Council Work Session Meeting

0:02All right welcome everyone to April 21st, 2026 City Council work session meeting. As our meetings are public and you are welcome to join us in person or by watching the Council's agenda page, Zoom or YouTube. We hope you'll join us in whichever manner you feel most comfortable. This is a work session meeting during which there is no public comment.

0:25Please join us tonight during our 7 p.m. formal meeting to share your comments. We of course welcome your feedback anytime by mail to PO Box 145476 Salt Lake City, Utah 84114 5476 or by email at council.coments at slc.gov. Or via our 24 hour phone comment line 801 535 7654. Comments we receive on agenda topics are shared with council members and posted to our website slc.gov slash council.

1:00The first item on our agenda is updates from the administration. What will be joined at the table of what by Westin Clark and Andrew Johnson? Johnson. All right, good afternoon. Got a few engagement updates for you. Let's go ahead and go to the first slide. With your monthly reminder to check out shape slc. I encourage everyone to go there, register for your favorite projects and interests so that you can be alerted to things that you might want to engage on in the future.

1:44And that's where a lot of these projects will have updates going forward. Next slide. We're going to start with our public lands for an update. Jefferson Park's shape slc survey has recently closed and the results have been published to the site for the public review. Construction for that project is anticipated for later 2026 early 2027.

2:07Again, go to shape slc and sign up for updates on that. At Allen Park, the construction for the water and fire line is processing or progressing on schedule. They are anticipating reopening the park in mid May. Public lands is planning a community engagement event to celebrate the reopening and share phase one's refined concept.

2:26A design concept for the future of fleet block. Its open space has been unveiled and is on shape slc. If anyone would like to go check it out. There was a public survey on there that just recently closed and the feedback is going to be soon incorporated into the project. And so again, I encourage you to go shape slc and check those out.

2:44A pioneer park you've probably noticed construction is already underway and is expected to be completed later this year. From our sustainability team, the next round of landscaping equipment exchange program opened on April 15. Eligible equipment includes lawn mowers and hand held tools, trimmers, leaf blowers, etc. Applications will stay open until the funding runs out.

3:05Program details can be found on sustainability's website which is there slc.gov slash sustainability slash landscaping. Next slide. The draft of the avenues community plan is now available on shape slc. And an email update also went through the listserv for those who had signed up to be notified. Phase three of community engagement for the plan is now underway which focuses on refining the draft through public input meetings and hearings.

3:35The Capitol Hill update plan is ongoing. The feedback gathered during phase one which was an online survey and some outreach events is currently being analyzed to identify the themes that will inform the plan. So again, check out shape slc. There's a theme here, right? To learn more and get those updates. In the mayor's office, the love your block program has awarded nine mini grants for the current cycle supporting community driven small scale neighborhood improvement projects across our target areas ballpark and west side.

4:04Ballpark had three projects, Fair Park had one project, Glendale two projects, and Poplar Grove three projects. All funded projects are scheduled for completion by July 31st, 2026. And looking ahead, the annual mini grant application period will be open for the entire month of May with award announcements anticipated in July.

4:23Grants of up to three thousand dollars will be available to support local residents and community groups in implementing neighborhood improvement projects. And then just to highlight a couple of spaces where you can find my team, the mayor's outreach team. If you have any questions or concerns you'd like to speak to us, we'll be at the west side coalition community celebration this evening at the fairgrounds from 5.30 to 8.

4:43Or you can catch us at Rose Park Street Festival on May 16th. So we hope to see you in those spaces. And then finally, the last slide for me. I just want to give a great shout out to our arts council team who curated an incredible community arts event for our city through all of our, Elison's, a symphony of disappearing sounds for the Great Salt Lake, which took place over nine days in memory Grove.

5:0620,000 people attended over that time and three major national news articles covered the project. Was such a unique and special experience. So congratulations to the public arts team and thank them for their work. That's all for me. Next slide. The utilization rate at the top there is actually a little out of data. I apologize. It's 94%.

5:33It's gone down a little bit. This is pretty typical during the spring when I'm transition from the winter beds to the spring and summer beds. So I anticipate that will remain pretty consistent going forward. The encampment impact mitigation work and rapid response teams are still very active. However, to our previous discussions over the last several months, we have seen a significant increase in the response time of our teams to get to cleaning projects.

5:58So when they get a request online, they can usually get to within a day or two, which means they no longer have to necessarily schedule out two weeks in advance. They can actually on the fly during a week respond quickly to different areas of the city as needed. So I don't necessarily have a full schedule going forward to those things.

6:14And then the encampment mitigation work, the bigger camp cleanups are pretty rare these days. A lot in the foothills periodically, but not necessarily every week everywhere. That's why you see some changes there. Any questions on that? Okay, next slide. Resource Fair on our April 10th Credit Library Square was co-hosted with HEART and Utah Department of Corrections and Salt Lake County Office of Homelessness and Criminal Justice Reform.

