Transcript — Eagle Mountain City Council, 18 August 2026

Speaker A: Yep, he's ready.

Speaker B: I'm ready.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker D: All right, it is 4:01, Tuesday the 18th, and we welcome you here as we start our work session. Thanks for coming out, and for all those that are joining online and virtually, we appreciate you helping us out and joining the process. So we'll start with the first item, discussion on the Pony Express Business Park. And I believe it's Steven, and he is ready.

Speaker E: All right.

Speaker D: So we've actually—

Speaker E: we've been working on this project for several months with the applicant.

Speaker D: As always, some background. A few months ago, this did come to the Planning Commission. There was a variance tied to these properties that was ultimately denied based on just not meeting the criteria there for that one. So as a workaround of that and trying to get their site to work, they're now proposing a development agreement. And before we made them go too far along in the process, they wanted to speak with city council members to see if that's something that they're willing to entertain and what specific aspects they need to focus on as they draft that agreement.

Speaker E: So this is the site overlaid here.

Speaker D: So it's 3—

Speaker E: so these 2 lots here—

Speaker D: I'll go back here. So it's these 2 lots in question.

Speaker E: There is a plat amendment that they have right now to move this lot line up to about here.

Speaker G: So this would be the site.

Speaker E: It would be 3 buildings across the 2 lots.

Speaker D: Here's a zoom in a little bit. As part of the application, they— and this is part of their variance application.

Speaker E: I took this to help you see it.

Speaker D: One of the main exceptions they're seeking is a setback exception from the wash, where we have now in our code where they have to have a 50-foot setback from the top bank of the wash or 75-foot from the center flow line, whichever one is greater.

Speaker E: So they proposed— this one is light blue is where they said is the center flow of the wash, as well as the top bank of the wash is that outer shading of that blue.

Speaker D: A few months ago when I went out there and looked at it, I mapped what I thought was the actual top bank of the wash. So I outlined that in blue here, and then the red lines are just their buffers that they made.

Speaker E: So you can see there's a—

Speaker D: depending on which flow or top of the bank you actually follow, those lines would actually change. Ultimately, it's our city engineer who determines what that top bank of the wash is and then ultimately what those setbacks would be. So these are the requests. The first one we mentioned is the ability to work within and construct buffers or buildings within those buffers.

Speaker E: They do propose along here to have retaining walls to make their site work, which would go up to—

Speaker D: I think they're around 10 or 11 feet in height. So that wouldn't be any staggering or tiers.

Speaker E: It would just be a sheer wall.

Speaker D: And then they also want exceptions to not have to construct the drive-through escape lanes. So again, there's the site. So I feel like they don't have enough room to To put those in, so that's really what they're asking for. And ultimately, they want to know: should they spend the money to design those walls if that's something that is going to be acceptable in this development agreement, or any other feedback you're willing to provide them so they don't they don't waste their time or staff time, and we can move forward with this. Are we able to chime in as the applicant? Yeah, I don't mind, uh, if there's some questions. Do you have some context you want to add? Yeah, I think there's just some added context. Um, you'll notice, uh, on the plans you were shown a different sheet.

Speaker C: I don't know if we can go back to show that, but it shows a green border around this whole project.

Speaker D: You still have that? No, not that one. Actually, that one works. That one works.

Speaker J: Go back to that one.

Speaker D: Um, when we, when we first started this development, um, I think it's important to note that we actually gave up 2 acres of the, the project. It's a pretty small project, so 2 acres was a lot. Um, part of that was along the main road, as you see there, that setback to the yellow line. Um, but then also part of that was to mitigate Or to provide the city room, um, and a buffer to mitigate any concerns with the Tickville Wash. As a part of that giving or that taking, um, you know, that left us much smaller lots here, but workable lots. Uh, but that also, you know, as we come back now with our plan, um, it, it feels a little bit like, you know, They need more and more and more. So we took this to Planning Commission. I think an important thing to note, Planning Commission was actually very supportive of working with us, knowing the history of this giving and the specific giving to mitigate any concerns with the Tickville Wash. So I think that's an important thing to note. The reason, if I'm not mistaken, that it was denied is because within the code there wasn't an option necessary to accept accept them under the— under how they were presented. So they— so, so that we then moved to development agreement, which was the, the secondary option to do it. But I just want to highlight, we've not felt as we've come, and we've not felt in our continued partnership with Eagle Mountain, in addition to us giving up land, that there hasn't been an appetite to work with us. In fact, it's been stated, um, by Planning Commission and really everyone we've talked to that, hey, we want to make this we want to work with you. The challenge we have now, now that our lot lines have been pushed back, now that we have given already land so that, so the city can mitigate concerns with the wash, there's not a lot we can do with the lots. They're really small now in a retail sense.

Speaker H: They're really small.

Speaker D: So we're just trying to make it work and make it work in a way that it brings a great building to, you know, some great commercial buildings to the city and And whatnot. So those were the 2, call them variances or items in the development agreement we're hoping for City Council support. Okay, and I just had one question actually as a point of reference for Vince. Is it even— I don't know because of the natural aspect next to the park that we try to preserve there, but could this even be piped and what size and Or is that just not even— it could be piped.

Speaker H: If you've seen the culvert underneath the roadway, it would have to be that same size.

Speaker I: And so I would think it would be pretty cost prohibitive to do that.

Speaker D: Well, that's what I'm looking for. I don't know there's an appetite for that. I just wanted it to be out on the table that if it was, what that would be, so the council would know if they could mitigate that flow line. It would be expensive.

Speaker H: It's possible, but expensive.

Speaker D: And it would have to be a 60 plus. Is it bigger than 60? It's probably a square.

Speaker H: I think it is a square, and it's yeah, it's bigger than 60 for sure.

Speaker D: Okay, I just throwing out context for that. We've heard the presentation. Is there any questions for the applicant or for Stephen? You guys. Oh, sorry.

Speaker B: This is probably Stephen or Marcus. Do we know with a two-acre strip the frontage? Fronting on Pony Express, if that was compensated or if it was just dedicated to the city?

Speaker H: I don't know the answer to that question.

Speaker A: I'd have to—

Speaker E: yeah, I didn't look at the exact—

Speaker D: I can speak to that. Those were given to the city. There was no compensation for the 2 acres. It was a 6-acre site and we ended up with 4 acres.

Speaker B: Can we switch to the overhead that shows where the building would be for the site plan?

Speaker E: That one, or do you want a different one?

Speaker B: Is there one that's see-through that just has the outlines of the buildings?

Speaker D: No, I wasn't that nice.

Speaker B: I, I'm just going to be really frank. I think the thing for me that's concerning isn't about the city mitigating the wash. It's about whether or not that terrain is suitable for building a commercial entity on. And I've driven by that wash multiple times a day for almost 2 decades, and I know that there's changes and you can walk by it now and see where there's some erosion and different things that are taking place. So I'm a little hesitant to say go for it, 'cause I feel like in a lot of ways we'd be like the city of Draper letting a home developer build on a hill and then having the homes fall into a pit. I just, I'm concerned about how close it is to the wash. And just because we can do it doesn't mean we should. So to quote Jurassic Park, I want these businesses to be able to grow here. I'm just wondering if maybe Vince, you could speak to what will happen there because even the wall or fence that's behind Cascade Collision and then Burt Brothers. I just— it's right there and it always feels like it's not in a safe place. Can you talk about that?

Speaker H: Yeah, it's a natural channel and the banks do shift over time. And as we've looked at this in different reviews that we've done, I have expressed concern. Even if there's a retaining wall there, what are they doing to protect the base of that retaining wall? Because it is going to be in a flow line. And that's nothing new. Those concerns have been expressed in the past.

Speaker D: But it can be done engineering-wise.

Speaker H: And I've expressed that to the applicants that yes, we can do this. We have to do it the right way.

Speaker I: But yeah, those banks do shift and they will have to be protected.

Speaker B: Follow-up. I think we're becoming more astute and savvy when it comes to grade and what's going on on a site plan. I think we've often looked at the site plan and said, yeah, that fits there. But is there anything about the grade or the slope of this particular place that is going to need to be mitigated?

Speaker I: If you're referring to like the 25% maximum, I think The grade into the wash itself from the top of the bank is definitely steeper than that.

Speaker D: In fact, there's some sheer, very sheer areas, and I think that's why they were going to the retaining wall idea.

Speaker H: That would be the only real way to do that.

Speaker B: Can you switch to the diagram that shows, like, the top of the— the 2 different comparisons? So, Steven, will you tell us again what the red lines mean?

Speaker E: So the 2 red lines are the buffers that come off of this really light blue line. So the first, the inside one is 50 feet from the flow, or 75, no, 50 feet from the top bank, and then the one outside of that is 75 feet from the flow line.

Speaker B: And the blue lines represent what, where the top of the bank is?

Speaker E: The blue line is when I went out and walked the wash. Well, I didn't. I wasn't down in the wash.

Speaker D: I was on their side, and that's what I estimate is the actual top bank of the wash.

Speaker B: Okay, thank you.

Speaker D: Could I, as the applicant, provide a little more context as well? Sure. So we we've heard Eagle Mountains. Concern with the wash. And we too don't want— these, these are buildings actually, we don't, um, there's no turn and burn on these. We as a builder, we actually keep most of the assets we build. So we're going to be the owners of these buildings. Um, not as though we'd want to build something for a client and then run away and watch their building, you know, have some challenges with any sort of elevations or washes. But we're particularly interested in making sure these last the test, you know, stand the test of time. And so we have already contracted with the engineers. They've provided us a letter which I can send over to you guys that speaks to not only in the design of the wall, you know, making sure the grades and the soils are all sure, sure, you know, sure soils to provide a sure foundation, but also that the wall is built in a way that can withstand any changes in the bank. So, so that is all being thought through. We, we hear the city— actually, the city's concerns on that are our concerns. We, we want to make sure this withstands the test of time, and we want to make sure it's engineered in the right way, which, which frankly, um, should, should be better than a moving bank in a lot of ways. An unsecured bank, unsecured hills. Um, You know, soils, you know, you will have that side of the bank that's really shored up for the future as well.

Speaker I: Really?

Speaker B: Is it okay if I ask another question, Mayor? Okay, so Stephen, there's the northernmost building on this diagram right now. Is that set back as far as it is because of commercial setback requirements, or is that the applicant's preference?

Speaker E: I can't speak to their preference, but yeah, it would meet the setbacks for that.

Speaker B: For the zone, I guess for me, I'd much rather see that get closer to the edge of that front property line as opposed to almost an entire building in the no-build zone to the south of that. And I'm just wondering if there's any appetite to make adjustments there. I just feel like it's so close to the wash.

Speaker I: Mayor, can I just jump in? I'll just— I'll share a 30-second opinion. I mean, I think that the code Surrounding the wash and the setback requirements is there for a reason. I, for one, am going to really struggle to want to enter into a development agreement to remove those standards. In particular, in a space that is obviously impacted by the wash. I mean, there's a city park directly south of this, and that's an integral part of the park where we've got some signage and some trails that are already functioning in that area. So For me, it's unfortunate. It's a tough piece of property to develop. My hat goes off to you as a developer in trying to figure this out. But for me, I'm going to err on the side of maintaining those code standards on this piece of property.

Speaker E: And I think I feel the same as well as Councilmember Wright.

Speaker H: Yeah, I would echo that. We have other areas in our city where this wasn't really followed, and the embankments have shifted, and homeowners have had foundations crack. In fact, we had a resident that a couple months ago I went out to, to look at that, and it's just created issues. And, um, I, I think I'm probably going to fall within the lines of the code that, that exists.

Speaker D: And I would say not to mention our area, but other areas where they didn't follow this and houses get swept away. But I just wanted maybe a quick yes or no. If the reason I asked that question before, if there was say gabion baskets or piping, would that change anything? It's— I don't know that it's even possible. I was just curious. Probably for me, the answer would be no. I'm just— they're looking for direction. I just want to make sure that we've exhausted.

Speaker E: I could easily give on the drive-through escape lane. That part, I'm not married to that aspect.

Speaker D: Didn't change anybody on— OK. I'll take that as it does. Just so that the applicant can know that they don't come back and say, well, what if we do baskets, or what if we do— I just want to make sure that we're sticking to the code on this one. Is that— any other questions?

Speaker K: OK.

Speaker D: Thanks, Stephen. Appreciate it. The next one, uh, I'm actually excited to hear about this as an avid shooter myself and, uh, working with, with our— it went from the interns to Ethan and Addie to Ethan and Addie as individuals. And so I loved watching them earn their own names and not just be interns. I understand Ethan's online.

Speaker C: I hope.

Speaker D: Yes, yes, that's right. Okay, uh, hang on. We— oh, there's— there it is. Okay, go ahead. Okay, thank you very much, Mayor and Council. I wish that I could be there in person today to be able to thank you for the intern experience that I've had. Unfortunately, I had a surprise trip to the ER yesterday morning for some eye problems, but I've been able to confine myself to a dark room and— but I'm prepared, ready to present. So thank you for bearing with me through this. And thank you for a wonderful summer, a great internship experience. I feel like I've been able to see a lot of unique things happen just in the span of a couple months, which will provide some great context and experience for the rest of my program. At BYU and hopefully future jobs down the line, wherever that may be. So thank you for, for making this a great summer for me. So yes, this is about a month or 2 ago. Mayor came to us, and I think there were other couple employees that had similar experiences of residents who wanted to practice archery, but they weren't really sure where or how or if it was legal at all. And well, it really it wasn't. People couldn't shoot in their backyards, and so the goal was to provide a way for archery ranges to be housed in Eagle Mountain. And technically, you could say there there was a way, but it wasn't very fleshed out or regulated, especially to the same extent that. an outdoor shooting range was. So for context, this is all that there really is in the code right now, or this is all that there is regarding archery, that residents couldn't discharge a bow more than 10 pounds of pull weight, which is really nothing. That's practically a toy bow with a suction cup on the end of it. And it had to go through Planning Commission review for any applicants. But other than that, there, there were not very many standards or guidelines for applicants to consider when they wanted to propose to build an archery range within the city. So the goal was to provide a more robust framework for that. And the best way that I found to do that would be to combine the outdoor shooting range overlay zone with the archery range. With an archery range zone. So those would become one zone because many of the same standards that outdoor shooting ranges have, archery ranges could follow many of those as well. So this amendment would add archery range to that overlay zone, and then that would be able to provide for all the operational and safety standards. And it would also require that the applicant obtained the land use authority approval as part of the application process. So some of the key changes or the key things that I've added that are different for archery ranges than for shooting ranges. One would be to refer the applicant to safety standards. The national or the sort of governing body on archery participant safety is USA Archery. So that would require the applicant to consider their safety guidelines. It also provides a line regarding backstop and projectile containment, because that's also very separate, very different from shooting ranges. And then I've also provided different definitions for bows and crossbows, because in certain scenarios, those should be treated very differently, especially considering that crossbows have more of a trigger mechanism similar to firearms. And bows can certainly be scaled differently. They have different pull weights. Some are for children and some are for adults. So I've also outlined different age groups should have different standards. So the age of 8 is where in the outdoor shooting range overlay zone children are not allowed to use firearms if they're under the age of 8, but bow safety is a little bit separate. So I have allowed for children under the age of 8 to use bows, as long as within USA Archery guidelines. And then finally, there within the special use chapter within the code, there is indoor shooting range standards. But I have mirrored all of the same safety standards from the outdoor range to the indoor range, so those would all look similar. And that is essentially all the changes. It's mainly just an addition of archery into the outdoor overlay zone, outdoor shooting range overlay zone. I'm curious to hear if there are any other safety standards you would like to see considered or potentially added to this code as we move forward.

Speaker J: So, thank you.

Speaker D: And I'm willing to pull up— I can have the, uh, the code as I, as I've edited it pulled up, um, if you have questions.

Speaker H: Thank you for putting this together. As a kid that grew up on a on an archery team. It's fun to see something like this come forward. My question is regarding the age of 8. That seems a little young. I, I would probably consider maybe 12 or 13. Um, I'm curious where— how you came to the age 8 to— yeah, I might raise that up a little bit. Does that make sense?

Speaker J: Of course.

Speaker H: The question?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: I can absolutely consider that. Yeah, as I looked through the USA Archery guidelines, um, it had all of these amazing stats about how archery is one of the most safe recreational activities. And oftentimes there was sort of like an 8-year-old threshold where, um, as long as there is like adult, constant adult supervision with that 8-year-old. It can be practiced, but, you know, that's all I went off of. That can absolutely be changed and raised. I, I think, and it's been a minute, I know I only looked 35, but I haven't taken hunter safety. I think you can hunt at 12.

Speaker H: You can hunt at 12, that's right.

Speaker D: So, so 13 would be— I mean, you could have a license. I think that'd be too high.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I think giving them an opportunity to experience that. I mean, these— it's in a controlled environment. They're going to have a range boss there, a parent. You're not going to drop an 8-year-old off to go shoot. You know, they'll be with somebody. So I think I'm less concerned about that in a controlled environment. Maybe if they were just out outside of that, that might be a different story.

Speaker B: Another thing too, their insurance or liability insurance may end up naturally limiting age. So I'm inclined to let it be that 8-year-old mark and kind of let the market forces kind of control it a little bit.

Speaker I: So I would just recommend that we add on that portion that talks about the children under the age of 8 may be permitted to handle a bow with the supervision of a responsible adult, or, and in accordance with the USA Archery— I think it should say guidelines so that we know what that's referencing.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker I: But I have no issues with an 8-year-old. Shoot, I was doing crazier stuff than that at 8.

Speaker D: Okay, I know your time is limited, so you, uh, you're going back to school. We appreciate you and all that you've done for our city, so hopefully we see you down the road.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker H: Thank you so much.

Speaker D: Thank you all, Mayor and Council.

Speaker L: Thank you.

Speaker D: Yes, thank you. All right, another great, uh, presentation, and this one I'm really excited about for the council because, uh, this is something we've kind of been looking for. And as we brainstorm this idea of, uh, trying to kind of compare our staffing needs with, with our workload, uh, Addie and I sat down and with Natalie and others and, and tried to come up with a metric. So the idea here is if we're missing something, the we're not done. Give feedback to what else we can use for the, uh, what would help us make good decisions in the future. So good feedback is what we're looking for. And thank you very much for your time here as well.

Speaker K: Hello, Mayor and Council. Thank you for allowing me to present today. I appreciate the opportunity. A little bit about me. My name is Addison Cragin. I'm an intern for Eagle Mountain City right now, and I'm studying at BYU in the MPA program. And I'm from Texas originally, but I've been in Utah for the last 6 years and have loved it. All right, today I'll be presenting about a plan for an analysis that looks at the staffing load— or staffing level versus the workload in cities close by to Eagle Mountain City. And this will just help us to see where Eagle Mountain stands compared to other cities that have different growth rates, population sizes, and other things like that. And we haven't started gathering data yet for this, and so we wanted to just present to you guys to get feedback so that we're making sure that it aligns with your goals and what you guys want out of this study. And I have a short presentation, and I will just have you guys leave the comments till the end. Just so we can show all the things that we have done so far. All right. So for this study, we are looking at cities that are similar to Eagle Mountain City, but also that have bigger population sizes, have different growth rates, and also just different projects, departments. And those cities are Herriman, Riverton, Saratoga Springs, Lehi, Orem, Provo, and Spanish Fork. These cities all have different situations and also maturity levels, which will help us to learn more about what we can learn from them, but also what we're already doing well here at Eagle Mountain City. All right, and we have a few areas of focus that we're looking at for this study, and those areas are demographics, parks and streets, trails and open space, water, recreation center, fire and rescue, and then also just staffing numbers overall at the city.

Speaker H: All right.

Speaker K: For this analysis, I will coordinate with the chosen cities that we've decided to investigate and send them a survey where we'll ask for the data points that we're going to use for this analysis. And here you can see the layout of the different areas and also of the different data points we're wanting to gather from those cities. And I'll just list off a few of them. It's not the whole list, but just the ones that are kind of the focus of what Mayor wanted us to look at. And those are how many acres of parks you have and also how many employees you have to maintain those parks. How many lane miles of road you maintain and also how many employees you have to help maintain those roads. And then does your fire department run on 3-hand crews or 4-hand crews? Those are a few of the ones that we're asking for and then also just a list of all the departments they have and, like, staffing numbers for each department, just to compare with us. All right. And so for this study, we hope that we can try and pinpoint areas that we're doing well, but also areas that we could improve on as we continue to grow in population size and also grow just in general with different departments and needs for the city. And so here's a few questions we hope to learn from this study. that we can help— hope you guys can apply as you learn about how to fix the city and make it better. All right, so those questions are, are we understaffed or overstaffed in any of the areas? What services do other cities provide, and could we maybe make those in-house or outsource for those services? What departments do other cities have that we don't? Maybe we could rearrange or add. to make it better for growth in the future? Are there any services that we should consider outsourcing, things like plowing? And then how many employees do we need as the city continues to grow in each department and also just overall? And the last one is how does our workload compare to the other cities? And as I stated earlier, we have not yet gathered any data. So we're here— I'm here today just to get feedback and suggestions to make it more catered to what you guys are wanting to change for the city. So now I'm open to questions, feedback, or changes to this current plan.

Speaker C: Thank you, that was a great presentation. Would you jump back a couple slides?

Speaker K: Yes.

Speaker C: The one that had— that one right there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So just a couple of questions I think would be helpful in asking these, just starting with the parks. I think we should find out how they're determining their workload. Based on those parks, so if they have you know how many total parks do you have? How many regional parks? What are how many teams do you have? How size what are the sizes of your teams and how many man hours are you planning per park? I think for me, I want I want to be able to understand how we decide that we're over or understaffed, particularly when we're talking about the people who are out there performing the the work. Whether we're talking about parks, streets, etc. So I think while we're asking, that would be some good information to find out what drives your decision to add additional labor. What are the solutions that you're using to do additional labor? How are you leveraging seasonal work? How are you leveraging some of your high school student type ages that they're only going to be there during the summer weekends kind of a thing? I think We have a large amount of those in our city, and I would love to see how it's being utilized in other cities. So that would be the first one. And then if you'll just go to the next, I don't know if it was the next, yes. I think it's also important for us to understand the structure of our departments. Are we underlabor, overlabor, overmanaged, undermanaged? I think it would be great for us to understand how other cities that we're asking these questions about, do they have 6-man teams underneath the manager, whereas we may have 2 or 3, or maybe we have 10 under us and we really should be managing it with 5. I think it would be good to find out how other people are doing that to see kind of where we lay out with that and whether or not these people are also the managers. So I'll say like team leads specifically if I'm talking about labor. streets, parks, that they're out working with the people that aren't necessarily working from a desk somewhere kind of thing. So I think for me, I'd love to know those kind of things so that we know we're getting the biggest bang for our buck in how we're hiring and where we need to do some addition.

Speaker K: Okay, perfect. Yeah, we'll add that.

Speaker B: All right. I personally would like to see St. George and/or Washington included because They have a similar growth trajectory and they have a lot of land like we do. And if we're gonna look at parks, I think it's good to throw those guys in the mix. The other thing that I was hoping that we could find a way just to standardize the answers that we get back from them. We have some contract work, a lot of contract work for our parks. And I think it's gonna be really important that we ask if they are contracting work, how many bodies are actually doing that work? And I like how you're including the fire question about 3-hand versus 4-hand. One of the things that I was wondering, could we ask these cities to give us 5 years of numbers, especially the ones that are in a high growth pattern like us? I think their trajectory would really be helpful for us in seeing when some of those things would happen. And I think it's probably just as easy to answer. One year as it is three or five years, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask. And then there was another question, and it just went away. Oh, with the parks, can we find out how many new acres each year that each of these cities are bringing on? Because I think that that is a crucial metric for us to just pay attention to, just because of all of our new development and growth. So other than that, I love it.

Speaker L: Perfect.

Speaker K: And did you want the 5-year for all of them, or just— is there certain ones that, like, ones that are more like developed and grown, or ones that are currently growing?

Speaker D: Can I cut in? I think we gotta be cautious of the other cities and what we're asking, 'cause that's gonna require a lot of research. And I'm—

Speaker B: Most of them have it in their budget.

Speaker D: If they have it, I just don't wanna, you know, I wanna make sure that we don't push on it.

Speaker B: I think that's fair. So I guess I would say if they have the information readily available, I think like Herriman and Washington and St. George especially, it would be great to see what happened with their population and parks and some of those other things. If we can't, we can't, but it's useful data.

Speaker D: I think of that when they— when people call us, if we got 2 or 3 of these and then we just have staffers, you know, they're just doing research for everybody. We got to be a little cognizant. The second thing is specifically you mentioned parks in St. George area, and they have a different climate, so they wouldn't have as much grass. I just want that to be noted.

Speaker B: I think that that's an important distinction.

Speaker K: Okay, that's good to think about.

Speaker H: I love this. In economics, we have something we call— it's called a PMI index, where you can take every month there's a survey of 800 companies and they ask them the same question every single month. And when you do this over time, it creates what Councilmember Clark's talking about as an index that you can go to and get a pulse of how is the economy doing. And I think what you're starting here is something like an index for cities. As a new councilmember coming into this role and saying, hey, fund this job, and I'm saying, what kind of data do we have around— do we— I don't know, other than You know, just taking somebody's word for it. So as a council member, that would be really helpful to have this index. I'm wondering if there's some other engineering metrics that could be tied in, like building permits, inspections. Yeah, I'm the wrong guy to ask. The right guys are over here. Just, you know, what does that quantity look like as you think about all the different departments within within a city. It looks like you've got the streets, park, kind of the exterior-facing jobs, but inside, like attorneys, finance, purchasing, there's a lot of administrative logistics that happen within a city as well. So I'd love to maybe see some of those metrics. But I love it. This is a great idea.

Speaker K: Yeah, awesome. Thanks. We'll add that into it too.

Speaker E: I think it'd be helpful to know, to delineate between full-time employees and part-time employees, which I think cities should have that data pretty readily available. And then I would also be curious if we could get public safety added into this. If we're going to ask about fire, I'd be curious, do you have your own police department and what are the staffing levels for their police department?

Speaker K: Yeah, that's a good idea. We'll add, we'll do it more broad of not just fire and rescue.

Speaker E: And you may even ask how many fire stations they have.

Speaker D: Okay. Craig, could I— so as clarity, uh, when you say staffing levels specific to the police department per 1,000, like what's the, what's the metrics you're looking for? Well, we'll have their population.

Speaker E: We can get their population data.

Speaker D: So that's what you want them to get, the staffing level per population? Are you talking per call volume? Like what's the—

Speaker E: I'm more staffing per population.

Speaker D: So we just need to know the total number?

Speaker E: That's my main, that's my main.

Speaker D: Okay, good.

Speaker K: Okay, perfect.

Speaker I: Probably the only thing I would add, I think it's been a good discussion, is I'm concerned about fleet services and where that shows up because that will segment into parks, streets, trails, and open space. I mean, there's a fleet that we're maintaining and we're employing someone to take care of it, or we're sending those out. If we have more road miles than another city, we might have 6 or 7 snowplows and another city might only have 2. And so I think that there's some additional Costing that we should be aware of in some of those areas.

Speaker K: So, okay, perfect.

Speaker B: I thought of one more thing, um, and I know it's not a municipal function, but we still have to support it. Knowing the number of schools that they have and number of crossing guards, I think might be a useful metric for us because that's something that changes a lot for us.

Speaker K: So yeah, that's a good point, especially for Eagle Mountain.

Speaker B: Perfect.

Speaker I: There, we made it a lot easier, Addie.

Speaker K: No, this is great. This is for you guys.

Speaker C: One more thing that's just bouncing around in my head. This is probably not going to be specific to the cities that you've chosen, but I think it would be interesting to know in the categories that you've chosen, which cities are at the very top for each of those categories, and what is causing them to be excellent at those things.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: I think that would be interesting to know.

Speaker K: Yeah, so just have that ranking at the end of the analysis?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker K: Okay, perfect. Yeah, thank you for all your suggestions.

Speaker D: I think you just created a full-time job. I think you were out of town when this brainchild came up, and it's— and we went forward. So I love it. That's great.

Speaker B: Okay. I think it'd be really good, Mayor, too, if we could kind of pressure ULCT to start collecting these metrics, because it'd be totes easy for them to do it, and that would be a really good metrics, like Councilmember Hewish said.

Speaker D: And the reason too I lean back over here, because I know our time is limited with Addie and Ethan to help us, and we do want to finish this project. I've spoken with Natalie and she's going to at least compile data, but like you said, this could be a bigger project than we hoped, and we may need to allocate some—

Speaker I: And what I would say is this, Mayor, I think that the data, if we can compile the data in anticipation of next year's budget. I think that's where it would be most helpful.

Speaker D: So I'm just— yeah, just making sure that council's okay with directing some staff time to finish this if needed. And, and that might be more than Adelaide's, uh, you know, we've got lots of talented staff. So unless you think you can get it all done— so we'll work through that.

Speaker J: Good.

Speaker C: I think Melissa's suggestion is actually pretty excellent. I think I, I find I have a hard time embracing ULCT's value for me, frankly. And I'm going to tell you, I think that's one of those ways that they could be a real resource to the cities of Utah, to start creating an index to help us with hiring practices, to know when and how the next hire should be done. When we're— I mean, if we're going to continue at the pace that we're continuing because the legislature is pushing these initiatives with housing, et cetera, it would be helpful for them to have data-driven decisions to be able to help its members to take a look at and go, it's time, and here are the resources, here are the ways that you can accomplish that, here's what's available to you. Because I think those are meaningful things, particularly when you're talking about cities that are young. We've gone through every difficult growth that there is. And there's a lot of cities that are coming. I mean, you build a new road across the lake, we will create a new city at the south end of that lake. And it's going to happen. And as new cities continue to grow like that, it would be good for those of us who have already been through the struggle in the last 50 years to be able to share data that could help those in the future, too.

Speaker G: Yeah.

Speaker D: I like that for the simple fact we keep spending money on wage studies every few years. If the data's just there and updated by each city, we can go do our own study and what people cost. So great idea. I think it's been a good discussion. You have the direction we need, both you and Natalie and staff.

Speaker K: Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much for your time and for the suggestions.

Speaker D: Yes, and your time here with our city.

Speaker A: Thank you very much.

Speaker K: Yes, thank you.

Speaker D: It's been fun. Okay, I believe Kimberly's online as well, correct? Okay. We've had some conversations on this next one's proposed policy around tax funding for— I think it says Sheriff's Office, but I think it's public safety in general. That include both?

Speaker H: Public safety.

Speaker D: Yeah, so that's fire and sheriff and kind of some guardrails of some ideas. I know Kimberly's had some ideas. Evan has asked for direction specifically as we move this forward, like I think I do think you had two or three slides. Is that right? And then, and really just wondering how you want to go forward. So show us what you started with, and we'll go from there.

Speaker F: Yep, I'll be pretty quick about this. We had some instructions from City Council to put together kind of a draft ordinance that would essentially tie our property tax revenues specifically to public safety. And again, as the mayor mentioned, it's not necessarily just the sheriff's office meant to be broadly accepting of whatever happens down the road. That draft ordinance was put together over the past week or so, and that language is all there to create a public safety fund and then have certain parameters so that as property tax ebbs and flows, There's certain thresholds that we're trying to meet within that, coverage ratios that we're trying to stay within. It does create parameters to say what does qualify as a public safety expense, you know, limitations of that fund. The monies can't move from fund to fund. There needs to be annual reviews and all sorts of things like that. So it is there now for your review and for our discussion. Discussion tonight. As the mayor suggests as well, there, there are some things that we can still talk about with this that we need to kind of figure out, both something specifically with the code as far as how you want to approach it, but then also some potential alternatives if you want to look at alternatives. A couple things that I identified in here, and this is some things that you probably already know, is that just because it's code doesn't mean it can't be It could still be changed down the road. We're obviously trying to set a standard or a precedent here now where this is the future of Eagle Mountain, how we use our property taxes, but that could change down the road. This code doesn't necessarily imply that there's any other new public review process either. There's still just the budget process as far as how this is reviewed. Reviewed annually, and then other just kind of accountability things between the city manager and whatnot. And then enforcement and accountability is a little bit ambiguous, and that's just because I didn't know exactly how you wanted to handle that. What happens if we go outside the boundaries of this and things like that? So I also just kind of left this a little bit ambiguous in some respects too, just because there is a Technically, when you approach something like this, this isn't necessarily groundbreaking or revolutionary what you're asking for. And I say that because it's not to try and kind of ease your feelings to feel like this is something that can be done. It is something that certainly could be a policy of the city council, but also kind of lead into there is an alternative that is the more typical approach, and that is to make this a financial policy. So, So this is just to kind of outline for you. Again, we do it whatever way you want to do it. I just want to make sure that you're aware that this is typically how it's done with a financial policy. And the reason why you do it through a financial policy, as mentioned in these, these bullet points, these financial policies are pretty robust as they carry through the entire financial process throughout the entirety of the year. So you're, you're looking at this through not just the budgeting process but the auditing process and all of our reporting and things like that. The financial policies are baked into all of that. Um, so you're, you're looking at adding your financial policies in the budget book. You're adding it into all these different things that come to you in multiple cases throughout the year for public viewing as well. Um, but then on top of that, uh, it's still has the same kind of teeth that this ordinance would have if the ordinance, as we're looking at it right now, maintains a certain level of enforcement and accountability, because there isn't really a whole lot of enforcement accountability currently drafted into that code. So when we look at— I would treat this almost— in my mind, it helped to kind of compare this to like our employee policies and procedures manual. It's not just kind of a policy we throw out there because we just need some sort of unity on something. It is something that's meant to have some real meat to it, that is something you can hold people to, but it's not necessarily something that's in city code. Besides that, I just want to bring up— this is what the GFOA, the Government Finance Officers Association, says on financial policies. And I won't necessarily read through all of these, but you can see on the top levels there that they regularly recommend financial policies, which we do have plenty right now already as a city. But they give a lot of weight to these financial policies as good practices for municipalities across the country for the purposes of institutionalizing good financial management practices, clarifying, crystallizing strategic intent for financial management and defining boundaries and promoting long-term and strategic thinking. These financial policies are really what guide our budgeting process overall and help guide our staff and guide all of leadership management. So that is another approach. But again, if it's your preference to move forward on a city code, we can absolutely do it that way.

Speaker H: As well.

Speaker F: So that's all I have for you, but happy to talk through this at all or, or take any direction from you.

