Eagle Mountain City Council, 18 August 2026

In short: Twelve days after adopting a 183% property tax increase, the council repealed it and adopted a smaller one instead — a rate of 0.000900, raising about $2.13 million, or 69.81% over the prior year. Both votes were 4-1. It then adopted a $363,992,973 budget, trimming $3.5 million of projects and covering the rest from reserves. The meeting ran from 4:01 p.m. past midnight.

Present: Mayor Jared Gray, presiding in the chambers; Councilmembers Melissa Clark, Brett Wright, Craig Whiting, Rich Wood and Zac Huish. All five councilmembers voted on every roll call in both sessions, and no member was recorded as excused or remote.

Staff: Ben Reeves (city manager, back after a week away), Evan Berrett (director of legislative and strategic services, who presented the public safety funding policy and the Mid-Valley reinvestment package), Kimberly Ruesch (administrative services director, participating online, who presented the budget), Marcus Draper (city attorney), Lacie "Lacey" Messerly (city recorder, who ran the speaker list), Stephanie Allred (deputy recorder), Brandon Larsen (community development director, presenting the plat ordinances in place of senior planner David Stroud), Natalie Winterton (who announced the Eagle Mountain Academy), Vince (city engineer), and two departing summer interns — Addison "Addie" Cragin and Ethan, the latter presenting online. Outside presenters: Russell Sprague of A2S Engineers on the wastewater expansion, and Ron, the city's external auditor, online.

Decisions

#	Agenda ref	Motion	Moved / Seconded	Vote	Result
1	4	Adjourn to a closed session pursuant to Section 52-4-205(1) of the Utah Code	Not named on the recording	5-0 (roll call: Whiting yes, Wood yes, Huish yes, Clark yes, Wright yes)	Passed
2	9–11	Approve the consent agenda, pulling item 11.A onto the policy session, adding context to the July 30 Transportation Interlocal minutes, and making the minutes corrections noted in the work session	Wood / Clark (motion amended by Whiting and re-seconded)	5-0 (roll call: Clark yes, Wright yes, Whiting yes, Wood yes, Huish yes)	Passed
3	11.A	Approve a resolution awarding the bid for the EMC 6.0 MGD wastewater treatment facility expansion, GMP-2 oxidation ditch and miscellaneous site improvements, to MGC Contractors, Inc. and approving the contract	Wood / Clark	5-0 (roll call: Wright yes, Whiting yes, Wood yes, Huish yes, Clark yes)	Passed
4	13.A	Adopt a resolution repealing the property tax increase above the certified rate for fiscal year 2026–2027	Wright / Clark	4-1 (roll call: Whiting yes, Wood no, Huish yes, Clark yes, Wright yes)	Passed
5	13.B	Approve a resolution approving a property tax increase above the certified tax rate for fiscal year 2026–2027 of 0.000900 — exceeding the certified rate of 0.000530 and increasing the city's budgeted property tax revenue by approximately $2,132,876, or 69.81% over the prior year exclusive of new growth	Clark / Whiting	4-1 (roll call: Whiting yes, Wood no, Huish yes, Clark yes, Wright yes)	Passed
6	—	Set a time certain of 12:30 a.m. to complete the regular council meeting	Wood / seconded (seconder not clearly named)	5-0 (roll call: Wood yes, Huish yes, Clark yes, Wright yes, Whiting yes)	Passed
7	13.C	Approve a resolution adopting the fiscal year 2026–2027 annual budget, adjusted to reflect the newly adopted rate, removing $1,000,000 for relocating the rodeo grounds and $2,500,000 for land acquisition, with the remaining shortfall funded from reserves	Wood / Clark	4-1 (roll call: Huish no, Clark yes, Wright yes, Whiting yes, Wood yes)	Passed
8	12.A	Approve an ordinance amending Eagle Mountain Municipal Code 16.20.040 (preliminary plats) regarding street names	Wood / Whiting	5-0 (roll call: Clark yes, Wright yes, Whiting yes, Wood yes, Huish yes)	Passed
9	12.B	Approve an ordinance amending Eagle Mountain Municipal Code 16.25.040 (final plats)	Wood / Whiting	5-0 (roll call: Wright yes, Whiting yes, Wood yes, Huish yes, Clark yes)	Passed
10	14.A	Approve a resolution approving an interlocal cooperation agreement between the Redevelopment Agency and Eagle Mountain City for the collection and remittance of incremental sales tax collected within the Mid-Valley Community Reinvestment Project Area (motion amended on the floor to correct "property taxes" to "sales tax")	Wright / Huish	5-0 (roll call: Clark yes, Wright yes, Whiting yes, Wood yes, Huish yes)	Passed
11	14.B	Approve a resolution approving the Mid-Valley CRA participation agreement between the agency, the city and Terra Smith's Eagle Mountain, LLC	Wright / Whiting	4-1 (roll call: Wright yes, Whiting yes, Wood no, Huish yes, Clark yes)	Passed
12	14.C	Approve an ordinance adopting the Mid-Valley Community Reinvestment Project Area Plan, contingent upon approval by the Redevelopment Agency board	Wright / Clark	5-0 (roll call: Whiting yes, Wood yes, Huish yes, Clark yes, Wright yes)	Passed
13	14.D	Approve an ordinance approving the 5th Amendment to the Amended and Restated Overland Master Development Agreement	Wright / Clark	4-1 (roll call: Wood no, Huish yes, Clark yes, Wright yes, Whiting yes)	Passed
14	18	Adjourn	Wright / Whiting	Voice vote	Passed

