Eagle Mountain City Council, 1 September 2026

In short: The council spent the afternoon on discussion items and the evening on a short list of decisions. It approved a preliminary plat for a charter school site, tightened the city's retaining wall rules, and turned down a landowner's request to rezone three parcels back to agriculture. It also enacted a new chapter of city code that routes property tax revenue into a fund reserved for public safety.

Present: Mayor Jared Gray; Councilmembers Melissa Clark, Brett Wright, Craig Whiting and Zac Huish. Councilmember Rich Wood was excused for personal reasons and did not join online.

Staff: Ben Reeves (city manager), Marcus (city attorney), Kimberly (finance), Vince Hogge (city engineer), Robert Hobbs (senior planner), Steven (planning), Evan Berrett (legislative and strategic affairs), Brad and Zac (parks and recreation), John (legislative affairs), Abby (communications), Lacie Messerly (city recorder). Presenters: Dr. Courtney Flint (Utah State University, Utah Wellbeing Project), Ron Gailey (OnPoint Insights), Jessie Southworth (chair, Community Services Board), Jen Corrington (Community Services Board volunteer coordinator), Andy Flamm (applicant, Pinnacles), Scott Hazard (applicant, Gateway Park), Mr. Simpson (applicant, Eagle Square sign).

Decisions

#	Agenda ref	Motion	Moved / Seconded	Vote	Result
1	4	Adjourn the work session to a closed session under Section 52-4-205(1) of the Utah Code	Whiting / Clark	4-0 (Whiting, Huish, Clark, Wright yes; Wood absent)	Passed
2	Consent	Approve the consent agenda, pulling item 12A and moving it to scheduled items	Clark / Wright	4-0 (Huish, Clark, Wright, Whiting yes)	Passed
3	12.A	Approve the Gateway Park Phase 3 preliminary plat with condition 1 and without condition 2 (the road renaming)	Whiting / Clark	4-0 (Clark, Wright, Whiting, Huish yes)	Passed
4	15.A	Approve the ordinance repealing and replacing Section 17.60.130 on retaining walls, striking "multifamily" from item 5B and adding "or" before "institutional"	Wright / Whiting	4-0 (Wright, Whiting, Huish, Clark yes)	Passed
5	15.B	Deny the Pinnacles rezone and the master development plan and agreement amendment	Wright / Whiting	3-1 (Whiting, Huish, Wright yes; Clark no)	Passed
6	16.A	Adopt the ordinance enacting Chapter 3.50 on property tax allocations, changing "adoption" to "acceptance" in Section 3.50.110	Huish / Whiting	4-0 (Huish, Clark, Wright, Whiting yes)	Passed
7	17.A	Add renaming the wildlife migration corridor for Todd A. Black to the legislative priorities list	Wright / Clark	4-0 (Clark, Wright, Whiting, Huish yes)	Passed
8	18	Adjourn to a closed session under Section 52-4-205(1)	Whiting / Huish	4-0 (Clark, Wright, Whiting, Huish yes)	Passed
9	20	Adjourn	Whiting / Wright	Voice vote	Passed

Settled without a vote:

• The council told staff to draft an agreement letting Eagle Square place a commercial sign in the city right-of-way along Pony Express Parkway, with the owner bearing the risk and cost if the road is widened, and to bring that agreement back as an action item.
• The council directed staff to draft changes to the home business code so residents can sell farm products such as eggs, honey and baked goods, keeping the scope narrow and tying uses to the existing limits on trips, parking and the animal code.
• The council agreed the Community Services Board should form a subcommittee and bring back a written policy for a community garden pilot west of Pioneer Park, covering fees, signage, chemical spraying, liability waivers and compliance with city financial policy, before any work starts.
• The council asked staff to bring the previously denied trailer and recreational vehicle parking code back to a work session for another look.
• The council agreed Councilmembers Clark and Whiting will draft an agritourism code proposal themselves rather than adding it to the staff workload.
• Councilmember Clark asked that the city get its ordinances into the state's master offense table so violations can be charged, and the attorney said he will assign it to the incoming attorney; the city manager confirmed staff is already pricing out a justice court.
• The mayor left open which body should run a shared justice court, saying he will talk with the Lehi and Saratoga Springs managers and the county about a district or municipal arrangement.
• The council asked that the Community Services Board's list of park projects be added to an upcoming work session.