Speaker C: This is going to sound negative, but I'm just going to say it. I feel like that when we, when we talk about something that's new, we start with, well, a new council can change that. I've heard that at least 5 times. In the last month, and I'm curious why that's the first response from our staff. I've heard it from our attorney. I've heard it from you. I've heard it from Ben. I think that we're well aware of that. I don't think that needs to be stated anymore. I think that's clear. The second thing is, is I'm trying to understand why present an alternative to this because I think everybody is aware of the teeth kicking that we've taken over the last month. And when we're trying to do something that is very transparent, that shows all of our hand to the citizens to show exactly what we're trying to accomplish, and then we're told, well, we really ought to do this in a way that is kind of there, but you have to really look to find it. I just— that seems opposite of what we've been trying to accomplish with this. It's the reason that Zach and I had this conversation about forcing the issue. To show the citizens that we intend it to go exactly where we say it's going to go, and that by ordinance it's forced to go into that place. When we talk about policies, I mean, I think everybody— well, except for maybe the council members to my left and right— were here when we were told about what our policies and procedures manual actually had in it, as opposed to what we keep being told is in there. And I don't feel confident that it has all the policies that we think that are in there. I think we have to go and search to find them. And so for me, I'm not interested really in chasing after the alternative. I think those should be there also, by the way. You should have policies that are in place that are guiding how you do those things. But with respect to how we're going to evaluate property tax specifically, that should be crystal clear. And I think that we have told everybody that this is what our plan was. There's a lot of people who are skeptical as to whether or not that's actually the case. And I want it to be 100% clear that when we said that's what it was, we intended for that to be the case. And I want it to be hard. I hope a council has to step up and go, yeah, you know what, we really don't want you to know where we're putting this money, and let them take that fire. Good luck with that. But I'm going to tell you, I think that public safety, if we're going to go there, it should be restricted to that. So that we do exactly what we say we're doing.

Speaker H: That's my opinion. Thanks. Thank you, Evan, for preparing this. I'm probably in the camp of do both. Code and having it written in our city code allows for residents to come to a city council and say, it says right here that this is how this should work. I understand we can't bind a future council to decrease tax rates or increase tax rates. The idea of this mechanism, having that in code, is that it would require that councils would, in an open meeting, talk about what is our coverage ratio, with the target being stated at 85%. If the coverage ratio they meet, it's at 100%, then the council could consider cutting the tax, pulling it back. Or if it's below the lower band of 75%, then maybe a modest increase to property tax is warranted to catch up to the growth that we've had in sheriffs. Not having that for the last 10 years has created this environment where we have had our safety subsidized by sales taxes. Sales taxes, which, which as we all know, can fluctuate with the economy. This just assures that city councils in a public meeting can review the coverage ratio, look at the upper bands and lower bands, and the second piece of that is is having those funds assured that they're not commingled with with sales tax revenue. That when you pay a property tax, you know it's going in exactly for public safety. Today, that would be for our sheriff's contract. So I think I'm probably both. Let's hit it on both sides. I think it's a great idea to have a financial policy, but I'd also like to have it in code. So for future councils, it's there, and I think we're more likely to adhere to it. And again, thank you. I read through it. You spent a lot of time putting that together. It's very good.

Speaker K: No.

Speaker B: I really like the idea of having it in both, um, because I— as we were having this kind of discussion about code versus policy, we've had code in the past where we had like 3 different boards and commissions that just existed in code, but we didn't do anything with them. And it took finally repealing that, that like code is more visible for residents, but it doesn't necessarily mean that something's Done with it. I think that we're making changes in that direction, but I like the policy because everybody knows that the financial nerds love their policy, and they will. It's just like the timing of when each report is due and all of those other things. That's all they live and die by that, and I think that's a really important piece. I also wrote down who's responsible to execute this. Is it? Under the city manager's responsibility, is it the director of a certain functional area? I think that that's a really important piece that we need to determine, so that we both the public and the council and mayor can hold this person accountable to make sure that they're bringing us the information. And then there were some other things that I talked to a couple council members about. And I don't know if it needs to go on this or if it needs to go in a different piece of code, but I know staff has been working on some level of service metrics. And I think that we need to ask for some specific metrics required in code to be brought to council and presented in our first like budget meeting when we first start having our strategic meetings and different things like that. And that would be things like call volume and how much the contract is, and, but it would also be acres of parks. So it would be a full budget thing, not just for public safety with the metrics. And then the other thing that I think that we need to work to provide for our residents is clarity and kind of, Making it simple, and I really liked how we had the budget in brief. I think we should always create a budget in brief, and it should be prepared and presented the same time that the preliminary budget is presented, and it should be no more than like ten pages. It should list out the capital projects. It should list out all of the employees that are being you know. Prepared for in the budget and any like major changes. So I think the metrics over a 5-year thing, all of those things are in the budget. Our staff has been adding them to the reports, but having it required to be presented to the public, I think is a really good move in reestablishing trust and helping them understand that we've heard You made me think of something when you said that, by the way.

Speaker C: I think you have a good idea. When it's presented, so who should be responsible for it? I think it's probably gonna be part of the report when they bring the budget to us. Perhaps you need to show us the percent is really what it needs to come down to. So here's what the current contract is, here's what the current collected, uh, Property tax is that was collected. Here's what percentage of the bands that that is, so that it causes the discussion to have to happen anyway. But it also gives us some visibility. So I think maybe baking that into the code probably ought to be there. One of the things that I think when Melissa was talking, it made me think also: we need to start the practice of evaluating an end year year after year budget. We need to be able to compare to our previous years. And if there's a financial cost of doing that, we need to do it. Because not knowing how we're spending department by department, and especially depleted funds, whether or not we're using the budget, we need to know whether or not we're meeting those goals, we're overspending, we're underspending, we're under-budgeted for some departments, we're way over-budgeted for other departments, I think is part of the budgeting process to make us better at making those decisions. We need to know that information, but we also need to be able to compare it with how we're doing year after year. So I'd like that to be baked in there as well.

Speaker B: I think— sorry, I think that all of them apply to the budget. I think that the clarity that we're asking for with public safety is is really important. I'm not sure if it needs to be 2 completely different sections of code or if it's another section added on to the end of it and it's just overreaching budget.

Speaker H: I think separate. I would have, after we work on this, we move to the next part of what does that financial reporting look like so it is crystal clear when we put that budget together that layman can— how often, when does it come, how are things being paid for? I would propose that we do that as a second piece of code.

Speaker I: I like it, Evan. And I mean, I want to thank Councilmember Hewish and Councilmember— I want to call him Councilmember Rich because Wood— I couldn't think of it. But Councilmember Wood for their leadership in this. It makes a lot of sense to me, and especially after the butt-kicking we've been taking, taking in the public eye for the statements we've made that property taxes are going to be dedicated to the sheriff's contract. They are in fact going to be dedicated to that wholly. But I think this helps bring that transparency that our citizens have been asking for. It also makes it easier for future councils, for any resident and any staff member to be able to find it easily because I know the policies and procedures manual exists. Just out of curiosity, how many of the council members have a copy of the policies and procedures manual that's current? How many of you would know where to find it? So that's at least in my way of thinking one of the reasons why I think both make sense. I think that The policies and procedures manual works great for staff. I don't think it works great for the elected officials. I do have a copy. I don't know if it's the most recent, but I saved it and I've gone through it on multiple occasions, but I've been here a little while. And so that's why I asked the question, not to embarrass anyone, but to just create that transparency. So I think that it makes a lot of sense for this to land itself in code. It's really easy for anybody that wants to find it, who's willing to get into the EMMC, right? And that's not always easy, but it's certainly available if we're willing to put forward the effort to find it.

Speaker E: And I'm supportive of doing both strategies as well, and I'm grateful for these 2 council members at my left that recognize the issue and were proactive about trying to solve the issue going forward. I think this provides a significant level of transparency for the citizens And makes it a lot easier on future councils to stay up with this particular issue.

Speaker H: I'll just— so maybe some direction. I would just say as a new council member coming in, this is a very easy policy to digest for someone who has never worked in government before. For those that have many years of experience, for someone new coming in, it's, I think, a really digestible policy. Any feedback for Evan before— for him to come back before we actually put this into code?

Speaker I: No, I think, I think if you add some accountability metrics and some timing and some of those things, and if you guys want to work through that and help him wordsmith it and bring it back to us, I'm okay with that. I don't know how everybody else feels.

Speaker C: I think this is step one. I think everybody agrees that this should be the first step. I think a full budget policy is smart that is done by ordinance. If we can deal with the property tax portion first, to alliterate to the residents, it'll be in its own separate account. I think that's item one that needs to be clear. It cannot be used for anything else but public safety. Number 2, we need to show how we're coming up with the determination of whether or not it needs to be revisited. With a property tax increase or decrease, so that needs to be done when the report comes back to future councils and even this next year. That the property tax, excuse me, collected with our contracts that are going to be drawing from that, what is that percentage? That that's something that's presented as part of the budget process. And then I think that's good on the property tax portion of it. I think the language that you have is actually. Actually great on this one. But I think that there are other aspects that we've kind of talked about that probably need to be the next portion that we work on. We need to deal with how we ebb and flow with our variable revenue and how we determine how much of that we can give from that variable revenue. And I'm not talking about restricted funds, I'm talking specifically about sales tax, whether or not we can afford to give sales tax to the property tax to be able to make up that extra 15%, as it might be. And I think policies that are in place for that, I would find it very strange for a city council to come in and change something that's actually helping them, frankly. And I think this creates a level of simplicity in taking a look at this and being able to eat it in chunks. But I think one of the things I've heard very most from citizens is it's not clear how to even determine where it's going. And I think that ought to be clear. And I'm going to tell you, I mean, I've been doing this for 2 and a half years and, you know, 4-something years before that. And there are parts of this I'm like, I think this is where it is. And we have to ask a lot of questions to get the clarity. I think we need to make it a little simpler to digest from anybody who wants to to know and have the access for them to be able to see it truly is going where we say it's going. Maybe it's not easy for us to explain that because it is a very complicated accounting metric, but I think our code ought to be able to outline it. I like what Melissa was saying, it should be able to be broken down in a way that the public can digest easily to know exactly how much is going to each of our departments and then how we're performing.

Speaker K: Thank you.

Speaker H: Yeah, I would echo that. I think if there's one consistent message, maybe not everybody, but I would say the majority, people support our public safety. And for me to look at my property tax and think that's securing my safety, 100% of those dollars are going to fund the Sheriff's Office, that, that's a win. That's very easy to explain for everyone. Do you have— need any other direction, Evan, or have any questions?

Speaker D: I was just—

Speaker H: sorry, go ahead.

Speaker D: I wanted to jump in Direction-wise to help, I think you and I are the only ones I've talked to about this. I don't remember if I've talked to anyone else. Maybe I did, but we were kind of spitballing, and I think I was the one that said, "Well, maybe we do that 10% thing up and down," and you liked it. But we just used 85 as an example, so I didn't know if I'm not saying it's not a good number. I didn't know if the council said. 85 is the number. So I mean, if we— is that based on a metrics? Is that based on— I just want to make sure that we're kind of—

Speaker H: yeah, I think I actually did. I do like 85%. If you set it at 100 and you go to 110, you've now spent a year over-collecting. And then what do you do with those funds and how do you appropriate them? But if you're at 85%, it's seems like it would be very difficult to get to 100 or drop down to 60. And, you know, wherever we end up landing in our, in our later session tonight, I think 85% is a reasonable coverage ratio. You wouldn't be supplementing too much with sales tax year to year.

Speaker I: Yeah, I would tend to agree with that, Councilmember Hewish. And I, I just, for the, just for the general public to kind of get a sense of this. This is a shift in policy, and I want that to be very clear. And it's a shift in policy that we as a council have kind of said we think this is a better way to govern. And we know we've been beat up because of it, but I still truly believe that. I believe that funding our public safety needs, at least the majority of it, through property tax revenue is is it the most stable and reliable source of income that we have as a city, and it ensures that we'll be able to meet those expectations that we have upon ourselves and upon our citizens. So I just think that that's a really important part of this puzzle that has perhaps been kicked aside and removed from the equation. I hope people understand that it is a shift in policy. The previous policy has been, we'll see whatever sells, we'll We'll take whatever property tax there is, and then we're going to take funds from any other source that we can gather it, and we're just going to deal with the growth in public safety, and we'll figure the rest out. We want to be more proactive and deliberative in the results that we're producing, and I know that that's painful. And so I just want that out there for people to hear.

Speaker B: I also think that we've talked about a lot of really important puzzle pieces. We talked about the staffing study and getting that kind of an index and understanding where we rank with other cities. We've talked about earmarking funds very specifically and clearly making it designated for public safety. We've talked about accountability. We've talked about simplicity and helping our residents know what's going on. And I think—

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: There's always room for improvement, and I definitely think that this— we're headed in the right direction. So thanks, you guys, for working on it.

Speaker F: I just want to share my appreciation to the, the council for, uh, your feedback and your direction on this. I think, uh, where I kind of missed on this was I was really focused on the, the creation and the implementation part of it, and I heard from all of you about the need for it to be transparent and something that can be easily seen by the public, and that's where the code comes really in the front of mind. So I understand that, and I think that's— it makes a lot of sense. So I'll take what feedback you've gotten, and we'll make some tweaks.

Speaker D: Thank you. And just real quick on that one, you're good, Evan. I just wanted to make sure Kimberly, I know you had some thoughts. That's why I checked online if she's available. Does that— do you feel like that direction— I feel like you're the one that's going to have to implement this. So do you have any input? Is that fair?

Speaker G: No, I just want to reiterate that, you know, as staff, always we are— you know, our goal is to identify these policies and the things that the council wants and to find a way to bring that forward. So again, the things that we do are to make it clearer and better for you guys to do the job that you've been elected to do. And so I'll continue to work with just Evan offline as he continues to flesh that out, and we'll continue to make efforts to improve that clarity and make sure that our residents as well as the council can answer some easy, you know, questions that should maybe be easy for you to be able to identify in our processes.

Speaker D: Okay, perfect. Thank you. We've got a lot to get through and not a lot of time, so I hope— I know there's at least a couple more discussions that we want to have before we break out for a closed session. There are a couple of items that Marcus can update as well, and I think So next item was an opportunity for the city manager to fill us in on— I just appreciate the mayor and the staff for covering while I was out last week. And I know a lot of— obviously from the work session, a lot of good things and good ideas were implemented in my absence. And a lot of good things happened in general in the community. I know it's been a painful week, and I just want to express my appreciation. To the council for the leadership that you're— the example that you're creating for our entire community. And I just want to stress the importance of having civility. It's okay to disagree. It's not okay to be disagreeable to the— and especially to the extent that it becomes personal. And I think every single— there's not an elected leader I've worked with over my entire career that doesn't get into it because they want to make their community better and they love their community. And they might see things differently, they might see different directions on how things should proceed, but the commonality between every single one of them is that they love their community.

Speaker H: And I know that you love your community and you want to see what's best for it.

Speaker D: And I just want to stress that to our residents. You both All right, thanks. As we go through this, I just wanted to touch on some things to make sure that— I think this is an easier time than later. When we come to the public comment, I think I've talked to a lot of people throughout the week, but leaving the public comment open— I know right now we're going to try to have a discussion on some of the items in our next meeting, but that we save or leave open the public comment for some of those items that I think that people might be here to speak about. It's something that we've done in the past. I just wanted to make sure if there's any hesitation that we talk about it now. You okay with that? Yeah. Okay, we'll handle that when we get to it. The consent agenda item 9A, the towns at Briley Farms into warranty. Just stop me if there's a question. 10A is a Transportation Interlocal meeting minutes.

Speaker E: Yeah, I got an item on that one. I believe that Council Member Lance—

Speaker H: Wadman.

Speaker E: Wadman was in attendance at that meeting, but it's not noted in the minutes.

Speaker I: It was. It's all right, Lacey fixed that already.

Speaker D: Okay, um, let's see, then the regular—

Speaker C: I just have a quick question about that one. I mean, there was pretty robust conversation I wouldn't say that it was all positive. The reading through the minutes in that one, it felt like we just basically just get a good— gave an overlay of topics discussed instead of what was discussed. Is that the intent of this one?

Speaker D: I think typically we've done— that's kind of what that does in the recordings.

Speaker C: Because I think it would be important to maybe at least note that we weren't All on the same page with that, which is why we're going to have to have further meetings to discuss some of the the way that things are lined up. And I think if I was a resident going and reading that, I don't think I would gain any further insight as to what took place in that meeting. It would seem like here's the bullet points of topics that were discussed, but not actually what was discussed and what were the actions. So maybe it doesn't need to be changed for this one, but I would. I would like to ask in the future when we're having those meetings, context matters. In that particular instance about why we're meeting together, I don't think it's clear if I was a resident reading that why we met.

Speaker D: I think it's fair to say, Stephanie, are you the one that did those? It's fair to say to make a star notation that, hey, this was a robust conversation and for full context, look at the recording and that there, wasn't necessarily consensus. Is that fair? I think we can make that note and add that to the record. Is it kind of throughout, let her use judgment on that, or is it more— I think she knows, she's listened to it. I mean, okay, if you're satisfied, then any other changes on that one? Can we just say changes as noted in the work session in the motion?

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker D: The August 6th Truth in Taxation.

Speaker E: I had one for the August 4th.

Speaker D: Oh, sorry.

Speaker E: Yeah, so just, I think on the, on the, uh, motion for that one, it was for the youth mayor and youth council that they were going to be in their positions until the next youth council election in 2027, but we didn't specify this specific month. The minutes noted the month of May, but I think we just— the motion was just until the next election. We didn't know exactly when that election would be, whether it's May or June. So I think just, yeah, that would note.

Speaker D: And I, on that one, because it is kind of a, the policy, I just wanna make sure, is that the consensus of the council that that was the intent of that motion?

Speaker J: Yes.

Speaker D: Okay, it sounded like that was the intent. So if we can also correct that it's until the next election's been held, then they'd hold their office. Marcus, there's no issue with that in our code, right? Does the code specify different? I think we asked that question in the meeting. So the code—

Speaker H: sorry, I'm multitasking here.

Speaker E: Yeah, I think the code did not specify the, the terms expiration. It didn't necessarily specify the exact end council. Yeah, I think it was a little ambiguous there. And so we just, in the motion, that's why I motioned that it would just— that they would be in their position until the next youth council election in the year 2027.

Speaker H: Yeah, I think that's what's intended, but we can clarify that.

Speaker D: Okay, so we'll correct that one as well. Is that it on the 4th? Okay, and then August 6th, the Truth in Taxation. Any corrections there? The special meeting or special session on August 10th. The next one's a resolution of Eagle Mountain awarding a bid for the 6 million gallon Wastewater treatment facility. We do have Mac here and Russell, our general contractor, for any questions. I suspect—

Speaker C: I would really love for him to do a presentation in the policy session. Our residents need to hear this presentation. I think a lack of understanding of why we have to do these things and just understanding the basic things of how many gallons per day are processed And that we're getting close, and that's why we have to make these steps. The better information we can give to them, the more educated they become, and the more they become part of the team, so they understand why these things have to take place. So my preference is that we make sure that they hear the presentation.

Speaker D: So is there any questions? And if not, then do we want to just do? I think I'd prefer we do the presentation before we motion to the to the. Consent agenda, and we could leave it on there. Do we need to move it around?

Speaker B: Wouldn't it just be easier to pull it off, Mayor?

Speaker C: Well, that's—I think it would be smart to pull it off. This is something they need to hear. We can do that, but this is for GMP two, which is the current upgrade of the existing plant. Yes. So that's going to be what the presentation's on.

Speaker B: I'm going to need you to tell us about the load because that's really important.

Speaker C: I think which part of it—the main part of it, Mac—is. I just think that the people need to understand what it is. Okay. Like if they look at the description, a lot of people aren't going to be able to digest what that actually is. But in simple terms, why we have to do it, I think the basic explanation that's in the staff report is good. Okay. But they need to be able to hear that. If we put it in a consent agenda, nobody even sees it, hears it, or understands why we're even doing it. And there's a cost associated with that. Yeah, big one. Yeah. So yeah, the, the presentation that we have is a high level to give that kind kind of a more of a general understanding. So perfect.

Speaker D: And you have that presentation? I'm one person.

Speaker C: Does anybody else agree or disagree with that? OK, I would suggest we pull that off the consent agenda and put it on the policy.

Speaker D: And is there, besides just the presentation for more informational basis, is there any other questions that need fixed or is it kind of informational? Yeah. OK.

Speaker K: Mayor, was that— oh, sorry, sorry, we're having some struggling with the streaming, so So we need to pause for just a moment. Is that okay? And we're going to reset our— just our Civic Plus on the back end. We're just going to pause and just see if we can get it streaming again. So if you just hang tight.

Speaker D: We're on pause.

Speaker K: Okay. I think we're going to go for it. Looks like it's running again.

Speaker D: Okay. Just a short pause there. It is 5:25. We're going to keep moving right where we left off. Which was 11A, and I think we pulled that and we're good there. So we're to 11B, the resolution accepting the Eagle Mountain fiscal year audited financial statement. I did get some questions on this. It had to do with some turnover and different things. It was late, but it's all done. And I think Kimberly and Ron are both available with questions, but did anybody else have any questions for Kimberly?

Speaker G: And Maron is online to do like just kind of an overview of the financial report.

Speaker D: Did you say you want to do an overview?

Speaker G: He— yeah, he is online. So normally when we have it, then we have the external auditor is here and they just highlight a few information and talk about the financial statements.

Speaker D: Okay.

Speaker G: So he's online to address that.

Speaker D: Let's do it.

Speaker B: Is that something we want to be presented during—

Speaker D: No, 'cause it's on the consent agenda, so I think right now is good. So go ahead, Ron.

Speaker J: All right, thank you. Um, hope everybody can hear me okay, and thanks for allowing me to be here online. Um, what I'd like to do is just really quickly go through what we do as auditors, the conclusions that we came to, and how we came to those conclusions. So there's 3 areas that we look at. We want to make sure the financial statements are materially correct, that they meet accounting standards, and those numbers can be relied upon. We want to make sure internal controls are effective, that they're designed, implemented, and effectively working. And we want to make sure you're in compliance with state law based on the areas we looked at during that fiscal year. As far as the financial statements go, we want to make sure that they're materially correct. In our opinion paragraph, it says, in our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects the respective financial position of the governmental activities, business-type activities, each major fund, and the aggregate remaining fund information of the city as of June 30th, 2025, and the respective changes in financial position where applicable, cash flows there for the year then ended, in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. That's considered an unmodified opinion, a clean opinion, or the best opinion that you can receive. So how we came to that conclusion, we take the trial balance of the city and then we perform a number of tests on those balances. We look at the trial balance, we review it to make sure it's accurate, that it's accurate, clerically accurate. We send out a lot of confirmations. So we'll send out confirmations to banks. confirming cash. County for property taxes, State Tax Commission for sales tax and other taxes ran through their department. We look— we send confirmations to URS for retirement services and pension obligations. And then other confirmations for debt and things that we feel are necessary. We do a lot of review of invoices. So at the beginning of the audit, we'll pull a sample of invoices. We'll look through those to make sure that they're appropriately approved, that it's— the check matches the invoice, that it's posted the proper period, and posted to the proper GL account. We do that at the beginning of the audit. Now we just randomly pull a sample of invoices and check those items. We do it throughout the course of the audit when we're looking at capital assets, We pull a number of invoices after the end of the year to make sure that the expense was recorded in the proper period. So we'll pull a number of invoices in July and August to make sure that those expenses that were in June were actually recorded in June. We do a lot of recalculation of balances as far as accrued payroll, depreciation expense, compensated absences, accrued interest. pension allocations, and we'll go back and make sure that those calculations meet accounting standards and they're appropriate for the financial statements. And then we do a lot of analytical reviews. We'll look at this year compared to last year, create expectations, and then measure the results against those expectations. If there are differences, then we start to inquire and perform procedures to make sure we can understand the differences and what happened throughout the year. We do that at the beginning of the audit. We also do that as we're doing individual balance testing. And then we look at that at the end of the audit as well, so that we can make sure that we can understand what happened as, as we look at the financial statements on a high level. There's a lot of other tests and procedures that we perform on the financial statements to make sure that they do meet accounting standards and can be relied upon. Second thing we do is we look at internal controls. We don't necessarily give an opinion on controls. We do evaluate those controls to make sure that they are designed, implemented, and working effectively. And we do that through interviews, walkthroughs, questionnaires. We, as I mentioned, we sample those invoices and we'll walk those invoices through the process to make sure that they go from the source document all the way to the financial statements and those and controls are being followed. As we did do our evaluation of internal controls, there's one finding that we felt we needed to bring to your attention. As we were reconciling, or as we were going through our procedures, we noted that certain reconciliations were not happening on a timely basis. We feel the cause of that was due to an untimely turnover in the finance department, which created delays. improper recording and reconciling of those accounts, and the complexity of maintaining those assets on a worksheet rather than an asset management software system. The recommendation is that we, the city, put in procedures to ensure that those capital assets are recorded properly and that the general— and then they're reconciled to the general ledger and depreciation schedules. And then we also recommend that the city look into an asset management system rather than a spreadsheet. So the third thing that we do is we look at state compliance. So this year we look at— we looked at budgetary compliance, fund balance, restricted taxes, fraud risk assessment, government fees, cash management, and enterprise fund transfers. What happens is the State Auditor gives us certain procedures to perform. We look at those procedures and follow those guidelines to see if you're in compliance with state law. During our review and testing, there were 2 areas where we felt that there were findings. One is the fund balance. The state requires that fund balance cannot be more than 35% of the general fund revenues. In the city, we did exceed that. The caveat is that in the state code, it includes unrestricted or unassigned fund balance and committed fund balance, where you do have significant amount of that money has been committed for streetlights. So that does play a little bit of a factor in there. The second finding was every 6 months, the state requires that we submit a deposit investment report. And we noticed that there were some inaccuracies on that report. I know that those have been addressed and they're making those changes as we speak to get those in line. I know you're busy and that was a really quick review of the financial statements. I do feel like it's worthy to note that as you look and review the financial statements, it can appear that there's a lot of revenues in excess of expenses. Of expenses, but it's good to note that of of the sixty-six million that we're showing in a change in net position, forty-six million of that was due from assets that were contributed to the city by developers: roads, streets, infrastruc water infrastructure, sewer, those types of things. In addition to that, almost eighteen million dollars was spent on. projects within your city, capital asset projects. So I think that's worthy to note that those funds were contributed by outside parties and not necessarily spent by the city. And then the other was spent by the city and for capital improvements. That's really kind of a quick review of what we did as auditors, our conclusions, and happy to answer any questions.

Speaker C: The one, uh, the one, uh, statement that you said you felt like that, uh, we need to have an asset management, uh, software— what have you had good experiences with? We'd love to hear some suggestions of what you think is working in other places.

Speaker J: Well, I think you've got, um, inside of your own system, uh, Springbrook, which is your accounting system now, you do have that ability. It's a new module and it may have to be an upgrade. But your current software does have the ability to do that, so that's where I would look first. There's other ones out there. Most of them that I have seen are connected to the accounting system that they have. So whether that is Cassel or Plorus or other ones like that, that's embedded inside their accounting system already.

Speaker C: So doing an upgrade would solve this problem?

Speaker J: Yep. And then it's just a matter of putting those assets in there and maintaining them that way. Yes.

Speaker C: Okay, thank you.

Speaker B: I have a quick question too. When you were talking about the state compliance and the findings, you said some sort of report was required every 6 months and that kind of like tapered off. Can you say it clearer for me?

Speaker J: Yes, so every 6 months, uh, the city is required to submit a deposit investment report, which just basically shows what cash, um, is in cash and investments the city has on hand at those And as we noted there, as we went through our reporting, there was some duplicates, and I think the system had added some things that made it look like there was more cash in the city than there really was. And I think staff and Kimberly has identified those issues and is working with state to get a new report up there.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker G: If I can just add, Mayor, one thing to just help the council kind of understand too. The purpose of the deposit and investment report for the state is that we're only allowed to hold our funds with certain banking or financial institutions that have been approved by the state of Utah. And so this report is where we're identifying where the money is sitting, which financial institution is holding how much money that we have so that the state can ensure That we're using certified holders and certified investors with our funds.

Speaker D: Okay. Any other questions on that item? We will move on. Now, some of this I was a little bit more worried about getting through, at least I wanted to try to, but with our public comment and stuff going on later, I think we— I'm not as rushed. So is there the scheduled items, is there a specific item that you guys would like to talk about in this setting? I can go straight through them, but I wanna make sure that we have the opportunity to have a discussion.

Speaker C: Just one question on maybe 12A. Is the intent for this to be Going forward with the naming of streets, we're not intending to go and change where this doesn't apply, are we?

Speaker D: It's so that like ranches and spring water—

Speaker C: I understand that, 'cause my neighborhood's full of this problem.

Speaker H: Moving forward.

Speaker C: Moving forward.

Speaker F: Yep.

Speaker D: Thanks.

Speaker E: So can I also ask, so you have basically 2 agenda items on this, 12A, 12B, but the red lines conflict on paragraph K. If you go to page 5 of each of those red lines, paragraph K, one of them is not crossed out and one of them is. And I don't know if that was intentional.

Speaker H: I struggle with the same thing. I'm filling in for Dave here, but I think he did it on purpose. OK. Because I was about to ask you to table it, but I'm on— this is where I'm at now. I think he did it on purpose, because I think the preliminary plat section is establishes that we don't want—

Speaker C: we want names to continue across intersections.

Speaker H: So he didn't feel the need to carry it on to the final plat.

Speaker C: So that's where I think he landed. Is this something that we in the future want to go and rectify, or is it just too much— that creates too much chaos to change street names after they've already been established? That—

Speaker H: I think it would be good to do it.

Speaker C: Uh, do we have to do that through a plat process to check?

Speaker D: We don't have to go through a plat process to change street names, do we? You go through the addressing. So it's, um, we don't have to replat things, but we have to go through county, and there's some other things. There is, like, for Mid Valley, there's, there's a few we're having to update, but we're not updating plats, just county records.

Speaker H: We have to update the I think we can do that. It's— if we have to amend plats, that'd be really cumbersome.

Speaker C: But I think that it is something we do want to look at eventually. I don't think it needs to be done right away. But if the plan is to do that, and we're going to make that going forward, we probably ought to be consistent everywhere with it. So maybe just a plan to phase it.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker C: What that might look like.

Speaker H: I agree.

Speaker D: So I think we've got another 15, 20 minutes, and there's really kind of 2 items that are more than 2 items, and that's the— well, there's a little bit more. So if we go in order, the 13A, we talked about both those. Is, uh, any questions or discussion needed on this one? I think— and Kimberly's available. We're all aware. Craig? Oh, not on me. Not on me. Uh, okay, sorry, you're right. What about 13B? Nothing. Any discussion?

Speaker E: I assume we're going to be discussing that when people are here. I mean, I don't really have any conversation that I'm And that's why I said in advance of the meeting later.

Speaker D: I think one of the reasons I said that is, uh, I think it was Councilmember Hewish and I were talking, and if we were not going to allow for public comment to be extended, then I think the conversation now would help people in the public comment period understand the thoughts of the council. If we're going to extend that, I think we can have the conversation and then help the public at that point. So I'm good with that if that's Yes, if we want to hold. Okay. The annual budget, 13C.

Speaker E: Yeah, I had a couple questions on this actually, but it's going to take me a second to pull this up. So someone wants to—

Speaker H: if someone else wants to jump in first, I do have a couple questions.

Speaker G: Yeah, if you guys can identify any of your questions, if I can answer them right now, I will, but otherwise I will make note of them and get get the answers during the break so that when we get to that item, we can discuss it in more detail.

Speaker H: Yeah, I, uh, thank you, Kimberly. I, I had a couple questions, uh, regarding 2, 2 of the— this is going back to some of our budget meetings regarding, um, the Cory Bee Ride parking expense and Pony Express Park. I think those 2 projects combined were $2.2 million or $2.5 million. And my first question is, can the utility sale proceeds pay for those projects, and can we pull those out of the budget for this year and, and just use the utility funds that we already have to pay for those? That's one question I wanted to ask.

Speaker G: Can, uh, the council can use the utility sale proceeds as they see fit to allocate those towards any project that they would like to. In regards to, like, where you said Pony Express Park and Cory Bee Ride Park, did you have a question about the dollar amount? I'm sorry, I didn't quite write down that first part.

Speaker H: Sorry, no, I'm just pulling up my notes here. So it was Cory Bee Ride, I think, In the presentation that we received, I can't remember if it was on April 28th or May 26th, but there was Cory B. Ride was $1.2 million, and there was another intended park build-out. I want to say it was $1.2 million. I'll have to dig into my notes here, but I more just wanted to make sure that those could be paid for with the utility sale proceeds and not be allocated into our general fund budget. If the funds are already there, I think I'd prefer to use those funds to pay for those projects. That was my only question.

Speaker D: Maybe if I could just clarify really quickly. On those projects, you would still budget for the expenditure.

Speaker H: It's just the revenue would be coming from a different source. Correct.

Speaker D: Yeah. So they wouldn't be excluded from the budget.

Speaker H: They would still be included. That's right. Sorry. Yes. Yeah. Just how are we paying for them?

Speaker I: I mean, are they impact fee eligible? That's my question.

Speaker D: As a general rule, we like to ensure that we use the most restricted dollars first for any project and then And that bleeds out to the least restrictive dollars. In our case, the least restricted dollars are the general fund. Your utility sale funds are also not overly restricted, but there's— they require council approval. Your most restrictive would be your impact fees, but we will follow whatever guidance the council would have on that.

Speaker H: Yeah, I found my note. It was the Ranches Trail From Pony Express Parkway to SR 73, UDOT. It was $1.2 million was the cost for that.

Speaker I: But isn't that— I think that's being funded by— isn't that coming through a grant from—

Speaker G: Yes, the bulk of that is coming— is being funded at the state level. And we have a match, but our match is under $100,000 on that.

Speaker I: On that one project, yeah, on that trail, it's, it's funded outside of the city, the bulk of it. Yeah, it's a MAG project.

Speaker H: Awesome. Okay, then it's just that, uh, I, I think then the only other thing I would have is the Cory Bee Ride parking lot.

Speaker G: Uh, um, Councilmember Hewitt, that one is a fiscal year 2026 project, so that one's already been addressed. When we had those capital update meetings, part of their presentations was kind of giving an update of the status of the projects for this current year as well. And that particular one that you mentioned is a current 2026 project. Oh, okay. Finished anyway. Whether or not it's completed or not, I'd have to defer to Public Works to follow up on that, but it was funded in 2026.

Speaker H: Okay, if that's been funded, that, that's great. In the presentation it said additional budget requested fiscal year 2027 budget. So that, that's what brought confusion for me on both of those projects.

Speaker G: I'll double-check that between, um, now and the break. Thank you.

Speaker E: Yeah, and Kimberly, I just— I, I— a few questions. So I, I see through these different sections where we have a negative where it says a minute, like an administrative cost in parentheses. And so, I'm just curious sort of what that accounting is.

