Eagle Mountain City Council, 14 November 2024

In short: This was day one of the city council's two‑day strategic planning conference — a working session, not a regular meeting, so nothing was formally voted on. Staff walked the council through new asset‑management software, progress on the city's 2022 goals, housing and population numbers, a facilities wish list and a new economic development strategy. The council's recurring theme was that departments are stretched too thin and that residents are not being told what the city is already doing.

Present: Mayor Jared Gray; Councilmembers Melissa Clark, Brett Wright and Rich Wood are identifiable by name in the recording. No roll call was taken, so the transcript does not confirm whether Councilmembers Craig Whiting and Zac Huish were in the room.

Staff: Steve (city administrator), Cliff (presented the goals and objectives update), Brad (public works, presented the asset‑management software), Zac Hilton (parks and public works operations), Brandon (planning, presented growth and housing), Evan (economic development), Kimberly (finance), Tyler (communications), Natalie and Terrence (facilities planning presentation), Angela (human resources), Michelle (library), Vince (engineering), Marcus (city attorney). Also referenced but not clearly speaking: Todd Black (wildlife biologist, becoming open space manager), Trevor and Todd (utility locates), Brody (public works), Dustin (building), Paula (neighborhood improvement office staff).

Decisions

No motions were voted on.

Settled without a vote:

• The council told public works to stop absorbing the software data‑entry burden in‑house and to come back asking for contract help, interns or new positions, rather than having directors spend whole weeks on it.
• The council agreed the highest‑priority city facilities are the wastewater treatment plant expansion, an office building tied to that plant, a new city hall built together with a library, and buying land now for everything else.
• A standalone recreation center was pushed down the priority list, with agreement that if it is pursued it should go to voters as a bond question accompanied by real cost figures.
• The council agreed the existing city hall should be converted into the public safety building once a new city hall is built, subject to staff confirming what building standards that conversion would require.
• Staff were asked to bring financing options and land‑acquisition costs for the top facility priorities to the first council meeting in January, not December, so the council sees the full picture at once.
• Finance was asked to study how far the city's 35 percent reserve floor could safely be lowered to fund staffing, and to pair any recommendation with a plan for rebuilding the reserve.
• The council endorsed economic development's three target industries — life sciences, energy and cyber, and aerospace and defense — and asked for written proposals on a downtown zone and a retail approval overlay.
• Staff were directed to address full‑scale nuclear generation in the alternative energy code already being drafted, alongside gas plants, small modular reactors and solar.
• The mayor agreed to send councilmembers his list of proposed topic committees so the group could discuss it the next day and again at an upcoming council meeting.
• Planning was asked to come back with how many vested units have actually been built, broken down by housing type, and with the equivalent figures from prior years for comparison.
• Planning and communications agreed to publicize a low‑cost permitting path for basement apartments that were never permitted, both to help residents at resale and to improve the city's utility‑demand data.
• The council asked to be notified before citywide surveys or major messages go out, so members are not hearing about them first from residents.
• The cemetery building was deferred to a three‑to‑five‑year window, timed to the next phase of grave sites.
• The parks, planning, library, treasurer, special events and water sections of the goals document were set aside for a later wrap‑up rather than walked through.