Settled without a vote:

• The council told the applicant for the Pony Express Business Park that it would not grant the requested exceptions to the Tickville Wash setbacks through a development agreement. Every member who spoke said they would hold to the code; the mayor pressed the point so the applicant would not return with a variation, and one member said the drive-through escape lane requirement was negotiable.
• The council directed staff to write the property tax funding policy into both city code and the city's financial policies, rather than choosing between them as staff had proposed, and to add accountability measures, timing and a named responsible officer before bringing it back.
• The council directed the departing intern to broaden the staffing comparison study — adding police staffing, fleet, crossing guards, full-time versus part-time splits, five years of history where cities have it readily available, and St. George and Washington as comparison cities — and agreed to assign further staff time to finish it in time for next year's budget.
• The council settled the archery overlay zone at an age-8 threshold with adult supervision, after one member proposed raising it to 12 or 13 and was talked out of it; the text is to cite the USA Archery "guidelines" explicitly.
• The council agreed to have staff prepare an informational flyer setting out what Meta and QTS have contributed to the city and are committed to, after residents said they could not see how the data centers are "partners"; a member also proposed an open house with company representatives present.
• The council left the $200 monthly councilmember allowance in place after a member proposed cutting or halving it, and agreed instead to relabel the budget line, which currently reads "car allowance," to match what the code actually provides.
• Item 15 (legislative priorities), the liaison reports and the communication items were passed over for time.

Meeting map

Agenda ref	Topic	~Start (elapsed)	One-line note
1.A	Pony Express Business Park development agreement	~0:00	Work session opened at 4:01 p.m.; council declined the wash setback exceptions.
1.B	Archery overlay zone	~0:19	Intern Ethan presented online from a darkened room after an ER visit.
1.C	City staffing analysis	~0:27	Intern Addie Cragin's study design; council added several metrics.
1.D	Property tax funding policy for public safety	~0:43	Berrett offered code or financial policy; council said do both.
2	City manager items	~1:10	Reeves on civility: "It's okay to disagree. It's not okay to be disagreeable."
3	Agenda review	~1:12	Minutes corrections; 11.A pulled onto the policy session.
11.B	External audit presentation	~1:19	Clean opinion, one internal control finding, two compliance findings.
12.A, 12.B	Plat ordinance red-line question	~1:31	A paragraph struck in one draft and not the other, resolved as deliberate.
4	Closed session	~1:48	Adjourned into closed session at 5:54 p.m.; the recording skips it.
5, 6	Policy session call to order and Pledge	~1:49	Started 7:20 p.m. after a streaming problem; resident Elba Maria led the pledge.
7	Public comment (non-hearing items)	~1:55	Opened 7:27 p.m.; three speakers — stop signs, data centers, a city police force.
8	Council and mayor comments	~2:02	The longest single stretch of the night; Clark read violent threats aloud.
9–11	Consent agenda	~2:36	Approved 5-0 with 11.A pulled and minutes corrections.
11.A	Wastewater expansion GMP-2	~2:37	Sprague's presentation on quadrupling plant capacity; awarded 5-0.
13.A	Repeal of the August 6 tax increase	~2:52	Moved and passed 4-1 within two minutes, before any public comment.
13.B	Discussion and public comment on a new rate	~3:03	Comment reopened at 8:34 p.m.; roughly two hours of speakers.
13.B	Council deliberation and vote	~5:01	Members stated positions between 0.000900 and 0.001100; adopted 0.000900.
13.C	Budget presentation and trimming	~5:17	Ruesch's budget walkthrough, then the search for $4.6 million.
13.C	Budget public hearing	~5:57	Opened 11:29 p.m.; three speakers.
13.C	Budget adoption	~6:17	Adopted 4-1 after removing two projects.
12.A, 12.B	Street name plat ordinances	~6:22	Two public hearings at 11:55 and 11:57 p.m., no speakers; both 5-0.
14.A–14.D	Mid-Valley CRA and Overland agreement	~6:27	One presentation, four motions; Wood against two of them.
18	Adjournment	~6:40	Adjourned about 12:10 a.m.

Discussed but NOT on the agenda: the announced closure of the Tyson plant and its effect on roughly 400 families, which several members cited as changing their vote; a possible city police department and a resident's offer to donate land for a jail; a moratorium on new data centers; three-way stop signs on Ira Hodges Parkway; the property tax abatement available to residents 67 and older, with a September 1 deadline; declarant-controlled homeowners associations; senior and veteran tax exemptions modeled on Texas; the Volunteers in Police Service program; the councilmember allowance; the Department of Workforce Services response to the Tyson layoffs; and upcoming city events, including the Eagle Mountain Academy.

On agenda but little/no discussion: the bond release for The Towns at Brylee Farms Phase B Plat 4 and the four sets of minutes went through on the consent agenda without debate. Item 15, the legislative priorities update, and items 16 and 17 — liaison reports and communication items, including the financial report — were skipped outright for time.

What was discussed

1.A — Pony Express Business Park: a wash, a retaining wall, and a firm no

The applicant for two lots beside the Tickville Wash had already been denied a variance by the Planning Commission and came to the work session to ask whether a development agreement could achieve the same result. The requests were to build within the wash buffers — city code requires 50 feet from the top bank or 75 feet from the center flow line, whichever is greater — using sheer retaining walls of ten or eleven feet, and to skip the drive-through escape lanes. The applicant argued the site had already given up two acres of a six-acre parcel to the city without compensation, partly to buffer the wash, and said the buildings would be owned and kept rather than sold on, with engineers already retained to design the wall.

The council was not persuaded. One member said the concern was not whether the city could mitigate the wash but whether the ground is suitable at all — "just because we can do it doesn't mean we should" — and drew a comparison to homes built on a hillside in Draper. The city engineer confirmed the banks shift over time and that he had raised the same concern in earlier reviews: a retaining wall would itself sit in a flow line and need protecting at the base. Another member said the code "is there for a reason" and that a city park sits directly south with signage and trails already in place. A third pointed to parts of the city where the setbacks were not followed and homeowners now have cracked foundations. The mayor closed the item by testing whether gabion baskets or piping the wash would change any mind — piping would need a culvert bigger than 60 inches and would be, in the engineer's words, "possible, but expensive" — and got no takers, so that the applicant "doesn't come back and say, well, what if we do baskets."