Speaker G: Yeah, so, this is something I will also touch on during the presentation that we do later today with the public to try to explain that as well, but when you see the line item that says administrative costs, what it's referring to is, and what you'll see is in some of the departments, you'll see it as a negative amount, and in other departments, you see it as a positive amount. positive number for their expenditures. So, we have what we would consider service departments, meaning all of our administrative overhead costs sit within the general fund. So, I'll use human resources as an example. So, our HR department sits in the general fund, but human resources is providing services to all of the departments within the city. And so, we have a cost allocation method that we use. In HR, again, as the example, the costs get shared based on the number of employees each department has. So, in the general fund, we're budgeting, here's what it totally costs to operate the HR budget, but then there's a negative amount moving out, and it's going to the water fund and the sewer fund and the utility billing fund and all these different locations. Because they receive services from the HR department, and what you're left with is what it would cost roughly the city to run human resource if we didn't have any of those other departments. So, that's what those costs, administrative cost line items are doing, is you're identifying the services that are being provided and need to be paid for by the recipient departments.

Speaker E: Awesome, thank you. And then when I look at pages 17 and 18, I see a bunch of links, and I'm just curious why that is the case.

Speaker G: Pages 17 and 18 of the exhibit, or—

Speaker E: Of the budget, yeah. So if I go down, let's see, let me scroll down real quick. Yeah, so like Community Development Administration, and maybe because that's newer, and then you've got like Yeah, planning and zoning, for instance, planning and zoning shows nothing for 2025-2026, but then shows items for 2027. I'm just curious why we've got, you know, blank spaces in those various categories.

Speaker G: We did, if I recall correctly, without having that pulled up right in front of me, but when we moved the community development related activities activities to the special revenue fund. We also broke out and created what we call community development administrative section that holds— so, for example, like Brandon, and you've got like your secretaries and things like that, these administrative assistants, they're providing services within those own divisions. And so that we don't have to, in payroll, break it out by 10 different GL accounts, We account for it just in the administration section, and I believe if you look at that, that's where we put the administrative cost overhead as well, is in the community development administrative. But I can pull that up and I'll take a look at it.

Speaker H: One other item under— this is on page 2 under City Council. There's in the specific code, Section 2.15.010 regarding compensation for City Council. It references— let me find it here. It talks about a monthly compensation in the amount of $200 for non-reimbursed incidentals that are necessary to fulfill their duties, such as local travel, home internet, personal phones. In the budget, it just specifically says car allowance. I'm wondering if we could update that to make that line item a little bit more accurate to code.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker H: Thank you. And I'm okay if we eliminate that completely from Other council members may disagree.

Speaker D: I made a joke under my breath and said, man, you're sure lining your pockets with that $200. But it's, uh, I'm teasing. So any other questions on budget item? I think we're good. Moving on to The Mid-Valley Reinvestment Area. The Mid-Valley Reinvestment Area. So I think we can kind of lump this in. We've seen this a lot. I do wanna just point out that the presentation on this will be for items 14A, B, and C all at once. And we'll make one motion. And then if, or sorry, we'll make one presentation with 3 separate motions, if I say my words right. On 14C specifically, just as a note, that one is pending. When we make the motion, if it was to approve, it would be pending approval of the RDA meeting that we will have following this meeting. So that motion needs to state pending specifically for item 3A, which reminds me, I don't know that there are any, you've seen the RDA agenda?

Speaker C: Just a little bit.

Speaker D: Well, it would be too hard to record. I don't think that's to stop, go back, and come back, and then because it's noticed for later. So before I go to that, are we good on the Mid Valley RDA? Is there any questions or discussion needed? Then while I'm on that, jumping to the RDA, is there any questions? specific to that.

Speaker I: Just—

Speaker D: and I know I kind of bounced around on that, so are you comfortable or do you need a second? Good on the RDA? Okay.

Speaker J: No questions.

Speaker D: Then I think— I think the amendment to the Overland Development Agreement. Any questions or discussion?

Speaker E: I had one note about the MDA on Section 5.4, just wanting some clarification on that section, but I got to pull it up to remind myself what that is.

Speaker D: Is that Marcus on 5.4 of the MDA? Overland? Yeah, sorry, what was the question? 5A, he's pulling it up.

Speaker E: Yes, Section 5.4 of the MDA. I was just wondering, let me square out, I got to find it here again real quick.

Speaker H: Section 5.4 of the MDA, yeah, it was—

Speaker E: yeah, let's see. I don't know, let's see, what was I wondering?

Speaker H: There's just an additional sentence added at the beginning of that paragraph.

Speaker E: Yeah, I wonder if I was meaning 5. Well, I'll look through it.

Speaker D: Yeah. 5.3 is the one that got the major rewrite.

Speaker H: So I would assume where most of your questions would be.

Speaker J: But— OK.

Speaker D: OK. Just to maybe read that or be familiar in case that we have a question later, we'll be prepared on that one. I think that kind of covers most of the stuff unless there's something I've missed. Anybody know? If not, we do have a few items that we could talk about.

Speaker E: I move the council adjourn to a closed session for the purpose of discussing— or for the— sorry, pursuant to Section 552-4-205, subsection 1 of the Utah Code Annotated.

Speaker C: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have a motion and a second, and we'll start the vote with Councilmember Whiting.

Speaker E: Yes. Councilmember Wood?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Hewish?

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Clark?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: And Councilmember Wright?

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker D: All right, we'll adjourn to closed session at 5:54, and we'll be back at 7. I do tonight. Uh, now we're okay. Yes, now we're good. Sorry. Okay, we're gonna get started. Uh, thanks for your patience, everyone. I really appreciate that. Uh, we're working on an online, uh, feed, and that should be up shortly. We'll come with that information. So thank you for being patient. It is 7:20, and we'll call this meeting to order. As we get started, I've asked Elba Maria, one of our long-term, longtime residents, to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Speaker G: Okay, thank you.

Speaker K: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Speaker D: All right, now that we're rolling, uh, we're going to start with some public comment. Um, actually, one thing that I had forgot earlier is just upcoming events, man. Thank you, Mayor. Um, we do have several upcoming events. Our food truck rally is Thursday, August 20th at 6:00 PM at Cory Ride Memorial Park featuring storytime. All ages are welcome. Storytime will have 2 sessions at 6:30 and at 7:30 PM. There's a movie in the park Friday, August 21st, from 9 to 11 PM at Silver Lake featuring Top Gun. There's farmers market every Saturday from 9 AM to 1 PM through October 10th at Corey Ride Memorial Park.

Speaker H: Senior game night is Monday, August 24th at 5 PM at the Eagle Mountain Senior Center.

Speaker D: In-person Utah Valley Job Fair, Tuesday, August 25th, from 2 to 5 PM at the Utah Valley Convention Center. Produce Swap is an event at— on Tuesday, August 25th, and Wednesday, August 26th, from 11 AM to 7:30 PM at the library. Our Youth Career Exploration event is Wednesday, August 26th, from 1 to 3 PM at the Chamber of Commerce. America 250 Pop-Up Museum is Wednesday, September 2nd, from 4 to 8 PM at Cedar Valley High School. And I'd like to turn some time over to Natalie Winterton to talk a little bit about our Citizens Academy coming up.

Speaker K: Good evening, Mayor, Council, and community. I'm excited to announce that we just opened our signups for our Eagle Mountain Academy Fall 2026 cohort today. Um, so this is our 4th time running this class, and it's been a really fun and exciting experience for everyone involved, both staff and residents. It's a 6-week interactive course where residents can come learn about the city from our department heads, and they get to tour all the city facilities, even the ones you don't usually see, like our wastewater treatment plant. Um, it's really fun to come and to get to know your neighbors and also get to know your city. The class is free for all participants, and if you can't make it, we do run it twice a year, and you can sign up for notifications for the next one.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker D: Thank you, Natalie. This is our, our 4th time going through this. Our residents that have participated have really loved this opportunity to get to know all the ins and outs of the services that the city provides each and every day to make life possible here in Eagle Mountain City. And lastly, there's one other event. Our Shop Fest is September 12th from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. At Cory Ride Memorial Park, there will be hot air balloons at 8:00 AM as well. So we invite the community to come out. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and I'll second that. The, uh, that Citizens Academy, people that have gone through that end up serving on boards or, uh, planning commission. They come out with a whole new perspective. And absolutely, I don't think I've heard a negative thing. It's a, it's a great opportunity to kind of get a little deeper dive into inner workings of the city. So. Come and participate in that. It is super fun. Uh, now we're going to move to our public comment section. This, this time has been set aside for public comment. As a reminder, the public comment is an opportunity for community members to address the city council, and each speaker is allowed up to 3 minutes. If you wish to speak during the public hearing portion, please complete the comment form that's located in the back and return it to the city recorder. Council members will listen, but not engage in discussion during public comment. We ask that everyone remain respectful. Disruptive behavior— I swear I've learned to talk once— disruptive behavior, including cheering, booing, clapping, or comments directed at individual city employees is not permitted. Please refrain from doing that. Um, if you have issues or questions regarding staff or personnel, administrative staff will meet you in the foyer and have a further discussion. Lastly, public comment period is for items not associated with a scheduled public hearing. If your comment relates to a public hearing item, please wait until that item is called. For your information, the public hearing items on the agenda are item 12A, which is the ordinance of Eagle Mountain City, Utah, amending the municipal code 16 Uh, 20.040, preliminary plats regarding street names. Uh, 12B, which is an ordinance of Eagle Mountain, Utah, amending Eagle Mountain Municipal Code 1625-040, final plats. And then also 13C is a public hearing, which is the resolution of Eagle Mountain City, Utah, adopting the fiscal year '26-'27 annual budget totaling $363,992. Uh, So, hold on, I got to start over. $3,063,992,973. So, with that, I will open the public comment period. And as I explained before, if you're here to speak on those other items, we will give you the opportunity later. So, if it's anything aside from the public hearings or that truth in taxation portion, Uh, now is the time. It is 7:27, and, uh, we will open the public comment time. Uh, Lacey?

Speaker K: Um, I do have one. George Reed.

Speaker C: I came here last time about the speeding on Ira Hodges.

Speaker H: We're done with this.

Speaker D: We have talked speed bumps, we've talked the the Speed Ranch. I've talked to the people in our neighborhood, and what we have come up with is that Russell and Ira Hodges, Waddell and Ira Hodges, and Russell and Major are going to become 3-way stops. That way people are stopping at different points. There's already a 3-way stop down at the school. That's the cheapest, easiest, and best way. The other thing that this helps is there are certain times of the day for us that live on our lodges that we can't get out of our driveway because the traffic is just boom, boom, boom. Stop signs there will put a break in between cars so that we can at least get out of our driveway. So, if the city isn't willing to do this, I've talked to the people in our neighborhood. I just have to go home and hit the send button, and I have 6 stop signs ready to be ordered, and I will personally install them. So the city doesn't have to do anything to accommodate us on this, and the people in our neighborhood are fully behind this proposition.

Speaker I: Thank you.

Speaker K: I also have Joy Rasmussen for a public comment.

Speaker L: My name is Joy Rasmussen. In 2018, there were large swaths of undeveloped greenbelt land in Eagle Mountain that have now been converted into massive hyperscale data center campuses, beginning with Meta's Eagle Mountain data center in 2018. and expanding with multi-hundred-acre projects by QTS, Tract, and Google. A Meta campus started on roughly 500 acres of open greenbelt land south of city center. QTS, 193 acres. Tract, over 668 acres that have been purchased in Eagle Mountain. I have been messaged by an electrician who's helping build the QTS data centers. He said they are an enormous problem, and I'm frankly so very surprised there's not more people in Eagle Mountain, Saratoga that are pissed about it. I can't say too much about them because of legality, but we currently have 3 up and they're working on the building the 4th and plan to do a lot more. And they will 100% suck the power and water as they run off both. And the people that live here are going to feel it within a few years. He said, thought this might interest you. Eagle Mountain is going to be screwed in a few years once these are up. And again, I'm surprised there are not more upset people about it. He later messaged me and said, I thought I'd let you know I found out today that these data centers are for Google and Meta, and they may currently have permits or approval for building 9 to 12 of them, but the plan is around 25. To 27. On August 6th, somebody who works building these data centers stood before you and said that QTS has said that when they're done with Eagle Mountain, it will be the largest data center campus in the world for their company. I recently spoke this week, coincidentally, just for something totally unrelated from my job, to Robert Bergman. He has been working in AI since the '60s. I didn't know it existed in the '60s, but it did. He worked for Intel. He's got lots of degrees. He's really smart. He said to me that data centers are going to be obsolete really soon, and cities are going to be stuck with these big empty buildings that won't be getting used because the technology won't— it won't be necessary anymore. And he wrote an article called Systems View of AI Governance, and he talked about how the laws are not going to catch up with the technology. And by the time we realize we need the laws, something bad will have happened with the technology. He talked about the energy bottleneck. The major AI companies have responded by becoming energy companies of sort. They're contracting for dedicated gas plants, batteries, And even nuclear reactors. That buys capacity, but on the timescale of power infrastructure, which is measured in years, not product cycle. He said the mathematics of scaling is unforgiving. Each doubling of compute yields a smaller improvement than the last. Training runs for frontier models are projected to cost several billion dollars each, and those costs must eventually be recovered—

Speaker K: 30 seconds remaining.

Speaker L: From customers. So I'm asking you to pass a moratorium on approving any more data centers. Please make a resolution. The citizens are not wanting any more of these. We've got enough. Let's let them give us the benefits we've been promised they're going to give the community, the ones that are already approved. I know we can't change that, but I'm asking you to stop and pause because we've already lost so many acres. And according to that professor, I think it's Utah State, the heat— it's going to rise the heat of the land around it and the water, and that's going to affect wildlife, the environment, and people. Farmers have been driven out. Your time's up. Thank you.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker K: I'm unsure if this is for the budget or public comment for Adam Bradley. Okay, thank you.

Speaker D: If you want to wait for 13, I'm okay with that. Thank you.

Speaker K: How about Marco Zamorano? And then also Tiffany Walden. Wasn't sure.

Speaker L: Tonight, tonight I want to talk about the city's plans to expand the police force by renting additional officers from Utah County. While I'm very appreciative to Sheriff Knudson and his deputies, I think it's time for the city to stop spinning in circles and actually start its own police department. It should have been done years ago, and if it's not done now, it may turn out to be impossible later. Here's why. The city doesn't have a justice court. Why not? Not enough crime statistics to support it. Why aren't enough crime statistics? Because the city hasn't entered its misdemeanors into a system so that the sheriff can issue citations. Further, if the If the sheriff wants to arrest somebody, it needs to be for something pretty awful because it takes officers off the street in Eagle Mountain to drive to Spanish Fork to put a person in jail because the city doesn't have a jail. And so then the city doesn't get the revenue from the citations and the misdemeanors. And there we go around and around and around. It's time to get off the merry-go-round and start your own police department.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker L: Eventually, that will serve the citizens better, and it's a more responsible solution. To that end, the council is ready to be a good fiduciary to the citizens. I am prepared to donate the land to build a county jail or a city jail. Thank you.

Speaker K: That's all I have for regular public comment.

Speaker D: Yeah, uh, just to be sure, is there anybody else that has something aside from what we've mentioned that, that does not feel like they had the opportunity to speak at this time? We will not come back to general public comment. It will be only specific to the items we're talking about. So seeing no one, we appreciate that. We will hold the public comment for the other items coming up. So we'll just, uh, suspend that time for now. Um, we will now bring it back to the, the city council for some comments. And we'll start with Councilmember Clark.

Speaker B: Um, thank you all for being here tonight. I want to start with a few of the messages that have been directed at us during this process. String them up, make their families watch. All these local government people feel safe. They shouldn't. They live right next to us. I can see a future where they're dragged out of their homes and beaten in front of their families. White woman tears need to be punished by death. Every city council should be dragged from their seats and hanged in the public square, then hang their families for their treasonous asses. F them all. You know you don't have to wait until the next election, right? Our hands fit so easily around their throats. Drag them out. While these comments and messages are extremely disturbing and violent, I don't care about these people on the internet. I care about the people of Eagle Mountain. I always have and I always will. And yes, sometimes that means I get choked up and I cry. Why? Because I care. And I get that these decisions that we make have an impact on real people. I care about the family of 8 that has cut nearly everything from their budget. I care about the families managing type 1 diabetes, seniors on fixed incomes, people working second jobs, and parents whose adult children have to move back home. Those are the people that I care about. At the same time, I'm incredibly grateful for those at the state level, like Representative Grecious and Senator Balderry, who have reached out to offer solutions and ideas. I'm grateful to those who have called me and simply asked, why? How did we get here? What can I do to help? If you have an idea that helps us meet our needs while leaving more money in the pockets of our residents, I want to hear it. And despite what it feels like, we have been listening, but that listening started long before the public hearing on the 6th. Our mayor and council have spent over 62 hours meeting with residents in neighborhood parks, HOA clubhouses, plus more than 40 hours at community events. We've read hundreds of emails and thousands of comments. Residents told us, build roads, address traffic, make it safer for our kids to get to school, enforce speeding, take care of the parks, keep water and sewer ahead of growth. improve city services at City Hall, and make sure deputies are available when people need them. Then this year, Chief Knutson told us calls for service increased by 18.6% in one year and described our staffing as fragile in a city approaching 80,000 people across 52 square miles. The Sheriff's Office identified a need for 10 additional positions. We reduced that to 7 because we are already trying to balance that need With affordability. And then the residents told us something else. The residents said, we understand there's a need, but we can't afford this. We heard that too. There have been concerns that we haven't been transparent. We are imperfect people. None of this current mayor and council have ever been through truth and taxation before. We should have communicated some things better, but our budgets, audits, agendas, contracts, and spending decisions are public. Every decision about city money is made in a public meeting. What I have learned is that making information public isn't enough if it's difficult for residents to find or understand. We need to do better there. I also want to address the claim that we chose data centers over residents. We didn't. Data centers have always been a means to an end, a way to bring infrastructure and a commercial tax base into Eagle Mountain so residents don't have to carry the entire burden. And tonight I'm calling on our data centers and our major businesses in Eagle Mountain to step up too. Eagle Mountain has welcomed you and provided opportunities for you to build your businesses here. Now we need you to believe in Eagle Mountain and invest in the people who live here. We need good partners. Help us build the community that has helped make your investment possible. To our residents, I have 2 asks. First, tell us what matters most. What can wait? We have more than 100 projects and needs Roads, school safety, water, sewer, parks, and public safety. If we spend less, something has to wait. Tell us what you want us to protect. And my second ask is bigger. My second ask is take care of each other. I've lived here nearly 2 decades. I've watched Eagle Mountain show up when basements have flooded, when homes have burned, when someone's child ended up at Primary Children's. I've watched neighbors bring meals, fix homes, watch children give rides, and quietly help people who needed it. Whatever we decide tonight, there will still be people struggling tomorrow. So look around, please find them, help where you can. And as for my vote, I won't make it because someone threatened me. I won't make it because somebody praised me. I won't make it based on whether or not it helps me get elected again. I have to listen to the people of Eagle Mountain, all of the people of Eagle Mountain. I have to look at the facts in front of me, understand the consequences, and vote for what I believe is right for this community as a whole. Whatever happens tonight, tomorrow will still all be neighbors.

Speaker I: Really? You expect me to follow that, Councilmember Clark? I didn't, I didn't write the oration that you did, but I will, but I will, but I will simply say this. I agree 100% with what you stated. Uh, I think the biggest regret that I have in this process is that we did not communicate effectively. I'm a terrible communicator. I can talk to you one-on-one, but I am not the public face of anything. In fact, I shun that. It's not, it's not my personality. And I think that's where we have failed pretty miserably. Let me, let me restate that. That's where I have failed miserably. Let me take responsibility for myself and not for others. Um, I wish I had a do-over and could, and could, uh, more effectively communicate to more people those things that we have been dealing with. I think Councilmember Clark just gave you a brief synopsis of some of the things we've been dealing with.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker I: This is not fun. This affects me. It affects my mother. It affects my sister. It affects my daughter. It affects my son. It affects my grandchildren who live here in the city. The easiest thing to say is we're not going to do anything, and the data centers can take care of all of it at some point in time. But the reality of it is, I want to make sure that our city grows and prospers, and that we're meeting today's needs while planning for tomorrow's. Outcomes. Um, I didn't come to office to do anything but to see if I couldn't help improve the circumstance that we found ourselves in. That's it. I don't have any, any goals beyond that. Um, it was a wrestle for me to want to even serve a second term. It's not a fun job. It's not enjoyable. It's a heavy lift. And, uh, It's weighty. Somebody needs to do it, and I felt like I had something to contribute. And let me tell you some of the things that have been accomplished while I have sat here. We've adjusted residential codes so that the spacing in front of your houses is wider and larger than it used to be. We've made road standards wider and bigger than they used to be. We, we, we have reduced the number of developed units that were approved by Previous councils who at the time made those decisions. I'm certain that they were the right decisions in the time frame that they dealt with, but they couldn't have possibly seen the impact or the outcome that we are now dealing with today. I personally have helped to work and reduce the number of units in our city by several thousand units. I've personally done that. I'm the one who stood among this council and said This council in the past counseled and said we cannot continue to sell our water resources for residential development. And we made that adjustment. My desire has been to serve you and to produce outcomes that will benefit you and me long term. I believe that a tax increase is necessary. Perhaps we overshot the mark. I'm going to just say that publicly. Okay, but I'm going to tell you, no matter where things land, there are way more needs than there will be resources to fill them. And I listened to the gentleman who just spoke about the 3 stop signs, and he's going to go put them up himself. We shouldn't ever have to get to a place where that's the only recourse that we have, should we? And so to hear that is very frustrating to me, not from you, sir. I don't, I don't blame you. I understand where you're coming from. I've met with you. And I've seen what you're dealing with. And if you, if you're aware, I'm the one who stood up in a council meeting in the budget and said, we need to allocate some resources to put in some speed tables or some sort of speed calming measures in front of our elementary schools. But we had to find that money somewhere. So I hope that you'll give us a little grace. Challenges. I'm okay with that. Have a difference of opinion. There's no issues with that whatsoever, but talk to us, engage us, and engage me. I'm happy to have a conversation, a phone call, a text, an email. I will engage with you. Facebook and some of the cesspools that exist in our— in our— and I'm going to call it just that— our Eagle Mountain Citizens page. I call it Eagle Mountain Citizens cesspool, and I truly believe that. Now, Many of you will disagree with that, but for me, it's not a market that I want to spend a lot of time in because there's so much hate and vitriol that exists there. And it's not how I live my life. I want to live my life better than that. Thank you.

Speaker E: I'll just say ditto to both the comments that have already been made by Councilmembers Clark and Wright. And I'll just add just briefly to some other comments. We met with Congressman Mike Kennedy this last week, a few of us did, and he said something profound that opened my eyes a bit. You know, he works at the federal level and confirmed what we already know, that we need to minimize the amount of money that goes to the federal level. There's so much waste that happens there. And he said we need to reduce the money that goes to the federal level. He said, similarly, the state, there's, there's ways we can improve the efficiency there and reduce the amount of money that's going to the state. And then here's where he said the eye-opening remark. But to the cities, to the cities, you need to make sure that the taxes are there. That is where the people will feel it. It goes directly to them. It builds them. You got to make sure that the taxes don't lag behind, because then the cities will fail. That is where the taxes should be higher, and the federal and the state as low as possible. This is the money that's being raised to help us, our city, the future generations that come after us. This is where the taxes. when there's an increase should be considered and acknowledged that that is coming as an investment here. And I realize, like, I've lived many years of my life in very, very challenging financial circumstances. I remember coming out of my house one day and my neighbor across the street was getting in his car and said, hey, where are you going, Keith? And he said, well, I'm going to Cafe Rio. You want to— you want to go with me? Back then, the Cafe Rio burrito was like $6. There's inflation since then, but I couldn't go. I couldn't afford that. There are times in my life where I skipped meals in order to make sure there was enough money in the family. I understand what that is. We're tasked with hearing, and that some have said, well, that council, you haven't heard us because of various things. Councilmember Clark just outlined very well the competing voices that are coming to us from you saying we have, we have needs for better roads. Uh, better improve public safety and a whole list of things. All of that costs money. All of that costs money. Then we're hearing from some residents, I'm struggling right now financially. There's a balancing act that we have to do in that. And yes, this is the first— our first time going through this tax and truth and taxation process. There are some state laws that regulate how the communications come out, but in retrospect, we, we, we evaluate and think, okay, we for sure could have improved. I'm, I'm really, really proud of the 2 council members. I'm proud of all the council members here, but the council members to our left, Wood and Hewish, have already created code to improve the transparency of property tax dollars in the city. It was discussed in our workshop session, so it should be coming back to a policy session soon. That's how fast they acted to improve both the transparency and ensure that the property tax dollars are indeed 100% going to public safety. And I'm proud of how fast they acted. Thank you for coming. Thank you for the numerous residents who have reached out. Every one of you that has emailed me, you know this, every one of you got an email back. Every single one of you. I've stayed up really late some nights to make sure everyone got responded to that reached out to me. And, and I will continue to do those— that to those who reach out. Thank you for your information, participation, and your energy in helping improve our city.

Speaker C: I'm grateful you're all here, and I truly mean that. I think you know that I, I don't shy away from people coming here to tell us how we can be better. I do have some, some disappointments in the last couple months. Um, I love living here, and I, I've told my family a thousand times I have zero desire to ever leave this area. I love the people here. I love the community here. I don't think our best foot was forward the last couple months. We didn't put a very good look on Eagle Mountain, frankly, and a lot of other people took advantage of that and made it even worse in the media. And I'm gonna own part of that. I mean, frankly, we didn't, we didn't help you to understand better. That's on us. I'm not even gonna make the excuse that this is our first time around. We know that we have some communication challenges. And frankly, I'm gonna tell you, I don't think social media is really cutting it. There are so many people that are not even utilizing that for their communication, and even if they do, the algorithm might not even be touching them. So we want to figure out how to get the information to you in a way that works. As Councilmember Whiting mentioned, Councilmember Hewish and I have been talking about how to bracket and put a good financial plan in place so that when we're done, the next council can come in here and we left it better than we, than we found it. I think that we are— we're close with that first part of the code, and it will absolutely do exactly what we told you it would do. It forces it to go to a separate account for property taxes to be Put for public safety only, and that'll be delineated in the account. So you have absolute confidence that that money is only going towards that. The second thing is to know when property taxes should be even reviewed, and honestly, it probably ought to be yearly, and that's kind of what we put in there. It's, it's very easy to point fingers backwards, you know, and I'm not going to say that I haven't done that because I have. And I don't know all the reasons that these things weren't done. All I can say is that now we can't make any excuses for why we don't have financial plans. It's good governance to have financial plans so that we can plan how we use the money. We need to have what we do now. We need to have a 5-year. We need to have a 10-year, and even further down the road, 20-year. Our intent, I can tell you, one of the reasons that I was so adamant about appointing Mr. Hewish is because of his financial background, because I believe we need his expertise, and he has shown that in droves of why he's been so beneficial. Our intent is to do better, to make it more transparent, and I— the reality of it is, is I wish that we would have been doing incremental increases so we're not sitting facing what we're facing. But I think Councilmember Clark made one important point. About— you have to decide what it is you want to cut out. Because the cost of things are so incredibly high right now. I actually asked one of the things to be pulled off our consent agenda because I want you to see what the cost of one single thing for our sewer plant is going to cost. Because I think it's very easy to not absorb the cost of everything. When you start taking a look at what each of these projects cost, We have to leverage small amounts of money into larger amounts of money by making payments, because we don't have the income to take care of what our total needs are. If you look at our total projects, uh, just for roads, I think I mentioned this the last time, our sole responsibility is $419 million. The total projects are like $1.5 billion for roads where we have the state, MAG, and other sources that are paying for them.

Speaker H: That's Eagle Mountain.

Speaker C: It's astounding when you get into this and you find out what everything costs. That was the, you know, the wall that hit me in the face of what things are actually costing and what our resources are. I want to start with that because I think that that's important for you to share the burden with us as we're trying to evaluate how we solve some of these problems, because we are really talking about building roads. We drive on the same crappy traffic that all the rest of you do. And each one of us live along that way where it's super crappy. In fact, I, I'm right where it gets really, really crappy in Silver Lake. And I— there's sometimes we can't even leave the neighborhood because it is lined all the way back to Hidden Valley. So I just— I'm asking for a little bit of grace from you. Understand that there's nobody here that's trying to harm anybody. We're trying to come up with a solution. I don't know that we found the, the perfect solution, but we're doing our best to try to find some way to be able to attack some of these projects that have to get taken care of. Roads being probably at the very top of that. One of our other problems, though, and I'm just going to be totally honest with you, we are undermanned. We do not have enough people to do the projects. That is one of those— you ask, what would you have done with the extra money? For me personally, it would have absolutely been bringing in teams of people for roads and parks to be able to take care of our assets. That's my personal opinion. I'm not all 5 of us, but I just think it's important for you to know how we're weighing our decisions. I want to be truthful with you always. I've always been that way. You're not always going to like what I say, but I will always tell you the truth. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to your comments. I ask that you help us come up with some solutions. Be creative, because I think we're all in this together. Thanks.

Speaker E: So, there was a shout out that a citizen wanted me to provide, and I'll keep the citizen's name confidential. But this is a shout out to our Sheriff's Department. So, the Eagle Mountain Division of the Sheriff Department, specifically Deputy Craig— no, no relation to me, by the way, but he's got good names. Yeah, specifically Deputy Craig. Has been phenomenal in helping us. Will you please give Deputy Craig a shout out? We absolutely 100% love this guy. He has helped my family a lot.

Speaker H: Okay, I'll be fast. I first just want to thank everybody who's reached out to me individually. I've been just going one by one, two by two, Zoom meetings, phone calls. I've created a presentation, and one of the first slides in that presentation—those of you, I'm sorry if you haven't seen the matrix. It's probably my favorite movie of all time. But, in the beginning of the movie, the main character, he's given the choice to choose between taking the blue pill, which he wakes up and he goes back to his regular life. Nothing changes. The other pill, the red pill, he takes and he learns that he's actually not living in reality at all and he gets unplugged from the system and realizes that society ended 200 years ago. Serving on city council is like taking the red pill. My eyes have completely been opened. I've been learning about government accounting, finances, how things work and operate, that we don't have a cell tower in our city. We had a visitor here, billion-dollar investor looking to come to Eagle Mountain that we're aggressively recruiting commercial. And he's like, oh, I don't have any cell service here. And I'm like, yeah, that's not, not great. Um, but okay. Uh, I just, I want to just extend appreciation. There's a few people here today that I've met with in a 1-on-1, and I'm grateful to have all of you. So, while I have you now, I probably won't post this on Facebook because everything just gets distorted and the comments get crazy. I prefer just a 1-on-1. I'm— Much like Brett. Okay. Um, so one of the pieces, and there will probably be 4 or 5 more things that I think we could do to improve this process, is as a city council, when you come in brand new, uh, you, you have some presentations. We, we had one from the, from, uh, Chief Knutson that says we need more sheriffs. And, uh, what do I know? I'm a financial planner. I don't know how many sheriffs we need. And, and so you try to dig into the data as good as you can.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker H: And what we have strived, or at least started to work toward, is having some kind of safety net for our sheriff's contract, and maybe one day a police department. That, that's a really interesting idea to have land to build our own jail. But the goal of this code that we're putting in place is to require a council each year to look at the coverage ratio of our property taxes. So when you pay a property tax, Number 1, there will be a dedicated segregated fund that those dollars cannot be commingled with sales tax. So when you look at your city property tax that you pay, every dollar goes directly to our safety. If the coverage ratio target is in this code, it'll be 85%. That'll be the target. We may not get there this year. I don't know. We'll have to to see where we, where we land this evening. There will be an upper band. If the coverage ratio is above 95%, then a city council could consider cutting taxes. If it's below the lower band, the city council could consider increasing taxes. But the goal is that each year city councils are looking at this coverage ratio so we don't get in a position where we're behind and new revenue coming in is subsidizing those contracts. As data centers complete their projects and those properties have values and can be assessed a property tax, that obviously is going to increase the property tax number. So that, that's one of the directions that we're heading. Another one that we're talking about is having just a very simple, straightforward budget that residents could easily flip through and say, okay, I understand what our city budget is. Going through 100 pages of documents. I went to our city website over the weekend and I spent a few hours. I just said, Zach, pretend like you don't know anything and you're just reading our city budget and you see a $50 million transaction. Well, what is that? Well, we have a sewer project that we're working on, and there's transfers of funds that by state law are required to go from one account to another account. But if you don't know anything about Um, the— how government accounting works, it might look suspicious. You know, you hear $363 million. Well, that's plenty of money to do whatever you need to do. Um, but really, we have some big major projects. We have a couple wells that are being built this next year to create water infrastructure. We have a sewer, uh, that, that's being built to create more infrastructure and lots of road projects. So, um, I would just say, If you'd like to meet individually with me, I'd love to visit with you. I welcome that opportunity. I know it's not the most convenient thing in the world to establish that time, but I welcome that and appreciate everyone being here tonight. Thank you.

Speaker D: All right, I'll just add a couple of real quick comments, and it's maybe a little different direction for educational purposes. I was going to do this the opposite, but as I think about it, I'm going to, I'm going to switch my order. There is no one I would rather be in the trenches with than these guys. And trust me, if you think any one of us haven't had a battle, I think we had one today. And I'm not afraid to say it because we— I can still say that he's one of my best friends. We don't have to agree, but we can respect each other and, and try to come to a conclusion. I know we've had our battles. Every one of us up here have disagreed, and man, we have to just Fight through that. And there isn't—

Speaker C: it even took a couple days to cool down after one of them.