Meeting map

Agenda ref	Topic	~Start (elapsed)	One-line note
1	Welcome and framing of the conference	~0:00	Mayor read the dictionary definition of "strategy" and asked for a high‑level day.
2	Asset and work‑order software demonstration	~0:05	Public works showed sewer, manhole and utility‑locate tracking now running live.
3	Status update on strategic goals and objectives	~1:00	24 of 111 actions complete; turned into a wide‑ranging debate on priorities and staffing.
3a	Weeds, neighborhood cleanup and volunteers	~1:35	Council pushed for a volunteer program and better publicity of work already done.
3b	Communications, branding and economic development incentives	~2:00	"What is Eagle Mountain's brand?" left as an open question for staff.
3c	Power supply and data centers	~2:10	Data centers stalled for lack of power; council wants its own generation options studied.
3d	Engineering standards and stormwater deficiencies	~2:25	Existing flood‑prone areas to get a deficiency master plan alongside the growth plans.
3e	Finance, reserves and staffing costs	~2:35	Council signaled willingness to draw down reserves to hire.
—	Break	~2:45
4	Housing and population growth update	~2:50	16,252 households today; roughly 40,000 vested or platted units on the books.
—	Lunch and staff team‑building games	~4:00	Baby‑photo guessing game and a quiz app; no city business.
5	Facilities master plan prioritization exercise	~4:45	Council sorted buildings into high, medium and low priority on a board.
6	Economic development strategy	~6:30	New approach built on target industries, zoning changes and third‑party data.
7	Wrap‑up and setup for the annexation discussion	~7:45	Southern annexation overlapping Saratoga Springs held for the next day.

Discussed but NOT on the agenda: renting versus buying mobile office units for overflow staff; the condition of the right‑of‑way left behind by the Cedar Pass pipeline contractor; a request that the governor be invited to a separate meeting about power; and the overlapping southern annexation with Saratoga Springs, which was deliberately held over to the second day.

On agenda but little/no discussion: the parks, planning, treasurer's office, special events, cemetery and water sections of the goals document were skipped because the council felt they had already been covered in other conversations; the attorney and library sections drew only passing comment.

What was discussed

2 — Asset and work‑order software

Public works demonstrated the asset‑management software the council funded roughly a year ago, which the city is using to catalog everything it owns and every hour of work done on it. Staff said the mapping now covers 4,817 segments of sewer pipe — a segment being the run between two manholes — and 4,291 manholes, with about 187 miles of sewer main. Every vehicle and piece of equipment is loaded with an hourly cost rate drawn from federal disaster‑reimbursement rates, and every employee has a rate based on the midpoint of their pay band rather than their actual salary, so nobody's pay is exposed.

The payoff staff highlighted was the utility‑locate queue. Because the system now talks directly to the 811 "blue stakes" call line, one inspector has cleared 6,364 locate requests since the end of May with only 13 outstanding, and can close tickets without driving to sites where the city has no buried utilities. In the same period crews jetted 564 pipe segments — nearly 25 miles — at a tracked cost of $25,084, and completed 629 manhole inspections at $2,563, flagging 12 manholes for closer watching.

The council's questions were less about the software than about who does the work. Told that the director had spent whole weeks on data entry, members said plainly that was the wrong use of his time and pressed him to ask for contractors, interns or new staff. One councilmember asked how the city would ever catch up on assets built before the system existed; the answer was that new development would be captured through engineering inspections and GIS as a matter of routine, but the backlog had no good answer yet. Members also asked whether jetting and inspection costs are being recovered in utility rates, and urged the city to tell residents this story as evidence of efficiency.

3 — Status update on strategic goals and objectives

Staff reminded the council that the 2022 strategic plan produced six goals, which staff turned into 37 objectives and 111 actions assigned across departments. Five months into the fiscal year, 24 actions are at 100 percent and about ten more are near 75 percent, with six not measured — some because no good measure exists, others because the engineering department's two most senior people are brand new. Staff described the current two‑year cycle as "the year of capital asset management," with technology as the second theme, and said most measures are completion‑based rather than statistical because so many of the actions amount to installing a program.

The presentation turned into an argument about the council's own role. Members said the objectives were written by staff without them, which leaves the council unable to judge whether the work actually advances the goals, and warned that the objectives list collides with the separate legislative priority list — the same three departments are being asked to do both. "If we don't know what those things are, then we are part of the problem," one member said. Another cut in more bluntly: the council was spending its limited time discussing the template rather than the content, and wanted to ask department by department what is stuck at 10 percent and why.

Smaller items surfaced along the way. The library reported four of six planned new programs launched, physical circulation growth already at target and digital use up 9.8 percent against a 25 percent goal, and explained that $2,000 buys roughly 300 physical items but only about 77 digital ones, many of them leased rather than owned. Facilities noted that operating costs rise as buildings age. Staff said an artificial intelligence policy has been adopted and that other Utah cities are already using such tools for budget documents and procurement drafting.

3a — Weeds, neighborhood cleanup and volunteers

A councilmember recounted a veteran asking him at a breakfast what it would take to get the city's weeds under control, and floated the man's own suggestion: let organizations adopt sections of the city. The council pushed hard on the idea that the city has, as one member put it, 72,000 potential volunteers if it will organize them — providing equipment, dumpsters and disposal while residents supply the labor. Staff said two trailers and equipment have already been purchased for exactly this purpose, and that cleanup work can extend onto private and homeowners‑association property with permission.

Two obstacles were named. The first is continuity: the last big volunteer push, roughly nine years ago, drew over 700 people but depended on one staff member who has since moved on, and the annual volunteer group now rotates so often that nobody knows who is running it. Members said one person should own this permanently. The second is liability. The attorney's view was that a risk assessment should be quick and that if the city goes far down the liability road it may as well hire people instead; a councilmember countered that the city should accept the risk and use volunteers.

Staff also pushed back on the premise that nothing is being done. Todd Black is moving into a new open space manager role alongside his wildlife biologist duties, with an approved technician to support him, and crews have sprayed thistle along trails and corridors and are testing four seed mixes, including pollinator mixes, on detention ponds and at city hall. The council's response was that this was news to them, which proved the communications point: "we're not getting that message out."

3b — Communications, branding and economic development incentives

Councilmembers asked to be told before surveys and major messages go out, not because they want editorial control but because residents call them about things they have not seen. Someone also suggested mailing a monthly event calendar with utility bills, on the argument that residents over roughly 50 who do not follow the city's social media are missing everything.

The branding discussion came out of a planning commission meeting where commissioners could not articulate what Eagle Mountain's brand is. Members agreed the substance is outdoors, trails, open space and wildlife, but had no short way to say it — "Springville City is the art city; how do we describe ourselves?" The related question was whether the brand, the general plan and the strategic plan are actually pulling in the same direction, and one member asked pointedly whether anyone has ever checked.

On the economic development incentive policy, staff explained it exists so the city has a consistent way to evaluate requests from incoming industry rather than negotiating from scratch each time. Council members said the policy should be a standard worksheet capturing jobs, investment and timing rather than a restrictive cap, and argued the city's strongest incentive is non‑financial: cheap land, lots of it, and a workforce of 72,000 people who would rather drive 15 minutes than an hour.

3c — Power supply and data centers

This was the most urgent conversation of the day. The council was told that data center projects are stalling for lack of electricity, and one member who had championed the projects said the situation makes him "a lot more nervous" about the positions he originally took. Because the school district's finances depend heavily on data center revenue, the risk extends well beyond the city. The scale was put in perspective by a comment that one of the city's data centers would use more power than the entire state of Wyoming.

Members floated building the city's own generation — nuclear, natural gas, or otherwise — and, as a secondary idea, buying the distribution system back from Rocky Mountain Power. The obstacles described were regulatory rather than technical: Rocky Mountain Power effectively holds a monopoly on transmission, and legislators have told the city that both state and federal action would be needed to clear a path for independent generation and new transmission lines. Requests have already come in for 300 acres for a large nuclear plant and from two natural gas developers.

The council asked economic development to gather what data exists on each generation type — output, footprint, and effects on residents, wildlife and neighboring communities — so members can decide what the city is willing to accept and where. They also asked that public education come before controversy, since outside groups typically arrive to shape opinion once a power project is announced. A legislators' breakfast was scheduled for the next morning, and members wanted a separate meeting arranged with federal delegation members and the governor.

3d — Engineering standards and stormwater

Council members asked engineering to re‑examine the city's construction standards — roads, backfill, collapsible soils, utilities — not merely against state minimums but against what actually holds up locally, and asked to be told where the city is under‑engineered today so those fixes can be budgeted rather than repeated. They also asked that new applications come with an explicit statement of their impact on sewer, water and stormwater capacity, so approvals are not granted without knowing the consequence.

Stormwater dominated. Staff described Cedar Pass Ranch as having essentially no drainage, with much of it platted before the city existed, and said the same is true of most areas without curb and gutter or backing onto hillsides. The deficiencies are too large to fix in‑house, so a master plan for existing problems is being commissioned alongside the master plans for future growth — with the point made that deficiency work is not impact‑fee eligible and needs a separate funding answer. Staff have already mapped problem areas by severity and extent to find low‑cost, high‑damage fixes first.

The council's insistence was that specific known trouble spots be fixed before the master plan is finished, naming a Valley View pipe already upsized to the detention pond, a resident who spent about $19,000 replacing a basement, flooding near a church parking lot that originates on private property, and an undersized pipe that floods the Bell Street area near a school. "If it happens again because we haven't acted, then shame on us." A stormwater rate proposal was set for the following Tuesday with adoption targeted for December 3.

3e — Finance, reserves and staffing

Asked whether revenue is tracking to projection, the finance director said the city is on target but that only two months of sales tax have been reported, because state distributions run two months behind. A councilmember pressed the real question: with every department signaling it needs more people, is the city heading into its reserves again next year? The answer was that using reserves for ongoing operating costs is possible and already happening through budget amendments, but is not recommended, and that whether it is sustainable depends entirely on when new revenue — Walmart, the data centers — actually arrives.

The council asked finance to study whether the 35 percent reserve floor could come down to 30 or 25 percent, what that would buy in staffing, and how the fund would be rebuilt. Members also said openly that a modest property tax increase has to be part of the conversation, with one warning against repeating the county's mistake of holding rates flat for decades and then facing a large correction. "We shouldn't have to fund what we do on the backs of our employees."

That led into a long exchange on retention. Members asked department heads to identify the specific individuals the city cannot afford to lose and get their pay addressed now, arguing it is cheaper than replacing them, and asked human resources to fix baseline pay so positions do not sit open for months. A separate thread argued that the deeper problem is job design — people carrying two or three roles at once — and that the city should split those duties into properly staffed positions. As one member put it, "we're mediocre in our job because I have too many jobs."

4 — Housing and population growth

Planning presented the city's own count: 16,252 residential building permits, plus permitted accessory dwelling units, which staff use to rebut state population estimates they consider two years stale. Staff said the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute is expected to work with the city on a method that fits Eagle Mountain's growth pattern and could be replicated elsewhere. Building permits are running about 1,190 residential this year with two months left, against a low of 868 during the pandemic and inflation dip, and several builders are gearing up for more.

The numbers that drew the most attention were the vested ones. Of the city's 52 square miles, roughly 30 are already vested, leaving about 20 to plan — and most of what remains is designated for business, industrial or commercial use rather than housing. There are about 23,000 vested but unbuilt units, and roughly 40,000 counting platted lots, which would put the city near 160,000 to 175,000 residents at build‑out. Platted lots alone would support close to 76,000 people. Growth is now overwhelmingly in the south, at 17.4 percent against 1.7 percent in the north.

A councilmember pressed the point that although more than 80 percent of built housing is single‑family detached, this year's permits are about 73 percent single‑family and the vested pipeline trends toward a 70‑30 split. The argument was that the "missing middle" the state says the city lacks is in fact already entitled and simply not being built fast enough by developers, and the council should stop planning as though today's inventory is the future. Members asked for built‑versus‑vested figures by housing type, and prior‑year slide decks for comparison.

Two side threads came out of this. First, accessory dwelling units rose from 115 to 134, are not separately metered, and cannot be charged impact fees when they are internal to a home under state law — which staff said pushes infrastructure costs onto ratepayers and is a live concern at the regional sewer district. The council discussed an amnesty‑style outreach encouraging owners of unpermitted basement apartments to get permitted cheaply, both to help them at resale and to improve the city's data. Second, members asked whether the city can require builders to finish one development before starting another; the attorney's answer was that the city cannot condition an application on a developer's other projects, but is never obligated to rezone, and can decline on the merits — including that a proposal would create an isolated "utility island."

5 — Facilities master plan prioritization

Facilities staff walked through which buildings the city needs, which would require buying land, and roughly what each would cost, then ran a live exercise in which the council sorted them into high, medium and low priority. High priority came out as the wastewater treatment plant expansion, an office building constructed with it, a new city hall, and — added by the council as its own category — land acquisition for everything on the list. Staff clarified that the plant expansion under discussion takes capacity from 2.4 to 4.8 million gallons a day, one of three eventual phases, not the full build‑out.

The council's strongest instinct was to buy land now. "If we don't secure the land for some of these things for a full build‑out scenario, we're going to be kicking ourselves," one member said, arguing that what costs a few million today will cost far more later. A related argument was made for the satellite public works site on the north end: rather than a salt shed, the city should buy enough ground now to build a real base of operations for a city of 175,000, even if only a storage yard is built initially.

Public safety was settled quickly. Because the existing city hall was designed with a holding cell, a separate entrance and a concrete basement, the council decided it should become the police building once a new city hall is built, buying years of time — subject to staff confirming how much retrofitting current standards would require, since hardened public safety buildings are held to a higher construction standard than ordinary offices.

The recreation center produced the day's sharpest disagreement, and it was about governance rather than swimming. Several members said residents are asking for recreation, that demand has grown with the influx of younger families, and that the question should go to voters as a bond. One member said she would not vote for it herself but would support putting it on the ballot; another objected that a ballot measure lets some residents impose a tax on neighbors on fixed incomes for something that is not a basic government function, and noted that Lehi's center runs about two million dollars a year in the red even after doubling rates. The compromise reached was to separate "recreation opportunities" from "a recreation center" — a pond, ice skating, an inflatable dome over existing courts, classroom space in a combined city hall and library — and to pursue those cheaper options first, with any center going to voters accompanied by real cost figures. A design already exists from before the pandemic.

Members also asked staff to think in phases and timeframes rather than full price tags — high priority meaning work starts now with results in five years, and so on — and asked for financing options, not just land prices, before deciding. Staff noted that combining a city hall with a library could save $10 to $15 million and tends to poll better with residents, and that Saratoga Springs built at just under $50 million while leasing a floor to the county health department for eight to ten years.

6 — Economic development strategy

Economic development opened with the argument that the field has changed: site selection is now overwhelmingly data‑driven, location visits come last, and national retailers disregard a city's own figures in favor of third‑party models. Staff said neither the state economic development office nor the statewide recruiting nonprofit represents Eagle Mountain accurately despite being given good information, and that long‑standing relationships steer prospects toward established cities before Eagle Mountain gets a look.

Three approaches were proposed. First, zoning and approvals: a genuine downtown zone that keeps ground‑floor space for uses that draw people rather than insurance and dental offices, plus a retail equivalent of the existing technology overlay so approved uses in targeted areas can be handled at staff level — because retailers hate repeated entitlement rounds as much as they dislike cost. Second, industrial name recognition: pick specific industries, market the city's land and workforce for them consistently, and have every elected official and staff member telling the same story. Third, buying a commercial data tool such as Placer.ai or Buxton so the city can bring recent third‑party figures on where residents shop, work and travel.

The three proposed target industries were life sciences, energy and cyber, and aerospace and defense. Staff argued life sciences pays well, has decades of growth ahead and includes companies currently dissatisfied with their space elsewhere; that a power generation facility brings a highly skilled workforce which in turn attracts unrelated high‑tech employers; and that secure facilities tend to follow data centers. Councilmembers accepted all three while pressing to also court outdoor‑gear and bicycle manufacturers as a natural fit for the city's brand — the suggestion being a "brand overlay" that eases approvals for businesses that reinforce what the city is trying to be. Members also asked about attracting the software and e‑commerce employers concentrated in Lehi and Draper; staff's view was that those will follow rather than lead, and suggested a flexible shared‑office model as a nearer‑term option.

On retail, Walmart is under construction with a summer or fall 2025 opening, several pad sites are moving at Porter's Crossing and the marketplace, and mid‑box and regional stores — a home improvement chain, a fitness chain, movie theaters — have all been approached but are struggling to make construction costs work. Staff said one commercial tract along the boulevard is not selling despite heavy traffic counts, because the models being used do not capture nearby development. The council asked how success will be measured and how quickly the strategy would be revisited if it does not produce jobs and tax base, and asked staff to return with an evaluation method and a demonstration of the data tool before any purchase.

Notable moments

• A resident's suggestion drove the volunteer discussion. A councilmember relayed a veteran's question at a veterans' breakfast — what will it take to control the weeds — and the man's own answer, that organizations should adopt sections of the city. The council spent nearly half an hour on it.
• The council told staff, repeatedly, to ask for help. "If it's a consultant group that can get it done in a month, so we're up and going instead of waiting for it to be nine months or 18 months from now, please ask."
• A direct challenge to the format of the session. One member interrupted the goals presentation to say the group was spending its time on the template rather than the content: "if we're going to have a strategic planning, we need to talk about what's in this."
• A reversal on data centers. A member who had been "a super big advocate" for the projects, partly on behalf of school district finances, said the power shortage now makes him far more nervous about that position.
• Open disagreement on putting a rec center to a vote. One member said she would put it on the ballot and vote against it personally; another argued a ballot measure means letting some residents tax neighbors on fixed incomes for something that is not a basic government service. Both positions were stated plainly and neither was resolved.
• The attorney was blunt about developer accountability. Asked whether the city could withhold approval from a builder who had not finished an earlier project, he said the city can always decline to rezone and can say, "we're not comfortable that you're actually going to be able to carry out your promises."
• A staff member was asked to speak up more. Engineering was told directly: "when we're in these meetings and you hear us saying stuff and we don't understand the full impact, that's when you take a little mic and say, I'd like to say something."
• The middle of the day was social. Lunch included a baby‑photo guessing game and a quiz app about staff and elected officials; no city business was conducted during it.
• The day ended on an unfinished item. An overlapping southern annexation next to Saratoga Springs, roughly 162 acres, was raised at the close and deliberately held for the second day so the council could agree a position — particularly on street connections — before meeting with the neighboring city.

About this transcript

The audio was transcribed automatically and several proper nouns are unreliable. The asset‑management software is OpenGov (Cartegraph), rendered variously as "OpenRove" and "open gov." The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute appears as "Kim Gardner," "Kenzie Gardner" and "CHEM‑C." Cory Wride Memorial Park appears as "Corey Wright," "Corey Gray," "Corydive" and "quarry ride." Pony Express Parkway appears as "Point Express" and "Cochrane Express." The data center operator QTS appears as "GTS," and a third developer is rendered "TRAC" (most likely Tract). Other unclear names include the pipeline contractor ("Beanie Bush" / "BD Bush"), a developer rendered "Al Rafferty," the city toured by economic development staff (rendered "Pace"), and a homebuilder rendered "Fulte" (Pulte). Stormwater permits are referred to as "SWIP," almost certainly SWPPP. "Blue stakes" refers to the 811 utility‑locate service, and TSSD is the regional sewer district.

Speaker attribution is the biggest limitation. There was no roll call and the recording does not label speakers, so most remarks are quoted here without a name. Where a name appears, it is because someone in the room used it aloud — which is why Mayor Gray and Councilmembers Clark, Wright and Wood can be identified and the other two councilmembers cannot. Note also that "Zach" throughout the day refers to a staff member over parks and public works, not to Councilmember Zac Huish.

Audio is unclear in several stretches: the opening minutes of the software presentation contain a long garbled repetition; the lunch break, the photo‑guessing game and the quiz activity are largely unintelligible and contain no city business; and the final two minutes trail off mid‑conversation about the next day's agenda. Some figures were explicitly flagged as provisional by staff — the sewer mileage in particular — and should not be treated as final.