Meeting map

Agenda ref	Topic	~Start (elapsed)	One-line note
1.D	Utah Wellbeing Project survey results	0:01	A Utah State researcher reported that residents rate family life and safety highly but feel weakly connected to the city.
1.E	Annual community survey	0:35	The council picked topics for this year's survey: recreation priorities, communication, and the cost of big amenities.
1.A	Eagle Square commercial sign	1:05	The council agreed a sign can sit in the Pony Express right-of-way at the owner's risk.
1.B	Home business standards	1:20	Members backed widening the code from greenhouse products to farm products.
1.C	Community garden presentation	1:40	Support for a pilot garden, with a policy required first.
3	City manager information items	2:20	Bond rating trips, well repairs and a $1.7 billion power plant under construction.
2	Agenda review	2:35	The council pulled the Gateway Park plat off the consent agenda.
4	Closed session	2:55	Adjourned to closed session before the evening meeting.
7	Information items and upcoming events	3:05	The city's 30th anniversary challenge, service days and a local soccer signing.
8	Public comments	3:12	Two speakers: a charter school founder and a resident thanking the council.
9	Council and mayor items	3:18	Members reflected on the property tax fight and asked residents to engage earlier.
12.A	Gateway Park Phase 3 preliminary plat	3:35	Approved, keeping the name Gateway Park Boulevard.
15.A	Retaining wall standards	3:55	New engineering, permit and inspection rules approved.
15.B	Pinnacles rezone	4:05	Denied 3-1 over the loss of commercial zoning.
16.A	Property tax allocations, Chapter 3.50	4:25	New public safety fund and annual coverage ratio review adopted.
17.A	Legislative priorities list	5:00	Memorial corridor name, trailer parking, agritourism and the justice court.
18	Liaison reports	5:20	Senior center crowding, the veterans breakfast and recreation tax revenue.

Discussed but NOT on the agenda: the timing of the city's exit from the Unified Fire Service Area, a possible shared justice court with Lehi and Saratoga Springs, and getting city ordinances into the state's charging system.

On agenda but little or no discussion: the White Hills tank change order, the August minutes, the Brylee Farms development agreement amendment, joining the North Utah County Aquifer Council, the youth council term limits ordinance, the land disposals ordinance, and the July budget report.

What was discussed

1.D — Utah Wellbeing Project survey results

Dr. Courtney Flint of Utah State University returned with results from a survey her team ran in Eagle Mountain in April, six years after a first round in 2020. The survey is free to the city, and the city does the recruiting. It drew 359 responses this time, down from 506, and Flint said the respondents closely matched census figures on income, employment and homeownership, though married residents were overrepresented. Half of those who answered have lived in the city five years or less.

Residents rated family life, safety and mental health highest, and those are also the things they said matter most. The weak spots were leisure time and local environmental quality. Sense of connection to the city came in low, which Flint tied partly to how new so much of the population is. People who attend city events, use trails and take part in recreation programs report stronger connection and higher wellbeing, which she read as evidence those investments pay off. Concerns ran heavily to traffic, water supply and water quality. Three in four respondents with children in care called childcare hard to afford.

Asked how much weight to give the numbers, Flint was candid: because anyone 18 or older could take it, it is not a probability sample and she would not call it scientifically representative, but the margin of error is around 5% and the demographic match is unusually good. Asked what she would tell the council to work on, she named building community connection, including at the neighborhood scale, and using the results to talk back to residents about what the city is already doing on water and open space.

1.E — Annual community survey

Ron Gailey of OnPoint Insights came to ask what the council wants added to this year's annual survey before it goes live. The core questions stay the same year to year so results can be compared, but about three minutes of the survey is open for new topics. Councilmember Whiting asked to have residents rank recreation options against each other, an ice rink against a field house against other choices. Councilmember Clark asked that the cost be attached, since "everybody wants something until they realize what the price tag is." Gailey said his firm does exactly that in other cities by asking whether to go big, good or fair and then showing what each costs.