1.B — Archery overlay zone

A departing intern proposed folding archery ranges into the city's existing outdoor shooting range overlay zone. The current code, he said, is close to meaningless: it bars discharging a bow of more than ten pounds of pull weight, "practically a toy bow with a suction cup on the end of it," and otherwise leaves applicants with no standards to design to. The amendment adds archery to the overlay, points applicants at USA Archery's safety guidelines, adds language on backstops and projectile containment, distinguishes bows from crossbows because a crossbow's trigger works more like a firearm's, and mirrors the outdoor safety standards into the indoor range chapter.

The only argument was about age. The draft allows children under 8 to use bows with constant adult supervision, tracking USA Archery; one member, who grew up on an archery team, thought 12 or 13 was more appropriate, noting a child can hunt at 12. Others disagreed: in a controlled environment with a range boss and a parent present, "you're not going to drop an 8-year-old off to go shoot," and liability insurance would set a practical floor anyway. The threshold stayed at 8, with a request that the text name the USA Archery guidelines explicitly so the reference is clear.

1.C — City staffing analysis

The second intern presented the design of a study comparing Eagle Mountain's staffing to its workload against Herriman, Riverton, Saratoga Springs, Lehi, Orem, Provo and Spanish Fork, across demographics, parks, streets, trails and open space, water, the recreation center, fire and rescue, and overall staffing. No data had been gathered yet; the point of the presentation was to take direction first.

The council added a great deal. One member wanted to know how other cities decide they are over- or understaffed — team sizes, man-hours per park, use of seasonal and high-school labor — and how departments are structured, "are we underlabor, overlabor, overmanaged, undermanaged." Another asked for St. George and Washington to be included for their growth trajectory and land area, for contract work to be counted in bodies rather than contracts, for five years of history where cities have it, and for new park acres brought on each year. Others added police staffing per capita and the number of fire stations, fleet services, the number of schools and crossing guards, full-time versus part-time splits, and administrative functions — "attorneys, finance, purchasing" — rather than only the outward-facing departments. Huish framed the whole thing as an index, comparing it to the PMI survey in economics: "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" it, "other than just taking somebody's word for it."

The mayor twice cautioned against asking too much of other cities' staff, and noted the interns leave shortly; the council agreed staff time should finish the work, with one member asking that the data be ready "in anticipation of next year's budget." Two members suggested pressing the Utah League of Cities and Towns to collect these metrics statewide as a standing service.

1.D — Tying property tax to public safety: code, policy, or both

Berrett had been asked to draft an ordinance dedicating property tax revenue to public safety. He brought one — creating a public safety fund, defining qualifying expenses, barring transfers between funds, setting coverage ratio thresholds and requiring annual review — but also raised an alternative, saying the more typical route is a financial policy, which runs through budgeting, auditing and reporting all year and is recommended by the Government Finance Officers Association.

That framing drew the sharpest exchange of the work session. One member objected to being told, again, that a future council could undo it: "I've heard that at least 5 times in the last month... I don't think that needs to be stated anymore." The same member rejected the policy-only route as the opposite of what the council was trying to do — "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" — and said the point was to make the commitment hard to reverse: "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."

The council converged on doing both. Huish explained the mechanism: a coverage ratio target of 85% of the public safety contracts, with an upper band at which a council could consider cutting the rate and a lower band at which it could consider raising it, and a segregated fund so property tax dollars are never commingled with sales tax. He defended 85% on the grounds that a 100% target would mean over-collecting in good years with no plan for the surplus. Wright made the transparency argument by asking the room how many councilmembers had a current copy of the policies and procedures manual, or would know where to find it — "not to embarrass anyone, but to just create that transparency." Clark asked who would be accountable for executing it, and pressed for required metrics — call volume, contract cost, park acres — to be reported at the first budget meeting each year, plus a standing "budget in brief" of ten pages or less published alongside the preliminary budget. Berrett accepted the direction: "where I kind of missed on this was I was really focused on the creation and the implementation part of it," and undertook to bring it back.

11.B — The FY2025 audit

The city's external auditor presented online. The opinion on the financial statements is unmodified — "a clean opinion, or the best opinion that you can receive." He walked through the testing behind it: confirmations to banks, the county for property taxes, the State Tax Commission, and URS for pensions; sampling and tracing of invoices; recalculation of accrued payroll, depreciation, compensated absences and pension allocations; and analytical review year over year.

There were three findings. On internal controls, certain reconciliations were not happening on time, which the auditor attributed to turnover in the finance department and to capital assets being maintained on a spreadsheet rather than in asset management software; his recommendation was to fix the reconciliation procedures and to buy a system, possibly a module of the city's existing Springbrook accounting software. On state compliance, the city exceeded the statutory limit that unrestricted fund balance not exceed 35% of general fund revenues — with the caveat that a significant amount is committed for streetlights — and its semi-annual deposit and investment report contained inaccuracies, apparently duplicates that made the city appear to hold more cash than it did. Staff said that report is being corrected with the state. The auditor added a caution about reading the statements: of the $66 million change in net position, $46 million was infrastructure contributed by developers and nearly $18 million was spent on capital projects, so the apparent surplus is not spendable money.

11.A — The wastewater plant, and why it could not wait

Wood asked for this item to be pulled off the consent agenda specifically so residents would hear it: "when we're spending $4 million, you ought to know why and where we're spending it."

Sprague explained that the city's south service area feeds a plant with a capacity just under 2 million gallons a day, against growth of 16 to 21% over the past two years and household contributions of 250 to 400 gallons a day. Eagle Mountain's wastewater is unusually concentrated because the system is new — about a third of the wastewater treated nationally is rainwater leaking into old sewers, which Eagle Mountain does not have — so the plant's nutrient loading is over 100% of capacity even while flow is not, which he illustrated with a kitchen table running out of food before it runs out of seats. The full expansion will take the plant to 8 million gallons a day, and is being delivered as six negotiated work packages with a guaranteed maximum price rather than a single hard bid, so that equipment can be procured and work started while design continues. GMP-2, the item before the council, is a $4 million package of pumps, pipes and SCADA to squeeze capacity out of the existing oxidation ditch and bridge the gap until the main expansion comes online in early 2029, and it includes $1 million of early excavation to keep the later packages on schedule. Impact fees on new connections pay the majority. It was awarded 5-0.

13.A and 13.B — Repealing one tax increase and adopting another

This is what the room came for, and the council took it out of order to reach it sooner. Wright moved the repeal immediately, saying he had spoken to each member individually and believed the votes were there: the resolution repealing the 0.001500 rate adopted on August 6 passed 4-1 within about two minutes. Wood voted no, and said so before explaining himself at length — "just because I disagree with that, that doesn't mean I'm not going to be in the conversation for the rest of it."

Wood's position rested on a fact not widely known in the room: the city intends to leave the Unified Fire Service Area, which currently levies its own property tax of about 0.001656 directly on Eagle Mountain properties, and to contract for fire service instead. If the new code's 75% coverage floor is to mean anything once fire is added to the sheriff's contract, he argued, the rate needed to be about 0.00149 — essentially the 0.0015 just repealed. "Why put a code that we're not going to follow?" Huish, who wrote the coverage-ratio code, disagreed with his own framework for year one: he had run a blended rate and found that 0.000900 would produce a 76% coverage ratio for sheriff and fire together once the fire contract begins in January, so the city could "work into it gradually." Clark stepped in to reassure residents that leaving the fire service area does not mean losing the service — "you won't have to pay taxes to UFSA, and instead we'll be paying through our contract here."

Whiting introduced the factor that several members said changed their minds: Tyson had announced the closure of its plant days earlier. He had asked the city's economic development director how many affected families were Eagle Mountain residents and been told roughly half — about 400 families, he estimated, perhaps 1,600 to 1,800 people.

Then came about two hours of public comment, and after it, an unusually explicit round of position-taking. Wright said he had been comfortable at 0.0015 and would probably "get beat up again" for saying so, but named a floor: fund the $1.5 million sheriff's increase, fund the pared-down list of new positions, and fund the $525,000 that brings existing employees to the median — which he put at about 0.001100. Clark said 0.000900 was her ceiling, at about $8.27 a month for a median home, and accepted that funding everything at that rate would draw general fund reserves down to 19.51%. Challenged on whether she was proposing to pay for ongoing staff from reserves, she owned it: "every single staff member that has a Master of Public Administration is like cursing me right now... But I'm willing to do this for 1 year." Wood repeated that 0.0009 was too low and that residents should understand what it costs — "you'll know you're heard," but the city will not be able to do things that are needful. Whiting said Tyson was exactly the kind of moment reserves exist for and came down at 0.000900.

Clark moved the rate at 0.000900. Whiting supplied the statutory recitation she had paused for — a certified rate of 0.000530, an increase of approximately $2,132,876, or 69.81% above the prior year exclusive of new growth — and then seconded the motion. It passed 4-1, Wood against. Wright's vote came with a shrug: "It's immaterial what I say, Mayor, but I will vote yes."

13.C — The budget, and where $4.6 million came from

Ruesch's presentation was aimed as much at the room as at the council. She explained why the city cannot simply charge developers more — 2022 state legislation restricts development fees to the cost of the service provided, since anything above that is a tax — and why comparing rates across cities misleads: Lehi's lower rate generates $15.9 million, and even the repealed 0.0015 rate would have generated less revenue than either Lehi or Saratoga Springs. She explained cost allocations, the negative "administrative costs" lines that had puzzled a councilmember earlier, and transfers, which inflate the headline budget without creating money. She acknowledged the communication problem directly: having sat through every meeting, the material "makes sense to us because we've been a part of it the entire time," while a resident joining at the end misses the detail entirely. She also noted, with evident feeling, how often a budget public hearing draws nobody.

The lower rate left a shortfall Huish put at $4.6 million. He went looking for it in the capital list rather than in the reserve, proposing to defer $1 million for relocating the rodeo grounds, $2.5 million for land acquisition, $500,000 for the civic campus design and $30,000 for a field house match — about $4.03 million — and separately asking that several park projects be funded from the roughly $2.8 to $3 million of utility sale proceeds rather than the general fund. The City Hall design survived: the mayor argued the city is already three or four years out and cannot afford to slip further, Clark noted the city pays $10,000 to $11,000 a month in rent for staff housed elsewhere and that one staff member shares a desk on set days, and Whiting said the design work is how you find out what you are aiming at. The rodeo grounds money turned out to sit in general fund capital reserves, which made it the right kind of cut. In the end the motion removed the rodeo grounds and the land acquisition — $3.5 million — and took the remaining $1.1 million or so from reserves, leaving the fund balance at roughly 28%.

Huish then voted against the budget he had just pruned.

14.A–14.D — Mid-Valley: a shopping center paid for with its own sales tax

Berrett presented all three Mid-Valley items together. The project area is about 53 acres between Old Airport Road and the Mid-Valley (Lake Mountain) corridor off Pony Express Parkway, anchored by a Smith's Marketplace and a Lowe's, with construction expected to start immediately and the first stores opening as early as spring 2028. The mechanism routes 55% of new sales tax generated inside the area to pay off a tax increment bond funding off-site infrastructure: widening Old Airport Road to five lanes, the Lake Mountain corridor, widening Pony Express Parkway, deceleration lanes, turn pockets and a new signal. He stressed the area benefits multiple businesses rather than one, and that a third-party market study had allowed the city to negotiate participation down from 62% to 55% and to release Utah County from participating at all. Even during the project area, he said, the city still collects $1.2 to $1.4 million a year in sales tax, $22 million over twenty years, plus $2.7 million in affordable housing funds, rising to $2.5 to $3 million a year once the bond is paid. Construction must begin within eight months of approval.

Two things happened worth noting on the record. The mayor caught the same packet error the redevelopment board would catch an hour later: Wright's motion on 14.A recited "incremental property taxes," matching the agenda, and the mayor stopped it — "it says property tax, but isn't this sales tax?" Wright amended the motion on the floor to strike property taxes and substitute sales tax. And Wood, invited to explain his vote, gave the shortest statement of the night: "I'm not in favor of TIFs. I think we don't need to do them anymore." He voted against the participation agreement and against the Overland amendment, where his objection was specific — "I don't think we should have taken off the ceiling for that. I don't like having an open end in 5.3" — but for the interlocal agreement and the project area plan.

Notable moments

• Clark read violent messages into the record. Opening the council comments, she read aloud a series of threats the council had received — "String them up, make their families watch," "Every city council should be dragged from their seats and hanged in the public square," "Our hands fit so easily around their throats" — and then set them aside: "I don't care about these people on the internet. I care about the people of Eagle Mountain... And yes, sometimes that means I get choked up and I cry. Why? Because I care." Speaker after speaker in public comment, on both sides of the tax question, condemned the threats.
• Wright took the communication failure personally. Following Clark, he began "Really? You expect me to follow that, Councilmember Clark?" and then said: "I think that's where we have failed pretty miserably. Let me restate that. That's where I have failed miserably." He also disclosed that "it was a wrestle for me to want to even serve a second term. It's not a fun job."
• The repeal happened before anyone spoke to it. The council voted to repeal the August 6 increase at the start of the item, before public comment on the replacement was reopened. One commenter had to ask from the podium: "So I just want to be clear, you repealed the tax hike?"
• A resident said he had ordered the stop signs himself. George Reed told the council that three intersections on Ira Hodges need three-way stops and that if the city would not act, "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." Wright returned to it later: "We shouldn't ever have to get to a place where that's the only recourse that we have, should we?"
• A commenter apologized to the mayor about a sheriff's investigation. Duncan Searcy said he is under investigation by the Utah County Sheriff's Office because "somebody here on the dais" said he was making threats, that he had publicly blamed the mayor, and that he had since learned it was someone else — offering to make a video setting the record straight. He also told Whiting that using a Gettysburg battle analogy about taxes was inappropriate: "I'm a war veteran. Never ever would I use people's ultimate sacrifice as an example." Whiting apologized for the analogy later in the meeting and explained what he had meant by it.
• A former councilmember of sixteen years asked for a smaller number. Donna Burnham defended earlier councils — "we were lean, and that's what we should be. However, in the last few years, we became too lean" — said call times, not staffing ratios, are what matter, and asked the council to consider roughly half the increase. Charlotte Ducos, who teaches government at the high school and has her students analyze the city budget every semester, said publicly that she and Burnham, who are friends, disagree on exactly that point: "I think they were too lean."
• The mayor put the rate history on screen and admitted he had been rounding. He showed that the 2016 rate of 0.001081 has never been raised but has fallen to 0.000530, so the tax on a $100,000 taxable value went from $108 to $53 — a decline of about 50.6% before inflation. "Tell me to tighten my belt. I did, to $53. Can't go anymore." He also explained why growth does not solve it: under Utah's revenue-based system the city gets the prior year's revenue plus new growth, while the new houses bring new parks, lane miles and connections to maintain, so "growth actually hurts us because it costs us way more than it generates."
• The mayor said he had turned down a data center deal and asked for a road instead. He described staff floating a tax break for QTS in exchange for fronting money, refusing it, and phoning the company directly: "I said, hey, that's crap. I'm not paying for this road... He said, let me call you back. Within a day, he called me back and said, where do you want the check?" The result, he said, is about $5.5 million for the road and two signals with no strings attached, and future QTS buildings paying full tax from day one. Joy Rasmussen, in the budget hearing, put the other side, citing published reports of a $150 million property tax break to Meta in 2018 and a $77 million incentive in 2021, and asked whether those would be given back.
• Clark used her time to publicize a tax break residents were missing. She explained the property tax abatement for residents 67 and older — an additional 20% off an already-discounted taxable value, plus an income-based credit — flagged the September 1 deadline, and offered her own help: "If you guys need help filling this stuff out and nobody can help you at the county, call me and I will help you."
• A resident asked why the meeting was the night before school started. Jen Hackett told the council "Tonight was a poor choice for this meeting... Parents are home getting kids in bed right now," and challenged the mayor over attending the August 6 hearing by Zoom: "Residents made the effort to show up, sit in that room. They deserve to have you here." A later speaker, appearing with her husband minding their toddlers at home, made the same point from experience.
• A GRAMA request became part of the argument. Steve Perretta said he had asked for the working behind the 183% figure and been refused a fee waiver, told instead to pay a $100 deposit: "the city is making transparency cost money." Whiting answered from the dais that he personally produced the 183% number and explained the arithmetic behind it — the sheriff's hires, a pared-down staffing list, a partial wage increase, and roughly $2 million left over — offering to walk anyone through it afterwards.
• The councilmember allowance survived a proposal to cut it. Huish suggested removing or halving the $200 monthly allowance, saying he already pays for his own phone and internet. Clark and Wood both argued against it on access grounds — Wood said he was the reason it was raised, and that without it "the only people who are going to be able to do this is the people who can afford to not have income." Whiting suggested members who can afford to should donate it instead, plugging an October 10 charity race for the volunteer police and Cedar Fort volunteer fire.

About this transcript

This is a machine transcription of a public recording, with automatic speaker separation, and both parts of that need a caveat.

The recording does not include the closed session. The council adjourned into it at 5:54 p.m., about 1 hour 48 minutes into the recording, and the policy session picks up moments later in elapsed time but an hour and a half later on the clock. Elapsed timings in the meeting map above are therefore continuous with the recording, not with the evening.

The speaker labels are unreliable and were not used to attribute anything here. The recognizer reused the same letters for different people across the six and a half hours — the label carrying a councilmember's remarks in the work session carries an outside presenter's later on, and during the public comment period the labels shift almost at random between the speaker at the podium, the recorder reading names, and the timekeeper's warnings. Every name in this summary comes instead from what is said aloud: the mayor names the mover and seconder of each motion and calls each member by name before their vote, members address each other by name, and each public speaker is called by the recorder before speaking. Where the audio does not supply a name that way, none is given — the mover of the closed-session motion and the seconder of the time-certain motion are two such gaps.

Recurring mis-hearings: "Hewish," "Hughes," "Hewitt" and "Huish" are all Councilmember Zac Huish; "Councilman Bright" is Brett Wright; "Councilmember Gray" in one public comment is the mayor; "Lacey" is City Recorder Lacie Messerly; "Harriman" is Herriman and "Lehigh" is Lehi; "Cory Bee Ride," "Corey Ride" and "Cory Ride" are Cory Wride Memorial Park; "Briley Farms" is Brylee Farms; "Tara Smith's" is Terra Smith's Eagle Mountain, LLC; "Meg" is MAG, the Mountainland Association of Governments; "PB&G" is CDBG; "Cloudward and Piven" is Cloward and Piven. The chief deputy over the Eagle Mountain division is rendered variously as "Knutson" and "Knudson" and his spelling is not settled by the audio. One member's reference to what "MET" will bring in is probably the municipal energy tax, but the audio does not confirm it.

Two numbers in the recording are wrong as spoken and are not repeated as fact here. The mayor's reading of the budget total stumbles into "$3,063,992,973"; the figure on the agenda and in the motion is $363,992,973. And his walk through the historical tax rates garbles the middle years — "0.012, 0.101, 0.09" — though the endpoints he gives, 0.001081 in 2016 and 0.000530 today, are consistent with the $108-to-$53 per $100,000 comparison he draws from them. Where a public speaker asserts a figure — the reported Meta incentives, the $220 million bond, the 12% annual water rate increase, deputy and call-volume growth percentages — it is reported here as their claim, because the transcript records the assertion and not its verification.

Several public speakers' names are spelled as best they can be heard and were not all confirmed by the recorder: "Ashley Erkschein," "Natalie Deschamont," "Garrett Houghter," "Laura Albrecht" and "Charlotte Ducos" are uncertain. One speaker — the resident who called for a city police department and offered to donate land for a jail — cannot be named with confidence, because the recorder called two names together, "Marco Zamorano? And then also Tiffany Walden," without establishing which of them came forward.