6:43HEART is doing a great job of organizing fairs every month in the city and partnering with external organizations to co-host them. So there's a shared in the planning and costs, organizing, etc., which is a great move on their part. In this particular one, there was 350 folks attended at Library Square with 25 providers and 10 of volunteers from the county.

7:03The next fair is May 8th. This one will be at Library Square and co-hosted by Odyssey House. And then the community corner, which we opened last year as a pilot project in the fall at 7th, West and 2nd, South. We're planning on reopening that. The HEART team, again, is organizing that effort to bring usually smaller other providers of homeless services to that location in lieu of going out to public parks or other public spaces. It's great for them in a sense. It's consistent.

7:31We're allowing use of that space. It's safe. It's clean. It's contained, etc. It also helps the providers to find folks who are there and they know how to get there regularly and it's consistent for everybody involved. So I'll reopen that in mid-May, probably Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays again in the afternoons. We'll have more information as we get closer to that.

7:49And then the Wean Center will be hosting the Salt Lake City Justice Court on May 1st in part of their mobile court outreach work. And then my last slide, if you move forward one. In our last discussion last week about the new proposed no camping ordinance, we talked a lot about a city ordinance is important to have consistent enforcement and expectations, but it alone is not what's going to help us deal with the situation we fight ourselves confronted with. Lack of housing services. A lot of people thought a place to live consistently.

8:18What you see here are some statistics from resource fairs just this year in January through April. HASLC is housing authority of Salt Lake City, donated dental and dental core or dental providers. And then the Justice Court is our own justice court. Now they're going to these resource fairs and this is some of what they're doing there. I highlighted the Justice Court because in our past discussion it was about what are the penalties if you violate or know camping ordinance and things.

8:46We do need consequences for those ordinances. However, that's not what actually moves the needle. What moves the needle is when somebody has a violation and they can come to a resource fair or to a resource center in these cases and the court will come to you to resolve that. And the goal of the court is not necessarily to get the fine. It's not necessarily get somebody jailed. Their goal is actually to get them diverted out of the criminal justice system into services. And this is what they're doing with this is hundreds of cases they've heard in the last four months. And these are unduplicated. I'm told.

9:19And so those are cases that were probably for a lot of the violations we're talking about which are being dealt with in a different way than perhaps we would assume that somebody's getting punished. Our goal is to try and get some folks into services through this avenue. So we can provide more of these, but you'll also see that the housing authorities there trying to get services and get signed up for housing for other enrollments and then donated dental is something we don't talk a lot about. We have the four street medical clinic and other providers do some medical outreach with general medical work.

9:47Dental work is something that sometimes falls to the cracks. It doesn't get paid for by a lot of providers. We overlook it as sort of maybe not a critical essential piece. But problematic dental issues actually lead to really poor health outcomes for folks. And this is something that I think they take a lot of pride in and being able to offer these services and they have an estimated cost next to those that donated that way. We need more of this.

10:12But this highlights some of the efforts of the heart team in the city and other city resources to bring other providers together to try and fill in these gaps we're seeing in systems. So it's not just about enforcement, it's about enforcement towards getting help for folks. So hopefully that helps you put in a little more context of the discussion we had last week. We can keep having those discussions going forward.

10:30That's all I have. I'm Chair. Awesome. Thank you, Andrew and West and Council members. Council member Petrov. Can you more clearly what are the benefits outside of housing with the housing authority when you said the benefits enrollment? If you go back to the slide perhaps. So oftentimes they're going to try and send out for other public benefits.

10:51So a navigator can get them through the paperwork signing up for Medicaid Medicare, for instance. Okay, so they'll do complete wrap around. Wrap around services. A lot of times with the housing authorities when they get into housing, they want all the things done anyway. And so they can actually have folks facilitate some of that paperwork.

11:07Where does, do you know where the housing authority draws that funding from? I can check on that for you. I just want to, I would love to know for future references we're strategically looking ahead. How stable that funding sources and if we need to be prepared to help adjust that, that feels like it would be a huge thing for us to lose.

11:26I'll say generally they're going with existing federal and state benefits. And so it's just for anybody who can sign up for them any time they want. But a lot of folks who are unsheltered really helps out somebody walk through the process and then how moderate that going forward and explain what it is and why. And then even to do the benefits sometimes is about getting the paperwork and the IDs to get that done.

11:45Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you so much. We'll go ahead and move on to our next item, which is a Fortune Road partial street vacation. We'll be joined at the table by Brian Fulmer, Council policy analyst and Cassie Younger, Senior Partner. Thank you, Madam Chair. We also have Kelsey Lindquist, Planning Manager with us today.

12:14This is a proposal from the Thatcher company to partially vacate or give up ownership of a portion of Fortune Road and the Cassie will get into the location of that. Thatcher owns all the abutting parcels and their intent is to consolidate all of those with the street property and make it part of the Thatcher campus. If approved, the company would be required to purchase the land from the city at market value and I'll turn it over to Cassie.

12:48Thanks, Brian. Great. As Brian indicated, sorry, you can go to the next slide. Thank you. Thatcher Chemical Company is requesting a right of way of vacation for Fortune Road from the intersection Wallace Road to approximately 2040 Fortune Road where it dead ends into Thatcher property. Next slide. Thatcher owns all of the property adjacent to this section of Fortune Road.

13:18The properties are zoned M1 and M2, light and heavy manufacturing. Thatcher's campus has been at this location west of Redwood Road for several decades and is bounded by I-215 to the west and the canal to the north. Next slide. Thatcher is a chemical manufacturer and distributor that deals with hazardous substances. Thatcher wishes for Fortune Road to be vacated so that they can close off public access to the majority of their campus, arguing that this security measure would improve public safety.

13:52Because this road is surrounded by and dead ends into all Thatcher owned properties, it already functions more as a private road than a public one, since the only users of this section of road are employees and customers of the company. Next slide. When routed, transportation, utilities, urban forestry and the police had no issue with this request.

14:17The fire department wishes for the road to be maintained as a fire access road and that the hydrant along the street is maintained and accessible. Engineering also wishes for any future utilities installed to have easements to city engineering. These are all listed as conditions in the ordinance. Next slide.

14:37Staff found that this petition meets the standards outlined in the City Council Street closure policy and Utah state code. The applicant will be required to purchase the property at fair market value from the city. Next slide. And then on January 14th, the Planning Commission voted to approve the vacation with the listed conditions.

14:59And I do believe the applicant is here and I'm also happy to answer any questions.

15:06Council members, any questions? Okay. I think that's it, then. Unless there are any questions or desires from council members to hear from applicant, the applicant? No. Council member Lopez-Travas. Thank you. For the applicants, I've actually been to this location and I know that there are other easements. Is the train rails?

15:30Are those part of this easement at all? Let's have the applicant step forward and I think you have up to five minutes to answer any questions or share anything you'd like to with us. And if you could state your name for the record, please. Yeah, sure. Dave Johnson. Thank you. So, yeah, the rail road does not run along that road at all.

15:55It's just simply we own the property as she said all the way around. The only traffic that goes in and out of there is our own traffic. And so we're looking to merely close that up, keep it as a road for emergency access and think about it. We want to put a gate at the front to further protect the hazardous chemicals and things that we have on that site.

16:19No further questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. We're moving in an efficient manner tonight because we've got special guests joining us for the use state of the city later on in our session. So we will now move on to the third item, which is regarding Mansell, Manner Zoning, Map Amendment. Brian Fulmer will stay at the table and Cassie Unger, I believe, will also remain at the table.

16:46This is a proposal to amend the Zoning Map for properties on Jefferson Street and Jefferson Circle that Cassie will outline from their current MU 11, which is mixed use 11 and RMF 35 or moderate density multifamily residential to MU 8 or mixed use 8. The housing authority of Salt Lake City owns the properties and intends to construct a multifamily residential development on the site.

17:14Turn it over to Cassie. Okay. Thanks, Brian. You can go to the first slide, please. All right. This is a request from the housing authority of Salt Lake City to rezone two of their properties to MU 8. This includes 1726 Jefferson Street and a portion of 1750 Jefferson Circle. They are currently zoned MU 11 and RMF 35 and there are 20 existing units on the property.

17:38Next slide, please. First on background on this petition, the original request from the housing authority included a portion of 1790 West Temple as shown on the left, which is undeveloped. The request by the applicant was for the MU 5 zone. And in January, the Planning Commission recommended the rezone of these properties to MU 8 instead, stating that this zone was more appropriate for the area than MU 5.

18:08So because 1790 West Temple is already zoned, MU 8, this property has been left out of the request and the proposed ordinance. And the applicant has stated that they have no issue with this zone change in their petition. Next slide, please. So the MU 8 zone generally allows buildings up to eight stories or 90 feet tall.

18:32The building forms permitted our row house and multifamily storefront or mixed use. Single family detached and two family or twin homes are not permitted in this zone. Next slide. RMF 35 and MU 11, the existing zones on the property, are very different from each other. The RMF 35 zone is a moderate density purely residential zone.

18:58Well, the MU 11 zone, which was formerly CG or general commercial, is a more high intensity mixed use zone. So the MU 8 zone lies between these two with a range of uses allowed and heights up to 90 feet. And that is one of the reasons for the rezone request. They want to consolidate and redevelop these properties. And since having three different zones among these properties was obviously problematic.

19:25And so it's just an easier way for them to develop their property under one zone. And they are currently underway with a subdivision application to rearrange these property lines for redevelopment. And ideally have them all be the same zone. Next slide.

19:42The proposed community benefit for this petition is that 15% of future units will be rented or sold to those with 80% AMI or below. And the applicant does not have development plans at this time but anticipates around 160 to 200 units with a mix of bedroom types. Next slide. Since there are 22 bedroom units currently on the property, if these are demolished as anticipated, the applicant would be required to replace these units with the same bedroom count at a similar rent.

20:16And they are also required to provide tenant relocation assistance, including application fees and moving expenses. Next slide. On January 28th, the Planning Commission recommended approval for the MU 8 zone with the conditions listened here. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Council Member Pedro? Do the units that are required to be replaced through the housing loss mitigation do those count towards that 15% or is it in addition to the 15%?

20:49That would be in addition. Yeah, they cannot count. Thank you. Council Member Dugan? Yeah, so the 22 bedroom units that they're required as replacement units, that would not be a part of their 15% of the affordable units that they're proposing as their community benefit. So 15% plus a 20. Yeah, I guess I'll jump in with my question. Can you talk a little bit about the reasoning regarding the planning commission's decision to zone towards MU 8 versus the applicant recommended applicant requested MU 5?

21:29Yeah, the Planning Commission didn't really elaborate too much on it, but it is surrounded by MU 11 on the west side of those properties all down 300 west is zone. And the MU 11. So they just believe that MU 8 was more appropriate as like a step down between the MU 11 on 300 west and the single family residential along West Temple.

21:56And obviously one portion of their property is already MU 8 and the applicant has stated in my conversations with them, I think they might have shown up, that they, you know, they don't have any objection to the MU 8 zone. But they probably will not utilize. They don't really plan to build that high because of the cost associated with that.

22:18Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, I think that does it. Thanks. Thank you. All right, our next item is required public hearing for a significant parcel conveyance for a Mountain View corridor construction. At the table, we will be joined by Brian Fulmer, who will remain at the table. It is the recurring star here.

22:45Logan Hunt, real estate services manager, Chris Norlem, project engineering construction program and projects manager and Mark Stevens City engineer. And it doesn't look like they're here yet. Yeah, it doesn't look like we have just in time. Okay. So this is an initiative to transfer city owned right of way to the Utah Department of Transportation for construction of a portion of Mountain View corridor.

23:12The proposal calls for UDOT to exchange property of similar value it owns for the city property. And that is my introduction. I'll turn it over to you. I'm sorry, I'll have to wait for Mark Stevens engineer to talk about this a bit more. But I do know that this has been in process for a little over 10 years. And so this is part of the significant parcel noticing that we are required to do as part of city code.

23:43As part of this cooperative agreement between UDOT and Salt Lake City. Under state law, the state is allowed to. Dedicate city right of way for the purposes of state highways and through this process they're also exchanging right of way for city uses. Yeah, so but that's we still need to go through our significant parcel noticing process, which includes a public hearing.

24:20So I know that we don't have all of the presenters here yet. Are there any questions about the overall process of the public hearing before we. All right. Yeah, and I can. If we just skip through the slides, I'll show you which properties we're talking about. Okay, let's go ahead and proceed then. Sounds good. So in red, all the red right of way is what the city is receiving from UDOT and the green right of way along the Mountain View corridor is what we are conveying to UDOT.

24:50And then the next slide. You can see that in a bit more detail the red again to the city, the green to UDOT. Next slide. And then this portion connects to a shared use path trailhead as well as a parking area that UDOT is transferring to the city. And I believe that's our last slide. But yeah, happy to answer what questions I can.

25:19Any questions coming up? We're quite group today. It's good work. We're moving quickly. We're moving quickly. Excellent. Thank you so much. And it looks like we are going to be moving on to the next item or if we're ready for it. Item number five, local historic district signage. Brian Fulmer will remain at the table and Julie Kricksden from public services will also be.

25:56Thank you. This is a proposal to create standardized street signs for local historic districts. These would replace the standard signs that are in these locations. The council initiated a legislative intent asking the administration to explore options for historic street signs. And Julie Kricksden here to share what they've come up with.

26:18Hello. Thank you, Brian. So as Brian shared and as was in the staffing document that was sent to you, there was a legislative intent to explore historic street signage for historic districts and standardizing that. So working with the with can, we looked at a few of, you know, what the policies exist. And then we developed a few different designs that we took to the historic landmark commission.

26:51And so they provided some feedback and we took that feedback and then have a proposal for you today. So if we can go to the next slide. One of the biggest reasons we wanted to do this is because currently there isn't a standard. As you can see, you know, the Westminster historic district has regular street signs. Yale crest did do a CIP application a few years ago.

27:14And so they got something special, but that was just very, you know, centered on Yale crest central city. You know, as another example, most of them are just using our street signs. And one of the reasons we feel that signs designating in areas of historic district can be important is that it raises awareness for the public as well as residents of what actually is a historic district.

27:39It helps create a sense of place. It highlights the cultural assets of the city and there are often confusion for property owners if they're in a historic district or not. And being in a historic district puts certain, you know, guidelines and rules on how you do your buildings or things like that. And so we all felt that having a marker for that could help those property owners gain better understanding, you know, of what it means and that they are in those boundaries.

28:06So if you go to the next slide. Currently, those are the historic districts in the city that have been officially adopted as well as the number of street signs per district. Now, the design of the historic commission landed on is this one right here. So we printed an example street sign for you. So it's a very similar design to our existing street signs.

28:31It's just a special color. It will name the local historic district on it so that it will call attention to which district you're in. And this color is a fairly common color for historic districts throughout the nation. So it'll be in keeping with other cities. If you know you have a visitor that color will be easily recognizable.

28:51It still says that it's all like city calls out that it's a historic district. Our streets department can create these signs in house. So going forward maintenance won't really have an impact because it'll be just the same amount of maintenance that we do for our regular standard street signs. As you can see here, we did if the council wanted to pursue this, there's a couple options for installation.

29:19Right now, you know, there's existing street signs, most of which are in good condition. So if we wanted to do the installation in house, the ideal platform would be over the next two to three years as streets is doing maintenance on those existing signs, they would replace them with these historic district signs. So they'd probably pick like a neighborhood or two, you know, a district or two a year and replace those signs.

29:40So it would take a little bit of time. That could be done within existing budgets. If the council desired all historic districts to have their signage replaced at the same time, we did receive a quote from an outside vendor, both for fabrication and labor of those signs. And as of January of this year, that was about $75,000.

30:01So, you know, there's a couple options on implementation. That's really all I have for you today. So are there any questions? Council member Young and then Council member Dugan. So for Yale cress because they have like the hyphenated, would it just be a L crest or are we looking because like at least one of them like flat A, like is that really going to fit.

30:30That's a very good question. I think because the official name is that hyphenated one, we would use that on the sign if you want to hold up the sign again, Brian. They're actually is a fair amount of space. And so.

30:44Platt a, I think we could make fit. You could just maybe scale down a bit. We can ask our street staff exactly if they think existing size would fit on that sign. I think it would, but we can confirm that for sure. Okay. I would appreciate that. And maybe that's just a question I have more broadly for the other council members like.

31:06Is there value in that? Like just the clarity of what they've applied for the purposes of the street site. I know on the city website, when you know, there's a map of all the historic districts and it does break out all the Yale cress ones. So, okay. Thank you. You're welcome. And thank you. That's a great question because also like, would it just not just say, you know, crest and not all the other one little one.

31:32The question on that one is also, there's a number of street signs they have there. There's zero. So are they planning on increasing or putting streets on those? Could you have 723 signs here? But there's a number of these historic districts with no street signs.

31:50So it was a 75 counting. Are they going to add one street sign there or not? I think what that would indicate is that the historic district doesn't contain an intersection because our street signs are at intersections, but we can confirm that because that would seem it have to be an extremely small district to not have an intersection.

32:07So we can confirm that data. Yeah. And then the second question is the third party bid was at 75,000, but was the city still installing those street signs? No, if we wanted to get every single district installed within like the same month, street staff wouldn't have the bandwidth to do that. Okay. And so the initial installation and fabrication would be included by that third party and then streets would do the maintenance from there.

32:38So that includes the installation? Yes. Yeah. That is a total cost. Alright. Council member Warren? Yeah. City Creek and Mary Grove has zero too. My thought there would be that it's just the canyon in the park and so like they may not have a street sign, but we'll confirm that for sure. Great. Thanks. Yeah. You're welcome.

33:04Be there like counted in the avenues ones because some of those outside the park are avenues. But anyway, yeah, that could be. Thanks. Other questions comments? So what's the next step on this then? For us to vote on it, we got a straw poll right here. So it looks like we have a straw poll here. And so I think the first question, if the council is supportive of the recommended local historic district sign design shown above, show your feelings.

33:45Is that show your feelings? Great. And the second item is that a public hearing is not required for this proposal. Does the council wish to schedule one? I guess. How would we do if you wish to schedule one indicate with a thumbs up? No. So I'm hearing that the council does not wish a schedule. Would we I know we're not required to, but would we normally for this?

34:15Not not typically. And I think you could one could argue that the next question which asks about allocating or approving a contractor at 75,000 would need to be handled in a budget amendment that will have its own hearing. Right. So that would check that box. Yeah. I don't think we need one. Doesn't sound like anybody feels strongly about one. Okay. So then the last straw poll is is the council supportive of hiring an outside contractor to install local historic district sign.

34:43In one phase at a cost of approximately $75,000. Okay. A little confused about this. So this would be so the alternative if we say no is they'll just be phased in as opposed to all done at once. Correct. Correct. So we would streets would have the bandwidths to pick like a couple districts each year and over the next two to three years.

35:14Those signs would be replaced, but it wouldn't be all districts within the same year. Okay. But it's not like they're going to just do it like as the signs are damaged or something. Right. They're going to do like a group being at a time. Yeah. Okay. It would just, you know, if one district is like, why did they get in and not us?

35:34It would be an explanation of, Hey, you're being phased in. I'm fine with the phase. All right. Just to reiterate the straw poll then is a council supportive of hiring an outside contractor to install local historic street signs in one phase at a cost of approximately 75,000. Show your feelings. Okay. Sounds like the phased approach it is. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

35:59And it looks like we are moving quickly through our agenda. We could move to the transfer of development rights report since we've got some folks here council members. Are you okay with that? And then we'll move towards a break. Okay. All right. So we're going to move ahead. We're going to jump ahead to item eight, which is an informational transfer of development rights report.

36:24We'll be joined at the table by Nick, target council, Deputy Director and Nick Norris planning director. So, so just a quick introduction to what this is is in 2025, the council initiated a legislative action to consider creation of a transfer of development rights program within Salt Lake City. What happens after that is planning staff went and did research some analysis and have some recommendations for the council to consider.

36:59So, this is not up for a vote at this time. This is very early in the process. If the council is comfortable moving forward with what you hear today, that would then go through the official zoning process, which includes the 45 day early notice planning commission hearing, going to community councils and ultimately a council public hearing. So without let Nick give the presentation, which it's about 15 minutes. Is that what you were thinking? We'll see how it goes.

37:25So, feel free to jump in with questions along the way though. If you. All right. Let's go to the next slide. Thank you. So I think you all know what a transfer of development rights program is throughout this presentation. I'm just going to use the term TDR. But basically, it's a land management tool that allows us to transfer development potential from one area to a different area. Next slide.

37:50Based on a bunch of analysis, best practices, we've looked at hundreds of different TDR programs across the country. And we think that we've identified some of the key things that make TDR program successful. One is they have to be very simple to use. The more complex, the more costly, the more time consuming it is, the less likely they will be used at all.

38:16They have to have predictable outcomes, particularly for the entities who are purchasing development rights. If they're making that purchase, they have to be guaranteed the ability to use those rights somewhere in the city. You need to have adequate administrative oversight, which I'm not at all concerned with this. If the city were to adopt a program, we can fit this within our existing resources.

38:38They have to be economically viable. And what that means is that the amount of transferable development rights has to actually benefit the receiving area. So it has to be great enough that there's an economic reason for a property owner to want to purchase those rights instead of going through other processes and other asks.

39:02The goal is to protect the land and the sending areas. That's the overarching goal and the purpose of having a program. It's not to stimulate development in other areas. The receiving areas do have to be able to accept that growth. They have to be large enough to accommodate all of the potential transfer within a sending area.

39:24That doesn't mean every property in the sending area is going to actually go through the program. But you have to prepare yourself for that to occur. There have been programs where the receiving area hasn't allowed enough development. And they've maxed out. And so cities then come through and have to essentially expand those receiving areas into other locations.

39:52And there has to be sufficient interest in both the sending and receiving areas. So property owners have to want to participate. These are typically voluntary programs. There are some where they require a participation in it. Those are usually at a county level. There's a lot of people who are not going to have a particular site. There's a lot of people who are not going to have a site that's going to land that is very, very challenging to develop. Meaning there's no roads, there's no utilities, there's nothing.

40:24Next slide. A couple of key points. All of the transactions are private. So determining how much someone pays for purchasing a development right is just handled between the purchaser and the seller. The city has no role in that amount. And so we have a lot of resources that are available for determining what can be transferred. Most of them are very simple. They'll you get four dwelling units per acre. You can transfer those to the zones in the amount. But because most of our zones that we can actually transfer development right to don't use a dwelling per acre formula. That won't work in Salt Lake City. Unless we start adding these to our one zones.

41:08And then we have a lot of resources that are available for those programs that create essentially a different way formula for transferring that. It's usually a square foot of land protected per square foot of development right and various ratios in between. There's obviously a restrictive covenant that runs with the land regardless of what happens. Only the city can remove those restrictive covenants. And that would happen. There are programs that allow that.

41:37So the areas are usually by right. So that means there's typically no public process. And like I already mentioned this but receiving areas must be able to accept all the development right next slide. So what would it make? What might it look like in Salt Lake City? We can jump to the next slide. There's basically what we've looked at are what are the potential sending and receiving areas. How do we determine what the development right value is that can be transferred? What the approval process is and then how do we track the use next slide.

42:13So this probably is a little hard to read but the process that we've come up with is very linear in nature. The only deviations from this or if an application is not complete or they need corrections or something like that. We did add a loop in here that shows if there's other applications sometimes somebody might need a subdivision for either develop or sometimes people want to subdivide off the land that they're transferring from so that it's not linked to where their home is or something else.

42:48Next slide. So we have a number of sending area possibilities. Many of you are going to be familiar with these but there are a couple of things here that are listed and some of these are easier than others for this program to work. One thing I wanted to point out is one you can and there are programs that apply to historic properties throughout the country which are harder to calculate what the remaining development potential is but it does allow a transfer there.

43:18And in Utah we can actually establish a TDR for areas outside of the city. So for example we could look at a program that looked at our watershed areas and allowed private property to transfer that development right into the city. That requires the local government of the sending area to also agree to adopt an ordinance identifying sending areas. Next slide.

43:48Why would we want to do that? Well for example there may be a lot of significant land in Big Cottonwood Canyon that's private, undeveloped that they may be pushing to develop that may not be appropriate. And so we could come in and say hey if you want to develop in Salt Lake City and put a restrictive covenant on that you might be able to sell those to somebody and get some value out of your land instead of going to the expense of developing.

44:20Most TDR programs actually are county wide and they have those types of provisions in there. So just to follow up on that how would water rights be factored into that because I think right now a lot of the development potential in the Cottonwoods is kind of stifled with the water rights conversation. So that would be one way to address that lack of water.

44:44A couple of sending area considerations, one tip we voluntary. If a property already has significant development potential they are highly unlikely to participate in this program. So in addition the higher priority areas should be identified. So we probably and you'll see a slide in a little bit we probably couldn't do all of those sending areas and have enough land in the receiving areas to accommodate that.

45:13So we'd have to prioritize where this would apply. And one other key point is the allowed uses in a sending area do not transfer to the receiving areas. So for example if you had a sending area that allowed certain light industrial uses those would not be able to transfer to like it makes you some or those wouldn't be allowed.

45:33The receiving zoning will still dictate the land uses. So the receiving areas zoning cannot be isn't changed. No. So if it's like a M11 zone you can't change it to an M1 zone. Okay it's just the rights of the other descending can be transferred. The development potential is transferred. The zoning must not must it stays the same.

46:05Okay. Okay. Next slide. So when we look at receiving areas there's a couple ways to go about them. Some programs will just identify specific zoning districts. Some will define a geographic boundary of where those receiving areas are. Those are situations where there may be eight or nine zoning districts in that receiving area.

46:29But they all have some transferable right within it. I'm not sure that map being a specific area necessarily works in Salt Lake City just because of how our city is zoned already. But it could be a potential direction. A couple of good candidates and things to consider is that the best receiving areas are those areas where the development that's occurring already is maxing out their development potential.

46:57So those are things you know I listed the MU5 and MU6 here. These are usually where we get buildings that are going up to their maximum building height. And they're just maxing that out. And then some zones where the transferred right can increase the building heights above 180 feet. That's where you start seeing the cost of that change of construction type start to make more financial sense and be more economically viable.

47:27It doesn't always mean it will. But that's kind of the minimum threshold for those things to happen. Next slide. So one of the things that we've done is we've looked at how much land is in all of those sending areas and then how much land is in the receiving areas in the city. And a lot of people don't necessarily realize this.

47:51But the land that is our mixed use zones makes up a very small percentage of our overall land in the city. And you can add those up and it's less than 4% roughly maybe. And then if you look at some of the sending areas we listed and some of these are too challenging to figure because individual parcels are going to have different amounts like the riparian corridor and the Lemmer sites.

48:19But we're at roughly 6.5% of the city in just three of those zones. And if you look at for example the Northwest Quadrant Natural Area not the part that can be developed. And it is a sizable chunk of land in the city. Some of that is already publicly owned. It's all like cities owns quite a bit of land out there. But this would apply to some of those private lands where they can benefit potentially from protecting their property.

48:50And it's land that all of our plans and policies want to see protected. Next slide.

48:58So this is just about receiving areas and things that are not good candidates. So this picture is actually a project that sought a modification to the minimum height allowed in the zone. This is a D1 zone. And so we showed this to show the downtown zones generally are not great zones to accommodate this. Because people really are not coming close to maxing out their development potential.

49:24We do have some but most of them are not. Another consideration is areas where increased development is just not supported. We probably don't want to see an MU-2 zone for example go up to five stories. Right. The community is probably not going to appreciate that. And I don't think anybody actually would. And so that's another significant.

49:48And then areas that would need significant additional building height to make it pencil. So if you're in like a MU-8 zone that allows up to 90 feet to get up to that 180 you'd have to go up a whole other 90 feet double that building height. That makes it very, very challenging to offset the potential impact from a development that size in those zones.

50:11Next slide please. So one of the things in our kind of model code that we put together is various numbers. And we're going to get to this on the next slide too. But this slide is intended to show you what happens when the transferable ratio is at different points. So if you require one square foot of land to be protected and in exchange you get one and a half square feet of transferable right.

50:46Receiving zone could get 45,000 square feet of additional development. That could be pretty significant. And it changes as you either go down and then we also went the other way. What happens if it's 10 to 1? You know you don't get any real transferable right hardly anyone if anyone at all would be interested in purchasing 3000 square feet of additional development.

51:07Right. It's just not going to work. And so the idea is that more sending area that required typically equals less transferable right. So that would be equals less transferable transactions that occur. Next slide. And so in our model code we put together this table and I want to make it very very clear that these numbers are absolute placeholders.

51:31They were put in there based on some other areas around the country. But in areas like Salt Lake City that are mostly urbanized already. What we found is that these numbers are significantly lower almost closer to one to one on almost every instance. So again if the TDA if a transfer of development amount is requires too much land it's hardly going to get used.

51:59And if we limit land in receiving areas. It means that we either have to have significant height increases in those areas or larger receiving areas. So that gets back to the receiving areas have to be able to accommodate all of that potential future development. Next slide. So this is just an example of two buildings in Salt Lake City.

52:25So the images I think that's a five story building. And you can kind of see what happens with their footprint on their lot and what could be allowed without five story building. They get 75,000 square feet. Next slide. Can you go back on this one when you talk about property area remains or the zoning allows five story.

52:51So that couldn't be an MU two zone. No, this would be an MU five zone right now. And the property A what's the zoning on property A. Property A is in one of the protection zones. So it doesn't necessarily matter what its base zoning is. Let's just say it might be in that Northwest quadrant. Okay, it's in the Northwest quadrant.

53:14It's open space whatever protected and we're just going to transfer right to build on that property to somewhere else. And that is what we're doing here. We're going to allow them to build one for one. So we're going to get to this on the next slide. How this might how this works. So if they want a seven story building, they need two additional levels.

53:37If their footprint is 15,000 square feet, they need to purchase a total of 30,000 square feet of a TDA. That's a transferable development amount. If they approach property A and property A has an acre of land. So that's 43,560 square feet and they want to buy 30,000 square feet of it. Property A is like, all right, I'll sell that to you.

53:59And then they go through all that. Property B gets this seven story building and property owner A. Restricts 30,000 square feet of their property. The remaining 13,560 square feet remains developable. Most of the codes will have a way to prioritize how that 30,000 square feet is applied. So for example, if you are along a like wetlands, it would apply first to that border of the wetlands.

54:30So it protects the intent is to protect the most sensitive aspect of that property. Next slide. So again, I'm going to just reiterate some of these we've already gone over. But if it's too expensive to participate in a program, now this is where the property owners determine this. And so if people think that their land is worth more than anyone's willing to pay, regardless of what program we set up, it's unlikely to be used.

54:58The most likely scenario in those situations is when the same owner owns property A and property B, right? That's the most likely scenario where those things will happen. If we require too much land to transfer, then a lot of people will not be interested in purchasing that. And this next one is a big one. If map amendments are viewed as being easier, people are still going to go down that path.

55:28Because one, even though it may be longer, it's typically much cheaper than buying land. The cost of what happens when you're buying additional land is that it's increasing your overall land cost for development. And that has to pencil across not just what you could build within the zone, but what you can transfer. And so if it's not enough, it's just not going to pencil out.

55:55And then discretionary processes are with these programs, they're not predictable. And they rarely work when there's a discretionary process for approval of a project. Next slide, I think that might be good. Yeah, and again, I think the important message to drive home is protecting land in the setting areas is the purpose of doing this.

56:20It's acknowledging that you're going to see an increase in development in your receiving areas that you have to be comfortable with and okay with. That doesn't mean that those receiving areas might not have or need additional infrastructure improvements that developers are bearing and everything else. It will still be there, but this is the purpose of the program is to do this.

56:42And so I think there has to be, you know, if the city goes down this path, there has to be some acknowledgement that this is the goal. And that is all I have. All right, I see. I know we've got a few questions. You know, okay, let's go to council member Wharton and then council member Dugan and then council member Young.

56:59Okay, I'm glad that you did this report. And I think this is a, you know, regardless of whether we choose to create some program like this or not, I think it was important because a lot of people have asked about it. We've never really had a serious discussion about it. So thanks for doing that. I don't want any of my comments to be construed as me not appreciating that.

57:24However, to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, I would love to be wrong. It kind of feels like this might have been helpful if we'd have done something like this before we up zoned a lot of things like to me, it feels like this is, we kind of went ahead of this in a lot of ways in terms of making a lot more, you know, increasing the density in a lot of our zones and a lot of our reforms of kind of I feel like gone further than what this would do.

58:03I, so I don't know if that's correct or not, please tell me if it is, but to me it just kind of feels like I can't think of an example of where I was like, man, I wish we'd had this before. Am I wrong? More point? