City Council Oct. 19, 2010

Thanks to Jill C. for this.

Last night, I attended the CC Meeting. Here is my summary of what was discussed:

I. Four citizens made appearances at the beginning:
1. Gerald Omer: lives in a rental that backs up to a public trail. He maintains his area of the trail, but is concerned about debris, concrete chunks, and other misc. that has been showing up on the other parts of the trail. Wanted to know if the city could do a once a year clean up, or post signs.
2. Gina Brown: She stated that money from the city has been set aside for landscaping a hill in the ViewPoint Hill area. She wanted to know if the neighbors could have some input/help plan what is to be landscaped on this hill. Response by John Park (City Administrator): Sprinklers have been put in place. It is a very steep hill and they are looking at planting wildflowers.
3. Kip Gibson: (from Beacon Hills area). Wanted to know if they have revised the fence ordinance and if he was on an upcoming agenda or if there was an update. Response from Nathan Crane (Comm. Dev. Dir.): It is on the Planning Commission Agenda next week. They will work on the proposed ordinance, then it will be come back to the City Council.

II. There was no Public Hearing. It was cancelled because there was no 10 day notice given.

III. Presentation- Annual Library Report (Presented by Kent Slade):
Last year, they had over 6000 borrowers (1/3 of the city). 166k items were circulated. Their goal was to have 25k items and they've exceeded that goal and now have over 29k items catalogued. They have circulated 449 items from other libraries. They've had over 9300 uses on their computers. Over 3,000 children used their Children's Programs. In October 2011 they can submit for a Certified Library and then patrons can use other libraries. This has been their first FULL year of service. We can compare our library size to Payson and Brighm City. They are in need of new staff and money for materials. The videos wear out very quickly. They have a very energetic Library Board. Brian B. asked about goals. Mr. Slade answered that their long range plan is to become State Certified. They have met their goals for this, now it is just waiting time. Scott S. stated that the library is almost built out. In future we'll need to make a plan. Mr. Slade stated that if they could get $10k in next year's budget, they would be able to hire one PT staff.
The question was then brought up about the library fees, and where were they going? Lynn Ruff stated that they money can go back to the Library Foundation. The Mayor requested that the above statistics be mailed to himself and the CC members.

IV. CC Minutes from 10/5/10: A few grammatical changes to the minutes (from Kathryn S). Minutes were adopted and approved.

V. Open Space Improvement (this was the longest portion of the meeting):
Here is the history taken from last night's agenda:

BACKGROUND:

On June 15, 2010 the City Council approved an Open Space Improvement application submitted by

Robert Boyer for property located at 4071 West Park Circle in the View Pointe Subdivision.

On July 20, 2010 Debbie Kinjo, a View Pointe Subdivision resident appeared before the City Council

regarding this approval and asked the application be reconsidered. At the July 20, 2010 meeting Mayor

Ritchie noted correctly that Matt Shipp was working with Mr. Boyer to suspend the agreement until

the Open Space Committee has time to address this and other issues on Open Space agreements. Mr.

Shipp informed Mr. Boyer via e-mail on July 20 that his open space agreement was rescinded.

• Staff has been told that Mr. Boyer intends on planting trees in the open space area the weekend

of October 16, 2010.

• A few neighbors in the View Pointe subdivision have contacted member(s) of the City Council

concerning lack of proper notification of the surrounding neighbors.

• The City Council is working with the Open Space committee to establish details to allow open

space agreements based on individual circumstances unique to every open space subdivision.

• The open space agreement dated May 27, 2010 states the following in paragraph seven of the

agreement, “City may in its sole discretion require the removal of said improvements at any

time”.

• Although the City Council did inform Mr. Shipp to work with Mr. Boyer to not allow the

improvements until they have a chance to rework the open space policy, Council never took

formal action.

• At least one member of the City Council has expressed concern that the Council was not

properly informed that the improvements were to take place on open space that was previously

improved.

On October 13, 2010 the City Administrator contacted Mr. Boyer via e-mail asking Mr. Boyer to not

improve the open space the weekend of October 16th in order to allow time for the City Council to

officially review this application.



Back on June 15, when Mr. Boyer submitted his original landscape plan and request to plant on the Open Space behind his home, the plan had included bushes, flower beds, and many trees. The city council told him that he could just plant the trees. According to Mr. Boyer, he had contacted several of the neighbors before talking to the city and they were ok with his plan. After the city approved his plans, the neighbors decided that they didn't want the trees in their open space. The reasons they cited were 1) it would block their views, and 2) it would take up too much space in the Open Space that they all share, and 3) it would be used as a fence for privacy and they don't want fences. After receiving complaints from the neighbors, the city asked Mr. Boyer to not plant the trees until something could be worked out.



Within the last week, several of the City Council Members went and looked at all of the homes locations, the height of the homes, the size of the open space, etc. Mr. Boyer came to the meeting last night ready to revise his landscaping plan to include 6 trees (3 maples, and 3 dwarf blue spruce) which he had already purchased. He wanted to plant all 6 of them 5' off of the back of his property line on the Open Space property. There were several neighbors there and they didn't want that. After MUCH discussion between the City Council members and all of the neighbors, it was decided by the City Council that he can plant 3 trees (of any variety) no more than 5' off of his property and the other 3 trees will have to go on his own property. After this decision was made, the Mayor gave a plea to the neighbors to not let something so small as this mar the relationships they have with one another. The final vote from the CC was: "Yes" Tom, Kathryn, Scott; "No" Larry and Brian.



VI. Communication Items:

1. Lone Peak Public Safety & Police Report (by Larry Mendenhall):

Larry read a bunch of statistics:

Last month they responded to 421 public generated calls and 355 officer generated calls. They did 68 traffic stops, and reponded to 20 medical calls. In Alpine there were 22 animal calls and 22 for Highland. There were 13 abandoned 911 calls in Alpine and 20 abandoned 911 calls in Highland.



Kathy Loveland is our Victim Assistant. She assists citizens in community paperwork, provides leadership, listening ear, and helps family members when there is a death (until other family members arrive).



Chief Botkin recommends that for greater safety we lock up our homes, shut garage doors, and keep animals locked up.



2. Cedar Hills Boundary Adjustment (presented by John Park):

Cedar Hills wants some of our property. They are calling it a "Boundary Adjustment" which is similar to an "Annexation". Part of the property that Cedar Hills wants from us includes their golf course and the Highland Hill by the GC and some county property on SR-92.

Scott S. stated that we need to keep in mind the properties that could some day be developed for a tax base. John Park (City Adm) stated that our city neighbors to the east and west are aggressively expanding their commercial tax bases and we get all of the headache (traffic, etc) and none of the benefits.

What Cedar Hills wants will leave a penninsula for Highland, which by state law should not be done.

Kathryn reminded us that Zone #2 is a "Well Protection Site".

Tom wanted to know if this is a land swap, or is Cedar Hills just wanting our land.

Mayor said that we will send 2 CC members, the city adm. and himself to meet with 2 of their CC members, city adm. and mayor. Kathryn and Brian volunteered to be a part of this committee.



3. Future Work Session (presented by Mayor Ritchie) will be Nov. 3. Nov. 16th the County is invited to go through the Interlocal Agreement. It is very detailed and they need to go through it before it gets put on an agenda. Larry wanted to know why we need to do an Audit Work Session. Kathryn stated that she wants more transparency. $700k and $900k were supposed to be paid to Highland and she want to make sure they were depostied.

John talked about Exaction Fees: There is a contractor (interested in some developing in Highland--I think he said) who wants a session concerning these fees. A work session was set up for Dec. 16th 5:00 before the CC Mtg.



4. Last June, the CC was informed that the monthly water bills (for every citizen) have been $5.02 short for the last 5-7 years. That ends up being $18k short per month and a $215k per year loss. We haven't been running in the red, but because of this, our reserves are not as high as they should be. Last June, it was decided that , since the taxes had already been raised, that they would not raise the water bill yet and wait until the next budget session (in July 2011). Now, there is a need for a new pump. It will take a month before Matt Shipp can get the pump out of the ground to see what it will take to repair it (costs would range from $10k to $200k). Kathryn was very adamant about not raising the fees without public notice. They will discuss this more after they find out how much the repair bill will be. The Public Hearing will be determined at a future time.