrase and arm.

Thank you to the explorers, and we will be seeing you guys and recognizing you guys in a minute here.

Um next is introductions.

Justin, will you please start us off on introductions, please?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm Justin Sarnson.

I'm the council assistant director.

Uh also in the back we have council staff Liz Terriel, and joining us online is council staff Chris Edwards.

I'm Tracy, I'm counsel for the council.

Chris Nickel, District Three.

Marcy Houseman, District Four.

Brooke Christensen, District One.

Cindy Sharkey at large.

Alison Stroud, District Two.

Brooke D'Souza at large.

Erin DeKaiser at large.

All right.

That takes us to the Oh, sorry, Hanske.

I'm Shane Pace City Administrator.

Lynn Pay, City Attorney.

All right.

We are finally done.

All right, thank you.

First item on our agenda is a special recognition.

And Mary Zoltanski would like to introduce this one.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Council, audience, Sandy residents.

Tonight we're really proud to have a group of outstanding young Sandy City volunteers who commit so much time, effort, and study to give their service to Sandy City to support the Sandy City Police Department and learn about careers in law enforcement, military, and government.

Those are the Sandy City Police Explorers from Post 955.

Post 9550 is the longest serving explorer group in the state of Utah.

So we're so proud that uh the explorer experience originated here in Sandy and has continued throughout its whole uh proud legacy.

So many uh graduates of the explorers group, the troop have become police officers and Sandy and other law enforcement agencies across the state.

But in addition to their training on exposure to career in law enforcement, they offer exceptional support to all of us in the city with their uh citywide event support with crowd control, traffic management, and assistance at uh major events in a variety of ways.

They learn about many aspects of law enforcement, learning new skills, and participating in different levels of competition throughout the year.

And once again, our Sandy City Explorer troop has distinguished themselves, earning top honors for their color guard performance that we've just witnessed such a dignified presentation of the colors here tonight.

I'd like to invite interim chief John Arnold to come forward to tell us a little bit more about your explorer post, their exceptional performance, and the national competition earlier this year.

Chief Arnold.

Thank you.

Come on up.

Hand advisor officer slaw.

This is about half of our explorer post.

Um we are extremely proud of them.

February 2026, the Sandy Police Explorers went to Las Vegas for a convention.

It is called XCON, not FutureCon, XCOM.

It's explorer convention.

Um this is for explorer programs nationwide.

Well, at the convention, they have the uh opportunity to participate in multiple events ranging from police related activities such as building clearing and how to deal with high traffic traffic or high stress traffic stops.

But a major focus our explorers uh did this year was the honor guard ceremony.

Um it is a highly competitive event, and after two years complete competing, our explorers showed the skill and precision necessary to bring home the first place trophy.

That's what this is.

Nice, nice big one.

Um I'm on mute, so I'm on mute.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So it's we don't have to be quiet.

All right, I'm glad I wasn't the only one hearing voices.

Um to prepare the explorers practice and participate in flag ceremonies for various events throughout the city.

This trophy is a validation to their effort and excellence that they exhibit regularly.

In 2025, the Explorer Post put in over 5,000 hours of volunteer time, which comes out to over 300 hours per explorer.

This time covers traffic control, the 25 Sandy Amphitheater shows, the Balloon Festival, Citizens Academy, Fourth of July festivities, police department tours for youth groups, assisting the fire department with their chili cook-off, and acting as role players for mass casualty trainings.

Most of our explorers are full-time students, and many have part-time jobs.

So these hours represent a big commitment.

The explorers do not do it for recognition.

They do it because they care about the community.

They want to help and take pride in being something bigger than themselves.

Along the way, they have built a strong sense of family within the program.

And we've had multiple explorers go on to careers in law enforcement throughout the state.

And we currently have four former explorers working for the police department now, and that's Lieutenant Erica Smith, Officer Alex Ewald, Officer James Bostrom, and Officer Kevin Patlin.

And so wanted to take this opportunity to recognize them for the hard work and the effort that they put in and in winning this trophy, but also for the hard work that they put in for the community and the time that they spend.

So want to thank them for all that they do.

So if the mayor and council want to come down, we take pictures.

We'll even let you guys hold the trophy.

So if you guys want to come around to the front, face this way.

Thank you, explorers for joining us tonight, and congratulations for that wonderful award.

Good job.

All right, next item on the agenda is an information item, and we brought the whole executive board here tonight.

Well, I expected to see Jay, but not everybody.

Jay Francis, come on up.

You're going to present to us about the South Valley Chamber of Commerce the 2025 annual report.

We welcome you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I guess it's ready to go.

Yeah, Lizzie'll bring it up just usually takes a second.

Okay.

Great.

Feels like we were just here, and yet it's been a year.

But I'm excited to share what we have tonight.

Okay.

Here we are.

So we'll come back to this slide at the very end.

But members of the city council, mayor, staff, we're excited to be here.

We appreciate this opportunity every year to kind of come and report on 2025 and the year passing.

And I'll probably insert some stuff that's already happened in 2026 because I just can't help myself.

Our staff, as you said, most of them are here with us tonight.

I'll ask them to stay in.

I'm going to ask this is I'm going to ask them to each say their name and their title.

Then so we'll start with they.

Well, bring us treats.

So then I wanted, yeah, our executive committee is Scott Western with WCF, Rob Ruff with uh Mountain America Credit Union, Jan Sylvester, business owner, small business owner who's incredibly successful with Sylvester and company, Heather Curtis with Coca-Cola, and Dave Dennison with the Gardner Group.

And be with them plus our board is why I sleep well at night.

We have a great board.

The executive committee has my back, and we're able to function really well together, and and they help us move things along.

And we just we just work really well, and we're just kind of hand in glove.

What we do, and we'll go through this now.

Um this is sort of an abbreviated version for those of you who are at the state of the chamber, but we can uh we connect, we educate, advocate, and grow, and then we've added and more, and we'll cover the end more, which is kind of our fun stuff.

Under the category of connecting, uh we celebrated 14 ribbon cuttings in Sandy, and we appreciate the support we get from uh the administration from the mayor from the U.S.

City Council, and it makes it it means a lot because a lot of these people have risked everything to open up their little shop or their they bought a franchise and to have some people show up for their ribbon cutting.

It's a big day, it's a red letter day for them, and and so to have your support, we we appreciate that, and it means a lot to them.

Under Connect, uh we have uh our committees, we have 25 members serving on our ambassador committee.

We have 25 under our government affairs and public policy committee, which we have really ramped up and we've really kind of made a difference and are really growing our efforts in uh government affairs and public policy, and I'll talk about that in a few minutes on another slide.

We have 38 that are serving on a small business committee, which are they're really helping us guide some of our tools that small businesses need, as well as helping us be able to uh get small businesses to attend some of the our business boot camps and our accelerators and our the education tools.

Our tourism committee, you'll hear them a little bit more uh from Zorm in just a minute on that, but we have 35, and we Zorm and I have worked hard to be able to reach out to hoteliers, restaurants, and um with the others, the attraction um real, um the hockey and and jazz are now uh part of our tourism committee, so that everybody knows who's coming and what we're what we're offering, and you know, there's gonna be more coming.

This kind of now sort of interjecting into the future because as the Salt Palace shuts down, there's gonna be more stuff come this way, and Zorn is all over that.

Um, our 24 uh serving on our women in business committee, and we had 24 junior web participants uh in 2025, and we held their graduation last April, and they each received a thousand dollar scholarship, but we paid the thousand dollars to a college or university of their choice.

Uh it's just something I'm really pleased with.

We we started a long, long time ago with eight, grew it to ten, and now the last three years we've been at 2425, these senior girls from from all the high schools throughout the two uh school districts.

Under educate, we have programs, so we have our leadership South Valley, which you have sent the number of of people from your uh administration staff to um and it's I this is something I wish had been in existence when I was coming through my mid-career because it's hands-on learning.

They get we we're going to different places, and they're learning from those who are making it happen, whether it's um the today's Tuesday, so not tomorrow.

On Thursday is Transportation Day, and we're gonna start start out at Stadler and look at they'll make all the trains for the light rail as well as all over the world.

Then we're going to the airport, we're going to the to UDOT command center, and they're learning from the people that not just the admin staff, we we get the leaders.

And we'll um on our health care, health care day.

We were at hospital and nursing facilities.

And on our arts and entertainment day, we'll we'll do probably not the Delta Center because it'll be uh they'll be off and they'll be renovating, but we'll probably go to the jazz practice facility, we'll go to the hockey, we'll go to Pioneer Theater, we'll go to Hale Center Theater, and they're they're getting the behind the scenes.

We'll go to the prison.

Last year we went in 2025, we went to the prison, and I mean we were we were shoulder to shoulder with the inmates watching them.

Yes, they do make license plates there.

That's not just a rumor, and making calendars, and then the women's um section, fetus lunch.

And so it we are it's so fun to see and to have hands on.

It's and I could go on, but I should move on.

Our business accelerator is something we're pleased about.

We're probably in our seventh year now, where small businesses get to take what we call our mini MBA and be able to take principles and apply it.

And we watch them kind of get a lift as they learn that it's okay to hire.

I need a financial statement, I need a marketing plan, and they learn how to do all those things.

Our everyday entrepreneur continues to be something that we're pleased with.

Those who are sitting at home thinking they want to start a business, they would like to do something, and they'd like to do it, you know, learn how to do it, but they've got an idea in their garage or in their kitchen or the basement, and they're smart enough to come walk through this 10-week class because some of them complete it and start.

Some of them get about four week four or six and say, Yeah, I don't think I'm ready.

And and for $400, we've just saved them thousands of dollars because everybody has a great idea.

I'm just glad I didn't spend all my money on my great ideas.

But um, and so that's a success as well because they learn, and then they they can go tweak and then they can come back.

Our business boot camps, we had four last year with 127 attendees.

We'll have more this year, but these are hands-on workshops that around marketing, around sales, um, and even culture that small businesses, you know, they don't have access to the tools that I was used to, you know, coming up through big business.

They don't have a marketing director, they don't have a CPA, they don't have a HR person.

And so these boot camps help give them those tools and the resources to go through that.

Under Avocate, um, as I mentioned earlier, we have really stepped up our committee, and we have really um been had a good voice chaired by Stephen Foxley and uh co I should say co-chaired by Stephen Foxley and Kelsey Berg.

Uh Stephen Foxley is vice president of government affairs for Regent's Blue Cross.

Um, and it's in his blood.

His father, Doug Foxley, um you know, was one of the great probably the best lobbyists in Salt Lake City, and then Kelsey Berg spent her time with uh Senator Romney and then the Larry Miller Group, and most recently now is the director of government relations for the Olympic committee.

Um but we held an executive forums, we held meet the candidates, we tracked 20 plus bills in 2025.

I I keep thinking, you know, what we did just a few weeks ago, but this is about 2025.

We hosted uh two in the nose, one on the big beautiful bill, um, and then one on uh the Wasatch Front Regional Council came and made a presentation about the transportation plan for the South Valley.

We held a legislative review with uh Senator Lincoln Fillmore and Steve E.

Lesson.

Under Grow, um we these are the events connect after hours, which is something that we went a full year with last year.

This is after hours.

This is we helped move it around the South Valley, and it's turned out wonderful.

When they first came to me, um, and I may have mentioned this last year, I was hesitant because I in my earlier life I'd seen some not so fun situations with connect after business after hours, and I said we've just got to keep this under control, and they have done a great job, and it's been fun for them to be able to be in a fun place or just to gather, connect and uh for an hour and a half, and it it just continues to grow, and so I'm really pleased with how our committee is running that.

Our let's do lunch.

We had five events and 728 attendees, or meet the member, we had five events.

We alternate that with let's do lunch with 396 attendees, our meet the members have become a favorite because we take 12 to 14 uh businesses and they get to pitch, they get to stand up and brag about what they do, and they get to you know hand out samples or flyers, and it's it's become a real favorite.

Our women in business, we had 10 events with 1275 attendees.

Our women in business committee hosted or chaired or overseen, probably is better by Jamie, is just knocking home runs.

Um every time we had it seems like we're having to say sold out, and um, because they're just finding the right speakers and the right content for our those who are participating in our women in business, and we're getting more and more men to attend.

They're really smart.

Let me just say about our events.

I said you know, five and a half years ago that uh if we were gonna take time and and plan events and ask people to come to our events, whether it's one of these lunches, that they needed to go away from our lunch or event or education uh meetings that they need to go away saying, I learned something, I met someone, I'm better.

And if we don't do that, then we have failed, and we should refund their money because it's important that they've taken time away from their business, their family, or something else they could be doing, and they need that hour, hour and a half, they need to be rewarded for that.

The Ann Moore, um, this is the fun stuff.

We held three golf tournaments with over with 430 participants.

We held our Titan Awards uh with four honorees, 650 plus attendees last year.

Um we honored a small business of the year from the salt mine, and then we held Shark Tank where 10 students uh pitched their businesses and we awarded them uh $9,500 to first second and third place to be able to help their idea, their business, their product.

And then uh Brandon Fugel last year was on our uh judge, he was one of the judges, and he just happened to have maybe a little cash in his pocket, and he awarded fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth a little bit of his own personal money too.

South Valley Tourism.

I'd like to bring uh Zorum up for a minute and have him talk a little bit about uh South Valley Tourism.