Speaker D: One. Yeah. I didn't tell him we battle every day. The rest of them is just one. It's, uh, it's— and there's no one I'd rather do this with. Now, switching gears, my, my role is a little bit different. Uh, I get asked to go out and get information. It doesn't matter what I think. I have to get the information. That's one of the reasons I try to get out in front of this and give people information. It's not my stance, it's information. I'm trying to give you some facts, uh, and then I have to come back and give these guys the information, and they got to make the decision. I don't get to say where this lands. I have dang sure tried to influence the best I could, but I don't get to make this decision. It's my job once the decision is made to then Carry it out whether I agree or not. I get to carry that out. So what I can tell you is, do we all agree? Nope. Are we going to battle it out? Yep. And then I'm going to carry it out no matter if I agree with it or not. And so that, that's, that's something that I just wanted, that I was thinking about, that I, that I would add to, uh, that. And I'm gonna leave it at that. The last, the other piece was, uh, I'm, I'm never afraid of hard conversations. I love calling the people that hate me. And trust me, I do it with a smile. And it's not because I'm trying to pick a fight. It's because I wanna gain greater understanding and hopefully shed some light for you. And maybe on the other end, we can be friends because I'm okay with a disagreement as long as we're not disagreeable, as long as we do it with respect. And I want to help you understand some maybe perspective. With that, I'm going to set records straight when I can. It's not a subjective-objective. These are not opinions, they're simply facts. So I don't like it when people aren't informed, and I'm not saying it's malicious, I'm saying it's not right. I sit in meetings every single day, and I can tell you, if you want to know how many times I've met with our data center partners in the last 6 months, but even in the last 2 months, Man, I— a lot. I'm just going to say that a lot. Um, if somebody has information about 25 to 40 buildings and QTS, I don't. And I sit with the people making the decisions, and they haven't even said that. So whoever's saying that they've got these multiple approvals, they don't even know that, but they appreciate it because they would love that. But they have never said that. Also, to continue and talk about water. They have less water allocated at QTS than one street of houses. They are not using water. That is a closed-loop system. You hear us say that. I'm not going to get into it. If you want information, look me up. They are not using our drinking water on a daily basis. They use it for their kitchen and their bathrooms. Happy to have that conversation. Just a fact. Um, now, Because of some of the smear that goes on, including on Facebook and others, this is not aimed at any person or any comment that I'm talking about. I want to shed a little bit of light on what those people have done just recently. I, 3 weeks ago, was, uh, and I'm not gonna say who it was even. I was going to. I'm not going to say this. I was in a meeting with some of our employees that said, hey, The next phase of QTS, they're not asking for any tax breaks. They will be built next year with no asks, 100% taxpayer day 1. I read in the meeting on August 6th those numbers. I'm not going to read them again. Look it up back there. It was $19 million that they will have in. It takes time for that to come in. That will be a taxable value next year, 0 break. That's a good deal. That's what we've been waiting for. Now, knowing that, as a staff internally, we're like, hey, we have some needs. Maybe if they would front some money, we could give them back some, a little bit of tax just to cover our need, tie it directly to that. Then they're still full taxpayer. I said, no, I'm not okay with that. And I want you guys to know what I said. And then I brought it to these guys because I don't have the power to do that. And I said, I'm gonna make a phone call. I got on the phone with QTS and I said, hey, that's crap. I'm not paying for this road. You guys are the ones that are making it bad. And that intersection over there, you're the ones doing that. At best, you have to pay for those lights and split the road. He said, let me call you back. Within a day, he called me back and said, where do you want the check? And I said, we estimate it's about $5 million. He said, if it's $5.5 million, we're paying for that road. And I'm telling you right now, that road's getting built because of QTS, no strings attached.

Speaker G: And the signal?

Speaker D: And the signal, 2 signals. 2 signals. So, to sit here and say these guys suck, I'm not okay with that. I'm not. So, I will tell you that I'm also continuing to work with both of our data center partners that are already built and those that are approved to continue to help us bridge these gaps. And so we are continually— and they are stepping up. That's my commitment. So I just won't allow for that to, to be a narrative that's out there without saying the other side. Now, what I will allow is you can say you disagree with that, and that's fine. But the facts are they've given us money and they're carrying their weight, and they're literally coming in next year not even asking for a tax break. So I just want to get that out there.

Speaker L: Thank you.

Speaker D: And, and I appreciate them, and I'm going to say that I— man, have I worked my tail off. And now it's— we got to come back here and figure out what that means. But, uh, we're, we're going to move forward, and our data center partners are great partners. So I'm, I'm going to leave it at that, and we're going to move forward. Um, with that, we have to get a lot of work done, and we're going to start with our consent agenda. Um, we had a discussion about all these things in our work session. Item 11A, we're gonna— has been asked to be pulled off and put back on. So, and this— okay, my other note was just for me. So if there aren't any questions, I'll entertain a motion.

Speaker C: Mayor, I'll make the motion.

Speaker D: Okay.

Speaker C: I move that City Council approve the consent agenda with the pulling off 11A and putting that back on the policy session. And then also the conversation we had regarding 10A, the transportation and local meeting, just creating some context in there so that it's understood to the citizens what the conversation was.

Speaker B: Second.

Speaker E: Can I add to that? And with, with notes to the minutes being changed per the work session.

Speaker C: I'll amend my motion to include that.

Speaker B: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have an amended motion by Councilmember Wood and a second by Councilmember Clark. Uh, are there any questions on the motion? Are we good over there? Yeah. Okay. Um, Councilmember Clark?

Speaker K: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wright?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Whiting?

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wood?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Hewish?

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Okay, we'll go right to item 11A. Um, Mr. Mack, and do we still have, uh, Russell with us as well? Okay, I didn't see you. Sorry. You're welcome to come forward just to be closer and ready. Mayor, council, thank you for your time. Um, we have a brief presentation put together by Russell Sprague to talk about GMP 2, and we're seeking the approval of the bid award.

Speaker A: Good. Thank you, Mayor and Council and the citizens at large. I'm Russell Sprague with A2S Engineers. We are the engineers designing the wastewater expansion. Uh, with the 2nd work package on the agenda tonight, um, Council has requested that we give an overview of the project. And kind of where we're headed and what we've done to date. So many might not know that the city is broken up into 2 service areas. The line here represents the north and the south service area. The north area goes to a different facility, but the south area goes to Eagle Mountain's wastewater facility. You can see a picture of it there. Eagle Mountain's growing at a rapid pace. I think everyone knows. One of the fastest growing cities in Utah and the entire United States. There's been 16 to 21% growth rates just in the South Service Area in the last 2 years. It's been estimated Eagle Mountain's responsible for at least 10% of the state's growth. The growth is straining the wastewater infrastructure, and with that, if there's an increased risk of breaking the permit established by Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Each household contributes between 250 and 400 gallons per day into the wastewater plant. So you can imagine that adds up pretty fast. The planned available wastewater treatment over time with this beige line here represents a 16% growth rate, which is what we've been seeing the last 2 years at a minimum. With exponential growth, it's hard to project that over more than 10 to 15 years. Um, what we're saying is we probably won't see 16% to 20% every single year.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: But in the near future, that is definitely a possibility. Um, so right now, the treatment plant has a capacity of right under 2 million gallons per day. And this first expansion is going to bring the capacity up to 8 million gallons per day. So when we talk about wastewater projects, we are quadrupling the size of this plant to maybe catch up to the growth that we're seeing. And then in the near future. So just an overview of wastewater comes in dirty. Headworks is the first filter. That's where the screens remove grit, large objects. I always like to joke, your kids' underpants, they flush down the toilet. That's where that gets captured and taken out. The biological nutrient removal is what I call a fancy bubble bath for bacteria. It's big tanks where good bacteria eat bad bacteria and remove nitrogen, phosphorus. Which is what— here on the right, it's regulated by the state of Utah. Utah sets strict limits on what's allowed in the water we return to the environment. Total nitrogen, total phosphorus, biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, and there's a few others, but those are the main ones. And the membrane that we're putting in— water flows through these tiny membranes, and they act as a superfine strainer, so only clean water can pass through. Solids are separated throughout that, and they are dewatered and hauled to a landfill. So that's kind of the overview of what wastewater treatment does. So right here in green is the existing plant. So you have your oxidation ditch here, and the proposed expansion is on the west side. Here we have a new garage, a new headworks building, the biological nutrient removal basins, the membrane building. An electrical and chemical building and a solids building. So it's, you know, 4 buildings and then 1 very, very, very large basin that we're planning on building. So we've gone to the construction manager general contractor route of delivering this project, which is we've hired a general contractor in the design phase. to guarantee us what the maximum price will be. So if you hard bid something, when you get bids in, you go to the low bid, and that's the bid. This delivery method, you negotiate upfront with the contractor what the price will be for the desired scope. This is beneficial in a lot of ways. You know the price upfront. Work can begin while design is still happening. So that's kind of the phased approach we've been talking about. And it improves schedule certainty because we can phase it in a certain way. The schedule is kind of at lesser risk of slipping. So we call it guaranteed maximum price. The way we've structured it, it's also work authorization. Those 2 are interchangeable. The advantages, like I said, early procurement of critical equipment, flexibility to address evolving project needs, reduced schedule risk, and easier cost control. So we've identified 6 packages in this project to accelerate the schedule. Essentially, GMP 1, we've already approved back in April. That was the membrane filtration equipment. GMP 2 is the one on the agenda tonight, and it's the oxidation ditch capacity and optimization. We're installing pumps and pipes. SCADA equipment to increase the oxidation ditch capacity. GMP 3 is earthwork. GMP 4 is the bulk MBR expansion. Most of the facilities are in GMP 4. GMP 5 is the administration building, and GMP 6 is kind of commissioning. You do asphalt, you do the garage, and kind of the effluent disposal strategy at the very end. So you can see the— I think I have a schedule here. Right, we've already completed GMP 1. That was awarded in April, and you can see all of these upgrades are planned to be finished early 2029 for startup with a year warranty for everything. How is expansion funded? Impact fees. So new growth, new connections pay the majority of it. Survey payers and also city funds pay for the expansion. A little bit. So that's kind of an overview of the entire project. GMP 2 on the agenda tonight. Kind of just a little bit background of that. GMP 4 has 6 million gallons additional capacity scheduled to be online in 2029. The current system. So when you look at those projections of influent coming into the plant, the current system does not have enough capacity to treat the projected 2029 flows, if that makes sense. So GMP2 will install pumps and pipes and other site improvements that improve that plant performance, basically squeezing every drop we can get out of the existing facility before the 6 million gallon additional capacity comes online. So, this was a— I think this was actually out of order. So, plant capacity snapshot is the existing plant has a 2.4 million gallon total hydraulic capacity, but the loading capacity is actually over 100%. And that's an interesting distinction that sometimes is lost. Eagle Mountain's wastewater is highly concentrated due to everything is new since 1995 or 1996, right? So about 1/3 of wastewater treated in the United States is rainwater infiltrating into the sewer system. You guys don't have that problem because your sewer is so new. So it's an interesting caveat. So your influent is very, very concentrated with What we call nutrient loading. The good bacteria wants to take out nitrogen and phosphorus, and they can only do that at a certain rate. So the way I like to have an analogy for it is it's like a kitchen table. If you have 10 seats, the flow coming in is like how many people can sit at the table, and the loading is how much food you can provide the guests. If you only have half of people there, but everyone's eating a lot of food, the kitchen might run out of food before you can seat the guests, if that makes sense. So, I don't know how— Right. So that's why nitrogen removal suffers even when flow looks acceptable. So right now we're not quite at the flow levels of the plant. So GMP2 kind of bridges that gap. Today we have, you know, the current capacity is less than 2029 demand. So, GMP 2 bridges the gap into the expansion. Also noted is that GMP 2 is part of the master plan to have 14 million gallons daily flow at the entire plant once phase 2 of the MBR expansion is online. But that's in the future. So the packet contents, we have the work authorization, which is the mechanism to authorize work to the contractor we've already selected. It has the drawings and specifications, which are quite lengthy, but that's all of the— that's how the contractor knows what to build. The GMP form is how the dollars are allocated. There's also a work directive which tells the contractor how changes in the design are to be addressed in the construction phase. And so this was just the breakdown, and I think Councilmember Wood alluded to this. This is a $4 million project, and this is just to bridge the gap until 2029. So it's, you know, $2.5 million for the improvements and lots of other things in here. We do have $1 million in here for excavation, which is kind of jumpstarting the next phases. So we can, you know, keep the schedule. So, so our recommendation is to approve GMP-2. Addresses the near-term capacity gap of the plant, maintains reliable plant operations through early 2029 when GMP-3 through 6 is on schedule to be completed. GMP— whoops, GMP-3. Oh, sorry. Through GMP-6 remains on schedule with this early excavation included in GMP-2. And GMP-2 delivers the plant capacity in line with the long-term objectives of the, of the plant. So that was everything. And if you have any questions.

Speaker C: Thanks. I appreciate it. I asked for them to explain this while you guys were all here. I think it's important for you to understand. the whys. Uh, when we're spending $4 million, you ought to know why and where we're spending it. Um, I think the important thing that he said there is basically we don't have capacity to get through 2029. And so while we're making some of these decisions— thank you very much for your presentation— it's important for you to understand what some of the urgency of some of these things are, why we're forced to make some of these decisions in a, in a faster tempo than maybe we would like to. But this is one of those reasons. So, thank you.

Speaker D: All right, thanks for the context. If there's not any questions specifically, I'm happy to entertain a motion.

Speaker C: Mayor, I'll make the motion. I move that the City Council approve a resolution of Eagle Mountain City, Utah, awarding the bid for EMC 6.0 MGD wastewater treatment facility expansion, GMP-2 oxidation ditch, and miscellaneous site improvements to MGC Contractors, Inc., and approving the contract.

Speaker B: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Wood and a second by Council Member Clark, and we'll start the vote with, uh, Council Member Wright.

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Whiting.

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Wood.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Hughes.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: And Council Member Clark.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: Man, that was a pretty crappy deal right there. Crappy deal. So, yeah, I've been waiting for that one. Okay, let's move on to, uh, uh, item 12A. This is an ordinance of Eagle Mountain City, Utah, amending the—

Speaker I: Can I make a request? Can we move past 12? Just set that aside and come back to it. Let's get to 13 and let's give these good people an opportunity to listen to what's going to happen there and then speak.

Speaker D: I'm totally okay with that. But this also, David could be done and go home if we— this should be really quick.

Speaker I: I think I love David, but I'm going to tell you, I'm not— I'm good with his time as the first.

Speaker D: I'm okay with that. I just wanted to give the counterpoint. So let's go on to— we're going to rearrange the schedule from 12A and 12B and skip to 13A. I think to tee this up, I'm going to tell you that as this conversation was happening all week, I have to set this agenda on Wednesday. And I didn't have any information on Wednesday. I know that there were conversations being had. I know there were things happening online. And I said, you know what, I just want to bring it back for a conversation. I don't know it's going to move, but I'm going to bring it back for conversation. Uh, in the process, we, we were able to speak as a council. And so I think, uh, I know Kimberly's online for questions or, or for some presentations if needed, or we can have a discussion. We've done this a week or 2 ago. So I'm, I'm going to open it up for discussion and see where it lands. And then before we Move forward, we will allow the public to speak. If you feel like your questions were answered, um, you don't have to speak. You know, if you feel like there's some context you want to add, uh, that's going the right direction, you know, I'm trying to be cognizant of your time as well as ours to say, if you like the discussion, then, then that'll save us all some time. So that's why it's here, and that's where we're at.

Speaker I: Um, so let me, let me start. I mean, the first item, Mayor, is 13A, right? And it's really the question of whether or not we're going to repeal the property tax increase certified rate that we approved on August 6th. And I've had conversations with each council member individually, and I believe there probably is a propensity toward that. So in the interest of time, I'm going to make a motion if you'll allow it.

Speaker D: I'm okay with it.

Speaker I: Mayor, I move that the city council, uh, let me get this right, adopt a resolution repealing a property tax increase above the certified rate for fiscal year 2026-2027.

Speaker B: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Wright and a second by Council Member Clark, and we will start the vote with Council Member Whiting.

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Wood.

Speaker I: No.

Speaker D: Uh, Council Member Hughes.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Clark.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Wright.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Okay, that passes 4-1, and, uh, we'll move on to item 13B, uh, same thing. Uh, I think this is where the conversation is going to happen. So anybody that wants to speak, uh, Councilmember Wood, I'm happy if you want to start off with—

Speaker C: First of all, let me say, just because I disagree with that, that doesn't mean I'm not going to be in the conversation for the rest of it.

Speaker D: That's why I wanted to start.

Speaker C: Um, when in talking with Councilmember Hewish, when we were talking about the code So, just to review what that is, we're talking about all of the property tax being applied to the public safety, having a separate fund that's specific and has parameters where it cannot be spent for anything else. Um, that, that ordinance is in place. And then there's some parameters of 95% of the contract, 85% of the contract, and 75%. So, my request was, is I asked, if we're going to do that, then we probably ought to put our money where our mouth is and say, What does that actually look like to the residents? So I'm the truth teller, so I'll be the one to tell you what the truth is. The truth is that we are going to be canceling the tax relationship with UFSA, which is our fire services. The reasoning behind that is that we are paying more than we are getting back out of that contract. And so, as a result of that, so you're paying right now about 0.17 tax To that entity, which means that there's going to be a UFA contract next year that we're going to have to look at, and there will be a cost associated with that. So you need to know what that actually looks like. So if we were to do a direct transfer, $0.17 million, and then on top of whatever we make the decision tonight, that needs to fall within what the parameters are for that code. So it needs to be at least 75%. of what that total contract is for both our sheriff's contract and our fire contract. I want to say that to you, so if you don't understand when you come up to, to give us feedback, please say that to us. That's how I'm going to be evaluating this, because if we don't believe that, then why do the code? And that's the reality of it. Why put a code that we're not going to follow? So the reason I voted no is because in order for us to accomplish just above the threshold of 75%, we need to be at least 0.149, which is 0.15 where we were. On top of that, you'll have the 0.17, even though that won't be taxed directly to your property. We'll have a contract that will equal that.

Speaker E: Councilmember Hughes, wasn't there a different number you had calculated on that, or is that what— are you coming up with the same number?

Speaker H: So the, the UFSA contract, and I've got my, my property tax statement here carried around with me these days. Kind of weird, but the current rate is $0.001656. That's what we pay.

Speaker E: Yeah, $0.001656.

Speaker H: It's roughly the same contract as what we're considering with the sheriff's office. From a cost perspective. So the 1.7 rate for— or the 1.656 rate for the fire is pretty close to the 1.7. Now, that would be fully funded. And what Councilmember Rich— or either way, Councilmember Wood is saying is the UFSA today is 100% funded at the 0.00156 rate. Where I maybe differ with this, I, I'm maybe disagreeing with my own code year 1, but I think we can work into it year 2. This volatility in the tax rate is not a fault of residents, and I feel like we're kind of asking residents to absorb that in 1 year. For some people it's fine, but there are many, it's evident that that they can absorb it this year. It's going to be challenging for them. So what I did is I ran a— to answer Councilmember Whiting's comment— is I ran a blended rate. This would be starting on January 1st of next year when UFA becomes part of— or UFA, when we are negotiating our own contract— to come out to a 76% coverage ratio for both Sheriff and for fire, that means our sheriff contract, the rate would need to be 0.0009 to achieve a 76% coverage ratio for both fire and for sheriff. And so that that's the math that that would pass or or meet muster next year, and I think we can work into it. Uh, gradually. Does that, does that answer your question, Council Member Whiting?

Speaker D: There's no other comments. Go ahead, make the motion.

Speaker B: Wait, are we gonna— what, is there gonna be public comment for this?

Speaker D: No, that's why I'm asking. I've— there is public comment still, still here, so Yeah, did you have a comment?

Speaker E: Yeah, I think briefly, I think, I think we need to acknowledge that Eagle Mountain City has a slightly different situation this week than a handful of days ago, in that the Tyson plant announced a closure that was not part of any of the consideration when we first met. And so I, I think the public, if we didn't acknowledge it, I think the public would come up and talk about that as well. And I think in terms of, in terms of the vote tonight and considering a repeal, the— when I, when I personally heard of the, the Tyson closure, my first immediate response is I sent a message to our economic development director. I said, how many Eagle Mountain families specifically are affected? Because we know not all that work at the plant are from Eagle Mountain. Some come from other locations. It turns out to be about half, which is a significant number. That prompted in my own mind a need to to, to measure what we're doing here and, uh, and, and to balance out what we're, what we're working on.

Speaker D: If, if there's no other comments, I can open it up for the public.

Speaker B: Um, really quick, Mayor, sorry, I just really want to make sure our residents understand. And we talked about switching out of UFSA. We'll still have the UFA services. Um, we just won't be being taxed by them. We're going to shift that burden off of that. So we have more control over it. And I think there were a lot of numbers thrown out, and I just want to make sure everybody understands that at the very least, it's going to be that contract price or less, because we now, as a city, will get to help set what our level of service is. So I don't want everyone to be like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be 12,000% increase. It's not. What happens is you won't have to pay taxes to UFSA, and instead we'll be paying through our contract here. But we want you guys to not get scared about it because we'll walk through it all together. Thank you.

Speaker D: Thank you.

Speaker E: Okay, and just another comment as well. The initial request for the money and the taxation is backed up by a large number of needs that are— that exist here in the city. And so I— some people said, well, it was just a head fake. No, that's not. We're putting out there saying, look, there's a monetary need in the city. That began a discussion, and we're grateful for that discussion that happened. Part of, part of my, you know, being very open to reconsider this is, is something that you alluded to earlier, Mayor, and that you've had some, some conversations with some of our business partners in our city. And, and part of my willingness to, to, to adjust the rate down further right now is because of hopes that I have that we can have some positive outcomes with those discussions. And that, because I want to assure there, there are a number of residents that have, have messaged us saying, thank you for this tax increase, because they know what it means to invest in, in what those dollars will mean for the city. And so, to those residents, I also want to acknowledge that if there's a reduction in rate, it's not because we are, we are deciding to, to take off the gas from the growth that, from the, from the infrastructure dollars that this city needs. To take off the gas from so many improvements that the city needs. It just means that we, we feel that we've got avenues that could potentially help with that.

Speaker D: And one of those is, uh, I spent some time with some of our federal partners, as mentioned, Mike Kennedy. And if you think I didn't ask him for every penny I could get back out of him that we already gave him, meaning the federal government, you need to come talk to me because we are going to advocate for those dollars. So, um, I think, I think it's fair to say I want to hear from the public, and I hope that you have enough information on this. Um, and I'm happy to answer some questions as we go along after we finish the public comment as well. I'll keep notes, and I'm happy to address those as we all can. So with that, we will reopen the public comment at 8:34.

Speaker I: All right.

Speaker D: And, uh, and ask Lacey if— and again, if your name is called and you, and you feel like, you know what, I, I feel good about where we're headed, just say we're good so we can keep going. If you want to speak, speak, or come voice your, your opinion. I'm happy with that. I just know that you didn't know the conversation yet.

Speaker K: Um, this— sorry, this first batch is individuals who wrote, um, topic item 13. So, I'm not sure what's regarding. So, Anthony Wood.

Speaker D: All right, so I had a whole comment written out.

Speaker H: My phone ended up dying, so I'm going to wing it.

Speaker C: Um, I've talked to a lot of people in Eagle Mountain.

Speaker H: I've talked to a lot of you guys here. Um, I'm hearing a lot of people talking about needs and Realistically, I'm only hearing 2 real common needs across a lot of the councilmen and other, other members in Eagle Mountain. Um, but where I want to start first is that I'm not a supporter of property tax, like, internally. You know, I just also logically understand that I don't live in a society that affords me to have no property taxes. Just on principle, I don't support it. All that being said, I do understand that there may be a need for an increase. I think your guys' first, first ask was too much. I feel like your guys' 2nd number you landed on with 183 was still a bit high coming out at the 0015 mark. Looking at the common need that a lot of councilmen have discussed for officers and staff. Looking at those 2 needs, those 2 asks there, I was looking at a number of about 0.001054. The reason why I was coming out to that number is that it equates to covering the basic staff needs that were being asked and those officers. I feel like the first request of 220 was a reaction to the state's cap legislation. And I feel like it was acted on quickly, and then it was reduced down. You know, it wasn't reduced down far enough. Um, I really feel that we can get by with those 2 first needs first and read budget, come back to the table in the future and find out if there's more that's needed. We're going to have a lot of funds coming in, apparently, from what you guys are saying. Now, I know that there were other needs that some of the councilmen have Members have stated, and those seem to be a little bit more on an individual basis. We were talking about roads. I may be misunderstanding, but I thought that was covered by the transportation fund and the gas taxes. I may— we may not have enough. I don't know. I haven't researched that much yet. But with all that being said, that we have things that you guys are looking at that can wait. And we can budget those, we can plan those. I'm not saying wait. 5 years, 10 years, or whatever.

Speaker C: Just take it year by year by year, and let's adjust as needed.

Speaker H: If we do have funds coming in, then we can adjust to that. I don't think we should be reliant on any external entity to the city, so I do believe we should have some property taxes. I would hate to see the data centers leave and leave us in a hole where we need more money. I, I don't like the data centers. Let me get that out there as well. But consider a lower number that might be a little bit more realistic, please.

Speaker K: Wade S. I don't see Wade. Ashley Erkschein. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. All right. So I'm not a public speaker, and I really hate that I have to be here tonight.

Speaker G: Just say no.

Speaker K: But I would like to just make sure I formally oppose any tax increase at this time on Eagle Mountain citizens. I believe that demanding a financial burden— a permanent, sorry, financial burden on taxpayers at a time when your constituents are already strained by the economy is completely irresponsible and unnecessary. Your constituents are people— are the people who actually built this city. The people who voted for you and trusted you to look out for their best interests. You made claims that we'll see revenue from data centers, as Anthony mentioned a moment ago, within the next year. So do we really need a tax increase now, a permanent tax increase? Historically, you know, there was a, there was a thought. I think it was 1913 when income taxes started. Wasn't that supposed to be temporary too? If we know we have revenue coming and we know that we can get by for another year, right, evaluate, assess, be careful, be thoughtful about permanent decisions, we should do so. If these needs are so necessary and we need them right now, then those of you who served this city for the past 2 to 8 years Should have planned and budgeted these things sooner. For example, I would like to know why the city spent $7.3 million on land for a civic center, aka new city hall, just last year. Without evaluating the need for public safety, wastewater plant raises for its employees, or even additional employees to maintain what the city already has. Why are we buying more land if we cannot maintain what we already have?

Speaker L: Sorry, I lost my spot.

Speaker K: There has to be a point where we look at the budget and see what can be reduced and make sure that these things are planned and prioritized at the appropriate time. And frankly, true leadership requires integrity, requires the integrity to take accountability for those who, who you bear responsibility for. excuses and walks around the truth, moving money around, coming up with new funds, shifting stuff here, there. That doesn't— that displays an inability to drive results. And that's something I don't think this city can afford. Ultimately, if you guys think about it, I just want you to think about one thing. Um, and I'm just going to go to the end here, but I would like you to consider the fact that Your choices— you guys are all on a governing body in the United States of America, right? And so your choices have a direct impact on businesses. Businesses offset their costs onto consumers. So you are directly affecting the bigger problem in the United States of America, which is inflation. Let's not do that. Thanks.

Speaker G: Your time is up. Thank you.

Speaker K: Jen Hackett. My name is Jen Hackett. Um, I understand our city has grown tremendously and we haven't raised property taxes in a long time, and that some of the decisions that have brought us here were made by past leadership. But I'm asking you tonight to really consider how much we actually need this right now and to be completely transparent with residents about what we're paying for. This letter that we received says we hear you and that every dollar of this increase will go directly toward public safety. Technically, that's true. When I read it, the first 2 paragraphs already, I was upset with it. It's misleading at best and manipulative at its worst. The average resident reading this letter is going to believe this tax increase is needed to pay for new public safety expenses. But that's not the whole story. We need 1. $1.5 million for additional deputies. The rest of the sheriff's contract is already paid for, and moving that existing expense to property taxes is going to free up millions of dollars for other things. Just tell us that. Tell us where that money is going. For example, if it was going to hire groundskeepers to maintain raw spaces behind our communities, to clear tumbleweeds and dead grass, and to protect our homes from fire, then say that and tell us what that costs. Fund what you say you're going to fund and be accountable for doing it.

Speaker L: Thank you.

Speaker K: We've heard capital projects. That's not specific enough. Which projects are they? What do they cost? What needs to happen now and what can wait? We keep hearing additional revenue is around the corner. So, if we're in dire financial straits and we cannot wait for that revenue, tell us we're in dire financial straits. Residents can handle tough answers. We're being told it's just a little bit more. It's only $1 or $2 a day. It's this much. We're giving a little to so many more places right now, more for groceries, utilities, insurance, and gas. This increase is enough for formula for a baby for a few months. It's a year of school lunches for a student who doesn't qualify for free lunch. It's the fee for an entire cross-country season for a high school student. It's school fees for 2 students. It's a couple weeks of groceries for a young family.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker K: It's around 5 tanks of gas to get somebody to work. Um, you can believe this tax increase is necessary without minimizing what you're asking people to give up. Tonight was a poor choice for this meeting. Tomorrow's the first day of school for most students in our community. Parents are home getting kids in bed right now and ready for school. They may want to be here, and you should want them to be here. Mayor Gray, I know that you attended the last meeting by Zoom.

Speaker I: Excuse me.

Speaker K: Residents made the effort to show up, sit in that room. They deserve to have you here. to look them in the eyes and hear what they had to say. Um, I'm not asking for you to never raise our taxes, but I am asking before you vote to consider what we need and moving forward to be honest and straightforward with your communication and tell us what we're getting for our money. Thank you. Steve Peretta.

Speaker D: Good evening. My name is Steve Perretta. Uh, thank you for allowing me to talk.

Speaker A: Uh, I want to echo what the last lady said.

Speaker D: I'm glad to see you could all find the time to be here today.

Speaker A: Uh, there is sarcasm attached to that.

Speaker D: I would expect that under— uh, unless we're talking serious, serious emergencies, I would expect that all 6 of you would be here to address our concerns. Transparency comes before taxes, not the other way around. You tell us you're not communicating effectively and need to do better, but you voted unanimously for 183%, and only after the people spoke up did you start talk— start talking compromise. That's backwards. That's not the way it's supposed to work. I emailed all of you on the 7th, one day after the last meeting. 3 of you responded, 50%. Council members Huish, Whiting, and Clark, in that order. Councilmember Clark's response didn't come till today, 2 weeks after I emailed, or almost 2 weeks after I emailed you. My wife and I had a long discussion with Councilman— Councilmember Huish, and I appreciate that.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker D: Uh, but I still haven't seen the transparency we're asking for. Why are we trying to fund an entire public safety need solely out of property tax. That's not the way it's been done in the past. Why are we trying to do that in the future? Mayor Gray, you told my wife and I directly before you were the mayor that there would be data center growth that would equal $50 a month for each household in Eagle Mountain. It was, it was not on the record. Uh, it was after a meeting after my wife and I had both voiced our displeasure. Simple math says $50 a month equals $600 a year. Thank you. But now you're asking for a $300 a year increase. That's a $900 swing from a decrease of $600 a month to an increase of $900 a month. This is not difficult math. Wrong direction from what we were told to expect. You said tonight you support QTS, but you're still asking us for a tax increase before, before giving us the transparency that we've asked for. You want our support? Support what we're asking for and we'll support you.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker D: I submitted a GRAMA request after the last meeting to understand how the 183% figure was actually calculated. The city denied my fee waiver and is now requiring a $100 deposit before they even begin processing a request for records that should already be public. So, from where I sit, the city is asking— excuse me, the city is making transparency cost money.

Speaker L: Thank you.

Speaker D: I expect each of you to decide how you're voting tonight.

Speaker A: Uh, after hearing tonight's comments, uh, you each—

Speaker D: I'll be quick here. This council represents 0.0078% of our population. That means each of you represents about 12,782 residents each. So, to your point, Councilmember Gray, uh, yes, it's a heavy burden, and I expect you to vote accordingly.

Speaker I: Thank you.

Speaker D: according to what your constituents would want you to do.

Speaker G: Your time is up. Thank you.

Speaker K: Alex Washburn. Can come back if he's— Natalie Deschamons. Hi there. I'm Natalie Deschamont. I am one of the people who originally co-sponsored the referendum. It has been a long week of civic duty, and so I got a little bit of taste of what you guys do, and I have no interest in doing it. I've learned that this week. While I don't regret what we submitted, I'm very proud of being part of a referendum and standing up for the people of the community. I want to make note that multiple members of the council and Mayor Gray himself took the time to sit with us and talk with us and respond to the things that my husband and I had to say and questions that we had. Um, I understand the need for a tax increase. I think that the one that was originally passed obviously was too high. I think we all recognize that. Um, I don't know what the right number is. I don't do numbers. I'm a— I'm a teacher, so I'm not a— I'm not a number person, right? I'm a people person in that sense. But I don't know the right number, but I recognize the need for an increase. And I appreciate that while it may have been because your backs were against the wall from public outcry, that you guys did take the time to sit and reflect and reach out to us, at least us personally. And that really is my public comment. So, Mayor Gray, I appreciate the time we took last week. Councilmember Hewish, I appreciate you responding to my husband and having a thoughtful conversation with him. And I hope that whatever the resolution comes to be today, I hope that we all can agree that conversations have been had and people have been heard on both sides. So that is my comment. Thank you, guys. Laura Albright.

Speaker G: This is new for me.

Speaker B: I'm just going to read the last sentence of what I have written down. Mayor Gray and City Council, my—

Speaker G: and obviously my name is Laura Albrecht.

Speaker B: Um, I'm just asking, and this was after my, my whole page, um, isn't there just one more way to work this out rather than causing much distress to the citizens of this great city. And I want to thank you for what I have heard, for, for what all of it I can understand. I can't understand all of it, but, um, I can tell that you've put your heads together and, and there's been, uh, a good groupthink. And, and I hope that we can move forward and not have to worry about This— I'm sure that next time it comes up, and like this last little lady said, I realize we've got to have taxes to live.

Speaker D: That's just all there is to it.

Speaker B: But in the meantime, I hope we can do it differently than we did this last time. Thank you.

Speaker K: Melissa Bradley.

Speaker D: Tonight's not a good night to be here because of school starting tomorrow, um, and I was in Provo all week— or all day today helping my 25-year-old daughter pack so she could move back home with us on Saturday. I know each of you have rejected the idea that, um, your tax increase will affect rent for our children, but I want you all to know and warn you that it will Raise rent, and landlords will pass that tax increase on to our children.

Speaker L: I'm here tonight because I believe we need honesty about the property tax increase and to stop blaming the past decisions, um, that are being made today.

Speaker D: We keep hearing that Eagle Mountain has to raise property taxes by 183% because previous councils made mistakes, that they were cheap. They weren't cheap. They were intelligent. That is simply not the whole story. Past mayors and councils built this city. They faced enormous challenges, lawsuits, rapid growth, and limited resources. They chose to live within the revenue that they had rather than continually asking taxpayers for more.

Speaker L: It's easy to spend more money.

Speaker B: When you have more money.

Speaker D: What is hard is being fiscally responsible. What is hard is saying we can't do everything right now.

Speaker G: Let's prioritize.

Speaker D: Let's grow carefully. Let's make sure every dollar is spent wisely before we take another dollar from our residents. That's leadership. And I want to address the Gettysburg analogy. Councilman Whiting, Taxpayers are not the enemy. We are not the Confederates at Round Top.

Speaker K: We are your constituents. We elected you.

Speaker L: We pay the taxes. We pay our taxes. We have the right to tell you where we believe our money should and should not be spent. We're not declaring war on you.

Speaker K: We are simply saying no to a tax increase.

Speaker L: If anything, this is the Boston Tea Party, and we have enough. We've had enough.

Speaker B: And please look at the, at the people this affects.

Speaker D: Our seniors came before you all, and they told you they are retired on fixed incomes. They do not get to vote themselves a raise when property taxes go up. They are the people we should be protecting and valuing and not dismissing. None of you addressed them last 2 weeks ago.

Speaker C: None of you.

Speaker L: Instead, you voted For a tax increase.

Speaker D: Mayor, please stop using Facebook to attack or misrepresent people that you disagree with.

Speaker B: You're the mayor of Eagle Mountain.

Speaker L: Please take accountability for your actions.

Speaker D: Please, please stop the attacking on Facebook. It's embarrassing. And to the entire council, set your egos aside. The plan you came up with in St.

Speaker G: George is not automatically right because you came up with it.

Speaker D: Spending more does not automatically.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker D: Make Eagle Mountain better. The hard thing is saying no. The hard thing is making difficult choices, and the hard thing is admitting—

Speaker G: Your time is up. Thank you.

Speaker K: Joel Buss.

Speaker H: My name is Joel Buss. Believe it or not, I've never done this before, despite who my better half is. Um, but I'd just like to make a quick comment about why we're here tonight.

Speaker D: We're here because of a breakdown in communication, and when communication breaks down, you lose trust. It's pretty simple.

Speaker C: The pressure this council is feeling tonight didn't appear overnight.

Speaker H: It built because residents, residents asked questions and too often walked away without Clear and consistent answers.

Speaker C: I have no doubt this council believes and knows what Eagle Mountain needs.

Speaker H: You also have the entire picture. We don't. But you as a council can't give residents incompetent or conflicting explanations and then criticize us for not understanding what hasn't been clearly explained.

Speaker J: Thank you.

Speaker H: You are our leaders, and you cannot come across as haphazard.

Speaker D: If we have 100 problems and they're all priority number 1, we need a plan.

Speaker H: You need a plan, and you need to get on the same page. We can't afford to just firehose attack these problems and expect a great result. We need a strategy.

Speaker C: We need to approach them maniacally, deliberately, and with absolute clarity. Tell us what's next, why it's next, what it costs, and where we're going after that.

Speaker H: You want us to be involved? Give us opportunities well before the due date. That's why we're here tonight. Councilmember Wood, I'd like to address you and the comments you made about my wife. You called her involvement disappointing and suggested it was a publicity stunt. I know why she got involved.

Speaker C: For 2 weeks straight, I've watched her take calls, texts, people show up to my house crying, all from residents concerned about a municipal decision she has zero authority over.

Speaker H: Because people are looking for someone who would listen, Rich.

Speaker F: So she listened.

Speaker H: We're all adults. Trust us with the information. Accountability means listening before public outrage forces it. It shouldn't take 2 weeks of frustration for residents to finally feel heard. Each of you, I know for a fact, could probably list 5 residents That are, whether they're a pain in the what, or they're calling you left and right, you could include them.

Speaker C: You could make them subject matter experts that could help you, that could be a voice of the people.

Speaker H: We all want a safer, stronger Eagle Mountain.

Speaker C: The people have a voice, and we expect our council to trust us enough to show us the plan, explain the why, and let us be a part of how we get there. Thank you.

Speaker K: Adam Bradley.

Speaker H: So I just want to be clear, you repealed the tax hike? Yes, that first vote was repealing the tax hike. I'm not that smart and I didn't get it, so I don't know if they got it. But the second vote is going to come up with a new number, and because it's going to be less than the $183 million, you don't have to go through the tax— through the taxation process, am I right? No, this is part of that.

Speaker F: Okay, cool.

Speaker H: I'm just trying to understand the process because that's important, and you guys live it. We don't. It's not always easy to understand, even though some of us might have experience in it. It's still out of our purview. So maybe some clarification on some of that stuff. So having said that, um, I think, I think this whole process kind of Embarrasses me. It kind of brings me back to, like, remember 15, 18 years ago when a lot of us moved here? Eagle Mountain was kind of a butt of a lot of jokes, right? Our government was run by just sort of like a good old boy club, and they didn't really care, and they did weird stuff, and it led to some tragedies, actually, right? You remember that? And I felt that, that we've kind of become that butt of those jokes again. in the last couple of weeks. You see 183 reduced from 220 all over the news, all over the place. People don't have context, but that's the problem. And so I'm also embarrassed that, you know, maybe we don't always act great online. It's really easy to be a keyboard warrior, right? And so, you know, Melissa, some, you know, those are embarrassing comments to hear people saying about you. That's not, that's not who we are as a community. That's not who we are. So I'm embarrassed by that as well. Um, and, and I'm not going to excuse it, but this whole process has been bad. I'm glad you repealed it. I support that, that you just repealed that. But now our next one, what are you going to do?

Speaker E: I have no idea what you're going to do.

Speaker H: And so I support you voting no on the next one.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker H: On 13B as well, and just start over. Start over. You all admitted regret, which is maybe the first time I've heard that from a lot of you. You all admitted regret in your communication, in your transparency. Um, I didn't hear anybody say you regret raising taxes, because I stand for 0% taxes. I stand for— Meaning reducing the taxation on our, on our residents 100%. So you might say that's not practical. I say figure it out. So taxation is theft. And if you don't believe that, then you're the wrong person to represent me. And that's not just a trope. Okay. And so the principles I see are not, are not there that I agree with. The principles of you spend less, you make less, you do what you do with less. And sewer, great. Fund the sewer. We got to fund the sewer. So.

Speaker E: Thank you.

Speaker K: Gary Fuchs.

Speaker H: How's it going? My name is Gary Fuchs. I lived in Eagle Mountain since 2003, and yes, I'm wearing an aloha shirt tonight and shorts to talk about taxes, because I figured if my argument is only persuasive when I'm dressed up, it probably isn't a very good argument. So I'm going to be comfortable and let the numbers speak for themselves. First, thanks for making the hard decisions, and I'm sorry for the abuse and threats you and your families have endured. It's unacceptable, and we need to be better. And shame on those fanning the flames while crying victim. Over the last week, I've spent probably more time than I should have with Google and AI digging into this tax increase, the budget, the sheriff's contract. police staffing in other cities, other Utah cities, truth in taxation, and even the data center agreements. And after all of that, I support a meaningful property tax increase. That doesn't mean that I think the city communicated this perfectly. I think 183% became the story while 100% for public safety was too simple to explain that was actually happening. The issue isn't just 7 additional deputies. We have around 77,000 residents and one of the lowest law enforcement staffing ratios among comparable Utah cities. From my research in the last 7 years, calls have risen 223% and deputies only about 119%. We also have a sheriff's contract that property tax currently does not fully fund. Other city revenues are making up that difference. Moving more of public safety onto property taxes does 2 things. It allows us to add needed deputies, and it frees existing recurring revenue to address staffing and other needs in the city that has grown enormously. My ask is to share that list with the citizens. That's one thing conversations that I've had online is missing is what's that list? Do you want us to, to give our input on what's important? What's out there, right? And I understand that this increase will hurt some families, and that matters, and I don't dismiss it. One thought I had while sitting over there is exploring the possibility of adopting something Texas did, which is giving breaks to senior citizens over the age of 65, veterans, and those on disability. But I also don't think continuing to postpone the problem is responsible. We haven't gone through truth in taxation in 15 years, and eventually we have to fund the city we've become, not the city we were 15 years ago. Whatever rate you settle on tonight, I ask you to make— make it actually addresses the problem instead of simply choosing the number that creates the least backlash. And will be the most politically advantageous.

Speaker D: Also, as a side note, I'd rather have more data centers than houses. Thank you.

Speaker K: Garrett Houghter. I'm not sure if I said your last name right. Okay, thank you.

Speaker C: Hi, I'm Garrett Houghter. Um, so I have several points that I just want to touch on really quick.

Speaker D: Um, first, I agree with the minor increase.

Speaker C: Um, I feel like The 220 and the 183 were just shocking, and that's literally what it was. The first time I ever saw it, I was just shocked, and then I had to come down from that, and it took a long time. Um, and with that, I just would like to condemn the comments that you all received. Um, I can only speak for myself, but I, um, every chance I get, I condemn those comments, and, uh, I'm sorry for, for that.

Speaker D: Um, Thank you. Okay, next thing I'd like to point out, um, that class that was talked about earlier, I went to the first one and it was amazing. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot about how the city works. Um, when they were talking about the sewer, the wastewater plant, um, I spent several hours touring and I learned a lot about that.

Speaker C: And I think that gave me a perspective through this whole situation that a lot of other residents and citizens didn't have. I definitely encourage everyone to go to that because it gives a background that helps you, helps help me understand the projects you're talking about trying to fund. So, for everyone that's here, I recommend that 4th class that's coming up. I, um, one thing that I, you can comment to or not, but as you're talking about that new code, the 75 to 95, um, I didn't hear Anybody say that, that if it drops below that 75, that that next year it must be increased to match that, that it must be increased or should be increased, but it didn't have to go all the way up to 75 yet. And so that's something to think about.

Speaker D: If, if you vote something much lower than that next year or the next, you have a few years to get back up to that.

Speaker C: I didn't—

Speaker D: it didn't sound like the code mandated huge increases the next few years.

Speaker C: Something to think about. And then, um, oh, and then you said something. I was here this afternoon.

Speaker D: You said something that I think is— was important for me to understand the importance of this.

Speaker C: And I don't remember which one of you said it, but it was, um, that a lot of the sheriff's contract is being paid for by sales tax, which is variable.

Speaker D: It fluctuates up and down.

Speaker C: And if it goes too low, then we have to find other ways to pay for that sheriff's contract.

Speaker D: Um, and the advantage to paying for—

Speaker K: 8 seconds remaining.

Speaker C: Paying for public, public safety through property taxes is that it's not variable, it's fixed. Um, and so that contract, those public safety contracts will always be covered.

Speaker D: And I really— that was a huge perspective changer for me in this process, um, to explain why that is necessary and why property taxes need to go to public safety. So I, I'm for an increase. I personally, I, I, if I—

Speaker L: Your time is up.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker K: Patrick Buchanan.

Speaker I: It's kind of hard to stand up here tonight for some personal reasons, um, but I felt the need to be here.

Speaker C: First off, I think there's some accountability here that needs to be addressed, and I don't think this is totally resting on the back of those we elected. Personally, I think this also lands on all of us. Our driving, Which requires a lot of complaints amongst each other. Not cleaning around our houses, making sure that brush and stuff like that, that we can control.

Speaker H: We're making a record of this. Can you speak into the mic?

Speaker C: Brush, stuff like that, that we can control is something that we can manage. I think that I, I don't want to call out the children across the city, but I think there could be better parental type stuff going on throughout the city that reduces the demand on calls that parents could handle when it comes to law enforcement. I think that at the end of the day, when you're the one who has to call 911 and a deputy shows up, And you're thankful that they're there.

Speaker I: It's meaningful.

Speaker C: When you're the one who, whose home burnt down in Willow Springs, not mine, and you saw those deputies knock on every door to get everyone out, I think there's something to be said for their sacrifice. I think that when it comes to the fires that happen around this city, Whether it be the Turtle Hill fire a couple of years ago, the Lake Mountain fire. You know, there's a lot of stuff that goes into this, but there's a lot of stuff that, that we can control as citizens to kind of help reduce the demand that the city is asking for. And I think that if we're going to be a community of self-governance and elect officials to represent us, I think that they're owed the proper respect. But I also think that when the things that we need to pay for are covered, it reduces things like insurance rates and the demand that your insurance company is placing upon you and increasing your mortgage. Now, mind you, a wrap tax is great, but that's, that's tied to your sales tax.

Speaker K: 30 seconds remaining.

Speaker I: If you are filling out a 1040, I think it's also important to remember that at the end of the year, that information is also being taken into consideration in your overall tax rate that you're paying when it comes to the federal government.

Speaker C: And so, try to take it easy on everyone. Try to just see the other side of this and try to think that—

Speaker D: what—

Speaker C: ask yourself, what can I do as a citizen to make this easier?

Speaker I: Thank you.

Speaker L: Your time is up.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker K: Tony Castillo.

Speaker C: So, Tony Castillo, um, there's a lot of things I love and a lot of things I hate about Eagle Mountain. We've all been friends and we've all known each other. We've all lost friends. The biggest thing is this whole taxing. It needs to happen. My wife and I are at each other's throats over it because I'm for it, she's against it. I'd say come up with a reasonable number because a lot of us have mortgages and you guys tell us it's $25 a month extra.

Speaker I: Yeah.

Speaker C: Love it. Love that number. But what's not being disclosed is that our mortgage company will pay that shortage. If I only have $5,000 in my escrow account and my mortgage company has to pay $300 more for that tax increase, my mortgage company is going to increase my monthly payment by double. So whatever $600 divided by 12 is, That's what they're going to charge me and every resident until the shortage has been paid in full to the mortgage company. So, as you guys look at doing this tax increase, keep, uh, bear in mind that that number that you're presenting to us is not the true number that we're going to be having to pay. Love having deputies. Um, one of the things a lot of you guys don't know is it's my first month living in Eagle Mountain back in 2020, my oldest son, who's autistic, ran away. As a dad, I'm like, what the hell? Don't know this area. My kid just ran away. And we called 911, and one of the deputies that I'd met— we'd put our kid on the list that he's a runner, all this stuff— and to see all the deputies and even the off-duty deputies come out to help look for my kid was more rewarding than anything else. So yes, everybody that is complaining about, do we, we, do we really need all this extra? Yeah, we do. We're overstretched. We want all these nice things, but we don't want to pay for it. All we got to do is come together and say, hey, let's negotiate a better, fair rate that we can all swallow. Because—

Speaker G: 30 seconds remaining.

Speaker C: That pill, red or blue, it's going to screw us one way or the other. It's just, if it's going to screw me over, I'd rather it be as less painful as possible. Um, that's all I gotta say, guys. Love you guys. Thank you for doing what you guys do. Apologize that you guys are getting, uh, the threats and all that stuff. Um, that's all I got to say.

Speaker K: Betty Peralta. Betty Peralta. Good evening, my name is Betty Peralta. Unfortunately, my comments aren't going to be as nice as some of the ones you've heard. Um, I was here last week and I was very disappointed that after sitting here from 6 till 11, all we heard was untruths. So here are my comments. You've already made a decision. The resolution to increase the taxes regardless of the overwhelming opposition by the citizens of Eagle Mountain, has gone on deaf ears. Rumor has it that this council has already decided on a new number without listening to what we have to say. You were elected for the representation of the citizens, not to make closed-door decisions and lying and misrepresenting What the expected new funds would cover. I've asked 3 times for a line item budget. I still have to see it. I've received no answers. This council is deaf to the voices of the people that you, that you represent. You were hired by the citizens, and it's expected that you do just that, represent us. And stop working for your own personal interests. And stop making frivolous plans that are not priorities. As I mentioned to you last week, I come from 38 years of public safety. I was a first responder. I know that that's critical, and I know that having police is critical. But your excuses, your sad stories. Will fall on deaf ears, just like our voices have fallen on your deaf ears. And I don't see any compassion for the people that were up here, the elderly, the retired that are on fixed incomes. You continue to live well with all of the perks that your positions provide. And none of you have to worry about high gas prices because the city provides you a car. All of us don't have that perk. I said, please don't patronize us citizens with your excuses of not doing your job effectively and that you will try better. Try downsizing your lifestyle. That's what you've told us. Expenses for many Eagle Mountain residents— 30 seconds remaining. Are— I'm sorry, that is exactly what Eagle Mountain citizens are doing on a daily basis. Eagle Mountain citizens' hard-earned money is not for your discretionary or personal use. Thank you. David Higgins, I think, is what it says. Is that right? Yeah, David Higgins. Yes, ma'am. Is that correct? Okay. Higgins. Okay. Yep.

Speaker I: Thanks.

Speaker E: Good evening.

Speaker C: I first would like to thank you guys for this opportunity for me to vent and express my feelings on this, uh, tax increase.

Speaker D: But first of all and foremost, I'm acting liaison for Eagle Mountain's 3 percenters. Do you guys know what that is? That's your seniors and your fixed incomes. That's me. And 3% makes us the minority.

Speaker C: So anyway, but thank you again, and I have to admit this, that I myself are in disagreement with the tax hike.

Speaker D: I'm more for the referendum than against it. The reason for that is, is my, my views are that it should be fairness for all. by all. And in order to obtain something like that, we need to put it on a ballot and have a vote and have that.

Speaker C: Now, ballots used to be pretty secure at one time.

Speaker D: I'm not saying they're that way anymore, but, uh, that's where I stand. And, uh, once again, I'm not in favor of the hike, and it's not because I don't think taxes aren't needed.

Speaker C: It's because I think it's the way we require And obtain those taxes that needs to be polished. Anyway, thank you.

Speaker K: Donna Burnham. First of all, I want to say how horrified I am by the things that Melissa Clark read. That should never have happened. And I want you to know that you don't deserve that. Um, I understand what it's like to be in those seats because I sat in them for 16 years, and it's a heavy load. And I know how hard all of you work, so I just want you to know you didn't deserve any of that, and I'm sorry that we weren't better that we needed to be. I believe you want the best for the city. I do take issue with a few things, and one of them, of course, is going to be the blame put on former councils. Um, I feel like it's very important that we be good stewards of the tax dollars, and I feel like I was a good steward of our tax dollars. We were lean, um, and that's what we should be. We should be lean. However, in the last few years, we became too lean. And I get that. And should we have raised taxes? Maybe. But we were also raising utility rates, as you remember, which was a huge impact on citizens. People were reeling from the cost from COVID and from all other things. So that's why we didn't— we didn't put that burden on the residents because we knew that there was a bright future ahead. And we, we took a risk that that would come sooner than later. So I get that you're in a position that's difficult, um, but yes, we have a smaller percentage of the sheriff's department than other cities do, um, but our call times have always been good until the last few years. And call times are what matters. It matters how long it takes a deputy to get to your house. That's what matters. And so yeah, we need more officers, especially Especially with the increase in calls. That's obvious. I get that. And so do we need an increase? Probably. Do we need that significant an increase? I don't think so. And I, I would respectfully ask that you look at just doing maybe a 50% increase. And I know that's a risk because I'm asking you to bet on future income. But I think you all know it's coming and that it's there. And I think that that's a risk worth taking to protect our vulnerable citizens, those in the 3%, as he was talking about. Also families with children who— young families who are just struggling to make ends meet, that don't have insurance or whatever. So that would be what I would ask. And I appreciate you at least being willing to repeal what you started with and at least listening to our concerns. Thank you. Michael Thompson.

Speaker D: Hello, I'm a 9-year resident of Eagle Mountain, and I appreciate all that you do. And, uh, I want you to know that I'm also a great supporter of, of our first responders, my own Father-in-law and brother-in-law are retired Utah police officers, and, and I, I want to see more support for them, and, and I'm willing to pay for it. That said, I could add to the hardship stories. I have plenty of my own, including a daughter that lives here and is, is scared to death that her rent's about to go up because of the tax increase. But what I really want to do is see if I can offer some help. So I have a stepson who is a construction manager for custom homes in Salem. He tells me that they enacted a $30,000 charge for new building permits. They do that to slow growth and to provide money so that infrastructure can be put in place before the growth occurs. And I think maybe we need to look at the possibility of doing that. Um, and I, I would much rather see us, uh, get some more money out of these developers like Carl Ivory, who, by the way, has raised my HOA fees 350% since I moved into my house 5 years ago. And I'd like to see the city do something to stop them from—

Speaker I: these declarant-controlled HOAs are out of control.

Speaker D: The other thing is, I ask that you quit giving a break in water rates to residents with lots that are over half an acre versus the rest of us. I know there were some good reasons for doing that in the past. I think those times have passed, and they should be paying the same rates as the rest of us and get some more money for the water that, that is used in the city. That's all I have to add. Thank you.

Speaker K: Duncan Searcy.

Speaker H: Melissa, you can take a breath. I'm here for Craig tonight, not you. But I do want to say I'm sorry that you have received death threats, um, and publicly condemn that. And I'm serious. I've been on the receiving end of, of that before in my life, and it is not a fun feeling, and it's not appropriate. So I, I'm, I'm sorry that some of the content that I've generated has caused you to feel that uncomfortable stuff. I unfortunately cannot, you know, regulate how people react to the things that I say, but I am sorry that you experienced that. And I hope you know that, um, you are still my sister in Christ and you deserve to be safe and happy, even though we very seldom agree on things. I, I—

Speaker D: that's not appropriate. So, um, I'll give you your time. I'm just gonna remind you, personal attacks will not be accepted. So speak as you will. Have I made a personal attack? You said I'm here after Craig.

Speaker H: Well, I'm gonna give Craig some feedback about the truth in taxation.

Speaker D: I'm okay with feedback. I don't want an attack, if that's okay.

Speaker H: Okay. Uh, so where are we at on time then? Where were we at when, when I got interrupted?

Speaker K: We paused it. You have 2 minutes.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker H: All right, I'll keep going. Um, and then I just want to say thank you to my fellow citizens. I didn't think I would get to speak tonight because I had other engagements. And so I want to thank you for doing that.

Speaker D: I know it's not easy to stand up here and speak your mind, but it is very important.

Speaker H: And then I also owe an apology to, to the mayor, Jared Gray. Um, he caught some heat from my social media today because I'm being investigated by the Utah County Sheriff's Office, uh, because somebody here on the dais— it's not Jared Gray— uh, said that I'm making threats.

Speaker D: Thank you.

Speaker H: And so, uh, I, I, I thought that was you, but after we got into the discussion, we discovered that it's actually somebody else, not you. So I apologize, and I'm more than happy to put out another video. I hope you'll do that with me, and we can, we can set the record straight that that wasn't you that's, uh, using law enforcement as a pressure to try and silence me. Um, so now we'll get to Craig's feedback, not attacks. Okay, so for the Truth in Taxation meeting, I was there. You started off with saying that we needed speed tables and the discussion went to child safety. Okay, for me, that's gaslighting. We're not— that's not what we're there to talk about. Then you shifted our discussion to Fauci and you stopped trying to appeal to people's love of children. And then we're going to try and deflect the anger to Fauci.

Speaker D: That's not why. Trust me, dude.

Speaker H: I lost a pretty sweet career in part because of the policies that that man put out. I hate the guy. Okay.

Speaker K: 30 seconds.

Speaker H: But the fact that you're going to try and deflect anger to Fauci instead of staying on, on task is totally inappropriate.

Speaker D: And then the last one is the biggest one. I'm a war veteran.

Speaker H: Never ever would I use people's ultimate sacrifice as an example of you're going to be our general and we need to fix bayonets and go into battle.

Speaker D: Especially over taxes.

Speaker H: A lot of our brave men and women have died because of taxes. So please do not ever do that again.

Speaker D: Thank you.

Speaker G: Your time is up.

Speaker K: Thank you. Kristen Meyer.

Speaker L: Hi, good evening. I'm Kristen Meyer.

Speaker K: On August 6th, I gave a comment to urge the city to lower the proposed tax rate to cover only the $1.5 million contract for the sheriff's office, because I support public safety. Um, and I was really hopeful because you did lower the tax amount to 183%, and that's progress.

Speaker L: Um, still not quite there, but I was hopeful when I heard that a group of residents met and the city negotiated a new rate again.

Speaker K: Um, I downloaded the agenda packet and I pulled the resolution, and there were blank spaces for the new tax rate and the percentage amount and the dollar amount.

Speaker L: So it was hard to prepare for a public comment because I couldn't see it beforehand before this meeting.

Speaker K: So that would have been more helpful.

Speaker L: Um, and then I just wanted to say, I understand, like, the city has needs beyond the sheriff's contract.

Speaker K: Um, costs are up for everybody, but incomes aren't rising to keep up with that. Um, layoffs are extensive, as you know, and then people who do keep their jobs are told that, um, they can't get a raise and that you should just be grateful to have a job. So with our income not rising, it's hard to keep up with, like, the costs. Um, and I also want to just be mindful about the Tyson's plant being closed and leaving families without a job.

Speaker L: So, um, I would support it if the tax rate just covers the cost of the sheriff's, uh, county contract.

Speaker B: Thanks.

Speaker K: Jeff Ruth.

Speaker D: Hey guys, um, I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but let me start by saying the roll-on of this sucked. Um, could have done much better. Uh, I've known you all pretty much except for Zach over here. Uh, I remember Jared and me when he was first running for office, talking on my front porch. You got to put your trust in something. Got to put my trust in you guys because you guys are the ones that are looking at the numbers. And then I see these people, like one guy at the last meeting, that Pony Express isn't safe for his motorcycle when he's riding. Well, Yeah, I was thinking about it today coming down, and yeah, that road is rough. And I've seen other people saying, well, why didn't they just, you know, repave it? Well, because that costs a lot of money. Um, but they don't want to pay for that part, but they complain when it gets, you know, to make the road itself last longer, that gets crack sealed. Um, it's just some of the things people come up with that we need this, we need this, we need this. But then when you guys try to figure out how to do all that, they don't want to pay for it. And I've been on the end, like I said at the last meeting, waiting for a sheriff's deputy to show up. Um, I've had a neighbor threatening me and my wife, and we had to wait a little bit for a deputy to get there. And you know what he told me? Hey, you better be carrying. Because they knew those people. Um, and minor things I've called in and I get a phone call, hey, we can't come out today, we only got 2 officers working this morning. Okay, I understand, but I believe you'll do the right thing. I believe you are concerned about the citizens. You guys know I'm on disability. My pay isn't going to go up. It's going to be a little bit more rough. So do what's right.

Speaker I: Think it over hard.

Speaker D: And I'll support you guys.

Speaker H: It, it's hard out there.

Speaker C: It ain't going to get any easier.

Speaker D: But we need things done in this city, like Pony Express fixed.

Speaker I: Try drinking coffee on that road without getting it up your nose.

Speaker K: Seconds remaining.

Speaker D: So I wish you guys would tell the people that, like, for the new city hall that's being planned, hey, we need to get our employees under one roof instead of having them scattered all over and paying rent for these buildings. So again, thank you. Do what's right.

Speaker C: Think of us. Have a good night.

Speaker K: Tracy Peretta. I'm gonna bring buckets of feathers.

Speaker D: Speak to the mic. Sorry.

Speaker K: I was gonna bring in a bucket of tar and some feathers. Thought it'd be funny.

Speaker D: I'm glad you didn't.

Speaker K: Yeah, you might think it's a threat. It wasn't a threat. It was just to be funny. So one thing that I have an issue with is he's complaining about, uh, Pioneer— or excuse me, Pony Express. Wasn't it paved last year? Yes, I rode my bike on it last year.

Speaker B: It was a crack seal treatment. It was a preventative maintenance treatment. I'll talk to you about it after, but it was different than—

Speaker K: Have somebody come back and fix it if it's not adequate. Don't pay for service if it's not what it's supposed to be. If everybody's complaining about it, it needs to be done right the first time. Ask somebody to come back and fix the problem if it's inadequate. The other thing is, you guys have all been on the board for a long time. Donna was on the board. All I ever heard at every meeting I came to, I objected to it. Let's just build, build, build. You guys were like drunken sailors. Seriously, it was bad. I said, don't spend your water rights. Why are we giving water to everybody? And that's all that you guys did. And it was ridiculous. So you built, you brought all these people out here. Everybody came out here because it was cheap. This is the only place they could afford. Now they're out here and you're going, oh, now you're going to have to pay all these taxes. Too bad we grew too fast. Well, you guys didn't put in the infrastructure for businesses to be able to have a tax base that we can rely on. All our tax money goes down to Saratoga Springs. They go down to the Walmart, they go down to the Costco. I mean, it's called retail leakage. All our money goes there instead of bringing it into our community and spending it. I've been here for 10 years. We're just now getting businesses here on the street. It's ridiculous. You guys have put the cart way before the horse, and you needed to stop and think about that. So, the other issue that I had— I'm sorry, I gotta look at my notes. So everybody says that we need more money for the police department. We have so many military here. We have not a huge retirement community, but we have some elderly people here. Why don't we have a citizen volunteer that can go do the stupid calls that, you know, kids riding down the street without a helmet on, or he's riding an e-bike. Those are things that can be taken care of by a citizen patrol. Instead of taxing our police force to go out and do the piddly stuff, because they're going to come to my neighborhood and they're going to bring 2 police officers and they're going to have all their cars there just to ask one little kid, you know, where's your helmet? Because I've seen it. We passed it last week. We— 30 seconds remaining. We went down the street. They had 3 police cars pulling one person over. I mean, how many people does it take to screw in a light bulb? Seriously. It's getting a little bit ridiculous. We really have a low crime area, and we need to take advantage of that. Ask the citizens to help volunteer to take up some of the load and not spend all our money. Thank you.

Speaker D: Melody Castillo.

Speaker K: Sorry for my appearance. I was getting my kids ready for school tomorrow and had to run down here. Um, because like a few other people have said, I have been horrified by the things that have been said to you guys, and that is absolutely not okay. And I feel like it's creating this divisiveness within our— within our, our amazing city. And this us versus them mentality— people forget you guys live in this city too. You're voting for or against or whatever taxes that you— that affect you as well. And I think people forget that sometimes.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker K: Um, so I'm so sorry that you're dealing with all of that, because whether I agree with you or not, I know that in your hearts you love this city, you love the people of this city, and you're doing the best that you can. And so I applaud you guys for that. Um, second, I apologize to every other entity In the city, I don't care what you say. We have the best deputies out here. Our law enforcement out here is amazing, and I'm coming from one who I used to be on the side of we need our own police force, and I don't think we can do any better than what we have. I see what they go through. They're stretched thin, and in what? What other industry, when you're good at your job, good at your job, do you get punished by not getting the support that you need, not getting the help that you need? So I am in favor of an increase, but I think that they're going to get the short end of the stick because so many people are upset. upset about the additional stuff. And I think that we need to make sure that we don't sacrifice the needs of our deputies out here in order to get everything else.

Speaker G: Um, so yeah, that's it.

Speaker K: Um, it looks like Wade S is here. I called him earlier, but he was not here. Is he here now?

Speaker D: Thank you for the— for giving me time. Um, I haven't been here as long as most people. I've only been here a few months.

Speaker A: I moved here a few months ago to be closer to family and help out. Um, but I wanted to start out by saying that, uh, why, uh, God created police officers is so firemen could have heroes.

Speaker D: So I'm, I'm a retired police officer, and so I support, I support, I support the, the tax for them, um, because we need that. We're growing, we're growing fast, um, and again, I, I do thank each of you for serving in the capacities that you do. I'm sure it's not easy, but I, but I do appreciate that. I think that to go back to the table and reevaluate the other taxes, because we need to get some itemized, you know, something, some kind of list showing us where this is going. I love it here already. I plan on being here for a while.

Speaker A: And yeah, just thank you.

Speaker D: Thank you for the opportunity for being here.

Speaker K: Okay, these last couple we received through the recorder's office earlier today. Just want to see if they are here. Courtney Ramirez stated, please listen to the residents who are asking you not to raise our property taxes. And since Charlotte is here, we can just go to you, Charlotte Ducos.

Speaker L: Sorry, I just didn't want to walk in front of everybody. I teach at the high school, so I have an early morning tomorrow, but I teach government, and one of the projects that I do with my students is they take a look at our city budget every semester. And I'm grateful for the partnership with the city putting that information together.

Speaker K: And one of my favorite moments is when they take a look at the spreadsheet and realize how little money they have for the list of projects that they have to do. And these are actual projects.

Speaker D: And they look at me like, how are you supposed to do this?

Speaker K: I'm like, that's a great question.

Speaker L: Um, you're, you're elected leaders. have to figure that out every single year. And, um, if high schoolers can figure it out, um, by looking at those numbers, then I think that we need to learn to do the same thing. And, uh, the interesting thing is I've been working this budget project for years now, and some of the same projects are on the list that were there when we started looking at this project.

Speaker D: And, um, Donna mentioned—

Speaker L: and Donna and I are good friends Um, and Donna mentioned that, um, they ran lean and they did it on purpose because that's how it should be, and I don't disagree with that. Um, she also said, were we maybe too lean? Um, that's where, that's where her and I disagree a little bit.

Speaker K: I think they were too lean.

Speaker D: I think, uh, government's responsibility is to meet the needs and, and hoping for income that's maybe going to come and hopefully next year Um, that's like paying with a credit card.

Speaker L: We— if we don't have that income yet, we're not— like, we, we have to do something about it.

Speaker H: And I appreciate that the council has taken the time to listen to the residents and to bring the number down.

Speaker B: Um, I think that that's appropriate, but I, I do think that we need that tax increase.

Speaker D: Um, we don't have to get all of those projects, and we are not going to. Um, the 0.9 that's being—

Speaker K: that's on the table right now Um, is, is not going to cover even a drop in the bucket of those projects that have been on the list for years and years and years. But I think we got to start somewhere. Um, and I think that officers and employees to meet the needs of the city that we already have—

Speaker L: it doesn't even buy anything new, just allows us to do the things we're already funding. Um, I think, I think that that's probably a great place to start.

Speaker B: And, and that's, that's the comment that I wanted to make tonight.

Speaker K: This is another email comment that came in. John J., you're here. He just states, I do not feel there's justification with the tax increase. It's rather lengthy, so I'll make sure it's part of the record and get you a copy as well. Jason Clint emailed. Another one believes that there's a more reasonable approach to approve a tax increase that covers additional expense associated with the sheriff's contracts. Let's see, this one is also rather lengthy, so I can make sure. He also says, I recognize the city has difficult decisions to make. I'm not asking you to ignore public safety or the city's financial needs. I'm asking you to find a reasonable middle ground. So we'll get that part of the record. Another emailed, Carissa Ferris, also not here. She is new homeowner. Another lengthy comment, also opposing the tax increase. So we'll get that part of the record. We have Olivia Lund, who did fill out a paper but does not wish to make a verbal comment. I want to make sure that that was true for Olivia Lund. And her comment is, because you can't tax some of the most wealthy companies Our, our rent is being raised and we can't afford to ever buy now because we pay the difference for corporations. It's from Olivia. Uh, Mary Compton also wrote in but does not want to make a verbal comment, I believe. And she states, your job is to serve the people, present ideas to the people, and make decisions based on what the people need, not just a few people who want cleaner parks. Um, and she says, the rest of us are struggling to make the money stretch as well. You should also make the money stretch. And the last one we have for public comment is Emily Buss. She did send in a 2-page letter. I believe it did get to the mayor, but I don't think it got to council, so we'll make sure it gets to you as well. Um, she does say she believes there's a reasonable path forward, um, and does support the council considering a tax rate between 0.0009 and 0.001. 0010547, and goes into some specifics, so I can make sure that that gets to you as well. The final comments that I do have have noted that it's for the public hearing on 13C on these last couple comments. That's all I have.

Speaker D: Okay, the ones for 13C will still have a chance to speak. That— okay, I just want to make sure I heard that right. And, and, uh, We're nearing the end, so I just want to make sure, is there anyone else? Yeah, I'm waiting.

Speaker B: So—

Speaker K: I think we have Dale. He said he put in a paper, but I don't see it, so it might still be back there.

Speaker D: But just go ahead and come up if you'd like, and you can fill the paper out after. Yeah, if that's okay. So state your name for the record, if you would. Hello, Dale Benson. Uh, thank you so much for, uh, having this discussion and, uh, being open. And thank you to the public too for coming out. I was kind of a latecomer to this conversation, but, uh, they, they did— some of my friends, they did, um, tell me I should come down. Um, I'm gonna have to side with the vast majority right now. against the tax increase. And I'll just, uh, give it a little context. I mean, I refer to the great Thomas Sowell, great economist, started out as a Marxist, thought the government should be doing all kinds of things. And then he learned, wow, this is the worst thing that's happening to my community. And he really started to understand. And, uh, I'm coming from California, so I've As I started learning more about politics and I started seeing how deceptive things were, we've seen this game so many— so often when it's taxes. Oh, it's going to be for— it's got to be for the fire department. It's got to be for the police. Oh, don't you want your kids to have education? It's always the same rodeo. And Thomas Sowell, I mean, the big picture, inflation is because government is spending. It's giving money and it's such malicious games that I saw in California. I mean, it gets to the point where they're buying votes. That's really what it's coming down to. What's the smallest common denominator that we can give people money to where they're going to vote for us and keep us in office? And now we're seeing tremendous fraud, and this borders on treasonous, what's happening. They're even bringing people that aren't Americans and Figuring out, hey, this is a great new voter class. There's all kinds of things that we're dealing with, but we're dealing with tremendous inflation. And I'm glad— I'm just going to side with everybody and say, you know what? The government gets to raise their wages and stuff. You get to open new city council buildings. You get to do all those things. Then, oh, we got a raise, but it's for the police. I mean, we've just seen this game so often, and of course, people working in the public sector. They might support it, whether you're in the schools or whether they're in the government. Hey, we need to raise— things are going up. But inflation, that every time they say we're going to give you money, now I'm realizing you're— we're going to lose so much in the future. You're going to pay for this. I mean, look what Biden was doing, giving money like crazy. And it's almost like, hey, I'm just practicing. So, Zelensky, Cloudward and Piven. Let's just destroy the whole system by overwhelming. I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there.

Speaker K: 30 seconds remaining.

Speaker D: Um, I think it's great that we have a pause on this and that you realize that we're going to talk about it. And also Facebook, I've never participated in that, but there's a lot of passive aggressiveness also that goes on. Where, oh, we're getting these threats and we're going to frame one side as being like this when actually they're the normal side. The things that were talked about 10 years ago as normal. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to ask, uh, is there anyone who would like to speak that has not spoken? I'll address that in 1 second. That has not spoke yet. Okay, if you will. So why she's coming up, Joy, this is the continuation of the original time that we said you get 1 opportunity. Now, now hold on, it's— you can't holler because it's a recorded meeting. So I'm going to continue. You have 1 opportunity. What I will tell you is there's a public hearing coming up. That was a little hint. So I'm just telling you, you get 1 opportunity and then there's a public hearing that starts over. You're absolutely welcome to speak in the public hearing is what I'm trying to tell you.

Speaker K: Um, so my name is Lizette, or is Wendy. Sorry, I wasn't prepared to speak, but, um, we have toddlers and my husband stayed a few hours with them, and I'm like, I feel like it's worth it for them here. Um, I teach them to be brave, and I'm even— I'm like really nervous. I'm like, I'll do it. Um, so the letter, the letter stated, um, so yeah, I think that's a point that it kind of makes my point. I'm like, a lot of families want to be here. We don't have a babysitter, we don't have family, so it's like we can't be here. And a lot of people are on Zoom or Facebook, of possible. Hopefully my husband said he can listen to it, but the letter stated, we hear you. I personally have never seen any of you at the public park. I have my toddlers at the park every day, so I'm like, I'd be interested to know where you guys got this information from. Yeah, we're always out and about, and I've personally never seen you guys face to face, but there has to be a better way to get accurate information on what the residents want and need. From what I understood, the mayoral race was won with like under 10K votes. And how many residents are there in Eagle Mountain? So obviously people are not actively voting, which is not your fault, but it's obviously our fault. We don't take advantage of our rights. But yeah, it's a very small number compared to all the residents that we have. We have small kids, full-time jobs. I haven't seen my kids all day, my son for like 10 minutes while he dropped me off. People living paycheck to paycheck. What you asked, what to cut out. I think I know it's probably not gonna be popular, but I mean, I prefer Personally, my kids go to bed. I'm like, we don't go to the fireworks. We could cut fireworks. I don't know how much money is invested in that each year. I'm sure they're costly, including like police officers to patrol and make sure everything's safe and kid-friendly for everyone. The event at Nolan Park— we live right next to Nolan Park, and I know there's a free annual event where the kids get to do the bouncy houses. My kids love it. I personally would be willing to get rid of that just so we can help the 3%. Um, our family can afford it. I think it's a blessing to be able to afford it, but obviously I'm just here to represent people that— like, my parents are on a fixed income. Um, everything's going up, utilities, there's bills coming left and right. Um, I work, um, in a data security company, and there's just businesses closing left and right all over the country. Um, and then also the other thing, city employees. Like I said, I'm at the park all the time. There's city employees everywhere. So I'm like, if there's no money to fix anything, why do have so many employees, which is something that somebody made in the meeting last time, and I agree with. Um, we're not against supporting public safety, and I think that's the most important— Melissa Clark asked earlier. Thank you.

Speaker D: Okay, one more time. Is there anyone else that does not feel like they've had an opportunity to speak? You're welcome to come forward. Just fill a paper out after, if you would. And, uh, turn it in. State your name for the record, please.

Speaker H: Daniel Laub.

Speaker D: Um, hate to be here.

Speaker H: Hate to try to address these things. It's no fun, obviously, and I, I sympathize with the job you guys are trying to do. Um, we have no idea, obviously, what that side of it is like.

Speaker C: Um, so I'm gonna admit that I am pretty much against the tax increases right now, just to kind of state my position in the beginning here. Um, the transparency just isn't there.

Speaker H: We're not seeing— maybe we're just late to the game, but it's, it's very hard to see and justify these increases, especially the $220 million.

Speaker C: And of course, you backed off of that, but it leaves us wondering why.

Speaker H: Why? that was proposed in the first place, why that massive amount of an increase was even proposed. Um, and the whole process for me has left a lot of distrust in what the process—

Speaker C: what we're actually even doing.

Speaker H: We have no idea what you guys are actually trying to accomplish. Um, there's a lot of vague talk about, well, roads and improvements and stop signs and, you know, a lot of stuff that's just really vague. There's no real numbers to anything of what we're going to do and why we're going to do it and why it's needed.

Speaker D: And right now, with the economy the way it is, with—

Speaker H: I mean, we're facing all kinds of difficulties. Things aren't getting better if the war doesn't stop.

Speaker C: We're facing a lot more. It could get a lot worse from here.

Speaker H: Right now is a terrible time to raise taxes. Uh, we are grateful for the sheriffs, what they do. And, and we would love to try to, to do something maybe in the future.

Speaker C: For me right now, I don't think it's— we just can't swing it.

Speaker H: It's just a bad time to be raising costs above where we already are. Young people coming in trying to buy homes, I mean, that's just completely out of reach with the prices the way they are. Add a couple hundred bucks a year to their overall cost, and it's, it's, it's enough to put people out of the the ability to do it.

Speaker D: Um, I, I feel—

Speaker C: and, and I'm— and I— how do I say this? I honestly feel there's a lot of—

Speaker H: because of lack of transparency, I feel like that we're being lied to.

Speaker D: I don't understand where you guys are coming from.

Speaker C: This— none of this process has made sense in like what the needs are.

Speaker D: Um, the sheriff thing, that kind of makes sense.

Speaker C: We kind of understand those numbers.

Speaker F: We're, we're getting that.

Speaker H: Um, I still don't want to do that right now. Um, I'd like to say the one thing that I thought last time we were here that went well was Jared made sure that everyone that wanted to speak had an opportunity to speak, and I'll congratulate him on that.

Speaker D: And that's all I have to say. Thank you. All right, I think we've covered it.

Speaker K: I do want to make note that the last 2 comments for Dale and Daniel, we do have their papers. They were in my stack for public hearing. So those finalized. Thank you.

Speaker D: Thank you. Um, if you spoke and did not fill out a paper, that helps us with our record keeping, if you would please. Um, seeing no one else for, for our public comment period, I will now close our public comment. Um, we do have a lot to talk about. If it's okay with the council, I can address some of those things that are kind of more matter of fact if you guys want to speak. Or we can get right into that discussion.

Speaker B: Just really quick, one of the things that I hated about Truth in Taxation a couple weeks ago was that the residents are like, you're not being transparent, we want answers, all of those things. And because of the way that public hearing worked, we couldn't answer their questions. So I'm left now saying, oh my gosh, I want to answer all your questions. So how do we address that, you guys? Because We have answers to all the things that they asked about, and I know that it's late, so I'm trying to figure out how you guys want us to get you the answers so you're not left going, what's going on?

Speaker D: I was, uh, I was gonna say that that's what I offered. I've only got like 4 or 5 maybe that are kind of easier, and then if there's something I missed, I'm happy to have that conversation as we go through this process. Just try to keep it brief so we can keep going.

Speaker B: Can I just say one thing? Because it came up so many times. Sure. But the 3%, you guys, there's a property tax abatement for senior citizens. If you're 67 or older, you get, um, 20% off of your value. So they discount that. So right now you only pay on 55% of your value. If you're 67 or older, you can get another 20% off of that. So that brings the total value of your home that you're paying tax on down to 35%. And then there's a dollar amount if you're under a certain income level that can get given back to you. We also have that in our state for our veterans. I'm going to ask that our team on comms help get the links out because the deadline to that is September 1st. If you guys need help filling this stuff out and nobody can help you at the county, call me and I will help you. I don't want anyone to go home tonight thinking We're trying to screw over seniors. We know that there's a property tax abatement, and clearly that's another thing that we've been really crappy at telling people about. So let's get everyone in Eagle Mountain who's over 67 on that. Thank you.

Speaker D: Okay. Couple of real quick answers just to clarify some things that are objective, I think, not subjective, uh, to some of the comments were out there. Uh, number 1, I want to state Right off the bat, that I can tell you sitting right here, I have no idea where this is going to land. So anybody leaves here and says this was predetermined, I don't even know. Uh, I can tell you that a little while ago before we started the public comment, that I did hear a 0.0009, and I also heard a 0.0014. And I suspect that the ones that didn't give a number are probably somewhere in the middle. I don't know. Uh, there has not been a predetermined outcome, and I'm curious to find out myself. Number 2, on that note, and I don't even remember who made these, some of them repeated. Somebody said that 0.0009 is on the table. I'm going to tell you, everything's on the table from 0 to 0.0017. That's the max. It's all on the table. Um, I think maybe 0.0015 might be the cap from our last, but I think it's all on the table because that's what we submitted, right? Just making sure. I don't think it's going that way, but I want to clarify that's the truth. Uh, one, one thing that I— well, and I want to clear up something there, and there was one specific comment that really said a lot of things about council's luxuries of being up here. Oh my goodness, I would love any one of those. None of us have a car, including me. I provide my own car. I do get a small stipend that doesn't even cover my fuel, let alone my car. Uh, none of these guys have a car, a gas card. None of them get any of that. Uh, their stipend doesn't cover hardly anything. Uh, there's a little bit, and it wouldn't cover their expenses, let alone their time. So I'll let you weigh in.

Speaker H: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify on the, on the car in the, in the budget. It's called a car allowance, but in the Code. It's actually a phone, internet, travel allowance. It's $200 a month per council member. So I just wanted to clarify that, and it's not something you submit for a reimbursement. It's just part of the code. So I'm open to changing that in the code. I just wanted to make sure that got answered as well.

Speaker D: As far as lifestyle, it like, It's not that great, especially right now. So, uh, it's— we're just like you guys. I get up and come and do my service, and that's it. Uh, so, so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear, that there is none of that. Uh, one thing that I wanted to clarify, uh, a lot of people keep saying, why didn't we plan for this? Why didn't we put the infrastructure ahead of time? I just want to help you understand, because I don't want you To pay now for the guy that comes in later for a free ride. Growth has to pay for growth. And if we do that now, when you say plan, what you're really saying is pay. And I don't want you to pay for the next guy, and it's all there when he gets here. So growth needs to pay for growth. And one of the ways we do that is through a bond. This sewer plant, we need 2 million dollars— 2 million gallons today. It's about to overflow. But I don't think you all should pay that bond payment for the guys that are coming in the future. So we bond for it in order for the next guy that comes in and pays that impact fee to go towards that payment. And then the next year and the next year, that's why we bond. So, uh, not that I'm advocating to vote for bonds, but I'm telling you, it's so that the next guy pays and you don't. Uh, just a little secret there. The other thing about no increase, all the people that said keep it flat or don't increase really, really have to understand how taxes work. There has been no movement on our taxes, correct? That's what we could all agree. There's been no movement for at least 16 years. That's incorrect. And the people that say, well, we're dealing with inflation, so are we. We're buying this stuff at the store too. The employees that are pushing lawnmowers— a lawnmower costs more today than it did 16 years ago. The problem is our tax rate's actually going backwards. Not only is it not flat, not only is it not growing, it's going backwards. So, 16 years ago, or 10 years ago, the rate— and I'm going off memory, so I'm going to forget— was it like 0.0013? Nothing has changed. And that rate went down to 0.012, down to 0.101, to 0.09, to where it is today, to 0.05. It's not that we kept it flat. We allowed it to go backwards. And so to say tighten your belt or find other money, how? It's continually leaking backwards, yet we're trying to go forward with more services. So that's more of an educational piece. Not that I'm advocating for one or the other. I don't know where this is going to land. I just— that is a fact that I'm telling you that that's the way they go. Look at— you've got your tax bill right there. If you look year over year at the previous one, that rate has continued to go down. Is that not true?

Speaker H: That is true. I paid the same property tax for the last 12 years that I lived in my house.

Speaker D: So, and, and the rate went down in order to keep that, so the inflation went past the rate and you continue to go backwards.

Speaker H: That's right. It's, it's about $220, I think.

Speaker D: So, so I want to make sure that people understand that it's not a matter of trying to raise taxes. We're trying to stay even, to even continue to provide services. I am happy to sit down and help you walk through that, to explain that. It's not because I advocate for a raise. It's none of that. I want you to understand why we're in this situation and how can we correct it and move forward. I also, uh, some of the rest of stuff that I've commented on Facebook, but I'm telling you, there are better days ahead. We have to bridge the gap until those collections come in. We can't go backwards and provide the same service with a growing population, with added lane miles, added parks, added deputies. There's no physical way that we can do it. So, uh, I think that's the bulk of, I think, what I felt were the questions that I hope that answered some of those. If not, I'm happy to talk to anyone, and I'm happy to turn it to you guys if you want to add to those.

Speaker H: If I could, just to Gary's question on mandating future councils, that's something that we're not legally allowed to do. For example, there's a couple of council members here when they served in their time, they couldn't require or obligate or bind future councils to do certain things. And so the code that we're putting in place simply calls the councils to account where they publicly will say, we're not going to maintain that coverage ratio and why. And I think as a, as a citizen, that would have been nice to have from my perspective. So that's what we're trying to do is create some kind of environment or, or more than a culture, something that is in our code that will force councils to eliminate that code to not be held accountable. So I hope that helps answer that question. Thank you. That was a great question, by the way.

Speaker C: I want to address the question of why did we buy land for City Hall? Uh, because the cost of land is increasing substantially year over year. Unfortunately, it's something we probably should have done 5 or 6 years ago because it would have been half what it is now. And so to be able to do that in the future, again, we have a limited amount of money that, that we have to be able to work with. We felt like that, that was a good investment in the future, because then that land can be developed when the money is there to build City Hall. So I, I know that it seems like that there's a lot of deception. And man, I wish, Mr. Lab, there was a way for me to undo how you're feeling about all this. I also understand where you're at too. Um, it's not an intentional thing. I said in the very beginning, and I, I think I've said this multiple times from this dais, we have to be better at communicating in multiple ways. I think we've relied heavily on social media, and I think that has been a big mistake. Um, to the point with the 3 percenters, most of them are not even on there. So how are they even getting that information? And I think that we are relying on an algorithm that's constantly pushing us towards content they want us to see rather than what we want to see. And we have to find some better ways to communicate. I'm going to tell you, that is one of the commitments that I have, though, is not to get stuck on this topic for too long. But I think the code needs to start with what we're doing with our property tax. And maybe one of— that's maybe one of the things I want to clarify. For some reason, that message is not hitting. So I just want to say this on the record so you hear me say it. The intent of the very first 0.0017 was to cover the entire contract with stable income. The only stable income that we have as a city is property tax. That's it. And that covers the one thing that everybody uses. There isn't a single person in this city that does not use public safety to some degree. In order for us to fund the entire contract, we're not talking about the increase. We're talking about the entire contract. It's almost $10 million. What we were looking at is making that stable income from property tax to pay for that. What that does is then free up the other sales tax revenue that we've been supplementing that with so that we can start to do some of the things that you guys are talking about, not just It can't all be build a road. Some of it has to be, we can't crack seal this. It's time to tear the road up and fix the underlayment that's washed away over years and to put proper asphalt on it. We need to be able to make some of those decisions, but you can't do that when everything is always, you know, so low as far as what our income is. And so that was what— that's the reason. The reason that we did that in the first instance was for that reason. If we fund all of our public safety with our stable property tax that allows our variable income from sales tax to be used for projects as we set them priority-wise. And to your point again, Mr. Laub, I don't think we did a good job of saying, here's the list of projects, there's 400 of them. And we have to prioritize based on what we actually have. That's a year-over-year decision. We'll have to look at that and say, look, we only have $6 million. We can't build this, this, and this, but we can hit maybe these 3 things in here, or maybe we can leverage that money in a way that will allow us to do maybe one of the bigger projects. Our other problem is, is that we also have to have somebody to do the project. And if you don't have manpower to do it, how do you get the project done? I think it was Charlotte that said we have projects that have been there year over year. The reason why? Nobody to do them. So we're trying to fix some of those problems. Again, I want to be just upfront with what the problems are that we're facing. You need to know what they are so that we can make better decisions. And I hope you guys come back with better ideas. Whoever the gentleman was that said maybe we need to raise the fees, we have tried everything we can to stave off the state. I'm going to tell you that right now, to keep them from dumping every single house that they want to be built in the state in Eagle Mountain. And one other thing I want to make with regards to the data centers— those data centers prevented them from putting houses there. That was their intent from the state. They wanted to fill every single square mile. of Eagle Mountain with houses. That enabled us— not only do we get a benefit, by the way, from that, but it stopped them from being able to be houses that we can't— we cannot service them. I mean, that's the truth. We're stretched. We have— we had 2 cities that were built at the same time with nothing in between, and we were trying to connect everything with services, with sewer plants, with trunk lines, with all of those things with no money. And I just— that's the truth. That's the truth I want you to be aware of that we're trying to solve now, you know, 10, 15 years later. So I appreciate the comments. Hopefully that gives a little bit of context to some of those things. Anybody wants to have a conversation, my telephone number is always there. You can call me. I may not be able to answer that. My job has become a little more involved during the day, but I will definitely call you back. Anybody who's called me knows that that's the case. So. Reach out to me.

Speaker E: So I wanted to address— you had a question about the 183%. And so, and I'm happy to stay after and talk if you're able to stay, and we can talk through that. But I'll explain briefly. I'm the one that came up with that number. That was also from last— the Truth in Taxation. There was no predetermined number at that time. I was the one that proposed that to the council. The council at the time supported it. We've now repealed it. So that number doesn't exist anymore. But, but the— here's, here's the math I used to come up with that number. So, understanding that what Councilmember Wood just said, that the intent of the tax increase was to place the property tax dollars and public safety together, that would cover the new growth in public safety. And then sales tax dollars were previously supporting public safety, would then be able to divert to other, to other resources. So, so the 183% would clear our our new hires that we needed for the Sheriff's Department. It would also hire a minimum number of employees that we need to fill some staffing needs, which that was a pared-down list, by the way. It's public. It's a public list. Anybody can see exactly what that list was. We debated for a long time coming up with those. So it gave us the sheriffs, gave us that, that the minimum number of employees, and then it gave a small wage increase as well. Our city employees are already paid somewhere between 80 to 85% of the median for equivalent municipal work. So the wage increase doesn't even get them up to 100%, but gets them up for a little bit, and then it leaves a little bit more somewhere in the $2 million-ish range that could then be used toward accelerating capital projects within our city. But for me, what that also then did, that $2 million, capital projects now, but what it allows for 20, you know, next year when we come into this cycle, we know that given the population increase, the sheriffs will need more. So, in my mind, that was budgeting a little bit extra to absorb a potential next year increase. So that's how I came up with 183. That's why I proposed that to the council. And that's where we landed on that. But if you want to talk more about that afterwards, I'm super happy to meet with you. Um, and then I'll just address some other things real quick. So, uh, a citizen commented, and I, I should have written down everybody's name, and I apologize. Separate tax rate for businesses. It's an excellent idea that needs to happen at the state level. Um, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker D: I'm going to jump in and again throw a bone to one of our data center partners, and I don't mind saying which one. In this case, QTS. Uh, not only did they say, I agree with that, they also reached out to our legislative assistant. I don't even know if I've told the council this and said, Will you help us write legislation and make that happen? Is that true, Evan? Evan's our legislative guy. QTS said, we want that. We want to pay more so you pay less. So I want that to be out there for you guys to understand what QTS specifically is doing on that piece. They agree with you.

Speaker E: Okay, and then a resident talked about why don't we have volunteers that help the police? We actually do. It's called the VIPS program, Volunteers in Police Service. We need more VIPs. So if you're— if that's something that interests you, go talk to the VIPs. I'm sure if you look online, we'll be able to find their, their contact info.

Speaker D: Hey, we're recording the meeting, so we're happy to answer that question, but nobody can hear you. So yeah, so you can talk to our sheriffs after, or they could go out in the hall. They've got all the information, and we, we're happy to get that to you. I just— we just can't hear their Recording. So, no, I'm sorry.

Speaker E: And, and I'll tell you, just to back up a little bit on the hires. So we had to pare down the original list of, you know, requests that came into us. But one that we pared down that we probably need to revisit once there's funding for it is a community services director who would then be able to help in a number of ways, and one including communications, but organizing volunteerism and things like that in the city. So, but we do have volunteer police force that helps with things that you're talking about. Um, and I have been— anyway, and I won't talk a lot about this now, but it's— there's a fundraiser that we're going to be putting on for them that I, I'll talk about later in the meeting for anybody that stays around later. Uh, but that's there, and it's a— that's a really good question. It's something— it's a program that we should, we should increase and enhance and enlarge. So, uh, I appreciate that. Um, DJ, I really appreciate your comments. Thank you. Part of, part of the challenge of this setting is being able to, like, we have to listen and speak, but we can't dialogue and just go back and forth at the same time. And I think when, when you're in a setting when you can go back and forth at the same time, it helps to clear up a lot of misunderstandings. I can see how you, you took that statement from a handful of days ago the way you did, and I apologize if it came across incorrectly. Same with Melissa. So I'll clarify it a little bit here. So when I was just trying to think of an example of when a leader had made a decision that the group necessarily didn't necessarily like, but he took them to a place where he felt it would be most successful. And that was the extent of the analogy. I didn't mean anything relative to taxpayers being on this side or that side. It was us as a community together, all in the union, not in the Confederate. So I apologize if that was that confusing. No, I think that's great. came across incorrectly. And that really was the extent of it. I've— it's America 250, so I've been reading a lot of history books this year, and that was just the first thing that came to my mind. But I really appreciate that you brought that up. And that's what's healthy with communication, because it enables whether the speaker or the listener to clarify what their intent was. And so it was appropriate for you to bring it up in a public setting. It was made in a public meeting. So thank you. I appreciate that. And I'll clarify. So the reason why I brought up speed tables is because one of the other residents at the public hearing Specifically asked council members to name a capital project they were interested in. That's the reason we brought up speed tables. It's on top of my mind. It's at the top of their minds. Meant nothing beyond that, aside from that. And the reason why I brought up the Fauci thing is to applaud us together, that we need a healthy skepticism of government leadership, and really to applaud the number of people that showed up last time and tonight. Like, this is healthy. We need to be skeptical of the decisions that government leaders are making on all levels.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker E: So that's really the intent. And I'd be happy to talk to you afterwards if there was something additional. I'm always happy to talk to you. So thank you for coming. Thank you for your comments. I appreciate that. Let's see, I think, yeah, I think that's— I think that's— oh, I do believe it would be important, I think, to help talk about the sort of the state requirements that are placed upon the city and how we communicate the tax truth and taxation. I don't know if we want to go into that.

Speaker D: I think there needs to be work done at the state level, but I'm not here to disparage them any more than I want them to disparage us. So I prefer that, that we understand if there's questions, read the state code. We, we are working with our legislators. We're working on legislation to raise taxes on data centers. Can't wait, you know, but, but I'm, uh, I'm not in a hurry to— we need to fix the process because it's kind of got us handcuffed, if that's fair to say.

Speaker B: One thing that came up earlier, we talked about how we can make sure our residents know what we're facing earlier. And we're talking about, in addition to the code that they are working on to kind of lock public safety money into its own little space, um, creating something so that there's specific metrics that have to be given to council every year, but they're also given to the residents. So you guys can look at it and go, oh, call volume's done this. This is how many deputies we have, or this is how many acres of new park space we have this year. And this is how many employees we have. So, like, just clear metrics. And then the other thing, um, that I'm actually— I think we should push our state legislators to add this to the Truth in Taxation, but to add the budget in brief. So our comms team made the budget in brief so that it would explain some of the terms and a little bit about the budget. But I— we're proposing, and we've talked a little bit about having something that's just like a very condensed version of the budget, 10 pages or less, that has like a list of the employees that are being proposed, a list of capital projects, like some of those things, so that when we get the 429-page budget that we need to read, you guys can have the 10-pager and it will help you understand some of the things that we're talking about. Kristen brought up the blank spaces in the thing, and that was purely because We didn't have a predetermined rate. We had to come and sit up here to talk to each other about it. So sorry that that happened. Um, there was a question about the $30,000 building permit. The state governs us so carefully, and every time we try to change impact fees or building permits, we get like protested by the Home Builders Association. Now, crack seal treatment in our city. Every single road, um, every 5 years gets a preventative maintenance. So, like, it's the difference between us not wearing sunscreen and wearing sunscreen. That's what my street guys tell me. So I'm just giving you my, like, overly simplified version. What happened on Pony Express was not resurfacing. It was a preventative maintenance treatment because we don't want to pay to resurface right now because we've got so many stupid utility projects we have to accomplish. God bless our utility guys, but we don't want to waste money on resurfacing. So we do those preventative treatments because it helps prolong the life of our roads, and we try to have that, like, go through all the streets in our city so that they all are getting that preventative maintenance. Because in the end, preventative maintenance means we have to replace roads less frequently. We have to rehab roads less frequently. There's a ton more questions, but we all are willing to sit down with you when you have more. It's— oh, last thing, transparency. We start the budget, our staff starts the budget in October, and they start talking about all these things, and they're doing long-term plans, all of that. Then we have a meeting in January where staff says, this is some of the stuff we're looking at. Then we have a 2-day ridiculously long meeting that they trick us to come to by calling it a retreat when it's not a It's just a really long meeting, you guys. But in that, that's all public. You guys can actually come to that, and we go through every little need. Then every single month between then and when we pass the budget in June, there's another budget work meeting. Every single one of those pages, all of it is available to everyone. It's on our website. It's in the public meetings thing. I want you to know that even though we couldn't articulate where you could find that stuff, or understood that you guys didn't know how to get to it, it was there. We didn't hide anything from you. It's always been there. So let's get more of your questions answered, and I'll shut up now.

Speaker D: Okay, so real quick, Lacey, if you don't mind putting that up. I was wrong. I don't mind admitting it because I said I was going to use a round number, but for education's sake, I have been putting this out. For months. And I teach some— a lot of classes. I won't get into that, but I tell my students that if, if you don't understand it, you got to stop me and tell me to say it in a different way, because it sounded great when it came out of my mouth, but I'm not getting this through. So I want you to understand when I say taxes are going backwards and that you've paid the same amount and you're actually losing to depreciation. Study this, share it, and help me educate the neighbors, because obviously I'm not doing it right. Because every other post says that when my house goes up, the value goes up, and that is just not— or the taxes go up with the value. It does not. It does not. It goes down when your value goes up. Uh, so here's, here's an example. In 2016, we have not raised taxes. The rate was 0.001081. That was the rate, and we have not touched it since. And the taxable value is $116,000. Paid to Eagle Mountain City was $125,098. That's how much we got in 2016. Today we got $125.38. By the way, by my math, that is a 40-cent decrease in the amount of money paid to the city. 60 cents, 40 cents. I don't know. I can't do math.

Speaker I: But it took years to get there.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it was only 40 cents over. So, so again, hey, hold on. We gotta have some order here. So. Um, I know we're joking. In 2017, $10.11. In 2018, $9.24, $8.25, all the way to the rate we're at today of $5.34 taxable value per $100,000. As your house goes up, per $100,000, $108, $101, $92, $82. Tell me to tighten my belt. I did, to $53. Can't go anymore. Can't do it. Uh, change from the rate since '16, 50.60% without inflation. That's without inflation. That's at a '26— a 2016 value. We have lost 50%. Not today's value, 2016 value. Uh, estimated market value, just so that you can understand this and help me explain that that's the problem that we're facing. I hope I'll leave that up for a few minutes, but I hope you can understand. What I have been trying to articulate and why we're in this position.

Speaker B: Mayor, really quick, there was a question that came from the audience. There's more houses. Why aren't— why isn't this increasing our revenue?

Speaker D: So I can answer that. We are in Utah, what's called a revenue-based system, which means we ask for amount of money in 2016, and it does change a little bit, and this is going to get a little bit more tricky to understand. So, I wish I'd get a little leeway on this one, but I'll try to be as articulate as I can. We basically asked for $1.9 million in 2016. And then in 2017, we asked for $1.9 million. In 2018, we asked for $1.9 million. Now then, why did we get $3 million this year? Because that's the growth number of the base, and you get that year's growth and then it goes backwards. But the reason that that doesn't equate anything to the budget is because you also increase services. It costs you more. So we're still getting a 1.9 value like here, even though it's $3 million here, that's only $1 million. But we increased our expenses in the 18 new parks they built with those new houses and the 2,700 new lane miles that they put in and all those water connections. We are now spending millions more, and we increased by $1 million based on that growth factor at the given rate. So, so growth actually hurts us because it costs us way more than it, than it generates. And so, so, so, and I know that that's a little bit more of a loaded question, but that's the growth question. It, it makes— it compounds the fact that we didn't go up way more quickly. It compounds it. So the only way to offset that is through economic development, which we've done a great job, including in the past councils. We, we've been trying to get things in here that pay. So please understand that this is what we're wrestling with. This is why if, if councils every year, the 85% idea but completely different code, just said we're just going to adopt this rate and keep it going forward, guess where we'd land today with the people that said the, the COVID the sheriff's at? It's that number. But guess what we would have had all along? We would have got that number every single year in here and not had that decrease. We would have had plenty of extra money by keeping it flat. We didn't keep it flat. We lost money every single year. Now, I'm happy to have that conversation, and you can debate it and tell me I'm wrong. Okay, that's fine. I'm happy to have that conversation with anybody that wants to learn more about how taxes work. So I hope that helps. Um, I'm gonna leave it there. You guys can study that. Go look at your own tax bill and tell me that's any different than that. And by the way, when you say, well, then how come it went up? This is the Eagle Mountain line. What's not on here is Alpine School District, the sewer plant, the water district. The reason your bill went up, not according to your value, is because somebody raised your taxes, but it wasn't the city. It was probably— well, the school district did 10 out of the last 12. I lose track because it's every year. They've done it almost every single year. So I could probably say the school district. I also know the water district raises our taxes quite a bit. To a flat number. UFSA has raised our taxes almost every year. That's about change because it's going to come in-house. So, yes, your taxes have gone up, not to the city. So those are the things that I'm trying— help me, please help me educate your neighbors. That's, that's the situation. Is there anything else? Let's talk about the item if we can. So I'll lead off. I've heard a few different numbers. I've heard there's a 0.09 idea. I've heard of 0.14, and I'm dropping the zeros, so forgive me. Uh, 0.009 and a 0.014. And for clarity's sake, I do have to put one more thing out there to help the council and the public. Uh, people say, I want to know the, the percentage. The percentage is only, only relevant if you know the base, because 10% of a dollar is a lot different than 1% of $1,000. It just isn't the same thing. So the percentage looks big, but that's because the rate's so low. Eagle Mountain City at this number is the 2nd lowest tax city minus UFA. I get it in the entire county. So when we— 200%, when everybody was shocked at 200%, is because the base, it's because of this number. Uh, the same, for instance, and I'm not going to throw our neighboring cities under the bus. But they might have only done 12% or 25% or 50%, but that 50% generated more than our 220%. So to me, the percentage is only relevant if you use the denominating number. How much did it generate per month? How much did it cost? That's got to be the— it has to be part of the discussion or the rate doesn't matter. So with that, I think Kimberly's still online. We haven't talked to her in a while. I, I believe The numbers that I've heard, for instance, a 0.0009 is 69.

Speaker H: Can I, can I just make a comment here? I'm happy to get help.

Speaker D: I'm trying to be neutral. I don't just—

Speaker H: just to start a conversation. So it's interesting looking at the 2016 rate at 0.001081. If just as an example, if we were to go back to that rate, what that would do is that would create just over $3 million. So $1.5 million of that, uh, well, that, that would cover 62% of the sheriff's contract, and it would effectively free up $1.5 million somewhere else in our budget for staffing raises. We, we've— in our last meeting, we talked about, uh, considering about $1.3 million in new hires. I think 4 of those would be more administrative in the city, and 14 of those would be parks, rec, open space, neighborhood improvement. What am I missing? There's, I think, a few others. Engineers, engineers. Somebody's got to approve things. So, so at that rate, that's effectively what would happen. We've also talked about Which I didn't know this, but when Eagle Mountain was established, maybe it wasn't when it was established, but we don't pay for Social Security for our employees. Is that fair to say? Am I okay to say that? If it's not, I just did.

Speaker E: Okay.

Speaker H: So, we opted out of that system. Our employees have a pension plan. So, for me, I pay 6.2% at work and my employer pays 6.2%. So when we're talking about getting to 90th percentile of the median, what we're really trying to do is put our staff at par of what their peers make. And I shared this in our last meeting that my neighbor used to work for Eagle Mountain. We trained him up. He does amazing concrete work. He now works at Harriman. He doesn't have to go far. It just waits for an opening and then leaves our city, and then we have to find somebody new, train them up. Uh, just to, to lose them. So that consideration is, is about half a million dollars to bring our, our staff up to what, what would be considered a median income. So when we stack those, those, just those 3 items, uh, $1.5 million to the Sheriff's Office, $1.3 million for, uh, staffing, and, uh, half a million dollars for to, to bring our employees up, that's $3.2 million is what we're considering. So, let me summarize at the 0.0010 rate going restoring back to the 2016 rate, that would generate about $3 million. So it'd be a little bit short, which means, um, you know, we would certainly put off capital projects. Which is, uh, you know, that, that, that's fine. We, we can wait on those, I guess. Um. I think that that's all I want to say. If we go down to the 0.009 number, that generates $2.1 million. And so that would require that we move into our reserves if we intend to achieve those 3 objectives. Okay, so I hope that's helpful for those that are here.

Speaker D: You gave all the numbers that I didn't, and the one I was looking for was the percentage. I think it was 69 or 70%.

Speaker H: And at the, uh, 52— okay, so it is—

Speaker D: and I'm sorry if I'm confused because the people want to know the percentage, even though I don't know that it matters to me.

Speaker H: I apologize. The 0.0009 number would cover 52%, 52.95%.

Speaker D: Cover, you mean that's the percentage raise of the—

Speaker H: that's the shared contract.

Speaker D: They want to know how much is it raised, the increase.

Speaker H: I'm sorry.

Speaker D: And I think it's right around 7—

Speaker H: going from 183%, that, that would be 69.81%. Yes.

Speaker D: And, and I only This number because a resident shared it with me that I think is still here, but the 0.1054 is roughly 99%. It's under 100.

Speaker E: Okay. So, so, so just to give it the nominal dollars for median house, that would increase 0.0009. That would increase the annual dollar to $99. So that'd be about $8.27 a month.

Speaker B: I think at that rate, and Mayor, I think just for clarity, we—

Speaker I: I want you to know what we're looking at. Okay, I mean, our finance department sent this out to us earlier in an email and it just has a bunch of different rates to consider. That's it. So it doesn't say, here's the one you should pick. It doesn't say, here's the one you've decided. It says, here's the impact if you do this, here's the impact if you do this, here's the impact if you do this, here's the impact if you do this. I want you to know that's what I'm looking at. I don't, I don't know what everyone else is looking at, but that's what I'm looking at. And because I'm old school, I had to print it. That's what I did.

Speaker D: So roughly 99% at close to that 10.5 number, and at the 9, it was 70, just, just shy of 70. So anywhere in between there. Does that answer the question on the percentage? I hope so.

Speaker E: But I think it's helpful to, instead of talking about percentage, what's the monthly increase?

Speaker D: Yes, and I agree with that. But I think, well, I understand that these guys want to know the percentage, right?

Speaker E: Right. But that's where I'm saying 0.0009 gives— is a $99 a year $8 and change a month.

Speaker I: Mayor, can I ask that we shift this conversation? I'm kind of tired of going around and around and around and around. I think it's important that we just establish where we want to be. And I don't know where everyone is going to be. So I'm just going to give you my 30 cents. I mean, I thought a lot about this, and, and frankly, I, I was okay at the 1.5, and I know that that will probably get me beat up again. Um, but I was because I think that the investment in our community is worth it. But I've listened to what the people have come and what they've said, and I've heard from a lot of you. And, and just as I've listened to the people, I've tried to listen to our staff, I've tried to listen to our Sheriff's Department, and I've tried to really be in tune with what it is that they need. And so for me, what I would like us to consider at, at a bare minimum and it's probably going to be more than what some may be comfortable with, but for me, I think we should, we should fund the increase in the sheriff's contracts with the $1.5 million.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker I: Those employees that we hammered through all of those positions and worked through to whittle that list down, I think we should fund those positions. And I think that we should fund the, the $525,000 that does give our existing employees a raise and gets them to that median. As I understand it, the number that will most likely accomplish that is the, the 0.01100. That's kind of where I'm thinking we should be. I, I mean, I heard you, Councilmember Hewish, say point, you know, the 0.00900. Anywhere in between there is going to work. But I— what I hate to do is to short-sell our existing employees and to say no to the new hires that we so desperately need. Because just as our sheriff's contract is woefully undermanned, so are our employee staffing levels. And look, I don't have the data to hand you that. I just have the experience that I've had, and I've watched the workloads that they're trying to do. That may not be enough for, for the citizens, and, and, and I'm okay accepting that. From my perspective, that's the, that's the direction I think we should go.

Speaker B: For me, I think that it needs to be at the 0.0009. I probably said too many zeros. Um, I know that we're going to have additional revenue. I know that there's things that are coming, and I know we need to hire staff, and I know we need to deal with the sheriff's contract, but I feel like that is the most that I want to go because I, I really do want to make sure that we're not raising it too much. And I think the $8.27 feels more manageable to people than You know, $30-something. So, um, and I totally get where you're at. I respect it. I am worried that with the number that I just said, it— if we fund all that stuff, it brings our reserve down to 19.51%. And just so you guys know, the state maxes us out at 35% for our reserve. So it is stepping us into, uh, an area that some people aren't super comfortable with, but I, I just, I feel like we're headed in the right direction financially, and I think that this is a good measured approach.

Speaker I: Councilmember Clark, can I just ask for clarification then? And I, I, I, I think it's a reasonable approach that you're suggesting. My question is really Um, what you're— what I'm hearing you say is that you still agree with the staff hiring, but you would fund it from reserves. That's what I'm hearing you say.

Speaker B: And I know that every single staff member that has a Master of Public Administration is like cursing me right now because they're like, you can't fund employees and ongoing expenses with reserves. But I also know what's coming with MET. I know what's coming. With property tax. And, um, I think if we can ask our residents to trust us and help us get to this lower rate, we can also say we trust that this money is going to come in. And the reality of it is, you guys, if it doesn't come in next year, then we're going to have to have this conversation again. But I'm willing to do this for 1 year. to see if we can make it instead of raising it higher.

Speaker I: Thank you, that's helpful for me.

Speaker B: Thank you. And it would drop reserves from 35 to 19 if we fund all of it. So like, if you look at the chart that staff gave us— sorry, you guys, we should have it for you guys to look at— but if you look at that, it— what it does is it said general fund reserves, $12 million.

Speaker D: You— do you have it on email?

Speaker B: You can put it Um, it says $12 million, 32% of the 2026 budget. So it's telling you in that 2nd to last line what the difference is that you'd have to make up if we fund all the things that we said we were going to fund. But if we pare down and maybe slow some of the hires, and we do a couple of them in 3 months instead of like tomorrow, I think that That could help us minimize that impact on the reserve. And I can tell that Colby Curtis is going to yell at me later for this. But—

Speaker H: No, I think in our next budget item, once this is decided, that's where we're going to bring the hatchet, start cutting.

Speaker C: So, I mean, I think I've already stated my, my position. I wasn't in favor of repealing it. I think we need the 0.15. We need something. There's no question about that. And I, I think I appealed to the citizens, say, then you're gonna have to be okay with what we can afford, and that's gonna— that's definitely going to be something that you'll feel.

Speaker G: Thank you.

Speaker C: Um, but at the end of the day, you'll know you're heard. If we do that, that means that we are all agreeing that we're not going to be able to do the things that are needful, and we'll have to live with whatever we can do. And that will be some diminished things, um, whether we're talking about the— when we can replace roads, when we're talking about whether or not we can bring our current parks that we own up to a reasonable baseline. But if we're all in on that and everybody understands that, then we'll expect that the— that we're all in the same place and we'll do this together. So I think 2.0009 is too low.

Speaker E: The thing that's just weighing on my mind is the Tyson experience. And, you know, we have reserves for a moment when the city experiences a challenge. And so in my mind, I, I, I feel this is a moment where I'm comfortable dipping into the reserves. I, I'm not— I— what I am not comfortable doing is reducing the velocity the city needs in terms of its hiring and wage increases. The sheriffs— I'm not comfortable reducing that speed. I— we, we need that. If it, if it weren't for Tyson, I think I'd be having a different thought right now. But based on what happened with Tyson, there's, from what we can understand, about 400 families. Family average family size is a little over 4. The 1,600, 1,700 people, maybe 1,800 people affected, it's a decent percentage of our population. And that's where I do feel comfortable dipping into reserves. I, I think good governance— I, I go back to the beginning of where we sort of direct— like, started with this good governance— is that we will set the rate at a level that enables the, the city to achieve what it needs for its primary services. And so I, I, I am still grateful for the direction we headed. I do feel like the, the, uh, landscape changed a little bit when it came to the Tyson situation, and that's where I'm, I'm willing to dip into some reserves. So I feel like I'm willing to go down You know, and the 0.0009 number only came out when we're talking about the 75% threshold that we're talking about with the, you know, the coverage ratio for our public services. And that's based on some calculations of what will happen next year that Councilmember Hewish ran. And so when that number came out, and I'm looking at things, I'm willing to go down to that reserve, you know, to dip into some reserves to hit that number.

Speaker D: If there's no other comments, I'm going to see if we can get to a motion, but I'm never going to rush you. I know it's a big deal, so make a motion.

Speaker B: Uh, this is 13B, correct?

Speaker D: Yes, 13— yes, B.

Speaker B: Mayor, I move that the city council approve a resolution of Eagle Mountain City, Utah, approving a property tax Increase above the certified tax rate for fiscal year 2026-2027 of 0.000900. Finish the statement. Is there anything else? Can I—

Speaker E: yeah, do you want me to finish that statement?

Speaker B: Is there anything else that we have to add to it?

Speaker E: I, I believe you have to say the dollar and roll results for fiscal year 2026-2027. This rate exceeds the certified tax rate of 0.000530 and will result in an increase in the city's ad valorem property tax budgeted revenue of approximately, uh, let's see here, approximately $2,132,876, or 69.81% Above the city's property tax budgeted revenue for the prior year, exclusive of new growth.

Speaker B: Thanks for the assist, Councilmember Whiting.

Speaker E: So I'll, I'll second it. I'll second your motion. If you're the one that started it, I'll second that one. Thank you.

Speaker D: Okay, we good, Lacey? Okay, uh, we do have a motion and a, uh, a second. Motion by Councilmember Clark, second by Councilmember Whiting. Is there any questions? All right, I, I think I lost track, but I think I was here. So, Councilmember Whiting. Yes. Councilmember Wood? No. Councilmember Hughes? Yes. Councilmember Clark? Yes. Councilmember Wright?

Speaker I: It's immaterial what I say, Mayor, but I will vote yes.

Speaker D: Thank you. Uh, 4-1 if I'm counting, so that passes. Uh, um, now I'm at a— what's that? Did I— I thought I heard something. Um, do, do we want to do the budget now? I think we got to do the budget now and then go back to the other 2 because we've skipped some, and I'm trying to find out the order that— you're the one that asked for it. Messed you up. So are we good with the budget?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: All right, uh, we're gonna go to item 13C, uh, resolution, and this is a public hearing, so anybody that wants to comment on this, uh, resolution of Eagle Mountain City adopting the fiscal year 2026-27 annual budget. totaling $363,992,973. Um, we do have Kimberly here, uh, I think, and I'll bring it to the council. I'm not sure, Kimberly, if you had a presentation or how this affected the— this tax rate changes things. Does the council need—

Speaker G: Mayor, I am here. I'm trying to see if I can get my stuff to activate really quick. But we did have a presentation that was prepared on the budget. A lot of it talks about like the budget process in general. I can run through that if the council would like. If it's a matter of wanting to get in to talk about what adjustments will take place, obviously we don't have a total amount For the budget now, because it depends on what the council wants to do with this reduction in revenue.

Speaker D: So, council, that's— I know, and then some of those things for the sake of the public, and I know you guys have been here a long time, we've been doing this for months, uh, all of the questions we keep getting, the council keeps coming back to staff saying we have got to help these people understand. So a lot of what Kimberly's talking about is she, she's answered some of those questions if you wanted to go through those, or are we tired enough that we just move forward? Uh, so Kimberly has some, some of the answers, I believe, from the different questions have been asked throughout the week about the transparency process, which we've shown it, but maybe explaining it while the people are possibly—

Speaker E: I think it's helpful for the people to hear this.

Speaker D: So, so it'll be on the record.

Speaker B: I think it'd be good too to show the list of employees that We're targeting, because we've, you know, kind of thrown them out there, but it would be good to see it concretely again.

Speaker D: So, yeah, and I know it's a school night and whatnot, but Kimberly, yeah, go ahead with some of those questions, and we'll just try to get it done as quickly as we can. I think you're muted, Kimberly.

Speaker G: Yeah, okay.

Speaker D: There you go.

Speaker G: Let me see if I can share my screen. Okay, are you guys able to just see the—

Speaker D: Yes, we can see your screen.

Speaker G: I am—

Speaker C: Can you go to full screen so it's easier for people to see it?

Speaker G: Yes, that's why I was trying— I had to wait for the little bar to move away so I could access that part really quick. So Um, there's a couple of things that I wanted to be able to share with the community in our agenda that are just the items that we're going to try to cover tonight. And again, it is still really high level, but talking about our budget process, our timeline, what are the things we try to accomplish with the budget, a couple of things related to service delivery, and then the budget overview. But before we get into that, I did want to address some of the questions specifically that kind of have come up in the conversations with the, with the council about the budget process in general. So one of the challenges is having been involved in a number of meetings, right? We've— you guys are all aware of, we have a lot of internal staff meetings, we have a lot of council meetings, there's been a lot of work that has gone into everything. But what I can recognize is that having been involved in all of it, a lot of times when we go back and we look at the communication, it makes sense. It makes sense to us because we've been a part of it the entire time. But having seen it from the citizen standpoint, if you're just stepping into it and all you're doing is looking at the, um, like the budget and brief or things like that, it doesn't— cover a lot of the details that we covered over hours of different meetings. When we do our budget process, we do break it down into different work meetings where we start to talk about operational costs and personnel and what those requests are related to that. We have a separate meeting where we talk about our capital improvement plan and those particular projects. We have just areas where we break it down. And then when we're trying to put it all together at the very end, A lot of that detail is missed if people didn't attend those particular meetings. So we've made note a lot of the feedback and we'll work towards improving our processes so that at the end, anybody who jumps in regardless of the timeline, it's, it's clear to them on what is taking place in the budget's changes from year over to year from that. One of the complexities that we deal with as a city has to do with the different activities from a governmental standpoint versus our business-type activities, the restrictions in funds. As you guys know, there's a lot of resources that come into play. There's been a lot of questions about our development and why can't we require development to just pay more money. One of the things I wanted to point out about that was a number of years ago, I think it was 2022, there were some new bills passed at the state legislature that restricts the fees that we collect related to development-related. So when they're paying an application fee or they're paying a building permit, those charges are restricted and can only be used to provide the service that someone is paying for. That's really the difference between a fee and a tax. And so the state was coming down and identifying, if we are charging more money than it really costs to issue that building permit and provide those inspection services, then what we're doing is levying a tax, and we're taking that to help cover other operational costs within the general fund. And the state has said you're not allowed to do that. With those restrictions that went into place, it did impact our ability to fund other things that we do consider growth-related, such as, you know, the public safety costs, the enhancements to parks and things like that that come with, with the growth. We're not able to use those resources anymore. That partially led to why we decided to pull that out into its own special revenue fund. Because those resources are restricted and can only be used for that purpose. And it— we wanted to make sure it was clear that that money isn't available for us to use for day-in and day-out operations for other services within the general fund. So that was one of the changes that has taken place over the last couple of years that removed some resources that the city did have to help pay for those growth-related costs. That is not something that's available to us anymore. There's a lot of talk about just the rate, and people like to compare us to like Lehigh or Saratoga Springs. So when we talk about, as we've done for a lot, about what the property tax rate is, the rate is what we're always talking about, but the end result is what we need is how much revenue do we need to operate, um, the city? So when people say, hey, well, Lehigh City has a rate that's much lower than ours, well, the rate that they have in place generates $15.9 million for them. And so it's not about how high our rate is, it's about the revenue that we're generating to provide the needs for our community. So it does make it hard when we try to compare compare, because there are a lot of unique things here in Eagle Mountain that came up tonight, um, where people talked about how we have 2 different communities and we have a lot of infrastructure that has to connect everything in between. And, um, the rate that was originally, um, adopted last, um, at the Truth in Taxation hearing of the 0.0015, um, although the rate was higher compared to Lehigh or Saratoga Springs, the revenue that it generated was less than both of those communities would also see. And they also have a significantly greater commercial resource available where they have higher sales tax dollars that are coming in. But it's really about what are the needs of our community. That's really all we're looking at. It's not about comparing us to other cities. It's about what do we need in our community to meet service levels that our residents expect, and to be able to, again, always look sustainably. And that's our goals and our objectives when we come forward and we look at budgeting. Some of the additional questions that were raised were about, you know, the amount of money we had in our capital projects fund already. And so again, a couple of years ago, that reserve was a lot higher, and it is higher because we had proceeds related to our road projects for when we had issued our sales tax bond in 2022 to fund a bunch of our big road projects that all got completed, and those funds have been spent down. So when we see things that say fund balance, it doesn't necessarily mean it's money we can There's a lot of different resources that tie into that about what that money can be used for. And it does make it hard on these summary documents. Obviously, people— it just looks like a savings account with a total amount of money, and why can't we use that? So we will look at being able to break that down where we can see the different classifications about what has already been committed or assigned. to projects, what's restricted specifically for certain types of spending like our transportation dollars. So there's definitely some things that we can do to try to communicate that information better about what is going on. I want to actually just jump into some of these items and about our budget process and timeline and what the goals that we, we had hoped to be able to accomplish. So When we do look at our budget and planning, the main things that we are really always focusing on is trying to align those priorities, plan for the future, and build consistency. That really is the basis behind all the things that we're doing that we roll up to, to make sure that we are able to, again, sustain our community long-term and that it's not just a place that people come to because it's the only place they can afford, but hopefully it's a place that people come to because Eagle Mountain is a community that they want to be a part of. With our budget process and the cycles that we have, we do identify, and it is just cyclical in that way. Our budget process is a year-long process. We do start over again in October. October with that, but it does involve the planning, the budgeting, the monitoring, and the engagement that we have. So we did have a number of public meetings. We made an effort to attend some of these events that the, that the city put on this year and to run a booth. We've done that for the last couple years where we actually have a budget booth. We're trying to get out to the So we recognize that people can't always make it to meetings, and so we've made an effort to try to get out into the community places where people might be to try to share and pass on the information and invite people. I— this is what I do, and I love it. And I know you as a council have heard me say it a number of times of how often we have a public hearing for budget processes and nobody shows up for it. And, um, trying to find a way That people are engaged and want to know what's going on, not just because we do a tax hearing, but because they, they want to be a part of that process all the time. And I welcome that, and I'm grateful to see so many people be involved at this point. When we look at our— the budget in terms of the system of a lot of things that are feeding into it, The strategic plan is a high level where we're trying to— again, this is where the council set that really high long-term vision. It is covering typically a 5 to 10 year plan of what we're trying to accomplish in the community. And so when we budget, a lot of times we talk a lot about line items, and those are things that are needed for accounting purposes. But really, all those line items roll up into services, and what is the service level that we're providing to our community, and how do we meet that. And the strategic plan is one of those things that help us make sure that when we are enhancing programs or we have requests to increase service levels, that it falls in line with what the council is trying to accomplish for our community. So we do look at the strategic plan. A large portion of our budget is our capital infrastructure, and it's not just about building the new infrastructure, but it's also about providing the funds to maintain that. What we don't want is to require all of our developers to put in amazing parks and amenities for our residents that then we're not able to maintain, and all it is is an asset that is deteriorating. It's important that we're able to maintain that quality of life for the residents who live here, as well as those residents that will move in into the future. Performance measures. So one of the things actually that we've talked about with the— I think for the last 2 years we've been talking internally and we've been talking a little bit with the council, and that is about trying to talk more about the budget from a service level standpoint. And with that comes those performance measures. performance measures, and then the accounting and the reportability to where we can respond and show the council what the result of the efforts put forth, and that we can say if we're adding more money to provide a service, has that improved our ability to meet that end objective? So implementing some of those performance measure tactics is something that we have been moving forward with. for the last 2 years within our budget. The relationship between the budget process and long-term financial planning. Again, these are all the items that kind of go in and feed into that overall. One of the big differences when we're talking with our governmental funds is it really is— and when I talk governmental funds, that means that those are the funding sources that come really from sales tax dollars. You're providing a service that you aren't able to charge a fee for to cover that service. It's a service that's a benefit to everyone, and therefore taxes are what's used to cover it. And because it's taxes, a lot of the, the what you're looking at really is designed to be short-term, and that is why the, the state has put a maximum on the 35% fund balances, they want you to only raise the money that you need for this year. And if you need more money next year, they want you to ask for it. So as a result, that's, that's a shift that we're trying to make again, which is where we're talking about our taxes basically every year to determine what our needs are within the community. And that, that is a conversation that, that we're not afraid to have when it comes to truth in taxation and so forth. That it really is a conversation about what the needs are and that we can find that balance and between the services that the citizens would like to see and what it would take for us to provide that level of service. Overall, the goal again with our budget is that it is a guide on how we do it. It should be a budget as a policy guide, a financial plan, a communication tool, and an operations guide. That's always our goals as we go into the budget process and what we're looking at. And what we will work towards is having more of that information up front. Historically, our full budget book, it doesn't get released and it's not available until after the budget is adopted. And that's where most of the material comes to communicate with residents about what's in the budget going forward. But it didn't give them that information during the planning processes. So those are some of the changes that we will shift to try to make sure that really this guiding document can function better as a communication tool as well. So, as mentioned with the budget process and the timeline, we did— this is just kind of highlighting some of the things that took place for us in our budget process there. With our kickoff that started October. And then the budget work meetings that we had as we went in through January, February, all the way to the tentative budget in May. And then with our interim budget and our Truth in Taxation process. So we will be finishing our budget. We have to have everything approved and submitted by the end of— by August 31st. 31st, and then we have 1 month to get our stuff ready to kick off the 2027-28 budget in October again. So here's just a little bit of an overview. This comes from the budget in brief that was put out, talking just about some of the metrics about our community and the service level delivery snapshot that we have about the number of parks, the number of miles of roads that we're trying to maintain, and the water services and so forth. So just a few of those. Obviously, it doesn't cover all of the metrics and all that we have going in our community, but just a snapshot. And I know earlier in the meeting, there were some additional highlights that kind of compared us to some of the other cities too about the services that we are providing. Let's see, with the fund types, I mentioned this a little bit, but I want to talk just a little bit, not to try not to be too much, too lengthy, but to really talk about the difference between those governmental types of funds versus the business type funds and what we have here at Eagle Mountain City. So, the ones that have a single asterisk are our governmental type funds. So for us, that is the general fund. We have what we call special revenue funds. And then we have our capital project funds and internal service funds and the debt service fund. All of these types of activities are really just subaccounts of what we would consider our general fund. When we do a special revenue fund, it means that they're typically restricted resources, like grants, or again, those building and community development related fees that are now restricted. We pulled those out into a special revenue fund this year. They're funded with charges for services. But to have a special revenue fund, you're required to be able to generate more revenue from basically a charge for service than you would from a transfer in to fund those services. So we do have some restrictions. And in relation to that, we use special revenue funds for some of our impact fee monies because, again, even though we have impact fees for water and sewer, they're actually grouped up. They're part of the enterprise fund. And so when we're looking at the water fund, it is their operations As well, and then we will break out and we'll kind of show you the projects that are being funded. But those impact fees are classified as those enterprise business type activities. So we have a lot of things that kind of cross over that can make it a little bit confusing about what is being funded when you have what we call a capital projects fund, but that doesn't actually include all of the projects for the city. It only includes those governmental type projects. And then the projects for water and sewer are located within those separate functions and stuff. So we did have a budget that was proposed that was this $363 million. There'll be some changes to these numbers that we will address as the council discusses the way that we want to look at the revenue shortfall from the change in the property tax revenue that would be generated. We do have, from a personnel standpoint, I broke these out just into the functional areas as a summary showing the full-time and part-time positions that are currently funded citywide. And I did group those public safety positions that are in here as well. For our general fund revenues and general fund expenses, we are at this $41, just under $41.5 million in terms of what the budget is proposed. But with that, like, if we were doing kind of a comparison to previous years and so forth, one of the percentage changes that is the higher is the transfer that we had proposed to the capital project fund while, as a resource from the new revenues that were going to be coming in from those property taxes. Okay, there are 2 areas that are kind of similar that I just wanted to hit on. These are also questions that kind of came up that we saw out there in the public. One of them is an item that we call cost allocations. Sometimes people might know the term as more like an administrative overhead cost. I'm going to jump to the next slide and then come back to this one. So if you were looking at the online budget and you went into one of the funds or one of the service departments, you might see a line item that says administrative costs. And this one that I'm using as an example here has a negative number. And so when you see something like that, it's identifying that this is a department that provides services to the entire city, but it sits within the general fund. And so when we're talking cost allocations for us in the general fund, those service departments that we have are listed here on this slide. But what we do is we're identifying that Even though Human Resources sits in the general fund, it provides those services for the water and the wastewater, stormwater, all the other different fund types that we have that have employees. They're also benefiting from that. And so the cost allocation, we actually have a giant spreadsheet. We use a reciprocal method. We have drivers that we create. So on the human resource side, we actually use the number of employees that each department has to determine their share of the cost that that needs to take place. And as a result of that, then you will see an outflow of money. So we, we would budget the entire cost for the department, but then you'll see an outflow of the administrative costs, which is the share of the budget that is being picked up and redistributed. to the departments that are receiving that benefit. And, um, we call those, um, those administrative costs, and it— the purpose is so that you can, you can see what the full cost is to, to budget the department, but you can also see what the full cost would be if we didn't have any of those other services involved. That, um, like if we didn't have a water or sewer fund and things like that, then Part of these costs would go away. The benefit is, if you were like, again, if you're a special service district and all you do is provide water, they have to have all of these same overhead. They need an attorney, they need to have a human resource department. The benefit to us is that we get to share those costs across the organization, very similar to what we do with the sheriff's contract. So, because the sheriff's contract is part of the Utah County Sheriff's and part of the Utah County administration in general, we get to have the benefit of all the administrative services that they provide to us, um, that if we were doing our own police department, we would then need to pick up, um, more additional, um, administrative overhead to be able to provide those services as well. Kind of similar to that is transfers. So when we're talking about transfers, we are required to have a separate set of balance sheet accounts and revenue and expenditure accounts for every fund that we have, so that we are accounting for the money that is generated from those charges or services and the type of cost to fund those programs. And so when we need to send money over to another department, it's done as a transfer. Transfers are not a loan. It doesn't create new money for the city, but it does inflate our overall budget because you're, you're kind of double counting those expenses. You're— it's an expense as it goes out of the, of the fund that it's transferring out of, and then it's an expense when the money actually is, is used for whatever purpose it was. In our city, we have 3 what we call internal service funds, meaning the entire purpose for them is to provide services to other departments within the city. So for an example of that is we have our fleet fund. It's an internal service fund. So All of the vehicles that the city owns and all of the maintenance costs for those vehicles resides within the fleet fund. And every department who uses a vehicle has to pay their share towards that. And because it's an internal service fund, it happens as a transfer rather than a cost allocation. But it functions very much the same way. They're— you're paying for your services. We do transfers, not just for that type of purpose, but the only way to get money to the capital project fund is by a transfer. There, there's no fees that you generate for those, the capital project improvements that we're funding out of that capital project fund. So the way that you get money is it is money that you're earning in the general fund that then is going to the capital project fund. Going over to the capital project fund, or if we get like a grant from UDOT or a MAG contribution, that is another way that we can have resources. But essentially, it's contribution and transfers is the only way that we actually get resources into those capital improvement projects that are not impact fee eligible or impact fee related. This budget year, we do have $94 million in capital improvements that are planned. We have capital improvements that for 2026 that won't have been completed. So in September, we'll be doing our first budget amendment. But what that does is, again, capital projects They typically last— they cross fiscal years. A lot of times it takes multiple years in construction for those to be finished off, but the budgeting cycle is just a 1-year cycle. So once we have finished closing out the previous year, any of those projects that weren't complete, then we have to roll that funding over so that we continue that and get those finished off. So there will be additional increase to the budget that will take place when we do that. But it's not new spending. It's, it's just to continue these projects that have already started. But for the new year, we do have $94 million in anticipated new projects that is an investment in our community. So I know it was still— it might have seemed long, but actually that's really quite brief in general to some of the items that are included in the budget and the budget process. So, That has taken place really over the last 10 months of this year. If the council has any questions that they want me to try and address in more detail, then I'm happy to do so.

Speaker D: Great presentation. Thank you, and I hope that was educational. So happy to have all the discussion that's needed, but we've been going through this forever. Mostly for the public's sake, it's just so we could kind of go over it again. I know, uh, employees have been talked about ad nauseam. Uh, now that we kind of know, at least for today, where that number's at, any questions? Anything that we need to talk about on this? What direction you want to go?

Speaker H: So now we're talking about the budget budget. There you go. This is our opportunity.

Speaker D: This is your chance. Okay, for the 100th time, announce all the people you don't want. I'm teasing.

Speaker H: Now let me, let me pull it up here. There's really just one section. I don't know, I don't feel as comfortable, uh, bringing our reserve capital reserve account down. So there are some things that I would just contend that we probably should hold off on, or, or, or maybe not pressing priorities given the state of everything that we've just been through as a city. Sorry, I should have had this pulled up.

Speaker D: While he's looking at that, is anybody else quick on that? Yeah, well, I, I wanted to kind of get a little discussion. And I'm sorry to make you wait, but I think that was beneficial to hear what we're talking about before we open the public hearing. So, you want to— you got anything while he's looking that up? No?

Speaker H: Okay, I, I think I, I think I found it. So there were some things that were presented for, for, uh, 2027. Um, one of them was relocating the rodeo grounds. There's $1 million budgeted for that. And I'm, again, I'm just looking at areas that we could pull out that would not require us to go as deep into our reserves. That would be one thing. Um, the, all of this, the, the road projects, I, I feel comfortable with. That was one that stuck out to me. There's also a proposed land acquisition for $2.5 million and a civic campus for half a million dollars. I believe that is the, uh, City Hall study design piece. I don't know that we're in a hurry, uh, to do that this year. I mean, those are 3 things. I mean, right there, there's $4 million, and that keeps us out of going into the reserve. Um, if, if our financial circumstances change and we want to move forward, we can always make a budget amendment to bring them back in. So I'm not in it. I don't know that we need to be in a big hurry.

Speaker I: I'm gonna say, Councilman Hughes, I like that because my, my reticence in— sorry, my resident— why I was reticent in the last part, I don't want to see us have that reserve account at a minimum level. I think we need— we don't know what's on the horizon, and I hate to not be prepared for somewhat of a short-term emergency.

Speaker H: Correct.

Speaker B: So, to recap your list, rodeo ground, million. What else?

Speaker H: Okay, well, your mic went off. I don't know. It was everything under that. That was my fault. Under the administrative presentation, I believe that Steve Mumford gave. I think it was May 26th. I might be wrong. So the land acquisition for $2.5 million, and I understand that real prices are going to go up. But I also want to be a realist and just say, can we really afford to write a check for $2.5 million in good conscience and reduce our reserve fund? I mean, these are the trade-offs. So, as a city, we just need to be comfortable with the fact that in a year or 2 years, when we feel more financially ready for it, that it's going to probably cost $3.5 million. So, um, that— so those were the things relocating the rodeo ground. There was $30,000 allocated to a field house. I believe that was some money that was more of a match from the Smith Entertainment Group and Utah County. The Civic Campus design, land acquisition, and the rodeo. So that was $4,030,000. And then the other comment that I wanted to make is, and I didn't know this before serving on council, but there's about— it may not now be. $3 million, it might be $2.8 million in our utility fund. I would propose for the park projects, uh, if I go down to page 20, and, and just for those that are following at home, that this is all available on our city portal. So you can go look at the same information that I'm looking at. This is all publicly available line by line. But under parks, we were considering, um, The observatory, that, that's been done, or, or it's funded with outside sources. That's funded with outside sources.

Speaker D: And I will jump on real quick. Data center, that was paid almost $1,250,000. Natalie, $1,250,000, I think. Data center, we didn't pay a penny.

Speaker H: The, uh, the, the ranches, Pony Express Parkway to SR 73, that's being paid for through MAG. I understand that. Uh, Nolan Park. Now, this is a— these are 2026 estimates, but these improvements that we're looking at, the City Center Street Escape, say that 10 times fast, uh, was being considered at $792,000. Can that be paid for with that same— with those same funds from the utility seller? No, the streetscapes in City Center?

Speaker G: No.

Speaker D: Couldn't— so I don't understand the question. That's why—

Speaker G: Mayor, I can respond to that. So, Councilmember Hewish, yes, the city streetscapes project was a project being funded with the utility cell proceeds.

Speaker H: Okay, perfect. So there's $1.5 million in parks, and I just want to make sure that we're using those restricted funds from the utility cell for, for that.

Speaker D: And I think just sake of conversation, residents have said, and we're getting the RAP tax. You know, that's, that's additional funds that could be allocated in the future for some of these projects. But in the meantime, we got to take care of our general fund. Just, and I'm just going to throw my 2 cents in, and I know I don't get to have much of a say, and maybe unpopular with the public, but we, the City Hall design. We're already 3 or 4 years out on that if we keep our foot on the pedal. And I'm telling you, there's no way we can survive. I would advocate to keep the City Hall piece in, not necessarily land, but the design, because that's— that pushes us backwards. I think—

Speaker B: Sorry, Mayor, I was just going to say, I think there is some wisdom in doing the design because the design helps us understand what the financial target is for for that and what we need to figure out to fund and stuff like that. I also, I want taxpayers to understand that every month we're paying between $10,000 and like $11,000 in rent to, to house our resident or our staff in other places. And there's some staff— well, who was it? Was it Craig that was— we were talking about a rent— one of our staff members Shares a desk, but can only be there during certain times of the day. And there's certain days of the week. I'm looking at you.

Speaker D: We don't have room in our city hall. I hate to break it to you.

Speaker B: I think that in the long run, starting making incremental progress toward that will save our taxpayers money because it's costing us money right now because we don't have enough room.

Speaker E: No, you can't go to Amazon and get your city hall shipped to you and Here's the challenge is like, what's our population going to be, or our employees, our employee count 4 years from now, 5 years from now? What is that employee count? So I think we have to keep going down that pathway and, and, and pushing that along. So I, I think we— I don't— I couldn't take that one off the table. But like the, the rodeo grounds, I'm very comfortable with those.

Speaker D: The rodeo grounds is funded out of— and by the way, I'm not in that conversation at all, but where did those funds come from? Because the reserves is only general fund, and if that's utility sales, then that doesn't help the reserve. Do you remember, Kimberly? Do you know what that one was?

Speaker G: Yes, sorry, Mayor. The rodeo grounds right now is— is that particular one is flagged out of just the general fund, uh, capital project reserves, not utility sale proceeds.

Speaker D: Then that's the right one. And, and I can— I can't report anything. I think Brett's the one that would know. I don't think there's much movement on that. So, so there's no rush. Perfect.

Speaker E: Okay. And question, how far down with the 0.0009 that we just landed on, how far down are we on the reserves from where we would want it to be? So we know other things that we could try to manage.

Speaker B: Kimberly, can you like, Put that into your little spreadsheet and tell us.

Speaker H: I think, I think it's $4.6 million is the shortfall. So that's what I'm trying to find.

Speaker D: Yeah, and I think there's going to be— she just mentioned our first budget amendment, which is just allocating funds, is in a month. I think if we can identify a few of these, we can move forward knowing that we can trim on this. Uh, I think there's some room for employees to be added and be taken off. I've identified one that I think Councilmember Wood agrees that, uh, some project management, you know, that's something we got to talk about. It's not in this budget. Um, so if, if we can move forward with some kind of idea, go ahead.

Speaker C: So if we take the $1 million out for the relocate rodeo grounds and we take out the land acquisition, that's $3.5 million. That leaves us about $1.1 million that we need to get to if don't want to dip into our reserve. So if you feel like you can trim another 1.1, we can do that, or you can take that out of the reserve.

Speaker I: Well, and honestly, 1.1 out of the reserve is not— it's not critical, it's not killer. What would be our fund balance if we took 1.1 out of there, Kimberly? Would we still be at the 25 or 28%?

Speaker G: Well, with You'd be roughly 28%.

Speaker D: Let's do that. Okay, that's a good compromise. Just do those 2. Okay, so if, if it looks like— I'm just going to recap. So it looks like we're taking out maybe those 2, probably still going to be able to fund what we need to fund in the employees. Uh, did I capture that right so we can have the public hearing. All right, uh, with that, I think we've had a good discussion, and this is a public hearing. So, uh, at this time it is 11:29, and we will hold a public hearing. I know there are people that waited for this. We will open the public hearing.

Speaker K: Charles Peterson, he was in our office yesterday. He did write a lengthy letter So we can get that to you as well. Joy Rasmussen.

Speaker L: So I was confused because on the website it said that there was only a public hearing about this item, not about the property tax. So that's why I didn't understand. So I saw somebody post online about property tax. Before you increase property taxes, ask yourself, Is this worth someone losing their home over? There are going to be people who can't afford increases. In Utah, we are the top 10 in the nation for housing costs, the cost of a home payment. I work full-time just to pay our house payment. Mothers all over Utah are not home parenting their kids, or they're working from home like I do and not present. And so kids are getting into trouble. That's why we're having more crime with the youth, more problems with drugs, more other stuff going on with the youth running around because the moms have to work to pay for the housing. So, um, somebody messaged me, an elderly lady. She said, so much for trust government. It was about the previous tax increase. Now our taxes go up because they probably gave the data center tons of tax breaks for only 100 jobs. We live on a fixed income. My Social Security is $1,244 a month and my hubby's Federal retiree is less than $2,500 a month, and when he died— dies, he's 83 with Parkinson's and dementia, I only get half his retirement. Our house is completely paid off, but if he has to go into an assisted living, that will take all his money and will put liens on my home for his care, about $5,000 a month. How can I afford property taxes that way? This has to be— anyway, so she— that's why I'm here. I'm not here because I can't afford what you've passed, and I appreciate you lowering it. I appreciate you listening.

Speaker K: Thank you.

Speaker L: listening. But Meta did get breaks. Meta got a $150 million property tax break in 2018, $77 million property tax incentive in 2021. QTS got tax increment financing and community reinvestment area, so they're getting rebates on their property tax. They're barely paying any property tax right now. So when you say that they want to pay more, are they going to give back these incentives that are published in Deseret News. I've— I mean, I've looked up reliable news sources. City leaders, um, you, you said the property tax was needed to help with water and sewer needs, but we'd already— you guys already voted on a $220 million bond that was supposed to be for water and sewer. You voted for automatic 12% water rate increase every year in 2024, and I think the amount you said was going to be like, oh, it's only $30 more a month. So we add all these little things that you're adding on to people, and it adds up really fast to their house payment, to how much they can afford just to live and to drink and to flush the toilet. Um, there was a podcast where several of you were present, and, um, uh, Craig—

Speaker G: 30 seconds remaining.

Speaker L: You mentioned that the legislature was going to cap property tax increases, and that's why you guys were trying to increase property taxes, because you think I think that the legislature is going to do it again next year and that the city opposed that and helped fight it. And so I just think there needs to be honesty with, with, with us about what it's really for. And Craig, you also said that the residents should go out and earn money. It's easier now than in the history of ever to go out and earn more money, more opportunities. I have kids looking for jobs that haven't been able to find a job. I've been at the same job for 4 years and I've only gotten a $2 an hour increase in 4 years.

Speaker G: Your time is up. Thank you.

Speaker K: Jason Rasmussen.

Speaker H: Um, hello, and thank you guys for, um, your consideration and, and the conversations that you've had, and I'm sure that this has been, uh, difficult. I think that, um, as you— as I think about it, uh, I think a lot of this is about communication and, and clarity and maybe what we were told initially the, the purpose of this was, um, and that maybe it was for a lot broader, uh, needs than just like funding the, the Sheriff's Office. And I think if we had a little bit more clarity at the beginning, you know, like what we had, uh, today, that it would have helped a lot in helping us to understand And, um, Jared, I know that— noticed that you were shaking your head about kind of the, the quoting the $150 million and the $77 million. This is coming from Deseret News. I'm not— I don't know that I know everything about it. So, like, in terms of the data centers, I've heard, um, you— I've heard the previous mayor mention that they're our partners. Um, I think we need to understand as citizens how they're being partners. I know you mentioned the $1 million. I don't know, I forgot what it was funding, but there was like a $1 million line item that was like the data center was providing that in the conversation earlier. But we need to understand how they're partners. And I think in addition to that, if they want to continue to build, I think they need to help us understand and maybe show us what they're going to do to kind of alleviate some of the burdens that that, you know, the general population is experiencing as taxpayers, because if they want to build here, they need to invest in our community. And we need to be very clear. They need to be very clear to us in how they're going to invest. Otherwise, I don't know that it's worth the traffic and the construction and everything else in the water and everything else that's involved in them. being in our community. So thank you.

Speaker D: None of that inappropriate stuff. I'll throw you out.

Speaker K: Lastly, Michael Thompson.

Speaker D: I want to go back to the, the idea of bringing more revenue in to cover some of these things that we need. And specifically address what Ms. Clark had to say. In my generation, this would be considered very strong language, but to hell with the homeowners association. In the 6— in the last 6 years, I have been cheated, lied to by 2 major builders in this city, TJ Thomas and Clark, and neither One of them had the courage to face me face to face, and they cheated all my neighbors as well. And they even colluded with the previous administration to— in some of that. And I can give you details on that at another time if you like. But I know that some of the richest people in this state are builders, and they have a lot of politicians in their pocket. Don't let it happen to you. I have fought hard to replace some of the previous administration and, and brought in people, at least 2 of which are here now, that I worked real hard to help get in here. If they're going to build all these houses, they need to cover the cost of the infrastructure to support them. Thank you. Okay, was there anyone else that did not get a chance to speak on this item? Please fill out a paper when you're done and return. Do you need a paper on that? She's got me on file. Yeah, she needs another one. Just humor me. Okay.

Speaker H: I like the discussion about kicking the city hall down. I like that a lot, and I think I can't speak for everybody, but I think a lot of my fellow citizens would appreciate that as well. I want to encourage you to, to pause the design as well, because if you design something and then in 2 years you guys could be gone and the plan could be new, and then all the design fees just get wasted. So that would be my additional encouragement for the city hall. I know you guys are hell-bent on it. You really want it. Another thing to consider is half of this building is occupied by the sheriff's department. We're renegotiating that contract, apparently. Maybe it's time for them to find somewhere else to go. Find a new home, a new office space, and then you have your space for your employees, if that makes sense. Um, there was one more thing. I like the comments about the developers. Don't get into their pockets. I will find you out. Um, there was something else that was really important about saving money, but maybe it wasn't that important.

Speaker J: So, thank you.

Speaker D: Happy to take a private message if you remember. Was there anyone else who wanted to speak on this item? Um, seeing no one, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the council. Uh, just a couple quick things that I'll jump on there. It was about $1.2 million, and it was Facebook that gave that money for an observatory that's planned at Walden Park. And that was something years and years ago.

Speaker B: It started in 2021 is when it was announced.

Speaker D: Yeah, it was just never fully funded. Uh, this year we got a little pressure to fund that, and it's another one of those that, that I got very aggressive and said, I'm not going to the taxpayers and telling them to pay for something they didn't ask for. Y'all halfway funded this and then left it on our plate. Once again, this was Facebook. They said, uh, hold on, I'll call you back. And he said, check's in the mail. That's the kind of stuff I've been pushing back on. And, uh, they fully funded that. Now that project will go forward. So, it's recorded meeting, so you'll have to send us a message. I can't do it. We can't. It's the rules. Sorry, man. I gotta stick to it. Sorry. Um, the— and on the police note, there is the police. The police shares this building. Another reason why we're— and something that we hear a lot is, when are we getting our own police? I think, and this is just my opinion, I don't know that it's shared. It's just my opinion. If we had a city Hall, this could become the police station, and we could move into our own police department. There's no way. We, we don't have anywhere to put a police department of our own. There's nowhere to put it. So I think in my mind, that's what makes that City Hall piece first, and then the police part, and then, you know, it's kind of a dominoes thing. But we can't start a police department without having a, a City Hall or a place to put them. So that's just some clarity on that.

Speaker K: Thank you.

Speaker D: Um, oh, and, uh, just starting with the first comment, QTS, uh, I think there's some numbers. The reason I shake my head, there's numbers that are getting used on QTS or Facebook's and Facebook this way. Uh, the first 3 buildings at QTS had a small tax incentive. Uh, so the comment about, are they just giving us back our own money? They— that all of their future buildings are 100% taxpayer. They're not asking for a penny. They're paying on day one, and that's where they want to do that and give money. So that, that's why I said no, that's just not true. Uh, they get a little bit on the first 3, and everything since, 100% taxpayer.

Speaker I: Mayor, could I, could I just ask that we do this? I mean, I'm listening to the citizens and they're saying, look, we— Jason in particular, I mean, he says, look, we just want to know how are they partnering, partnering with us. And it doesn't sound to me like we've done a very good job of communicating that. Could we just put together some informational flyer that just says, here are the things that Meta has done for us over the last 5 years, whatever it is. Here are the things that QTS has done for us so far, and here are the things that they're committed to do. I just think if our residents could see that, that perhaps their attitudes and understanding of whether or not they are community partners or not might change. Because I think when you sit in this seat and see and experience some of the things that I have, you— for me, I, I start to wonder, how does everybody have this perception of them when this is my experience? And I would like for you to each experience that. So I'm going to ask you if you would perhaps consider doing something with staff to communicate that.

Speaker D: It's probably going to take us a couple of days, but we can, uh, you know, we'll start working on that. And I think they'll help us and show us some of that.

Speaker B: Abby just finished it over there. Come on, let's get serious. Well, I actually— so I'm gonna put a plug in for an open house and let's see if we could get reps from both Meta and QTS to be here physically so that residents can have face-to-face time with them and they can advocate for them. The data centers can stand up for themselves and be accountable and show off the cool things that they're doing in our community. And have the handout. Like, I just think face-to-face is good. So, thank you.

Speaker E: Just a couple quick comments responding to the public comment. Um, the reason why Utah has the highest cost for housing is our homes on average are the largest in the entire United States. The average home size in Utah is 2,800 square feet. That ranks number 1 in the nation for house size. That's why it's more expensive. In terms of, like, the developer situation, I just want to report to you, this city council has only approved 33 new vested housing units this year. That's it. And those 33 are all affordable housing, deed restricted owner occupancy, deed restricted to 80% area median income or less for the buyer. So it's for affordable housing. Those are gonna be approximately— don't quote me on this— $330,000 homes, fully landscaped, fully fenced, all appliances, all blinds, ready to go, detached single-family homes. And that's some of the creative things that we have done partnering with developers who are concerned about the growth of our community, growing it the right way, to bring to the city. And I say 33, we actually reduce some out of that. So our net effect is probably 20. 27 or 28 new units that we've actually— that's it. And that, that's because of the council that you've elected to help manage the growth and be serious about the management of the growth. So just to give you that number. Um, Joy, I, I appreciate you bringing up the conversation about what happened on the podcast. I'm happy to talk to you more about that afterwards. Um, I would, I would invite you or ask you to at least consider my comment in the context of, context of my life that I've experienced Where I've also skipped meals many days to provide food for my family, and that was in the podcast. And if you selectively take out something and not put the whole story in, then it may sound different, and as if I'm being like not you know that I'm concerned for those that are through that. I know what that's like. In fact, I've worked most of my days in my life, my work life. I have worked six days a week, and for for various reasons. But it's I understand what it's like to have to. to, to stretch very, very far to, to make things, to make things work. But I appreciate you bringing that up because apparently I didn't communicate it well enough, and that's why you felt the way you did. And I, again, I appreciate you brought that up. So, um, I, I recognize we're, we're, we're in a, we're really, we're in a tight spot, and, uh, which, which influenced part of the why, you know, we voted the way I did in the last, in the last vote.

Speaker H: Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push the council just a little bit here, if that's okay.

Speaker D: To a motion?

Speaker C: Okay, go ahead.

Speaker H: Maybe, maybe I'm, I'm getting close. I, I think this, uh, we've heard hours and hours of, of residents that are, that are— we're asking them to stretch their budgets. I'm gonna maybe ask us to stretch our budgets a little bit. Um, when I look at the internet phone allowance that comes every month, I already pay for internet and I'm already paying for— um, what was the other one? For my phone. And so I would consider removing that from city council, or at least cutting it in half. I don't know if the council would go along with me on that.

Speaker B: I, I would be okay to consider it, but I'm going to tell you one of the historic reasons why it's there. One, so that we don't have to turn in mileage, um, because there's just incidental driving that we do as part of our role as city council. The other thing to keep in mind is we may be in the position that we can eat the cost of that, but there may be someone coming down the road That we really want to run for city council, and their financial position may necessitate being reimbursed for the phone and the internet expense. So I think historically, that's been part of the conversation, at least, is we want to make sure that we're not excluding really amazing potential council members because of their financial situation.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm just going to speak to that. I'm the reason that we did the increase, and that, that is the purpose. I don't think anybody in this city is looking for retirees and rich people to be running our city council. And frankly, I tried to put something in there that would allow everyday man and woman to be able to come and serve and to have something to help, because it is a huge, huge commitment that there is a financial burden.

Speaker D: for.

Speaker C: And if there is no way for them to be able to do that, then what I just previously stated is exactly who will be serving on your council. So that's a looking forward mechanism for any of you that have been spending all of your time learning about taxes. I hope that that moves you to the next step of serving on boards, coming and putting your hat in the ring to run for city council. So that I don't have to do this after the 4 years, and I can be done, and you can take it over for me, and I can go back to being totally anonymous again.

Speaker I: Sounds like a plug for the 3%.

Speaker C: I just think that that's, that's the important part to remember when we're doing some of these things. It's, it's not always about the people in this moment. You're trying to plan for somebody to be able to replace you that's going to come in and carry that, that torch. And if we keep looking at it from a perspective of, Oh, really? We need to get it down here or down here, down here. Then you're really just saying the only people who are going to be able to do this is the people who can afford to, uh, to not have income.

Speaker K: Can I tell you what I always say?

Speaker D: It's not mine. It's just my turn.

Speaker C: No, you can't say that.

Speaker D: No, thank you.

Speaker C: Mayor, I think we need to manage our time now. We've got a lot left on there and an RDA. I'd like to propose that we set a time to be complete with this meeting.

Speaker D: Make a motion.

Speaker C: I'd like to move that we set a time for 12:30 to complete the regular city council meeting.

Speaker D: We better get rolling. There's a lot of business, and I think, I think we can get to it. Make a motion.

Speaker C: I just did.

Speaker D: Second it. Second. Okay, we got a motion. Second. That's what I meant. Sorry. We are to— Councilmember Wood? Yes. Councilmember Hughes?

Speaker B: Yes. Councilmember Clark?

Speaker D: Yes, Councilman Wright. Yep. Councilman Whiting. Yes. Okay, we will set a time to adjourn at 12:30. So let's get to work. Uh, back to the item. Are we ready to make a motion on that? I'll make a motion. Go, go, go.

Speaker C: I'd like to move that the— hang on just a second, reset my screen here. We're on C, right? 13C. I'd like to move that the city council approve a resolution of Eagle Mountain City, Utah, adopting the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 annual budget. I have a question. Do I need to reduce the amount out of that total number?

Speaker I: What I would do is recommend that we, that we adopt it with the adjustment as reflected by the new certified rate.

Speaker C: So moved.

Speaker B: Second.

Speaker I: Because it is going to create some numbers that change slightly.

Speaker D: They're looking for some guidance on that. You, you go. I have the account numbers. You want the account numbers in the motion?

Speaker H: So, uh, you said you have the numbers, the— what the reduced number will be with the lower tax increase? Yes, and the account numbers in the budget.

Speaker E: I don't know that we need the account, the GL numbers.

Speaker H: Um, I just—

Speaker C: Do you need us to specify the— sorry, it's late— the particular line items that we're removing? Marcus, do you need us to remove the specific line items from the budget? Because I can do that.

Speaker H: Yes, that would be—

Speaker C: let me amend that. We're moving $1 million for the rodeo grounds and $2.5 million for land acquisition, and then taking the remainder. What is the total? It's like $1. Well, the rest just gets funded. The rest is going to be funded from the reserve. Is that clear? Whoever the second is—

Speaker B: I was the second.

Speaker H: Yeah, has my blessing. I just— if Kimberly wants to weigh in, make sure that she's okay with that as our finance guru.

Speaker G: Yes, I'm, I'm good with that.

Speaker D: Okay, uh, we got a motion, a second. Start the roll, Council Member Hughes. No. Councilmember Clark?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wright?

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Whiting?

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wood?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Okay, that vote passes 4 to 1.

Speaker K: Can we hold on? Can we clarify who seconded that?

Speaker D: Uh, Councilmember Clark. Yep, Councilmember Wood and Councilmember Clark.

Speaker B: Um, we—

Speaker D: I think I want to go to 14 because if we gotta hurry, this is time sensitive.

Speaker H: We might have to take just a few minutes.

Speaker D: We might as well just do it. Yeah, then is there a need? I'm gonna— okay, I'm gonna go back to 12A. Those are public hearings. Yeah. And it is notices of public hearing. So do we have any questions or presentation needed on this one? I know David's been here. I don't know where—

Speaker C: I think just have Brandon just do a quick synopsis of what it is. Yeah, that's totally fine. So, um, David had, had talked with staff.

Speaker H: We'd found a couple of things we wanted to fix, particularly, um, if you, if you look in your, uh, agenda packet, some of the—

Speaker C: he present or provided a presentation for you.

Speaker H: There's a picture of 2 roads. Uh, on one side it's named one thing, and on the other side it's named something else. The idea is, is we just don't want— we don't think it's wise to have roads being named one thing on one side of an intersection and something different on the other side.

Speaker C: So simply, we're trying— the biggest thing we're trying to accomplish here is trying to be consistent with our road names for ease of navigation of our roads, especially for emergency services.

Speaker H: David also proposed a couple of things in there about being more Updating the way we refer to county, like when we've got an easement we need to note on a plat, and we used to refer to book and page.

Speaker C: It's just, we don't need to do that anymore. We just need a recording number.

Speaker H: And then he also talked a little bit. And the other thing that he mentioned was just Making it a requirement for plat applications to show, identify which land is going to be maintained by cities.

Speaker C: So just a couple of housekeeping things. I think they're all well founded. They're things that we've identified in the course of just our normal review of plats. So that's— staff recommends you approve those. Items, and, and that's all I've got for you.

Speaker D: Okay, this has been pretty straightforward. It's just kind of aligning streets so we don't have 2 different streets going different directions. Any discussion? It is a—

Speaker C: the only thing I want to say is that when we make the motion, I'd like to give the instruction for them to set a plan for updating the ones that are disparate throughout the city. And just give us a plan to update those. What— that, that's a 2 or 5-year plan. Great. Just let us know. Okay.

Speaker D: So this is a public hearing. Um, at this time it is 11:55, and we will open the public hearing. No one. Uh, is there anyone here that has not had an opportunity to speak on this item? So, on street names, seeing no one. We will close the public hearing at 11:55 and bring it back to the council for discussion.

Speaker L: Go ahead.

Speaker H: Just one quick thing to kind of quell any concerns that Councilman Whitey may have had.

Speaker D: I did double check in order to—

Speaker C: a final plat has to meet the requirements of a preliminary plat as well. So I could go into the exact language, but it It's more complicated. It just basically says that the plat must conform to the requirements of the preliminary plat. So the fact that we mentioned this, you noticed in the plat amendment section of this proposal, you notice there's a disparity between the preliminary plat and the final plat.

Speaker H: We didn't We didn't copy the preliminary plat language into the final plat language.

Speaker C: It was on purpose, because if we mention it in the preliminary plat section, we're covered because the code already says we have to meet the preliminary plat— final plat has to meet the preliminary plat requirements.

Speaker D: Okay. With that clarity, I'm open for a motion. If there's no discussion, I'll make a motion. Go ahead.

Speaker C: I move that the city council approve item 12A, an ordinance of Eagle Mountain City, Utah, amending the Eagle Mountain Municipal Code 16.20.040, preliminary plats regarding street names.

Speaker E: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Wood and a second by Councilmember Whiting. We'll start the vote with Councilmember Clark.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wright.

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Whiting.

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wood.

Speaker F: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Hewish. Yes. Okay. This is the same exact thing, so we don't need a second presentation. It's just the final plat, the second part.

Speaker C: Make a motion also.

Speaker D: I do have a public hearing first. Yes, sir. I was trying to, so I don't think it'll take long, but if there's no discussion, uh, at 11:57, I'll open the public hearing and ask Lacey who's here. Is there anyone here that doesn't— that has not had a chance to speak on this item? Man, this is not as fun as a taxing when we get 2 hours. Okay. Uh, at 11:57, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to Mr. Wood.

Speaker C: I just want to make sure clarity. Uh, Brandon, he basically went through what the final plat section of that was. And if it's on the preliminary plat, final plat language got to be the same. So that's what we're approving. I move that the city council approve 12B. Uh, an ordinance of Eagle Mountain, Utah, amending Eagle Mountain Municipal Code 16.25040, final plots.

Speaker G: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Wood, a second by Councilmember Whiting. We'll start the vote with Councilmember Wright.

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Whiting.

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wood.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Councilmember Hewish. Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Clark.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: That passes 5-0. Okay, now we're back in order for the first time in the night. And we are on 14A, uh, the Mid-Valley Community Reinvestment Project Area. This is a resolution of the Eagle Mountain City approving the interlocal cooperation agreement between the Redevelopment Agency and Eagle Mountain City. This is something that we've worked on for quite some time, over years. So, um, this item— Evan's here to present the item. It's a single presentation for 14A, 14B, and 14C. 14, um, maybe just a brief synopsis and then take the questions as they come. So we— I want to get this done and we're limited, so without missing anything.

Speaker F: I'm gonna skip ahead, um, and, uh, We'll move on to most immediate things right now. Um, so we're talking about Mid Valley CRA, which this covers, um, the new retail project area, the 53-acre project area, um, between Old Airport Road, uh, and Mid Valley Road, which will be Lake Mountain, uh, corridor now off of Pony Express Parkway. This would be a new development with major acres. major anchors of Smith's Marketplace and Lowe's with a number of other businesses. And I think that's an important detail to keep in mind, is that the CRA is not targeting a specific business to benefit that one business. It is a whole project area benefiting multiple businesses where we're trying to use this CRA to help attract a lot of highly desirable businesses as well, and also facilitate the improvements that we need in that area in terms of infrastructure. We're anticipating that construction would start immediately. Um, after approvals tonight, uh, and that we would start seeing, um, some stores open as early as spring in 2028. Um, as mentioned in previous meetings, a lot of the, uh, use of the CRA is geared towards infrastructure improvements. It would be helping to push Old Airport Road and full 5 lanes, um, east of Pony Express Parkway, uh, as well as Mid-Valley or Lake Mountain Corridor, also widening Pony Express Parkway and adding several deceleration lanes, turn pockets, a new light, all sorts of different things. And this is— we use in this CRA sales tax dollars, new sales tax dollars that are generated from this project area to allocate to help pay this so that this can happen. This goes above and beyond what the project would otherwise provide. Um, in tonight's meeting, we're covering a number of different things that all pertain to the CRA, including the project area plan and budget. You have interlocal agreements, you have a participation agreement, and there's an amendment to the development agreement. Um, some, just some nuances to call out in an interlocal agreement. Um, it triggers as soon as the first business is open. There is a cap, uh, in in play with this. There's a couple of different buckets of dollars that are coming into this as well from grant monies from Utah County and from dollars that came as interest earned from a previous road bond. And we did stipulate that in this project that it must begin construction within 8 months of approval, although we do anticipate, as mentioned before, that they will start immediately. Participation agreement also covers a number of different provisions. There is a Uh, what's called a TIF bond that is part of this process, and that's because sales tax dollars don't start accruing until the buildings are actually starting to open up, and we need dollars up front to help pay for those infrastructure projects. And, uh, so we wanted to make sure there's clear parameters around how that TIF bond is to be used, that we are only using the CRA to pay off the TIF bond. That's it. It caps it there, and we're going to try and be as aggressive as we can paying that off as quickly as possible. Um, I want to give you a little bit of history real quick as far as how we got to where we are, and then what this is anticipated to generate. You may recall originally we were talking about a CRA that would include not just the city, but also the county, and also that we were talking originally having a participation of 62% from the city. Um, there was a 3rd-party market study done to validate all the stuff that we've been expecting to come out of this project. That 3rd-party study validated that the project will be very successful within our community, um, assuming everything that we're putting into it, um, works well. Um, that 3rd-party study allowed us to renegotiate, bring that participation down to 55%, and also relieve the county of any participation in that wholly. So now it's just us. Um, we're also anticipating at that 55%, We could come lower, but we wanted to keep that a little bit higher so that we could pay it off faster. So that was kind of the theory behind that. Some of the numbers you'll see in here, the anticipated revenues to the city during the CRA project area. So this is while the sales tax is being collected for those infrastructure projects. We're still collecting as a city $1.2 to $1.4 more millions of dollars for sales tax. The sales tax total over the 20 years, if it goes the 20 years, would be $22 million that we would still be collecting. And then we are collecting affordable housing dollars off of this project as well. $2.7 million over 20 years. Again, if it goes the 20 years after the CRA is completed, after that bond is paid off, we're expecting about $2.5 to $3 million per year off of this one retail project. Um, there's some additional benefits we expect and outcomes to come out of this and why this has been so Uh, important for us is that it is largest— it would be the largest retail center of the city. Um, that brings a lot of jobs. It allows us to be a lot more attractive in our retail recruitment efforts and bringing some of the highly desirable businesses, the restaurants, the clothing stores, all sorts of different things that people are wanting to see here. Um, we get more RAP tax funds out of it. Um, it helps push forward infrastructure projects that we're wanting to see pushed forward and making sure they're not just Starting, but they're also being built at full width from the beginning, rather than having to do expansion projects down the road.

Speaker H: Um, and so on and so forth.

Speaker F: Um, kind of talked about this part already, so I'm gonna just go into this conclusion that, uh, we've, we've spent a lot of time, as the mayor mentioned, on this. Um, and we believe it's in a really good spot, and we think it's going to be a very positive thing for our community to be championing and supporting this going forward. So I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about any of these things that we're going over tonight.

Speaker D: We've seen this a lot. These are basically all roads that we would build anyway. It just allows us to finance it with sales tax dollars. So any questions for Evan or for anyone else? If not, this is not a public hearing, so we're ready to rock and roll with either questions or motions, starting with 14A.

Speaker I: Mayor, I move that the City Council adopt a resolution approving an interlocal cooperation agreement between the Redevelopment Agency of Eagle Mountain City and Eagle Mountain City for the collection and remittance of incremental property taxes collected from property tax within the Mid-Valley Community Reinvestment Project area. Second.

Speaker D: That, uh, it says property tax, but isn't this sales tax?

Speaker G: Uh-oh.

Speaker D: Is it in the packet? It says— I just want to make sure because the motion, it should say sales tax. That's not— so I just see that as a typo in the agenda.

Speaker I: I will amend my motion and, and strike, uh, property taxes and replace it with sales tax.

Speaker D: Thank you. Thank you. That's important. I heard that and I was like, wait a minute.

Speaker H: And I'll second.

Speaker D: Okay, we got a motion by Council Member Wright, a second by Council Member Hewish. Um, we had Council Member Clark?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Wright?

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker E: Council Member Whiting?

Speaker K: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Wood?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Hewish? Yes. Okay, this is, uh, 14B. It's the exact same project. It's the next portion, uh, approving the CRA participation agreement. So are there any further questions on the agreement itself? None. Motion? No.

Speaker I: I, I, I move, Mayor, that the Eagle Mountain City Council approve item 14B.

Speaker D: Okay, as stated.

Speaker E: Second.

Speaker D: Second. Uh, so there's a motion by Councilman Wright, a second by Councilman Whiting. We'll start with Councilman Wright? Yes. Councilmember Whiting? Yes. Councilmember Wood? No. Councilmember Hughes? Yes. And Councilmember Clark? Yes. Okay, that's 4-1, and that passes. Um, 14C. Uh, Councilmember Wood, we generally have an opportunity. Do you want to speak?

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, I'm not in favor of TIFs. I think we don't need to do them anymore.

Speaker D: Okay. Um, 14C is an ordinance of Eagle Mountain adopting the community reinvestment, the Mid-Valley Community Reinvestment Project area plan. So this is the plan, um, same item. Now this one is important that it is pending the approval of the RDA meeting that we're going to hold after this meeting. So, uh, which is item 3A in our next meeting. If there's any questions, if not, I'll entertain a motion.

Speaker I: Mayor, I move to approve item 14C, contingent upon the approval by the By the redevelopment agency.

Speaker B: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Wright and, uh, second by Councilmember Clark. Is that okay? Contingent rather than pending? Okay, same, just making sure. Um, Councilmember Whiting?

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wood?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Hewish?

Speaker K: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Clark?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: Councilmember Wright?

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker D: Yes, thank you. 5-0. Um, now the ordinance of Eagle Mountain approving the 5th Amendment To the amended and restated Overland Master Development Agreement. Um, yeah, so this, uh, relates to the same project, um, as this is in the Overland area.

Speaker H: Um, so back in March, the special city council meeting, the city council approved the development agreement subsequent to that, and prior to any execution of the agreement, or the 5th Amendment, I should say. The developer wanted to make some changes to some of the language that are outlined in the packet. And so that's, that's really it. So we're making those— we're suggesting those changes to you and seeking approval for that.

Speaker I: You're gonna let me run the gamut?

Speaker D: Go for it. I'm just looking for questions.

Speaker H: I'm— yeah, I feel like—

Speaker I: is everybody okay with that? Yeah, the changes. Okay, um, um, Mayor, I move the Eagle Mountain City Council approve item 14B.

Speaker B: Second.

Speaker D: Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Wright and a second by Council Member Clark. Uh, Council Member Wood?

Speaker C: No.

Speaker D: Council Member Hewish?

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Council Member Clark?

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker I: Council Member Wright?

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: Uh, Council Member Whiting?

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker D: You want to say anything? Same reason?

Speaker C: No, this one's just— I don't think we should have taken off the ceiling for that. I don't like having an open end in 5.3.

Speaker D: Okay. Um, I, for sake of time, legislative priorities, I don't know if— are we good going on? Okay, uh, we'll catch up on that next time. Is there any other liaison reports or anything that's time sensitive on that? No. Um, unless—

Speaker E: did we want to talk about the Department of Workforce Services real quick? Maybe. Can you, can you just provide the info on that?

Speaker B: So the Department of Workforce Services is coming and helping the city with a response to the Tyson layoffs, and they're meeting, uh, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 1 to 5 starting next week to provide job seekers Services, and there's a couple job fairs and stuff like that. So check out the information. The chamber's hosting that stuff.

Speaker D: Okay, anything else that's time sensitive in this one? Good.

Speaker E: I think I just want to add one other quick note just to Councilmember Hewish's comment about the city council tightening their belt, maybe getting rid of that $200 or whatever it is. My, my encouragement would be for those that are in the position to do so, to, to donate that to city causes. And I only bring that up because we, we do have October 10th, the, the race, the, the I Believe in You half marathon that is raising money for our, our volunteer police, the volunteer fire at Cedar Fort, and also the Show Me a Sign that I the Foundation for Ben Lyon. And I'm going to be, I'm going to be part of that, and I'm going to be donating some money to that cause, um, to help, to help support that. But that's an idea of how the city council can sort of give back.

Speaker H: Do you have to run to donate?

Speaker E: You don't have to run. There's, there's a 5K option, 5K, 10K, half marathon.

Speaker B: You have to donate more if you don't run.

Speaker D: Okay, Rich, I'm going to give you the chance to not let Brett do it. We'll let him do it. Go. Last motion.

Speaker I: Motion to adjourn.

Speaker H: Second.

Speaker D: All right, we have a motion by Council Member Wright and a second by Council Member Whiting. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we're adjourned next