Clark also pushed for a question on how residents want the city to reach them, and one on which recreation program the city should take on next now that soccer has moved in-house. Gailey said the communication question fits in about two minutes, but the recreation program question takes four or five to do well, and suggested narrowing the list first. He talked her out of using the Citizens Academy as a demographic filter: with roughly 60 graduates in a city of about 60,000 and a sample of 1,000, the survey would be unlikely to catch five of them.

The council spent several minutes on a 2024 question about the city having its "own police force," which scored 9% on importance and 67% poor. Mayor Gray and Councilmember Huish both said the word "own" muddied it, and Gailey agreed: "they're not rating something that you have, they're rating something that you don't have." He said it should have been split into a separate yes-or-no question, and this year the survey will ask about police presence and whether residents feel safe instead.

1.A — Eagle Square commercial sign

Staff brought a sign application for the Eagle Square commercial development for direction rather than a decision. One of the two proposed signs sits in the city's right-of-way along Pony Express Parkway, and the city does not normally allow structures on its own property. Staff wanted to know whether the council would consider a lease or similar arrangement before the application went further.

Councilmember Clark asked who would pay to move the sign if the city widens the road. The city attorney said the city treats it as it treats a cable or telecom company: for a city project, the owner moves its equipment at its own expense. Councilmember Wright raised the public utility easement, asking what happens if power or water needs to run down that side of the road. City Engineer Vince Hogge said staff had already worked with the applicant to push the sign back beyond the future right-of-way so it will not have to move again, and that it clears the sight triangle at the intersection even after expansion. The applicant confirmed the sign starts 30 feet back from the curb, five feet past the engineering recommendation, and 80 feet east of Porter's Crossing.

Wright was blunt about the timeline: the city is chasing funding for seven lanes on Pony Express, and "my hope is that we're tearing this sign down in the next year or 2." The mayor, back from a morning at the Mountainland Association of Governments, said transportation improvement funding for that stretch is at least two years from approval and construction three to four years out. With no objections, the council directed staff to draw up the agreement, with the risk on the owner, and bring it back as an action item.

1.B — Home business standards

Councilmember Huish put home business standards on the agenda after questions about whether the rules are too tight for farm-type uses. Councilmember Clark said four residents have raised it with her, and one has an open license application that exposed the problem: the only fitting category is a greenhouse home business, and the city attorney reads that as covering plant starts, microgreens and plants, possibly bees. The resident wants to sell eggs from her chickens and other farm items. Clark's fix was to change "greenhouse products" to "farm products," define the term, and leave the rest of the home business rules in place. She added that front porch bakeries selling sourdough are already common and unaddressed.

Councilmember Whiting supported it flatly: "this is to me part of the culture of Eagle Mountain." Councilmember Wright agreed in principle but asked where the line falls, raising the slaughter and resale of beef or chicken. Clark answered that state and federal rules already govern meat and raw milk, and that meat sold in the city today goes to a butcher first. Huish urged a narrow scope, handled one use at a time. Mayor Gray asked whether the animal code's lot-size table could limit which products can be sold from which lots, since a fifth of an acre generating 25 trips a day turns a house into a meat locker. Wright landed on balance: the city should not stop a beekeeper from selling honey, but it should not host commercial egg farms in townhome developments either. Staff said the direction was clear enough to start drafting.

1.C — Community garden presentation

Community Services Board chair Jessie Southworth brought a pilot community garden proposal, asking only whether the council supports the idea and the site, a spot west of Pioneer Park near the disc golf course. The plan is five to ten raised beds with imported soil and drip irrigation, modeled on Wasatch Community Gardens: assigned plots, a named steward for each bed, a remedy period if a plot goes untended, volunteer hours, a modest annual fee and a small monthly maintenance charge. Jen Corrington, who runs the farmers market, would coordinate. Staff noted the city has tried gardens at that same site twice before, spent about $10,000 and never got a crop out of it, and recommended trying the same location so little is lost if it fails again. Corrington argued the difference this time is people: residents keep approaching her about it, and the beds should grow food people will eat rather than native edibles.

Parks staff raised liability, specifically someone spraying a chemical and someone else eating the fruit. Councilmember Wright went further and said the city should not be in this business at all: donate or dedicate the land, make water available, and let private sponsors fund the beds. He offered on the record to sponsor a bed at $200 himself, but said he wants the city indemnified before anything goes in. Councilmember Clark countered that the city already accepts similar risk on playground equipment and manages it with signage and policy, and that a low-cost amenity is worth saying yes to. City Manager Ben Reeves noted that gardens die when the work falls on one person and survive when a group carries it.

The attorney narrowed the mechanism. Because the Community Services Board is not a separate legal entity, the city cannot sign an agreement with it; if this is a city program, the city adopts a policy and requires waivers from anyone using it. Finance added that any fees have to run through the city's cash collection and budgeting rules. The council settled on having the board write that policy, covering the manager, signage, spraying, waivers and money, and bring it back for approval before the site is prepared this fall.

12.A — Gateway Park Phase 3 preliminary plat

Councilmember Clark pulled this three-lot preliminary plat off the consent agenda to argue about a street name. Lot 1 is a six-acre parcel intended for Ripple Academy, a proposed charter school, near Mount Airy Drive and Quarry Ride Highway. Staff brought two conditions. The first waives the rule against lots fronting arterial and collector streets, which staff supported because a school cannot function otherwise. The second would rename the western collector Wild Blossom Boulevard to match the Saratoga Springs street it will eventually meet.

Clark rejected the second. The city's preference for continuous names should stop at a city line, she said, and Wild Blossom is tied to a specific housing development in the other city. Scott Hazard, the developer, backed her: the road runs mostly north-south on his side while Wild Blossom runs east-west, and he is not eager to brand a 600-acre master planned community after another city's subdivision. Councilmember Whiting agreed it comes down to branding.

Mayor Gray asked about the access points, drawing on how the city handled homes fronting Woodhaven with a half-moon cutout. Hazard explained none of these lots are residential and nobody will be backing onto the collector; the school will circulate through one access on Wagstaff Way and one on Gateway Park Boulevard. The mayor then asked for some assurance that future driveways across the road will line up rather than sit offset, and Hazard agreed to work that out with staff, while noting an approved cut on his southern property line has already constrained where he can load the parcel. The council approved the plat with the first condition and without the renaming.

15.A — Retaining wall standards

City Engineer Vince Hogge brought a full replacement of the retaining wall section, written jointly by engineering, planning and the building inspectors after years of recurring problems. The old code keyed requirements to wall materials, said nothing about surcharge loading, capped everything at six feet regardless of setting, and required no inspections, so walls often got built differently from what was approved.

The new version splits walls into two classes. A prescriptive gravity wall up to four feet with nothing loading its top, a backyard rock wall, needs no building permit. Anything taller, or anything carrying a surcharge such as a parking pad, a shed or a sloped grade, needs a permit and full engineering calculations: lateral pressure, seismic loading, drainage and bearing capacity. Residential walls stay capped at six feet; commercial and industrial go to ten so those sites can flatten parking areas. Spacing between tiered walls goes from 1.5 times the wall height to twice the height, matching the International Building Code, and anything tighter has to be designed as a single wall system. The code adds a list of inspections the city may run, and requires them on mechanically stabilized earth walls, where compaction is what holds the wall up. Walls stay three feet off property lines so ownership is unambiguous, though a developer may run one continuous wall across multiple lots.

Councilmember Wright praised the work but asked the council to strike "multifamily" from the ten-foot allowance, saying it would encourage hillside development he wants to avoid, and that became part of his motion. Mayor Gray pressed on whether anything over six feet should explicitly require geogrid or anchors; Hogge said the engineering review catches that case by case, and that a thick concrete wall with a large footing may not need anchors at all. No one spoke at the public hearing. Councilmember Clark used her closing comment to ask the building and engineering departments to make inspections a matter of culture, not of who happens to hold the job.

15.B — Pinnacles rezone

Senior Planner Robert Hobbs presented a request from Andy Flamm, representing the property owners, to rezone three parcels totaling about 14 acres along Aviator Avenue from commercial neighborhood back to agriculture, and to amend the future land use map, master development plan and development agreement to match. The Planning Commission recommended approval. The stated reason is taxes: the parcels lost their greenbelt status and the owners want it back.

Councilmember Wright opposed it. The commercial designation came out of a negotiation that gave the project multifamily density in exchange for commercial frontage on Aviator, he said, and rezoning to agriculture invites a future council to be asked for housing instead. He pointed to the north end of the city, where mixed-use language meant to encourage commercial "always ends up residential," and to an applicant who once sought a 12-plex on the commercial lot where Freddy's now sits. Flamm gave the history from his side: the corridor was preserved in anticipation of a future freeway, he still believes in that vision, but the property has been on the market a year and a half with no demand for commercial on a dead-end road, and the county pulled greenbelt status after grading for the Aviator retention ponds wiped out the crop. He said he is not seeking high-density residential and supports keeping the commercial designation on the future land use map.

Mayor Gray asked whether greenbelt status is possible without the rezone. The attorney checked the statute and reported that agricultural use in a commercial zone would be a nonconforming use, so the exemption is not available there. The mayor floated keeping the map designation and writing a short agreement to extend the commercial intent past the development agreement's expiration next year. Councilmember Clark, who voted no on the denial, said the commercial ask originally came from the city rather than the developer, and that a reset would let a future council judge the best use with a good staff report in hand. Wright's motion to deny carried 3-1.

16.A — Property tax allocations, Chapter 3.50

Evan Berrett brought back the ordinance the council asked for after this summer's tax increase. It puts the property tax the city collects into a fund restricted to public safety, sets a coverage ratio the council checks each year, and forces the public safety conversation to happen early in the budget cycle, before other staffing decisions. Berrett was upfront that it is a first attempt: "I expect there'll be some kinks in it that we'll probably have to work out later." Changes since the last draft include folding facilities into the definition of qualified public safety costs, requiring level of service metrics so staffing numbers rest on evidence rather than feel, and getting an annual summary to the public early rather than at the end of budget season.

Kimberly from finance added two practical notes. The new fund is a budgeting device: residents will see it broken out during the budget, but in the year-end financial statements it rolls into the general fund, because a special revenue fund is not available for this. And the certified tax rate does not arrive until June, well after the tentative budget, so the council's real decision each year is how much revenue public safety needs, not what rate to set. Following the policy does not commit the city to a Truth in Taxation hearing; it commits the council to consider the question every year.

Mayor Gray pushed on scope. Councilmember Huish had been describing coverage at 32% rising to about 52%, but those figures count only the sheriff's contract, while property tax already covers fire in full. The mayor argued the fund should cover all public safety from the start, putting actual coverage closer to 85%. Berrett confirmed the draft names police services only, with the intent to amend it next year once the fire arrangement is settled. The attorney said he would rather pass it as written than amend it on the floor, since either path means bringing it back. Huish agreed the ratio should ultimately apply to all public safety, and moved the ordinance as drafted with one word changed, from "adoption" to "acceptance," in the reporting section. It passed 4-0.

17.A — Legislative priorities list

Councilmember Wright opened by asking that the wildlife migration corridor be renamed the Todd A. Black Memorial Wildlife Migration Corridor, with the one-year anniversary of Black's death approaching. He wants signs, a name on the city's maps, and the city to start using the name in conversation. The council voted 4-0 to add it, and the mayor said he would put it near the top since it needs an agenda item rather than new code.

Three other items followed. Councilmember Huish raised trailer and recreational vehicle parking; staff explained a code was drafted, went through the Planning Commission, and was denied by a previous council after residents turned against it, so the council asked for it back in a work session rather than a fresh start. Councilmember Clark asked for agritourism code, citing pumpkin patches, farm-to-table dinners and sourdough classes, and noted at least two farms already doing this with no code covering them. Reeves offered experience from elsewhere and cautioned that agritourism works when an existing industry partners with the city, not as a series of one-offs. Councilmember Wright objected on workload grounds: "we sit here and we moan and groan about the fact that we're not working on the Justice Court, and we task people with, let's figure out how to do a pumpkin patch." Clark and Whiting agreed to draft it themselves.

The justice court has sat on the list since February 2024. Mayor Gray reported that Lehi has largely wound down its own court and Mayor Binns has asked whether Eagle Mountain would join a shared arrangement, and that Saratoga Springs finds running its own expensive. He raised a district court, a municipal court shared three ways, or a county precinct, and said the next step is a conversation among the city managers and the county. Clark's narrower ask was separate: the city's ordinances need to be in the state's master offense table before anything can be charged. The attorney said that means going through the code, writing charging language and working with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and that he had planned to assign it to the incoming attorney. Reeves said the city may be able to contract it out.

Notable moments

• A resident thanked the council for the tax fight. Anthony Wood told the council he had spent weeks telling neighbors they shared the blame for the property tax outcome, using an analogy about a family that ignores the news it needs a minivan and then gets angry when allowances are cut. When residents complained a topic had never been discussed, he said, he sent them the meeting dates and video clips.
• A charter school founder introduced himself before his item. Jason Ayew, a 26-year resident, spoke about his two children's different learning styles and said more than 300 Eagle Mountain residents have expressed interest in Ripple Academy, which he hopes to open in August 2027.
• Councilmember Wright voted no and offered to write a check. During the community garden discussion he said he would sponsor a bed at $200 while opposing city involvement, prompting the mayor to predict "the first one's going to come from Councilmember Wright. He'll vote no and then he'll write you a check."
• Councilmember Huish learned he was on TikTok. A coworker told him her daughter had been following Eagle Mountain's property tax story on the platform. "That's not how I wanted to get famous," he said, before listing what came out of it: the public safety fund, a rebalancing mechanism, and a plain-language budget summary aimed at an 18-year-old reader.
• Councilmember Whiting on how residents argued. He drew a line between people who stayed at the level of ideas and people who went after character, saying the first group produced solutions and bridges: "come meet with us first and then make a decision if you want to about our character."
• The senior center has already outgrown its addition. Councilmember Wright, the council's liaison to the seniors, said the portable building added last year with federal funds is too small, and asked the council to consider directing Community Development Block Grant money there.
• An Eagle Mountain soccer player signed with Crystal Palace. Staff announced that Xavier Gozo, who came up through Real Salt Lake, signed a five-year deal, making him the first Utah player to reach the Premier League.
• A $1.7 billion construction project south of Meta. Reeves reported touring the Williams power plant site, which will carry 300 jobs through 2028 and add taxable value to the city's books in 2028 and 2029.

About this transcript

Speaker names come from roll-call votes, direct address and context, so most attributions are firm for the five elected officials. Councilmember Zac Huish appears throughout as "Hewish," "Huish," "Herwish" and once "Pewisch"; all are the same person, and he is not the parks and recreation staff member Zac Hilton. Staff first names are used as spoken, and several staff last names never appear, so roles are given as the transcript supplies them.

Several proper nouns are likely misheard. "Seagull Square" is Eagle Square. "Briley Farms" is Brylee Farms. "Corby Ride" and "Corey Ride" are Quarry Ride. "Lehigh" is Lehi. The public commenter's name is rendered both "Jason Ayu" and "Jason Ayew," and Mayor Gray refers to the family as "the Ayus"; the correct spelling is uncertain. "Ripple Academy" is as spoken. "Well 2" and "Well 8" may be numbered differently. Code section numbers are garbled in places, including "245.010," "1760130" and "3.15," and the correct references appear on the agenda.

The diarization drifts during fast exchanges. Several lines in the sign discussion and the roll-call votes are labeled with the wrong speaker, which is why a few passages read as if the mayor is answering his own question; in those spots the applicant or a councilmember is speaking. During the vote on item 16.A the speaker labels and the names the mayor calls do not line up, so the tally rather than the labels is what the record supports. The closed session itself is not in the transcript, and one exchange about a farm business shifts between "she" and a generic applicant without ever naming the resident.