I have uh some uh follow-up information on that as well.

Thank you, Jay, members of the council.

It's uh privilege to speak with you this evening.

Um in my capacity in this hybrid role between Sports Salt Lake, which is the athletic division of sports tourism underneath Visit Salt Lake and working with the South Valley Chamber.

Um, I have a unique opportunity to see the impact of tourism throughout the county as a whole, and I can tell you that Sandy City is right there at the top and leading uh in tourism efforts, and as Jay mentioned, we're only gonna see that to continue to grow as we see some renovations take place at the Salt Palace, which is gonna allow us to bid on more business here at Mountain America Expo Center, which is currently the second largest venue utilized in sports tourism, second only to the Salt Palace.

So we're very excited to be able to bring some of those large-scale volleyball tournaments and other youth events down to Mountain America.

Um these numbers uh come from our events from last year.

Uh just back uh pedaling just a little bit.

So the South Valley uh tourism committee meets every other month.

Um, and as Jay mentioned, we're about 35 members strong, uh, a mixture of hotels, businesses, venues, and we all come together to talk about how we can achieve these goals, how we can achieve these numbers.

And I can tell you again in my capacity as Sports Salt Lake, this would not be possible without the South Valley Chamber support and the tourism committee uh as a whole.

Without these hotels, without these businesses, creating the overall experience of Sandy City for these events, they wouldn't continue to come back to Mountain America.

About 80% of our business is repeat business, groups that have had an enjoyable experience here in Sandy City at Mountain America, and they continue to grow their event here with us, and we couldn't be more happy to see that.

In 2025, uh we had uh about 180,000 visitors that were brought into Sandy City uh through sports-related tourism, uh, which generated just shy of 41,000 room nights and about a 66 million dollar economic impact overall.

So these are dollars spent in restaurants, shopping at the shops here at Southtown, um, as well as uh revenue generated at the venue itself.

We utilize a number of facilities throughout uh Sandy City in the South Valley area, but we did want to highlight some of our top events uh that were hosted at Mountain America this past year.

Uh we hosted USA Gymnastics, which is uh uh an Olympic level uh national governing body for two major events, which generated uh nearly 4,000 room nights for one event and 9,000 for another.

You can see the economic impact as well for those events.

Some other groups uh we host natural national archery in the schools program, which is one of the nation's largest archery programs, and we host their uh national, their Western National every single year.

Uh it's one of the events that is booked several years out at Mountain America.

They couldn't be more happy to host the event uh at the center.

Their only uh criticism of the center is that it may not be big enough uh in future years, but uh we uh hope to be able to see some growth there and be able to keep them here at Mountain America Expo Center.

Uh Triple Crown is one of our largest uh volleyball tournaments.

They're actually hosting a boys' tournament this year uh in December at the Salt Palace Convention Center, which is an event that we are very hopeful that we'll be able to bring down to Mountain America Expo Center during the renovation period and hopefully retain them here uh once the Salt Palace is up back to full capacity as well.

Uh Jam Onit is a large-scale basketball tournament that we host each summer, and FitCon is a large fitness convention that we host.

So, as you can see, uh the center is well equipped to host a wide uh variety of different sorts of events, everything from youth volleyball, basketball, all the way up to these adult amateur fitness competitions and archery, and we we continue to look forward to other opportunities to grow and utilize the facilities.

Thank you, Zoran.

We have a great relationship with Visits All Lake and Sports Salt Lake, and it makes bringing everybody together be able to have those kind of numbers and that kind of economic impact.

We also ran tourism campaigns.

We did a winter tourism campaign in 2025, 2024 into 2020 2025 into 2026 a little bit.

And so we took some of the budget at the recommendation of our hoteliers, and we we did a staycation, and we had great results with both campaigns.

But then when we had big alerts, we would we push it out and and people responded.

They were sitting back somewhere anxious to come.

And so that we continue to be able to drive people to the South Valley.

And that's what it's the campaign is titled Ski South Valley.

So 2026.

Um 2026, um, we're gonna be focused, strategic, and purpose-driven.

And quickly, um, we're gonna focus on, and we already are, and doing some service and community impact.

Um, I've learned from my previous life that it's important to serve in the community and to give back.

We feel it's important for us as a chamber to help teach that principle with our chamber members and give them opportunities.

Um we're gonna be focused on business growth and economic development, member retention and give providing value to our members is something we're really focused on.

We've gone through a lot of growth the last five years, and we're continuing to grow.

Corey and Diana continue to uh push us to new heights with memberships, but we uh we want to retain those.

To be able to just get them and have them just leave us a year later doesn't work, and so we have a really strong retention uh effort going on with the support of our board and our executive committee.

I mentioned earlier our public policy because of the size of what we are and who we represent now.

We need we need to be the best, and we're you know, I've never been up to the Capitol as much as I have the last two years in my whole life.

I mean, you could take my other 55 years because that's all that that's I'm only 55.

Um, and um but all the years, all the time my trips to the Capitol before the last two years would not add to up to the number of trips I've been up to the last two years.

And we're making a difference, and the things that we're doing are helping business and helping small business, and when we partner together with um Salt Lake Chamber or Chamber West or Utah Valley Chamber, we really are making a difference.

And we we were this year, even though we're not talking about 2026, but we were able to kill four four bills that were gonna be harmful to uh business and three of them to small business, and so we really made a difference by partnering together.

Um we announced at our um state of the chamber that we're um doing a new small business impact award, and we appreciate working with uh your team and and recently selected and we'll be honoring a business from Sandy on May 5th, and um to be kind of just separate it from everything else we do in honor of small business called the Small Business Impact Award, and we'll be hosting it over in our event room at our offices.

We're excited to to do this and have hopefully as many of you come as as is able to come that day.

Um we believe we look at our relationship as a partnership, not a membership, uh not just um privileges, but uh we've really look at us as as us and Sandy as being a partner, and we think that we're an extension of your uh economic development, and we have the opportunity to meet with Casey and Rob and his team about every other month and work together on making how can we do things for Sandy businesses.

And just yesterday we were talking about you know something that's coming up in the in next week and holding hands together on that, strengthening communications and trust, uh advancing shared priorities, strengthening the community brand, and then again, as I mentioned, we really believe that this is a partnership, not just a membership, and we hope that you see it the same way.

And um, we used to say our our theme used to be better now, but now we're saying we're better together, and as we work together, we really and as a chamber, we really feel that we're better by working together and working with each of you.

Thank you for your time.

Any questions?

Council questions, comments, compliments.

I knew you'd be good for that.

Ms.

Houseman.

I would say I record this for my mom, but well, she can hear better than she ever has.

Oh and and and we know that that is something your family's gone through recently and very tender.

Thank you.

We're thinking of you.

Yeah.

Um really mine is not a uh question, it's more of a comment.

I've shared this with you, but I want to share it publicly.

Uh I am pursuing my MBA right now in large part because of business accelerator.

I I think that is one of the best decisions I made, and I learned about it just because of our many conversations.

I was hesitant, um, but I got nudged, twisted a little, and I'm so so grateful that I did.

I did not see myself in in kind of that business accelerator space.

I was just, you know, sort of launching my my consulting business, and it was so significant, and I love that you just continue to invest in that and grow people, and and for me, I saw myself differently at the end of that business accelerator program, and it gave me a lot of confidence.

And there are nights though, doing managerial accounting right now that I'm like, why did you even unlock this in me?

Just kidding.

I'm grateful.

It's really hard, but I'm grateful.

So thank you.

I know my story is just one tiny story of so many um business business leaders, um business community members who see themselves differently and have courage and confidence in a way they would not have without the chamber.

You build a community that that is phenomenal.

And I echo I'm I mean again, my story is one of countless, but I share it because I know that there are hundreds and hundreds of others who, if they had a mic and could say it to you, they would.

So I'm speaking on behalf of them.

Thank you for all you do.

You unlock potential and you make dreams happen, and I'm so grateful.

We we we are grateful.

The city is great, Ms.

Christensen.

Um, I'm so excited to be back on the board again.

I've missed you guys for the last four years, and I just love that watching the sports and tourism piece of it come so far to fruition after.

I mean, I've seen Chris out there in like it's been six, seven years since we were working on tourism taxes to help support and fund this.

And I just you guys have done an amazing job keeping that going and making it successful for our city.

So thank you.

Thank you.

If I could invest my 401k and get that kind of return, I would love that.

So Ms.

Strauss.

Thank you so much for what you do.

I I mean, having such a strong community partner, you're out there everywhere, um, advocating for small businesses, advocating for large businesses, um, advocating for Sandy, and that is something that that residents look to.

Um, you know, that we look to the city looks to, and and you know, you're very recognizable anywhere, you know, throughout the city, and that is uh you know something as we move forward and move past COVID, um, you know, and continuing to grow, you know, having the relationship that we have with you is such a valuable asset.

So thank you for what you do.

I mean, you just look at all these numbers, and you know, every year when you come, I'm thinking, but oh my gosh, that is just so much, and you know, and and the the amount of work that goes into it.

So you know, thank you for everything and looking forward to another great year.

Thank you, Mr.

De Kaiser.

I'll echo that.

It was great seeing you at the 40 under 40, and I've seen you at lots of things, so appreciate the time and the work that goes into it.

I feel a little awkward being the only one to ask a question.

I was of the 40 under 40.

Yeah, that was confusing.

But uh the I'm wondering about like certain types of events you said you we're gonna be able to attract more or go after more business.

In some of the uh the graph you had there were like hotel nights versus the revenue generated, and some like the uh Jam It On had like half the nights as the Olympic event, but like significantly more revenue.

Are there certain types of uh events or related to sports or or certain visitations that we're looking to attract to increase that 66 million dollars?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we we want to be targeting youth and family events.

We find that when little Jimmy has a basketball tournament, usually that means mom and dad are coming also, perhaps a sibling as well.

And so obviously, we're gonna see more dollars spent in the community because of that.

So we do tend to go after a lot of a lot of these youth uh basketball, volleyball, baseball events, seem uh things like that.

They do tend to generate a larger economic impact, more room nights than maybe some of these adult amateur events do.

Um it's not to say that we don't want to attract those events as well because we realize that those are different dollars spent, perhaps at uh local bars or restaurants and things like that as opposed to shopping in the centers and things, but we do uh tend to focus primarily more on the youth uh amateur type events.

Thanks.

And one of the events that I think it's been at the Salt Palace a lot, but we'll be getting is the volleyball and volleyball moms have no credit limit.

Um in between matches.

Am I wrong?

The numbers at the uh the City Creek Mall do support that, and we hope to be able to bring that down to the uh shops here at South Town.

So the numbers do support that.

So I have a question for you.

Actually, starting with a comment.

Um to the lunches, going to the ribbon cuttings, the support, the encouragement, the enthusiasm that uh the South Valley Chamber shows for our businesses is so appreciated by Sandy City.

Um I just it's noticeable, it's clear what you guys do to help businesses in Sandy's are really appreciated.

I heard recently a definitive statement that the South Valley Chamber is better than the Salt Lake Chamber.

So I'd like to know your opinion on that.

We work hard.

I'm not no comment.

We have we have a great partnership with them.

We work hard.

I would if anybody wanted to check out other chambers calendars.

We do more events, more activities than any other chamber I'm aware of in Utah at least.

So I think that's what was being described.

That you guys are full service all the time, all hands on board, and that's what makes you so successful and help make our businesses so successful.

We really appreciate what we're doing.

That's why we sleep at night.

I am still jealous that it's not the sandy chamber, but the South Valley Chamber still want an outsized amount of attention to Sandy.

But anyway, you guys do a great job.

Thank you so much for everything you do for us.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, you know, we're at that kind of dilemma point where we're three minutes away.

Do we have any blue cards?

Currently, I don't have any.

I don't know if there's anyone in chambers that wants to fill one in.

Okay, we got one.

So we're gonna start this public comment period, and we're just gonna hold it open till 6 p.m.

And so it looks like Darren's gonna come up.

Come on up and uh we welcome you.

Thank you.

Darren Butler.

Thank you.

Um, Darren Butler.

I live in Sandy, but I'm representing the library, the county library.

And I just wanted to tell you that I made a mistake the last time I talked about the pasta maker.

We don't have the pasta maker at the Sandy Library.

So sorry, if you come to request it, you'll have to go to I think the Mill Creek Library has it.

So anyway, I just wanted to let you know about some upcoming things.

Um you may or may not know that the county voted to do some bonding uh for the libraries, and part of that bond includes some sandy uh library remodeling.

Um we're supposed to get a new roof and uh replace carpet and lighting and maybe some staff areas.

Whoops, some staff areas.

Um, but we just kind of have to see how far the money goes.

But that's exciting for us because uh if you come to the library and look at our sad, sad carpet, you'll know that we really need some improvements.

So we we are looking forward to that.

Um, and then I just wanted to highlight just like four events.

This is our this is our events calendar.

It's very colorful, but you can see that we have a lot of activities, a lot of things going on.

Um so some things I just wanted to highlight.

We do all abil all ability activity kits, and these are designed for um adults and teens with intellectual disabilities.

Um, the library it's important for us to have access to everybody and to do programming for everybody, uh, and not just story time, uh, which we're famous for, um, but to just make sure that we have access, give access to everybody.

So we have activity kits.

Another thing that's really popular is our writers group.

We have a couple of people that have been going for several weeks, and they are about ready to publish books.

And so that's a really great, great thing.

Where kids can come if they're shy about reading, they can come read to a dog.

It's not going to be judgmental.

These dogs are trained to be read to.

So it's a really great, great program.

And then lastly, I just wanted to highlight the the uh community art day, America 250 Sandy Community Art Contest in partnership with Sandy City.

So that's going to be Saturday, April 11th at 10 a.m.

And no registration required, you can just come and do some art.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Darren.

Justin, do you want to go ahead and invite the online audience to public comment if they care to certainly, madam chair?

If you're participating on Zoom and would like to make a comment, please use the raise hand feature, and I will call you in order, and you will have three minutes to make your comment.

Doesn't look like we have anyone online.

I don't see it either.

Anyone else in the room that has an interest in making a comment?

Looks like I don't have any more takers.

So I'll close the general citizen comment period for tonight and we'll move on in the agenda.

And that is Devin Weeder.

Devin, please come on down.

I've asked Devin to come and fill us in on the phase one implementation of transportation in the little Cottonwood Canyons.

Thank you for joining us tonight.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Um I really appreciate that you taking the time to let me speak and um I guess answer any of your questions you may have after this presentation.

Um yeah, I'm Devin Weeder.

I'm a project manager at the Utah Department of Transportation, and I'm currently the project manager for the Cottonwood Canyon Transit program.

So as you can see here, this is a quick summary.

I've left out Big Cottonwood Canyon because that's not out of the environmental phase yet.

Um so what's currently that we're moving forward with is what's shown on the screen.

That's a 125 million dollar mobility hub at uh what's currently the walker or granite gravel pit.

It's a 56 million dollar intersection improvement, which is going to be a great separated intersection to lead into that uh mobility hub and a future development that's planned, as well as um increased bus service that will lead from that mobility hub as well as from 90, 400 south at the existing park and ride up Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Um by 2050, that'll be around five minute service.

Uh we're hoping to start with 10 minute service.

So 10 minutes from the mobility hub, 20 minutes from 9400 south.

That's an improvement over the current 30 minute service.

Um that this is also paired with uh Snowboard Snowbird resort bus stop as well as an Alta resort bus stop.

And these aren't just um small bus stops, they're actually like 7,000 square foot facilities with lockers, bathrooms, they're heated, enclosed, um, and they feature pull-outs for all the buses so we can quickly get buses in and out without having them go have to go into the resort traffic, which is where we spend a lot of time and money on the bus service because every time you get stuck in that traffic, it's either less round trip time, you know, like or the bus comes less frequently, or we have to spend more money on more buses to get those buses to come more frequently.

So that's kind of been the aim of this whole program is how do we spend tax dollars wisely to get these improvements so that we can have lower operational costs.

This would also be paired with tolling.

Totaling is one of the few tools that UDOT has to manage traffic in the canyon.

Um we can manage speed, we can manage safety and the roadway geometry, but when it comes to managing demand, we really only have one tool that's legally allowed, and that's tolling.

Uh, we recently submitted our tolling application to the Federal Highway Administration because we need their approval in order to actually implement a toll in the canyon.

We'll also be doing um parking restrictions in the upper canyon near the ski resorts.

We see that as a safety issue as well as an operational issue.

If you go up there in the mornings when there's ski traffic or in the afternoons, there's a lot of people parking on the sides of the roads.

There's a lot of people walking on the sides of the roads, and just a lot of people making U-turns at the end of the day.

So if we can remove that parking on the roadside, encourage people to ride transit, we think that all these improvements will lead to a much better situation in the canyon.

More people able to get up the canyon in a faster and more efficient manner.

So this is that has been the plan since 2023 when the record of decision was released in Little Cottonwood.

In December of 2025, we announced that we're actually moving forward on that plan.

So while we are under current under litigation currently, we are moving forward and we're implementing phase one.

Since the since December, we have made progress on ordering the buses.

Those will be that word will be placed most likely in July.

That's around 50 buses that we'll be ordering.

We've selected an architect for the mobility hub that is VCBO.

And we've advertised the interchange.

So we've made progress on most of the capital improvements.

What we are still working on is the resort bus stop improvements.

We still need to do concepting for those.

We need to work with both Town of Alta, Alta Resorts, Forest Service, Snowbird, to really nail down what these concepts look like.

What are these bus stops going?

How exactly will they look?

Because for the Forest Service, it's very important that these blend into the into what they call the built environment.

So when you drive up and you see this bus stop, you're not going to think that it's just some out of place thing.

It needs to look like it fits in Snowbird.

It needs to look like it fits in Alta, and at least look like it fits in the environment.

So it's not really being detrimental to what they call the view shed.

And we're making, as I said, we're making progress on tolling, having submitted our application formerly submitted our application to Federal Highway Administration.

And we're moving forward with the roadside parking restrictions that will those won't go into effect until the bus service starts.

But we're making progress towards talking to all the community members, making sure they all understand what those restrictions will look like.

Very similar resort bus stops.

It's going to be the same improvements but expanded in the gravel pit.

So the mobility hub will get larger.

And same thing, resort bus stops, tolling.

These are not final yet.

We're still working to get towards our decision, which we expect to have in May.

For a little bit more detail on the bus service, you can see here there's the gravel pit marked in the 94 in South Highland park and ride.

So 10 to 15 minutes to start with from the mobility hub up Little Cottonwood.

Right now it's 1,500 stalls for that parking garage, but we are looking to increase it to around 1800 parking stalls with the Big Cottonwood Canyon environmental.

And then a 15 to 20 minute service from 94 in South and Highland.

This would not be paired with increasing that the size of that park and ride.

That was looked at as part of the Little Cotton Canyon, but it was determined that it wasn't needed at this time.

Here's just a nice graphic showing all the recommendations from the Little Cottonwood Canyon Environmental Pact Statement, record of decision.

Phase one is what we're working on right now.

So you can see phase two, which would also be the Watch Boulevard improvements, widening Wasatch south of Fort Union.

There'd be the snow sheds in the upper canyon in Little Cottonwood, as well as trailhead improvements.

And then phase three, the bus service would stop, and the gondola that would run from near near the mouth of Little Cottonwood up to Snowbird and Alta.

That's when that would come into effect, and the bus service would stop.

Currently, only phase one is funded.

We have absolutely no funding for phase two or three.

And here's a quick timeline.

You know, we're in final design and permitting.

We hope to be pretty quickly moving towards property acquisition, which is relatively minor.

The only properties that we're really purchasing are the gravel pit.

I don't believe there's any other properties that we will have to purchase.

In Big Cottonwood, there will be more properties that we have to purchase, but that's still in the environmental phase.

And then purchasing the buses, as I said, hopefully in July with a delivery in 2028, and then we'll have implementation of all these improvements by fall of 2028.

And no any questions?

Council member questions.

Mr.

Susan.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming tonight and giving us this update.

I just had I had a question about the uh future bus stops at both um Snowbird and Alta.

And I know that that it's very early in concept and whatnot, but from a um like where it's planned to be located standpoint, is it are they planned to be located in the property owned by the resorts?

Is it forest service land?

Like where will these end up?

Most likely forest service land.

So most of the resorts own very little property themselves.

Snowbird owns some, I believe Alta owns some, but most of it's actually forest service property that they operate on.

For Snowbird, it's going to be an entry one.

So right as you come into entry one, it's going to be just north of Creekside, across the little across their parking lot from Creekside.

That's on Forest Service property.

For Alta, it's going to be right in the town of Alta.

So kind of in between the two entrances for the Alta resort up on the hillside.

There we do have some access issues there where we need to get people both down to Alta and back up to the bus stop.

But it's one of the few locations that isn't already developed in Alta.

So that's we're still working on the exact concept for that one.

And it may, the Alta location may shift slightly.

But it's all on forest service property.

Oh, okay.

Well, that helps.

The technical, the technical answer helps, but from a perception standpoint and and how people view the property.

At least I'm I'm thinking if it's um at entrance one for snowbird, it's like within that that entrance.

It is, and it's below actually below.

So if you're on the road, it's below the road.

Okay.

So the road road is climbing.

Right.

And um, yeah, you it'd be like the second story would almost be level with the road.

Okay, thank you.

That's all I had.

Yeah.

I have a whole lot of questions.

Hey, Devin, can you steer back to that first slide where um the very first one?

Okay, yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, you're good.

I was hit too many times.

So I'm adding up 275 million.

Um, yeah.

Does do these costs include the buses?

They do.

So the 40 million um is the bus purchase cost.

Okay.

And the buses that you haven't ordered yet, 50 of them.

Diesel or electric?

Um we're clearing diesel and we cleared diesel in low comedy EIS.

We're still open to other options.

You know, I've been talking a lot with UTA, understand they run all of the different types of buses.

And so it's really just working with them to understand the pros and cons of all the different options.

Electric is more expensive.

Um, clean natural gas has some downfalls.

Uh, diesel is just kind of the reliable option.

Uh, but we haven't nailed down exactly what we're going to order.

So, but 40 million, what does that cover?

Uh, that's diesel.

That's based on the diesel estimate, yes.

So, what's the increased cost for electric at this point in time?

Um so diesel is around $800,000 each, um, depending on who you buy it from, and electric's about 1.1 million.

1.1?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's around three to four hundred thousand dollars more.

Okay.

And availability of electric buses for this kind of use.

Is this does this exist today?

Well, and what is availability like?

Yeah, um, I'm gonna say it's not you, it's not a specialty bus.

You know, if you're ordering this is a we'd be ordering a normal bus that UTA would really order with a few modifications, right?

Maybe a stronger engine or a different drivetrain, but it's really nothing special.

Uh, same with electric, it'd just be a normal electric bus with maybe a few modifications.

What about this issue of charging electric buses?

Could you could you discuss that?

I'm hearing things about the frequency of needing to pull them out of the fleet to charge them just because I don't know if it's because of the grade of the road.

I'm just curious about that.

That's one of the issues that come sent tends to come up a lot.

And now that we have the subject matter expert here, it's a chance to ask you.

Yeah, I would say it's not infeasible, it's just a challenge with some, you know, when you're if you've ever driven electric car or one, um, going up a canyon is just really energy intensive.

And so it's the same thing with the bus.

Um, where with diesel you can just keep going longer and then refilling is really quickly.

Uh you just have to have more planning effort into how that charging is going to work.

So when we've done some modeling and we're gonna try it, hopefully try it with some UTA buses.

Um you can probably go up and down two or three times without recharging, but then you'd have to recharge, and that can take you know 30, 45 minutes.

So it's really just in the difference between diesel and electric is you have to plan.

You have to say, okay, at this stop, you're gonna charge, right?

When you like you maybe you can go all the way to Alta without charging.

When you get to Alta, charge, and then charge again when you go back to mobility hub, but you just have to have more effort in that charging, it's not something that's infeasible.

So wait, did I get this right?

Two or three times up and down the canyon before you have to start stop and recharge 30 to 40 minutes.

Um I would say, yeah, it's around there.

The charging times could be a little bit longer.

It really depends.

It's complicated because the faster you charge, the more money you're going end up paying because of how how high of a demand this is.

Most of us never have to deal with this in our personal lives.

Uh, but when you get over a certain, when you're drawing too much power from Rocky Mountain Power, they start to actually charge you four to five times as much money per unit of energy for that same amount of power because it's just such a big demand on their grid.

Um, and so that's and you could easily get into that with two buses.

So it's two, once you like one bus isn't quite enough power demand, but two buses could easily get to the point where you're paying five times as much money per unit of energy.

So you really have to spend a lot of time and effort into planning how you charge.

Um, because even though there can be a cost savings from that, you know, using electric buses, it can especially in this time frame, it can be cheaper than gas and diesel.

Uh, but you can if you don't do it correctly, if you don't plan correctly, you can easily spend a lot of money on electricity, even more than it would have cost for gas or diesel.

And so back to the original question the 40 million dollars is 50 diesel buses.

You'd spend quite a bit more for electric buses, could be some savings, but not sure whether in terms of um in terms of power and electricity and a charge, would you have to build a charging station that isn't included in that too?

So you would have to add additional charging both uh basically per vehicle because they generally charge each one at night, like so that's about 60,000 per bus for night charging plus all the other infrastructure to charge them during the day.

So, what's your number?

In if it's not 50 diesel buses, but it's 50 electric buses.

Um hard to say right off the top of my head.

I mean, you add three to four hundred thousand dollars times fifty.

That's a lot of money.

Yeah.

Do you have that?

I I mean it's possible.

I have 350 million dollars currently for the whole program, but the program also includes all the improvements in big cottonwood, right?

And it includes maintenance facility, it includes all a lot of other items that need to support this.

And so, you know, when I'm making those decisions on what fuel type to select, it's based on the whole program, right?

And like, can we see cost savings on the operating?

Because I I'm really aiming all this is if you know this is a we're not gonna see this kind of investment again in the canyon for quite a while.

And so when we make when I'm making this investment, I want to do it in a smart manner.

And so if I it means I spend a little bit more money up front, like one of the plans is to have bus parking at the mobility hub, which all the architects are like, why would you ever do that?

Why, you know, like that's gonna cost so much more money.

But from the operation side, it means that a bus driver doesn't have to drive from 90, 400 south at some other parking lot every single morning, so we're saving 45 minutes of their shift every day.

So it's just things like that that we have to take into account when we're making the overall plan of place in this first order, um, to see if we're actually gonna get cost savings in the operations.

And if we buy diesel now, we'll have these buses for between 10 and 14 years, and so it doesn't mean we're locked in forever, right?

I'll make I'm gonna make sure we're future-proofed so that we can go to electric in the future.

Um, and we can make that decision in you know 10, 14 years.

What is your budget for you indicate that phase one is funded?

What's your budget?

Uh right around 350 million.

Okay, okay.

And this that's why like big cottonwood isn't shown.

Um, the cost for the maintenance facility isn't shown.

There are a couple other costs that aren't shown just on this one graphic.

So 350 is not only the capital cost, but the operational cost.

That's just capital.

Just capital.

Yeah.

Okay.

Where are the operational costs gonna come from?

Uh do you have a budget for that as well?

We don't have any um current allocation for ongoing funding.

Um, we have the CC TIFF, which is an ongoing collection, uh, it's a subset of the transportation investment fund, collects right around 20 million dollars per year from the TIFF.

Um, but that needs an appropriation each time their money comes out of it.

So it's possible we could get get that 20 million for operations funding.

It's possible that operations funding could come some from somewhere else.

Okay.

Um tolling.

So you have an interesting um photo here that shows tolling in effect at 25 dollars.

I've been trying to get this number out of you guys.

Is that the number?

Is that we don't have an exact number, and I think that's and that's the like the point is I can't, I can't and I don't want to say that it's just one number because it's a variable priced toll based on congestion.

Tell us about that.

How do you envision that working?

The tolling.

Um so we don't have an exact, we will have we will have to have an exact metric or formula, right?

We had the um Utah Transportation Commission will have to approve the way that we set the toll.

But at this point in the environmental phase, we haven't laid out an exact formula.

But the point is going to be to keep the road working, right?

So if the road isn't flowing, if people aren't able to go up and down the canyon, then we're gonna have to set the toll appropriately.

And that's it's gonna be that's going to be our overall metric, right?

We're gonna have to come up with an actual formula for that, an actual way to implement that that is approvable by the commission, but that's the goal, right?

The goal is not to create revenue, uh, it is just to make sure that the canyon is the canyon road is working, both for transit as for normal drivers.

If traffic isn't flowing, the toll goes up.

Yeah, it's possible.

And I'm sure and there's always a point, right?

Like, there's a point at which you can't raise the toll anymore.

But $25 back in um 2020, um, we conducted a poll and reach out to a lot of people, did a market study, and 25, 30 dollars was right around the number that people said they would where they would start to change their behavior, take transit, and I think you see that with the ski resorts, right?

All of them have set their parking reservation costs right around the same price.

Um will revenue from the tolling go to operational costs.

Is that another source of uh funding for operational costs?

Yeah, definitely possible.

We haven't the restrictions that we'll have on the funding will both come from federal highways as well as from whatever the legislature and the commission sets.

Um but yes, very we're definitely aiming to have that funding be able to be spent on the operations, as well as making you know, trying to keep get that money to be spent on the canyons themselves.

Um and this fluctuating cost of the toll.

Um will that also apply to things like how many people are in the car, things like that?

Is that another something we considered?

I we didn't say whether we didn't say one way or the other in the environmental.

The biggest concern with um what's called high um high occupancy vehicle tolling is that it's basically at this point unenforceable.

Um the best practice right now in the that is standardized across the nation is basically you have a little switch in your car that you switch back and forth on whether or not it's high occupancy.

As you can imagine, that's not really I think every car would be high occupancy.

Right.

We when the toll is $25, the incentive is high to not be honest.

And so when we look at we already have a relatively high occupancy um in the canyon, it's about 2.2 people per car during the ski season, a lot higher than average in the valley.

Um just the the risk of saying okay, because if you say it basically the way it works, if you say there will be a high occupancy um exemption, you're stuck with that.

The way the federal system works, you're stuck with that no matter what.

And so there's always a chance we add that occupancy restriction or exemption in, but at this point with the technology, it doesn't make sense to uh have that exemption right now.

If we get to the point where we can accurately say there's four people in this car, you should be free, you're cheaper.

We're open to that.

But just right now it just seems like everyone would just be saying.

So the technology doesn't exist to figure that out, so you'd have to kind of trust people if you went that route.

Um that so that's kind of interesting.

It's so without stopping people, because that's not what we want to do, right?

There's no gate, and you stop a car and you assess the toll and you charge it and do the transaction, right?

Right, because yeah, because the whole point is not to try to pay off this investment, the whole point is to make the road work better.

Yeah.

And having a gate or having um and the highway patrol has a really hard, you know, we have all of these on the freeway, right?

And the high uh the highway patrol has a really hard time enforcing it while also being safe.

And so trying to make that trade-off, it just didn't seem like the correct choice for the canyon.

So the goal is to get people out of their cars and into buses.

That's correct.

That's the goal.

Or or more car cooling, but there's only there's a limit to how much car pooling helps.

At some point, you need to go into these way higher occupancy transit vehicles.

What'll we see first in terms of these things that are coming?

Phase one is funded.

Um 2028 is what we're looking at.

What will we see first?

What will we see and in what order?

Yeah, um, first thing you're going to see is most likely work on the gravel pit.

So you'll see.

I mean, if you go out there right now, there's already work happening.

It's uh the current owner is working with us to try to find all the faults.

And so if you go and drive by right now, you'll see large trenches as we try to locate the Wasatch faults through the area.

Um, but that's where you'll see the work first.

You know, we're going to start, you'll see foundation work, you'll see roadway work start to happen on the interchange.

Um, all of that most likely later this year, early 27 is when you'll really start to see what work out there.

Um, and then really like not that much in sand.

Like there's no roadway work that you would see until the buses start running, you know, the wasach will mostly stay the same outside of the gravel pit.

Um in later 27, I would expect we'll start to see work at the ski resorts for their bus stops.

And we may those are a little behind schedule, I will say.

Like they're just uh with the lawsuit, the work, the concept work and all that was a little bit delayed.

The environmental work that the Forest Service has to do has been delayed.

So there may be some work to just try to get bus pull-outs um at the ski resorts and maintain some semblance of those bus stops up at the resort.

Seems like a lot to happen in a short period of time.

It is it is um, you know, feasible, but it's a lot.

Um 10 to 15 minutes service from the gravel pit, 15 to 20 minutes service from 94th and Highland.

What that means is a bus will be leaving the gravel pit every 10 to 15 minutes, and a bus will be leaving from 94th and Highland every 15 to 20 minutes.

That's right.

Um these are buses operated by UDOT, not UTA, right?

Uh yes, most likely.

Yeah, we've been working with UTA to uh define like the split in the service.

So UTA would still serve up to 94th in a the 94th mobility hub or 94th parking ride and up to the mobility hub.

So you can still take transit to get to that point.

Uh but the decision was made, you know, like the one fun interesting anecdote that I really made me understand the canyon service a lot better.

If you look at current UTA service, they both start at tracks, basically, of the two services they run, and the average person gets on at tracks.

Like if you were, I I whenever I try to get on the ski bus, I don't drive the tracks and get on.

I go to the the canyon because that's the most easiest place for me to go, and I can never get on the bus.

Right?

I go and I'm like, why is every single bus full when it shows up to this park and ride?

And so when we looked at that data, we said, you know, it really doesn't make sense for the bus service to start before that.

Uh because if we're gonna build this large investment, whether you drive there or you take transit there, you should have equal opportunity to get on the ski bus.

And so decision was made, you know, let's split it there.

UTA will serve the valley, U DOT will serve the canyons, and so you will get off your UTA bus, you'll get out of your car, and you'll get on the U DOT ski bus and go up the canyon.

So does the gravel pit is going to be the focus of most of the effort to transport people up the canyons?

So a bus leaving the gravel pit is not going to 94th and Highland and then up.

So they're going straight up either canyon depending upon it's like an express bus, right?

Pretty much.

That's correct.

Yeah, there could be intermediate stops, but um I wouldn't expect we'd serve all the stops that UTA currently serves because it's more of an express bus.

And why is it not the same frequency at 94th as it is at the gravel pit?

Is there a reason for that?

The split just the split of traffic.

Um, even for little cottonwood, it's still 60, 65% of people are coming from the north.

Um, and so when we're targeting this investment at this phase, eventually we will have to have a mobility hub of some sort, right?

A parking garage on the southern end.

Uh, but when we looked at the traffic models, the northern traffic is where the most of the generation is.

So we're going to target that investment there.

Um, our models with big Cottonwood the big copy show right, you know, probably 15-20 years from now is when we're really going to have a need for a larger parking structure somewhere on the south end.

9400 south could be a good location.

Um, the bottom of the future gondola could be a good location.

So those are both identified in the EIS as places where we could have a parking structure.

Um you've indicated on that final slide that phase two and phase three are not funded.

Um is there a world in which UDOT sees that phase one achieves the goal and nothing else is needed to achieve the goal.

Um I mean it's always possible, but based on our modeling of both population growth, uh growth and skier demand, we always see that at some point you can't run a bus fast enough, right?

You just can't, even if you're going direct to each ski resort, once you're running a bus every I believe it's four three four minutes, four to five minutes, that's really the limit because you can't even load a bus fast enough to get a bus out the door every four or five minutes, especially with skis and kids and all the stuff you have to get on bus.

So it's at that point the bus system really stops being functional, and you have to start to look to other options, which is why in the end the gondola was recommended because it is another more, it's much easier to load, the capacity is much higher.

Um it's and that's what we may need in 2050, but where it's not funded right now, right?

The EIS is a plan and a recommendation, but it's not we don't do it unless it's funded by the legislature.

Yeah, yeah.

And how do UDOT projects get funded?

Where does where does the legislature draw the money from to fund UDOT projects?

Yeah, so I think actually the current phase one is a really good representative example.

Um phase one has what's called TIFF money, that's transportation investment fund.

Um there was money set aside in 2019 for um high growth tourism areas, and so we had quite a bit of that money left or left over from the EIS, so that money went into this.

Um that transportation investment fund is funded from your gas tax, the state gas tax, it's funded from state sales tax, as well as other uh motor fees that you may pay.

Um, and a subset of the TIFF is what's called the Cotton Canyon's Transportation Investment Fund.

It's all the same taxes.

The legislature just said, hey, set aside some of that for future growth and spend and things in the canyons.

Um at the same time, uh, back in 2023, the legislature gave uh UDOT a hundred million dollars from the general fund.

So we get money from sales tax, we get money from gas tax.

We also can get money from what's the general fund, which is just you know, um, I don't actually know exactly all the taxes that go into the general fund, but all the rest of the taxes that go in.

The legislature can go in and say, here's additional money.

Um most UDOT projects are just funded from the transportation investment fund.

That's our um savings account that is there's always money going into there.

We work with the legislature, we work with the transportation commission to plan and WFRC to plan and program that money, and then get it approved by the commission.

So none of this in none of this transportation investment fund is gas sales tax and motor fees.

General fund, yeah.

I don't know either, because all income tax goes to education, so by constitu by you know, Utah laws.

So I would I would guess it's mostly sales tax.

Um the I think we get I think the TIF is something like a point three percent.

Don't vote.

So mostly sales tax.

I think it I think it's sales tax, but I'm not uh our legislative analyst.

Okay, you may be right.

Chat GPT may not.

So no property tax.

You do not draw on property taxes for we do not as a state.

Udot does not, the legislature does not use property taxes to pay for UDOT transportation projects.

Not that I'm aware of, no.

So we've been hearing that there is a narrative out there that every household in Utah will pay 1,200 for this end result, which is a gondola.

What does that even mean?

I mean, people think that they're going to actually get an assessment on their property tax bill for 1,200.

That that's how that's how miscommunicated this is.

So do you have any idea what it that's supposed to mean?

What that number do you have?

Do you know, Devin, where this comes from or what it's supposed to mean?

Or I would guess that it's probably someone taking, which I will like environmental impact statements and WHRC planning, right?

These are all things that are complicated financial statements.

Um that actually there's a funny coincidence where if you take what's the present value of parts of this project and project them out to 2050, which is what WFRC does to try to say, hey, if you're doing this project in 2050, what could it cost?

Um it happens to be around the same number as doing a lot of this stuff in another phase.

So people get confused and they throw start throwing out this like 1.2 billion dollar number.

Um that's a projected future cost in 2050, which as we all know from most recent past, like inflation is real, and inflation when particular projected out over 25 years looks huge.

Um, you know, so your house that your parents bought that was 10,000 is now worth 900,000.

Um I would guess that someone took those numbers of you know, it's 1.2 billion dollars divide by the population of Utah.

Here's a number, right?

It's not based on any exact tax that you might pay, and it's not based on it's just based on an instantaneous calculation of numbers that isn't really that meaningful.

Yeah, um, and it probably includes the 350 million dollars that you already have and intend to spend now, right?

It does so you can take that part off because that's covered.

We already have it, yeah.

Yeah.

So um I guess my last question would be um success.

What is success of phase one?

What is this an effort by UDOT to get people to get out of their cars and onto a bus so we can have the traffic throughput that we need?

Um how are you going to measure success?

How are you gonna measure since you're even showing us at the end of this and the record of decision was a gondola?

But we don't know if we're ever gonna get there, right?

Is phase one a test?

And if we can get enough people out of their cars and into buses, we won't need a gondola.

Is that what we're about to about to embark on?

Is that the definition of success that we can apply to this?

I guess what I'm trying to say is for those of us in Sandy.

Do we say to people, do the right thing?

Get out of your car, get on a bus.

You don't want a gondola, you can control that.

Get on a bus, stop driving your car up the canyon, and I'm seems to me that at one time Josh Van Jura said that, right?

So, but we could get that messaging out there if that is the definition of success that stops future um investments here.

What are we looking at?

Can you I I guess I would say my definition of success for this will be are you able to get to the ski resorts?

Are you able to get where you want to go in the canyons without major heart, you know, heartache, without major pain.

It's still an incredibly demanding area, both with the level the level of demand, right?

We see huge visitor numbers both summer and winter in these areas.

You see some of the crazy, especially little cottonwood, some of the craziest weather, well, this year was not a good example.

But you know, we this section of road has some of the most avalanches of any road in North America, um, as we all saw in 2022, 2023.

So the buses won't fix that.

Right.

If we have a year where there's a lot of avalanches, you're still gonna have closures for safety, you're still going to have closures that no one can go up and down the canyon, and a bus doesn't solve that.

And so understanding that on those big snow years, or even normal snow years where there's there's always closures on normal snow years, the bus won't solve that.

And so that's one piece where you can't, if you're trying to measure success of the bus system, like that's just something that'll never fix.

It's better in Big Cottonwood because we don't have as many avalanche closures, just it's just terrain, right?

There's just not the same terrain, it doesn't create the same avalanche risk.

Um, so the buses work better in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

But that's yeah, my definition of success is are you able going to be able to go up the canyon in a reasonable time without re without unreasonable delay and not you know be frustrated at the end of the day.

One thing I do like to say is as someone who grew up in Salt Lake, you know, I've been going up the canyons forever, not as long as some people have, but um there didn't used to be delays, right?

There used to be an odd day where you were coming down from Brighton or coming down from Snowbird, and you'd get stuck.

It was a snowstorm, but you were understanding, right?

You were like, oh, it's a massive snowstorm, of course I'm stuck.

Um that's still going to happen on those snow days.

But what we're trying to get rid of are those days where it's a bluebird day, there's no issues, and you're still stuck in the canyon.

And that's because too many people try to go up the canyon all at the same time, or try to come down the canyon all at the same time.

So to your point, yes, like if we can solve it with the minimum amount of spending, I'm sure the legislature won't want to fund anything else, right?

There won't be um there won't be a demand, right?

No one's going to be saying, hey, like I'm stuck in traffic all day.

But if we can't solve it with the buses, then there will still be demand, then the legislature will still want to respond to that demand.

I wonder about that measurement of getting people up and down the canyons without with without a big delay.

Um one of the things I'd love to measure, because we hear this a lot from Sandy residents, is that uh sandy residents are driving to Ogden to ski because it's easier than getting to Snowbird.

So I still want to be able to measure what is that willingness to sit in traffic.

Um I certainly want to prioritize, I want to prioritize Sandy residents.

I want to make sure that they are getting where they need to within and approximate to Sandy.

Um, so I'm I'm gonna be interested in how we measure this success.

You talked about um uh avalanches and things to buses don't solve that problem.

D do you to you it's is it your vision that snow sheds are a foregone conclusion because that at least helps significantly.

So does that mean your feeling is we'll at least move into phase two?

Because anything that's road-based, whether it be a car or a bus, has the chance of being held up by avalanches and there's a safety issue.

So do you think snowsheds are gonna happen no matter what?

I I don't think they're foregone.

I mean it's definitely it's in our recommendation, right?

But it's the same thing if snow sheds have are a little different because they're both a safety and an operations aspect.

There's those the snow sheds that were recommended, I believe they account for something like 80% of the avalanches that actually cross the road.

Uh so they while probably we would still have to close the road for avalanche closures, we'd have to have it closed less um for less long because every time an avalanche crosses the road, even if we trigger it right with our avalanche control, we have to go clear it.

But if we have a snow shed and the avalanche just goes over the road, then the second we're done with our avalanche control and we see the roads clear, we just open it back up.

So it can go from you know, like a uh you we could be open by 9.30 instead of 11.30.

Um so it's not a foreground conclusion, but it really is still just based on if we're not seeing that improvement, if we're still seeing this issue, then does the legislature fund that next that next phase?

Yeah.

I'm wondering because the frequency of buses going up to little Cottonwood from 94th is less frequent.

Are you thinking are you trying to attract like Sandy and Drape or anyone south going directly to the gravel pit and bypassing the park and right at 94th and Highland?

What are what is you dot thinking is the most expeditious way to get it?

Yeah, uh as part of what what we're beginning on is the final operations planning, which is really laying out like this level of planning is just saying where does the bus start, where does it end?

Um we're getting into the actual operations of where along the route does that bus stop, right?

So I really do still want to make sure that if you live near the mouth, you're not just being like, oh crap, I have to drive to 94th or I have to drive all the way to mobility hub.

We need to make sure we have intermediate stops.

We probably won't have the level of an intermediate stops the UTA has, which they really have planned is more of a local route.

Um so you know, in my mind, the what's called the swamp lot, which is uh you know, pretty big parking lot near I don't know, 9800, no, 8800 south.

There's intermediate stops that we still want to serve, but I do see your point.

You know, without improv increasing the number of amount of parking in 94th and island, I could see how that could fill up quickly with this increased service, and it's something we're just gonna have to monitor and check and say work with you.

That's going to be an end of a future UTA route as well.

And so maybe that's something where we can work with UTA to create something that's not just for the ski service, it's uh parking garage or a mobility hub that serves the valley with multiple routes, not just ski routes.

I keep thinking it's my last question, and then I come up with another one.

Sorry, guys.

Good, good.

Um how much of this 350 million dollar investment becomes obsolete if you does decide to move on, and the legislature does fund a gondola.

Um currently, if we did nothing, like if we didn't plan for it, it would be the resort bus stops, and that's it.

Um the resort bus stops.

I'm still I'm working with the town of Alta, um, you know, on Big Hotwood, I'm working with the town of Brighton to make sure that these can be community spaces as well.

Because even in the current plan, they're only used you know, six, seven months a year.

The rest of the year they're not used.

Um and so I'm making sure that if at all possible these resort bus stops become more than just bus stops.

Um but if we didn't do anything at all, it would be the resort bus stops in Snowbird and Alta that become they'd have to find another use.

Everything else can still be used because the mobility hub is actually sized, which is why it's increasing in size.

Uh it's sized for 2050 in big Cottonwood.

And so at some point, the big cottonwood traffic is actually gonna say, hey, there's too much big cotton traffic in this thing.

Little Cottonwood needs to find another location.

Um, and that's where you know we need to have either another mobility hub near the mouth of Little Cottonwood or 94th pick up the slack.

Uh but that's really the intent is to not have anything become obsolete when the gondola comes online.

Okay.

Ms.

Nickel, did you have questions?

Good.

So of the 50 buses that you're ordering, are those specific to Little Cottonwood Canyon and will only serve as Little Cottonwood Canyon?

No, actually that's a good point.

30 of them are Little Cottonwood Canyon, 20 is big.

Okay.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Thank you.

And so we you said that buses won't help with avalanches.

Will would a gondola be able to run in an avalanche?

Um it would either significantly reduce the closure time or potentially be able to run during an avalanche.

The gondola was designed, the reason it's so tall is it's designed to be above any avalanche debris.

Because you never know when it's gonna happen, right?

Like an avalanche could technically happen at any time, and so we it was designed to be above outside of it, the um ski resorts and where it comes lower near the stations.

It's designed to be above any avalanche or outside of avalanche zones.

Um so yes, like a gondola could technically run during an avalanche.

Okay.

And it's good to know that people won't get a bill from UTA for twelve hundred dollars, and that we've determined that you know income tax and your UTA is paid from a completely different tax.

So I think anybody in here saying that should be able to be able to stop saying that.

So thank you.

When I did think of another one, give me two seconds and I'll think of another one.

Um if and when a gondola ever happens in the sounds like it's pretty distant future.

Um what will still be allowed in the canyon?

Will buses still be allowed in the canyon and will cars still be allowed in the canyon?

What's the game plan?

Yeah, our plan is to not continue the bus service, but that we're not precluded from doing that.

That was just if once you run in a gondola, there's not much need to be running in a separate a second transit solution.

Uh cars are still allowed by um this these routes are what's called federal aid routes.

We've taken federal money for these routes, um, which means that we have to abide by um the restrictions that come from federal highways.

That is to make sure they're public access roads.

So that's why we can't do timed entry like the national parks.

It's why we can't do a lot of things like the national parks do, because we're bound by these federal laws that say how we can manage how we can operate these roads.

And for the most part, we don't even own the road.

These are actually um we have right of way from for the Forest Service for most of it.

And so mostly it's owned by the federal government anyway.

Okay.

Mr.

DeKaiser, go ahead.

Thank you, madam chair.

It's uh nice to meet you.

Thank you so much for all the progress you've made.

Um I understand based on my many meetings with your predecessors that this could be a challenging role.

So appreciate being here tonight.

And uh I too have uh good amount of questions.

So I just want to clarify is it correct that UDOT previously canceled bus orders?

No, not to my knowledge.

We've never we've we really couldn't place any orders until after Little Cottonwood rod was released.

Um I came on right around the time of the record of decision release.

I worked to you that previously, but in different roles, and we had not placed any orders at that point.

So there's no cancel.

So so I might have missed this, but can you clarify the need for more buses and how that relates to my recollection recollection of the issue of UTA not being able to staff the drivers?

Right.

Uh so yeah, that is one piece.

So UTA will be stepping away from the canyons, right?

UDOT's going to be coming in with that.

UTA can use their existing buses, and they have a ton of uses for them across their rest of their service area.

Uh so UDOT's gonna come in and buy all new buses.

We're I think we're at least uh quadrupling their fleet in order to meet these service times.

And so they're just quadrupling the canyon service fleet.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so we're you know, they're taking their buses, they're gonna use them throughout their service area.

We're gonna come in with new buses.

Um while you UTA really does a really good job in my opinion, serving the canyon, they do a really good job making sure their buses can operate in the canyon.

We're you know, we're coming with a fresh look and saying, can we do it a little bit better?

Are there improvements we can make both to the buses so they can go to the speed limit?

Um, is there is that mean they're electric so they can you know go faster?

So we're looking at a lot of that stuff to say can we do it a little bit better?

Okay.

Um so 15 to 20 minutes um on 9400 south during peak hours in the winter.

I don't know that that's sufficient to meet the demand.

I think you could probably run them every five to ten minutes.

For example, I know on Valentine's Day this year, the first four buses that arrived at Snowbird were completely full, which means that people were left stranded down in the valley.

So if if we we if we have some level of predictability for peak times, um what is UDOT going to do to ensure adequate resources if if if we know historically that 15 to 20 minutes doesn't cut it.

Right.

Oh, that's a great question.

Uh we are still while there is the demand, there's also just how much money do we have allocated to the project, and where can we make those improvements?

So I think that there is a world in which you can just start with five minute service, right?

There's always going to be a demand, and you'll make the ride more and more comfortable, but we also have to understand like that comes with increasing and increasing operations costs.

And so we're trying to size this correctly where we're not spending too much money on the operations, we're not spending too much money up front, while also sizing it correctly.

So it's a bit of a we have to try it and see.

Obviously, UTA used to run 15 minute service.

Um that was 15 minute service on three routes.

It's very similar to what we're showing right now.

You know, this is a significant improvement above that.

But we're gonna have to see if we've undersized it, we'll know pretty quickly, and we can order more buses, get more operators, and start talking about future improvements to parking on the southern end.

Is there any element of in this plan with like surge buses?

No, um, this really is the plan.

Like the surge buses and the go, what I think UTA calls ghost buses, are something that I see as it's good that they're able to do that and get more buses out there, but it's also not something you can plan on.

Um so as a writer trying to say, is another bus coming?

Can I plan on another bus showing up?

That ghost bus or surge bus is um not something I would want to plan on.

Um it's something we should just have that bus frequency be higher and then go with it.

Well, if the buses are full every 20 minutes and you're planning on the bus, I mean it seems that surge buses would be helpful, but that's okay.

Um I want to clarify, you said on 9400 South, the service is going to completely change.

So there won't be buses coming from other parts of the valley, like the interstate.

The the 9400 South Highland Drive hub will be where service starts.

The the UDOT service.

The UD.

UTA will still run service from other locations.

Uh that exact service plan hasn't been figured out yet, but before we start our service, uh, we will know the exact plan that UTA will have.

Um it could even come with more service because UTA is putting a significant effort into the canyon service.

And if they just took that same effort with serving the valley on you know the same routes for the same amount of time, it would be very significant service to those points.

So a fundamental principle in transit planning is to reduce the amount of times that people have to transfer.

What has been the thought around the inevitable transfer that people will have to make, ticketing, etc.?

Right.

I think it goes back to what I said where when I looked at the data, you don't want to incentivize people to ride longer on transit.

And right now the incentive really is go to the first stop on the line because that's where you're gonna get a seat because the service times are not fast enough.

It's possible that you know, in five years we look at it and say, hey, look, the buses aren't always full.

Maybe we start talking about extending the routes, having them start earlier, but it really does make sense at this point to say you can take other buses to get to this point, but it is at the point where you the UDOT service starts, is where you get out of the bus, you get out of the car, and you get on the canyon service.

Okay.

Um the model you mentioned for phase one probably not solving the transportation issue due to growth and uh demand projections.

Does that have any environmental calculations like our terrible winter and how that will affect demand?

Right.

It does.

I mean, it's really just based it mostly it is based on population growth, right?

It's hard to predict whether or not people will continue to enjoy skiing.

Um, when we looked at the climate models, what is interesting is we do get like we saw this year, we get shorter winters, but those peaks still exist.

And other places in the US are gonna be even more effective than we are.

As we saw, like Colorado was really affected this year.

There's ski resorts all across the southern US that might close.

Like New Mexico, there's resorts that might just be done after this year.

And so, as we see that our winters get shorter in the next 30 years, other places won't have snow.

And so there's a chance that we might actually get more visitation because we'll still have snow, it won't be as good, but other places won't even have it.

And we didn't, we did not take into account an additional growth on top of what we were projecting.

Our projections, if you looked at the last, um the pick up BitCon with study was had the benefit of being post-COVID.

If we were to only look at the growth during COVID, we would be, you know, I'd be projecting two-minute bus service because the growth has been so extreme.

Uh UTA cut their service from 15-minute service to 30-minute service, and today they serve the same number of people as they did with 15-minute service.

So the level of growth, you you couldn't, you know, if we continue to grow like we have, you can't under plan.

And so that's really the line is like can we plan correctly without over planning and without overspending and ending up in a position where maybe the market does turn and people don't want to see as much.

Because you know it's a fine line.

Can you speak to the proposed uh widening improvements on Wasatch Boulevard in phase two?

Uh sure, I guess what would you like to do?

What does it look like?

Um in the record of decision, it was the imbalanced um alternative.

So that's two lanes southbound, one lane northbound.

Uh so basically you're widening southbound for sections.

Um there would also be a separated trail uh bike pay bike trail.

I think it's like a 12 foot uh bidirectional bike and bed trail.

Um, and then if the level of service on the road, which is a roadway term um for like how fast can how like uh reasonably quickly can people travel through, like are they able to travel at the speed limit?

Um if level of service hit F for northbound, we would add a second lane going north.

So then it'd be two lanes north, two lane south.

But we were we would start with two lanes south, one lane north.

Um regarding tolling, I don't know that 25 or 30 bucks is gonna dissuade anyone from going up the canyon.

I mean, people pay 50 bucks for valley parking.

Um and uh Chairman Charkey had some questions on this that you couldn't specifically answer, but is there anything in that regard that you can tell me about the application to the H FHWA regarding tolling?

Or is that is that document publicly available or something it's not released publicly, it's it's just a submission to federal highways.

Um so it's not posted.

So is there any information in that submission about the plan for tolling at all you can talk about?

It's really just a reiteration.

Most of the submission is the the environmental impact statement, and then the the EA which will be decided in May.

That's most of the submission, most of the detail.

There is some additional, but there is nothing in there that says like this is what the adopted toll would be.

Um that's not part of the program.

The program doesn't set the toll.

You know, we just explained what I explained today that we would use our state laws and the commission, Utah Transportation Commission to set the toll.

And you yeah, you said they would approve the the tolling procedure.

Um, I I just want to say uh gosh, I have so many things to talk about, but I want to end my time.

I don't want to take too much of your time.

But I had a question about trust uh with the community that I'm not gonna ask, but my feelings kind of are unchanged.

We see in the presentation there's 1500 stalls at the gravel pit, yet you're talking here about 1800.

And my experience uh as a community organizer has always been like this, and it's pretty wild.

But generally, as someone who's interested in transportation and transit planning, um I I just have concerns about the way the process evaluates the miles up to the canyon and the the transfer issue that we talked about.

There isn't a seemingly regional perspective.

I know you've received letters from other elected officials asking for a canyon transportation management program that has a holistic approach.

So I would just ask that in in your future endeavors and and the progress that you make on this that would that we think about it more of as a region and less just the the vehicle miles traveled up and into the canyon.

So thank you so much, Ru Time.

Ms.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um kind of like two different questions, and I think Aaron maybe got a little bit on some of them.

Um, but I wanted to clarify.

So the 1.2 billion dollars, you know, that's coming, you know, that's it's not gonna be a line item.

Is it is any of it coming from resorts, or is it public money with you know, either from sales tax or TIF?

Right, yeah.

Um at this point, no.

Uh the resorts do fund almost all of the fares.

Like currently, if you look at what very few people are actually paying for the bus fare, they're tapping their resort bus, their resort season pass, and then that's coming from the resorts.

So the resorts are funding a lot of the operations.

I expect that same to continue, where we're gonna keep working with the resorts for operations funding, but as in terms of capital that we're currently talking about, no.

Um, outside of the sales tax that they're attracting, they're not contributing directly to this project.

Okay.

Um then.

Okay.

Um and then going back to the so taking a bus and the difference of having UTA served to a certain point and then you dot after that.

Um and you said something about people would take a bus, they'd have to get off, and they'd have to get on another bus and then continue.

And that's because uh I think you said like an equal opportunity.

So yeah, it it's really just um I guess I came at it from a the perspective of effective use of bus dollars.

Like you it you don't want to incentive as it is right now, we're incentivizing people to get on the bus as early as possible, and then that same that bus just drives all the way up and no one else along the way can get on and goes all the way up the canyon to the top and drops people off, and the people who are closer to the canyon have to just keep waiting until all the demand from further away gets on the bus, and then finally a bus that's not completely full will show up.

And so if we're gonna have these large investments, if I'm spending 125 million dollars on parking at this location, we've got which we've identified as like a critical point where because right now um vast, vast majority of people are driving.

Like I it's at least you know, 80-90%.

Um we have the exact number, but I don't remember it.

Uh vast majority of people are driving.

And so if we assume that it's the same, we need to put get those people to be on equal footing because if you're incentive, if you're starting to transit way further away, but putting the parking in the midway point, those people would all of a sudden never use that because they're gonna drive there, park in the mobility hub, and the first 25 buses are gonna pass them completely full.

And that's just not a good use of the bus dollars because if you're paying a bus driver to drive someone from really, really far away when they're you really should be paying it from closer if you're building this big investment here.

There is the the proposal uh which would alleviate it somewhat would be to put mobility hubs throughout the valley, but then you're talking about a massive investment both in capital and operations for what is it at the end of the day a seasonal bus service to ski resorts.

So when you talk about regional transportation planning, regional transit planning, that should be done to serve people throughout the valley throughout the year, throughout the week, and then those regional systems should tie into this seasonal service for for the ski resorts.

You shouldn't plan a seasonal ski resort service that goes throughout the entire valley because the the cost would be enormous, both in operations and capital.

And you know, trying to we're trying to target this investment, it is seasonal, it is to ski resorts, but there's also a lot of demand for it.

So we're trying to target it to be in there for the right amount of money, both in operations capital without being wildly extravagant.

Yeah, I it it still just seems like you're you're deincentivized, you're almost punishing people for taking public transportation.

I mean, that's you know, I I see when I'm when I'm driving around here in Sandy, I mean, I see all along 9400 South.

You'll see somebody who's standing out there with their board or their skis.

I'm going, okay, so you're gonna ride the bus for five minutes, have to get off, wait, and get on another bus.

I there's there is no world that I live in that if I have two kids and I'm trying to get them up there, then I'm gonna ride a bus, get off a bus, wait, and get onto another bus.

I mean, I I'm just really struggling to see how this is helpful.

I mean, and I and I do understand, I mean, that's you know, when you're talking about, well, you'd have to put mob mobility hubs throughout and just the infrastructure for that, finding I mean the land to build that.

Um, but I I mean I'm looking and going, okay, you know, at the mouth of our canyon, we have, and and on snow closure days, you know, I mean it's it's crowded.

We have residents that are you know, they're they're frustrated, you know, their their driveways are being blocked, and some of that's just that that stacking that happens, you know, or trying to get the kid kids to school, trying to get to work.

I mean, there's a a lot of that, but if if you are saying you can't take a bus because you're just gonna have to take another one, there's not an increase of bus or somehow I I mean it it's it just it seems like this is this is being set up to fail from the beginning.

Um and and and this is coming from you know, I was a single parent, you know, of trying to shuffle kids, you know, it it just became so much easier to throw all the stuff in the van and take everybody up and like nope, you know what?

I know your hat got in the car, and I know your gloves got in the car because I put it there.

Right.

You know, it's not going from one to the other.

But you know, and then you know, 345 stalls.

Yeah, something around there.

345, um, 94th and Highland, you know, to try to push, you know, people, if that is the model that's moving forward, you're trying to push people to Highland and 9400 South, you know, almost almost in the middle of our city.

Um, you know, and have all of this traffic coming through Sandy to try to park there because they don't want to catch a bus to come here to get on and off.

I mean, I I'm not sure if that 345, that's that's going to be a struggle.

Now we're taking people that live maybe a little further east or you know, live in Draper, and instead of going and just finding a bus stop somewhere, is now we're gonna push you to Sandy, which you know, for the businesses in the area, you know, that may be a great thing, but I'm just not thinking 345 stalls is gonna be enough.

You know, what does what is UDOT planning on doing to help Sandy manage some of this that you are pushing people here because it's no longer a get on a bus from a further point?

Yeah, and I guess um from my perspective of you know, looking at especially the mobility hub, the question really is like if you're able to hop on a bus and get dropped off right in the bus area and walk five feet and then you're in the line, you're either in line or already on the bus that's going up the canyon.

That for me, I do I have a child, so I also understand everything with kids.

Um that for me is still better than parking and trying to make your way through up the giant mobility hub parking garage to get to the bus, right?

So, like if you can get on a bus, that seems better for me.

I trying to do this.

I've done this, I used to ride the ski bus all the time.

I've ridden the ski bus as an experiment in the last few years, and it's you know, it's really challenging.

So for me, weighing that frustration of would I rather know I can get on the bus and then I'm in an equal and fair line, or have this fight of where how far back along this line of bus stops and bus parking and parking rides do I need to go before I can get on a bus at all, right?

Like because if this really alleviates the traffic that we're putting that or the demand that we're putting on UTA's system unnecessarily.

There's people that you know, I've spoken to.

We went out and sat at the park and ride where the bus starts right now and asked people like, where are you coming from?

And they're like, oh, I live right near the mouth of the canyon, and I drive all the way over here to get on the bus because I used to go to the parking ride at the mouth of big or the mouth of little and sit for two hours and wait for the bus to be not full.

So like there's just so much out of direction travel that while I totally understand we're adding uh we're adding one um transit switch, right?

We're adding one, it's no longer gonna be a direct route for some people, or the app, you know, like right now, 50% of people are at least get on at that first stop and then ride all the way up.

Um so there will be some people that are gonna have to switch, but it's better than having a continuous line of full buses going by, just passing all of this infrastructure we built for them, and that is completely like frustrating to use now.

So, yeah, yeah, um maybe let me try to clarify my question.

Um, instead of getting on the bus earlier in the the valley um, you know, we're gonna be the the goal is to try to push people to these mobility hubs, one of them being at 94th and Highland.

So we are now pushing people to 94th and Highland, which doesn't have a significant amount of stalls comparatively to 1500.

Um what is you got U DOT going to do to help um to help Sandy manage these people now coming to 94th and Highland instead of getting on 72nd or on 106th or wherever else they are, you know, these these uh ski bus routes are gener are coming from.

I guess well, first of all, like UDOT has been working with the city of Sandy for at least a year, year and a half on a solutions development study, which I believe concluded six months ago.

I don't know.

I wasn't involved in that one.

But you know, we at the end of the little cottonwood rod, that's what we heard was hey, you know, that Sandy has all these other concerns, especially with 94th.

And so UDOT's been working to try to see what that looks like, right?

It's a solutions development study.

So the recommendation, I don't even I wasn't a part of it, so I don't remember what the recommendation was.

Uh but the recommendation was here's all these other things that you need to look at to solve that.

I believe one of those was looking at that park and ride for what does that need to look like in the future?

Because it's not just a right now, it's a UTA park and ride.

In the future, it's going to be UDOT and UTA, and UTA has a at least two routes that are planned to go into that year-round, not just seasonal service.

Um is already one of the major arteries for everyone going up there.

So we're really not out inducing more traffic there.

Like we're saying, hey, here's the that's already a major park and ride for the bus service.

Uh it's already a major place where the ski service picks up.

Uh it's just it's going to be the start of UDOT service, understanding that, hey, you know, it there could be more people who are trying to drive there to pick up the service because they don't want to take another bus to get there.

And that's why, you know, we've initially, as part of the enhanced bus service um alternative, said there could be a mobility hub there.

I believe we heard from Sandy that they wasn't on the EIS at that time, but I heard, hey, you know, maybe there's some pushback to having a mobility hub there and creating more traffic to that point.

Um and it's, you know, are you gonna sell people they have to take transit to get there, or are you going to provide parking for them at the location?

It as you said, it's gonna be really tricky to have tell people to take transit to get the transit.

Um but as we all grow, as the valley grows, we're gonna have to get more used to transit, or the demand is getting higher and higher, and we're not always going to be able to drive everywhere, right?

As we grow, like we're trying to accommodate the driver.

We're trying to accommodate people's existing behaviors.

Um, but as we see with the canyon, unless we're willing to put a three-lane highway, or I guess effectively a four-lane road up both canyons, you can't be in your car the whole time.

You're going to have to get out, and if you're not willing to get out, you're gonna have to pay the toll or change your plans.

But there's you know, the roads are already at capacity.

I see it in the data, like people will look at the data and say, oh, well, the busiest day is 1,200 cars.

So it could go as per population goes up, it could go to 1500.

I'm like, no.

This road is a hose, right?

Like, it's 1200 is the limit.

So as you look at the data, more and more and more hours start to hit 1200 hours, 1200 cars per hour.

That spreads into Monday into Tuesday.

Um, the fourth busiest day is now Wednesday.

Friday is super busy, Saturday and Sunday are super busy, and I guess people work half a week and say, probably worked enough.

I guess I can go on Wednesday.

I have no better explanation.

I've asked are there deals being run at the resorts on Wednesdays?

Why is it Wednesday?

They don't, they're like, we don't know.

But you just don't know what people's behavior will do as these systems hit their braking point.

And that's what the roads act at this point.

It's just overcrowded.

The road is not functioning correctly because there's too many people for how big the road is.

And it's really just a roadway problem that we are now trying to fix with transit to get more people up the same road.

Okay.

Um, and then one more question.

Uh so phase three, tried everything, it's had a little bit of help, but it hasn't had the impact that we wanted to, so we're moving forward, and the legislature says, you know what, gondola, we need to move in this path.

Um you said that uh you would stop all busing service.

Uh for Little Cottonwood, that is the plan is to stop bus service up a canyon.

Um, and and would that include in the summer months as well?

Uh, right now, summer is not included in any of the places.

Okay, so it okay.

Um, but it would be so you'd be eliminating.

Okay.

Um so anything going from Highland and 94th would then go to the base station gondola.

Yes, you'd be driving, taking a bus, getting off, getting on to a gondola, and then going up and then coming back.

Yeah, and there's also a planned mobility hub at the gondola base station with parking.

Um, but I mean, looking at what we've done with phase one, right?

This is um part of it is going to be when that point comes, and we're starting to say, hey, these are not working anymore, just like we are with the road, we start looking to UTA, we start looking to you know whatever other transit may be in effect at that time, and how can those connect to the gondola?

Right?

It's not just going to be like exactly as the EIS says it in 20 years.

You look at the you work with the planning department, and you say, hey, like, how does this how is this going to work?

Are there there's always going we always want to have transit service connecting to our transit, uh, especially with the growth.

Um, but there will there is a planned parking component at the gondola base.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Madam Chair, may I ask just one more question?

Sure, go ahead.

In my disorganized notes, for me, it's kind of the elephant in the room.

Um you mentioned that high high occupancy tolling doesn't work.

What about a toll that disallowed single occupancy vehicles?

Uh I I think it's kind of the same question.

We we don't like, unless you're out there, the number best way to do it.

The only like uh verifiable way to say effectively whether or not it's more than one person in the car is stopping every single car.

So there are new technologies that are developing that I have personal problems with where you can like hold a camera up and it forces you to like wave your phone around the car to show everyone's faces in the car.

I love the idea of that.

There's future technology that maybe could make it where we verify how many occupants are in a car, but where we already have 2.2 people per car on average, more than one is what we have now.

More than one is what we have now.

And there's really not a benefit from like the HOV would have to be three or four, and to really make it dent in it at all.

And and the reason we can't do that is because we have to keep the traffic moving.

Um the only yeah, the only verifiable way to do it would be to stop every car and have an enforcement, you know, Sandy City, some enforcement agency actually looking in the car and verifying occupancy, just like they do at the ski resorts when you park.

Yeah.

Um okay, thank you.

This is scary, but there is a camera in my car because my car tells me every once in a while, look at the road.

Does anybody else get that?

Yeah, okay, stop watching me car.

I don't want to be looking through that camera.

I know, no.

You said something that was kind of interesting.

Um, Miss Housman and I, a couple of years ago, we went to an EDC Utah event, and Frazier Bullock was the keynote speaker, and he said something really interesting about um climate predictions.

He was talking about the fact that when it comes to the Olympics, that probably what will start happening on winter Olympics was that there'd be a few venues identified for winter Olympics, and it would just rotate between those venues.

And that, and it was because of what was happening with snow and snowfall, but that luckily Salt Lake City was one of the places that would be continued to be in rotation because the climate models were suggesting that up to and including 2060 that Salt Lake City would still be getting snow.

Um so your point about hey, maybe we get busier, not less busy.

Frasier Bullock might agree with you.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's gonna be a challenge for the resorts because you might get less busy still throughout the season, as we saw this year, right?

But as I see in the numbers, the days that it snows are insane, right?

Like we're just having less days, and that sucks from a skiers perspective, and it sucks from the resort's perspective, but from a roadway challenge, it's even worse.

Yeah, because then the road is only failing when it's really bad infrequently, and that makes the bus service even more challenging.

How do you I just wonder how you adapt to that?

How do you like right now put X number of additional buses and X number of additional bus drivers?

Anyway, that's your problem to figure out.

Yeah, I mean I would say that the answer is you choose lower operational costs.

Buses are very high operational costs.

You have a lot of buses and you have a lot of drivers.

You have to choose lower operational cost things, such as a gonova, where there's a lot less operators.

It's hard to predict what the market will adapt to.

There's something on the news, was it last week or the week before, that said that Americans were traveling to Europe to ski because it was cheaper to get your whole family on an airplane and fly to France?

Why don't you try that?

Would that work for you in your family?

It's interesting.

What so thank you?

I anyone else have any questions?

You survived.

No, thank you for all your questions.

Thank you, Devin, for coming tonight.

We really do appreciate it.

We appreciate the partnership with UDOT.

Yes, we did receive a presentation on the 9400 South Potential plans.

That was between 13th and all the way up to Wasatch.

Do buses do well in roundabouts?

Because that's kind of what that other side of UDOT was talking about for the future of uh Wasatch Boulevard and Little Cottonwood.

It's a big old giant round.

Yes, if you design it correctly, or in Europe if you're crazy enough.

I've as I've been on some crazy buses in Europe that take roundabouts.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

All right.

Okay.

Moving on to the consent calendar.

We've got intents to annex.

We've got a proclamation recognizing Arbor slash Earth Day slash Sandy Beautification Day, all in one.

Thank you for putting it all together in one.

And a couple of sets of minutes.

Do I have a motion to approve?

Motion to approve the consent calendar.

Second.

Motion and a second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

All right.

We good to move on, guys.

Okay, one more item left, and that is the council voting item.

This is a second reading for Ms.

Housman's proposal on FTEs.

Go ahead, Ms.

Houseman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to thank everyone again for the good conversation we had last time and uh took that feedback and um re kind of reshape the language to make sure there were some things that you and all expressed were really important, we made very clear, so I won't draw this out and revisit everything.

So I won't draw this out and revisit everything.

Um just kind of high level though for for those who might in the public who might be hearing this for the first time.

So this amendment's not creating new authority, it clarifies how we exercise authority that's already spelled out in state code.

Um it assigns the legislative body responsibility to adopt and control the annual budget.

We often during budget season talk about how the biggest portion of our budget is personnel.

Um personnel costs are 60 to 70 percent of our general fund, and so I think it's important for us to consider this this role we have as a governing body in terms of the legislat the budget authority.

So really this is about establishing a ceiling on full-time positions.

We're not actually controlling the budget.

Um if we're not establishing that ceiling, then we're not actually, in my opinion, performing our our duties as the budget authority.

So I think it's important that we set um this in place so that we are exercising our legislative oversight.

I think that's what we were elected to do.

I think it's it's an appropriate adjustment.

Um and that's what I bring forward for a vote tonight.

I just had one question.

So the in writing it, you also took into consideration that we didn't have to, or that the administration wouldn't have to um do a public hearing in order.

Okay, so that would that eases some of the concerns that they had on that.

I like that.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

So if I could just elaborate we made it, we made it clear that this is as the mayor presents the tentative budget, the staffing, you know, count or the staffing schedule is in that budget.

So she comes to us with the proposed staffing, we adopt the budget.

If there is a need to adjust that, um all this requires is coming back to the council for discussion relative to the staffing.

The only time a budget, I mean a public hearing would be required is if it is um they're asking for an additional appropriation.

That's a different conversation.

So then that would be.

But if if we're just having uh a request for an adjustment to the staffing, that's not a public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you for that question.

Council, any other questions for Ms.

Housman?

Mr.

Pace.

Thank you.

I just have two quick questions.

Um this refers to strictly to the departments.

This doesn't uh apply to the mayor's office or the council office since they're statutory.

Correct.

This is departments.

Just wanted to verify that.

And then the second thing, just an let me use an example and see if this is what your intent is.

If we've got uh person who's retiring and we want to bring a person on three months early or two months early to learn the position why that current person is in place.

Um do you consider that in in this wording you've got temporary positions?

Do you consider that a temporary position, or do we still need to come to you to uh get permission to bring on somebody temporarily why to be trained by the person who's retiring?

Does that make sense?

The question I'm asking.

Yeah, I think it makes sense.

Um I like I'm uh I'm I'm having thought of it that way, sort of on the spot here.

Would have liked to have heard that before tonight, so I could have thought through what that means.

I mean, we we did we did have the discussion around part-time seasonal, and and we heard the feedback from administration that it it if I could just if I could not include seasonal, that that would be really helpful to give the flexibility.

Um I think this is a slightly different.

I don't see this as seasonal.

I think what we're trying to say is if if changes to staffing are being made beyond what is adopted in the staffing schedule, we'd like administration to come and talk to the council about it.

Oh, please.

May I offer some feedback on this item?

I think if the council were to ask me how I would interpret that, I would say to the administration that that's a provisional employee.

Um, and who hires a provisional employee, and I think that the administration could could do that in terms of replacing somebody because they're not adding a position, right?

I mean, they might be hiring a provisional employee prior to that other employees leaving, but that doesn't fit within the adding a new employee definition.

I would think.

So it's not it would not be part of the FTE count, is what you're saying.

So does that answer your question?

That's all I needed.

That was perfect, thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Lindpace, did you have some thoughts to add to the well?

Maybe I shouldn't say anything now.

Linpace did you have some thoughts to add to well maybe I shouldn't say anything now I don't disagree with Tracy but provisional isn't in the ordinance all it says is part time seasonal and temporary the challenge you've got is if you hire a new city attorney to work with me before I retire that's not intended to be a temporary position it's a permanent one but the overlap is temporary and then yours temporary agreed anyway we just have to think through that but um and but I I think I if if I were looking at this I would say a temporary employee is someone that is intended not to be a permanent long time and if you're hiring for example a new department had to overlap that's not intended to be a temporary position but it's just my thoughts the conditions temporary but the employees no the overlap is temporary correct Ms.

DeSouza thank you know I'm I'm hearing the conversation here and it seems to me that those situations would be more of an exception I can't imagine that that is something that the city does on a regular basis for every employee right and so at a time that you know if if this ordinance were to pass at a time where that becomes a question or a potential hindrance and it's a conversation with the council you know we aren't I don't see us looking to impede the function of the city but rather to um protect the the budgetary impact of adding um FTEs even mid year for you know on a on a continual ongoing basis so my recommendation is we take that up on the exceptional cases the case that it happens where there's you know questions about it.

Yeah that makes sense Mr Cadell any additional thoughts well I I just don't I mean I guess the way I look at is they're not adding an FTE right I mean um that I mean the purpose and I think this I think the ordinance says that when it talks about you know no increase in the total number of authorized full-time benefited positions I I don't see how depending upon when you hire a person that's not adding a new FTE I I think in terms of this uh ordinance I I mean I think what you're getting at is are we adding another person are we are we adding 10 more officers to a department right I mean we're not talking about that I think because sometimes um the person's gonna be hired three months after a person leaves right and so we're down an FTE then the hiring date to me doesn't necessarily matter I mean I think the FTE is the issue and I don't I'm okay with it as is and look if it we run into a snag we'll bring it back and you can amend it later.

Yeah that's true thank you Miss Nickel did you have a question no any more questions at this time madam chair I just want to say I'm I'm good with this and it affirms the way we've conducted business and administration since I've been mayor thanks I like Tracy's um definition that we're not in that scenario where there's an overlap we're not adding an FTE yeah so yeah going to right now so this is a voting item so that means we will be um taking public comment on this I don't have any blue cards but uh if anyone in the audience would like to speak you can step right up to the um to the podium and justin let's go ahead and invite our online participants if you're participating on Zoom and would like to make a comment please use the raise hand feature and I'll call you in the order that you raise your hand and you'll have three minutes to make your comment I don't see any hands raised right close public comment on this item bring it down back to the council madam chair ready with the motion I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 2606 I'll second thank you all right we have a motion and a second any more discussion council see none we're ready for a roll call vote who's taking it justin is thank you madam chair council member nickel yes council member houseman yes council member strout yes council member sharkey yes council member christiansen yes councilmember de Souza yes council member de Kaiser yes madam chair that motion passes seven to zero all right that is the end of our agenda tonight so that just takes us to standing reports justin you ready with standing reports for the council office yeah thank you madam chair um just a quick reminder Sandy won awards this Thursday um there will be uh opportunity for a photo one hour prior so if

Madam Chair, motion passes seven to zero.

All right.

That is the end of our agenda tonight.

So that just takes us to standing reports.

Justin, you ready with standing reports for the council office?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a quick reminder of Sandy won awards this Thursday.

One hour prior, so at 5 15 on the second floor of the Hill Center Theater.

So please arrive at that time and be ready for that.

Other than that, just uh I'll look at the agenda planning calendar next week.

We have uh public hearing for the annexations coming back as well as uh FY27 budget preview.

So it should be a full meeting next week, and that's all I have.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Council member business.

Anyone got something they'd like to share?

I just have a question for Shane.

The study that you talked about, the solutions delivery study that was talked about that was being done or was done by the UDOT representative.

We received a presentation on that at the count at a council meeting.

Okay, yeah.

Never mind.

Yeah.

I thought that's what you were asking, so I was gonna answer.

Yeah, Brittany gave it to us, it was months ago, right?

Do you remember when it was Britney Word City Engineer?

We finished that project up probably about eight months ago, I think.

So um council member Cole.

I can forward you that presentation and the slides and the materials.

Can you also forward the study?

You know, I will send it to Dustin and you can send it to all of you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up.

Yeah.

Right.

Anyone else?

Ms.

Christianson, go ahead.

I just wanted to quick update.

I know we already heard from the South Valley Chamber tonight, but um they had their sharking tank activity on the 25th, which is do you guys all know what that is?

With the kids from the high schools, and they come and present their projects and then they're judged by local um businesses, and it went really, really well.

There's some super talented kids in our area.

Um, and then also Nick Durson, who we love seeing, was giving update on the point, and um I've asked for that presentation so I can share it with you guys.

I think there's some things in there you'll find really interesting, especially about the Olympics coming up.

So and then um I attended the Educate Canyons Education Foundation Gala with a couple of you, and that was a really nice event and a good night for raising funds for our students.

Right, just for me, thanks to Chief Arnold and to Lynn Pace for joining with the county and the Expo Center and having a discussion about security and First Amendment rights.

We'd had a couple of meetings that didn't really gel and we didn't really make decisions, so the two of you joining was really very helpful.

I think so.

I want to thank you for your time and joining the convention facilities advisory board, the DA's office, the people from the county on that issue.

My thanks to you.

Alison, do you have anything?

Uh so uh we had kind of a rare typically historic meet historic committee meets once a month.

Um, and this last month they met twice, and uh they had selected um an individual to kind of work with doing some code updates, um, and uh, you know, just looking at a modernizing, you know, as we do the same thing kind of with our with our regular code.

Um it was it was pretty interesting, you know, listening to this uh this gentleman talk, um, you know, a lot of it within that historic district, you know, the concerns, residential commercial, new construction.

But one really interesting part towards the end is he just and he asked, and he said, Well, you know, I mean, speaking that kind of from a council perspective, you know, where would three places that I would take people, you know, if they came to Sandy?

And it was just it, it was it was interesting, um, you know, to to think about that.

And you know, and my response is you know, out of out of I gave four, I can't count, um, but three of them were well, okay, one of them was county area, um, but uh the others were were our parks, you know.

So it was uh you know it was just something of saying, you know, this is this is what Sandy's all about, you know.

I mean, it this access that we have.

Um, you know, so that's uh you know, something that you know, maybe the rest of the council kind of think about that, you know, three places that that you think somebody came here, hasn't been here before, where would you take them in Sandy and why?

Um, you know, and that was and he was kind of tying it back to you know, trying to drive people.

Why would you go to historic?

You know, what is there?

Um, you know, and and what can we do to kind of bolster that area and make that a draw for the city?

So you know it was uh interesting take on things.

Um and then uh you know, so one more thing, you know, with the youth council.

Um the applications are now open for next year.

You know, uh Chris and Liz have done an outstanding job for the past several years.

You know, and this year it's as you know, the council, the youth council is as large and robust and energetic, um, you know, and full of life, you know, as as it has ever been.

Um, you know, the applications will be open until May 15th.

You know, you can go to uh sandy.utah.gov forward slash youth council, you know, SYC, Sandy Youth Council, and they'll also be on the council page, so start encouraging um 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students.

Uh you know, they can be homeschooled, they can be private school, charter school, part of the public school, you know, as long as they are residents here in Sandy, then they can apply, and it's a great opportunity.

Just wanna pass it off.

Thank you.

Erin, do you have anything tonight?

Thank you, madam chair.

Um the only thing I did last week uh outside of council was attend the mayor's intersection safety team tour, and that was really good.

We uh, you know, this is uh uh created in response to the uh tragedy that happened at the intersection at Alta High School, and uh we we went around and toured a recent uh our newest light on 94th and 7th West, something like that.

Um and there's some uh good changes that are happening in like uh the way we're able to program the lights.

If we do have like a flashing yellow, for example, which I understand there's not that many of in the city, maybe we can add some of those, but if the pedestrian has hit the button, it will it will stay red, there won't be a yellow flashing.

We've also talked about uh no right turn on reds.

This is a big issue for like the intersection on uh 80th south and seventh east.

Uh lots of parents complaining about uh incidents at that location.

Um and then we drove around some roundabouts, we went up by Brighton High, and overall it was really good.

It was nice to be on the street uh working with uh a group of various uh stakeholders and concerned residents.

Um just a couple days after that there was an incident in Alta High where a vehicle you turned from the shoulder uh and a student motorcycle ran right into it and it happened right behind me.

Um and it was uh really upsetting for for the family.

Um for my family, I'm saying, obviously for them.

I had a meeting with Shane about it.

Um so I'm I'm looking forward to the city doing what it can to continue work in the area, but also I'm calling for a need to uh meet with the district because the whole drop-off area in the school right there is a disaster, and we shouldn't wait for instance like this to happen.

I got an email from a constituent today about e-bikes and her concerns.

Um just yesterday I was driving on 114th South going down the big hill and noticed an e-bike on the sidewalk, clocked it at 40 miles per hour, and when I got to the light, my green light, guess what I did?

I stopped, and two seconds later that if I had turned if I had turned, no doubt it would have hit me.

So I think what we're seeing on our streets is a a pattern of problems.

I honestly do.

I brought the vision zero presentation to the council 18 months ago.

Um because our streets are designed from a previous time, they're wide, they're fast, they're high speed.

Now we have more forms of mobility, we have e-bikes, we have scooters, and it's it's really dangerous out there.

It's really sad as a parent with a student at Alta High School to see something like that happen.

And you know, we don't we don't have an 80 million dollar bond sitting on the table to fix these things, but there's a lot that we can do as a council.

We could begin tomorrow by aligning our speed limits with the reality of the situation out there.

Our roads are dangerous, you cannot drive without seeing people on their phone all the time.

It's really, really, really concerning as a parent.

And so if any of my colleagues are interested in tackling this with me, I'm asking you to reach out and let's find solutions because I'm concerned and focused on what matters most, which is keeping our residents safe.

Thank you.

Mayor's report.

Yeah, we're getting a lot of mentions and complaints and near missed reports about e-bikes and e-scooters, and as the weather warms, as the day gets longer, we're gonna just see more and more of it.

Um the council did pass the ordinance preventing e-bikes from sidewalks, uh, but that pushes younger um unlicensed drivers of these e-vehicles that can go so fast onto the roads, and uh it is yes, it's a it's not just in Sandy, it's every city.

But uh we really think it is time that we focus on our e-bike policy for our parks for our for our canal trails and how they overtake pedestrians and it uh the speed limit, the distinction between pedal assist e-bikes versus the e-motorcycles.

So we're gonna be seeing a lot more trail user conflict and a lot more serious accidents because of the speed.

If you look at any American Academy of Pediatrics right now, they're calling e-bikes and e-vehicles is one of the biggest dangers to serious accidents to youth in America.

So thank you, Councilmember DeKaiser for coming along on the missed team tour.

We uh went to three different types of intersections uh the four-way stop, the um four-way traffic light, and roundabout, and we got out the group, the stakeholders, the community representatives.

Thank you, public works and police for attending that.

It was really good to get um that interdepartment conversation with the council member with the residents and people just uh cross pollinating ideas.

It was really productive.

Uh, the neighborhood representatives and uh the standout uh is the was the representative of the student representative Bridger from the Sandy Youth Council did a great job participating in that and also kind of uh teasing out from his classmates and colleagues in schools what they like from at Brighton High School, what they like about the roundabout there, what they uh like or dislike about the new flashing stop signs at Alta.

So he was a kind of our uh in the know on the ground cub reporter, as it news as it happens.

Uh but uh interesting the perceptions of the team members, what we thought we would prefer at the beginning of the tour versus where we ended up at the end of the tour, and it came from actually getting out walking those four ways and being kind of testing each other's sense of safety, what we liked about certain elements and uh public works and uh Katie Atkinson did a great job arranging the tour and making it um very time effective and informative.

So thanks to all the missed team members, and we are going to continue to report back.

Uh congratulations to the Canyon School District for their annual Gala Foundation fundraiser.

Uh, great to attend with council members, uh, so many in uh in education and so many people committed to the well-being of the students.

That's uh was inspiring to hear the scholarship award recipients and hear how they're accomplishing uh so much in Canyon School Districts, giving everybody great access to a brightest possible future.

Uh I attended and spoke at the Beehive Science Center Tech Academy 20th anniversary.

Can you believe Beehive's been a school for 20 years?

Uh most of their time, of course, has been in Sandy, but it started as a um school in an office building in Salt Lake City, and their gym was the parking garage.

So they talked about the history of the evolution and the vision and the commitment and just uh their their excellence and their uh award speaker for themselves.

Today I visited Beehive with the International Students Day today.

So the students were dressed representing countries from all around the world, um offering food and holiday traditions and a lot of information.

I think there were over a hundred countries represented between the middle school and the uh and the elementary students at international day.

So thank you, Beehive for the warm opportunity to visit with the children today.

I also spoke to uh Sunrise Elementary today and Glacier Hills yesterday to talk about America 250, the Constitution, using your voice.

Now it's as important today as it was in 1776, and inviting the students to participate in the America 250 Sandy Art Competition.

As we heard from the uh library director, it is set for Saturday, April 11th.

That's not this Saturday, but next Saturday, from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

It's open to kids of all ages, anyone can come.

It's free.

All you have to do is show up.

The art materials, the paper that is of submission size for the art competition is available.

Please, council members, come and give us your best rendering of a of Sandy 250 at America 250.

I'll be there.

So it's a wonderful partnership.

Thank you to the library to Salt Lake County for hosting that.

It's again a Saturday, April 11th at the Sandy Library on Petunia, and it's all free.

And the art competition will be open until May 16th.

And there are prize money up to $50 for prize money.

The kids are really excited.

And there's uh age appropriate categories, but there's uh categories for prizes from the youngest to adults.

So calling all artists to participate in our America 250 art competition.

Um just want to wish everybody a happy Easter week.

Uh this Friday is Good Friday, and if you are observing on Good Friday or all throughout the week and happy uh Easter weekend, the city has been full of Easter egg rolls and a lot of excitement for uh the spring weather, and we've got uh it's a great time as we're kids are on spring break or preparing for to take time off with families next week.

Great time for renewal, respite, and just want to wish you all a happy Easter.

Thank you.

CAO report.

Thank you.

I just have one thing.

Uh the bathrooms are being opened at all the all the parks.

Just wanted to make sure you're aware of that.

They're also uh uh charging up the sprinkler systems, um making adjustments to them, so you might get some calls from residents saying why are you they're not watering, they're just turning them on and adjusting them so that they're ready when we uh when we start uh watering.

So you can explain that to them if they're going.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ben, do you have a Sandy Recreation Center report?

Yes, thank you.

Um the construction crew in Leighton was very very excited to hear that we came with a uh official name for that for the rec center.

Um so that was great.

They can move forward with some of the signs and be rest assured that that wasn't going to hold anything up.

Uh concrete walls of the pool equipment and west walls were poured.

Uh the mason is completed on the east uh wall of the filled house and continues to be uh put into where the locker rooms are.

Um it's kind of on that all phases of the construction is going on right now.

So you have concrete masonry work, electric uh electrical going on.

It's all completed in the ground and now is going up.

Walls and over ceilings.

Uh the still crew continues uh the decking around the track and the roof above the fitness the filled house, and then the plumbers have begun installing carriers at the locker room.

And I have a look about carriers were, but it's so you don't rip a uh bathroom feature off the wall when you uh use it.

So those get put and are hidden inside the wall so they can uh keep things sturdy.

And then the last thing is the road base in the filled house has been prepared.

So it's really fun to see everything that's happening.

You go up there now and you can really see the shape of it coming together.

I know we got another tour coming up uh next week with Brooke Christensen, so we'll be looking forward to that.

And uh we're ready.

So any questions?

I mean, at this point, there's so much going on.

It's like any questions about the construction.

No, thank you.

We'll keep letting you know.

Thank you so much.

All right, I will looking for a motion to adjourn.

Anyone want to do that?

Move to adjourn.

I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye, aye, any opposed.

Good night, everyone.

Thank you.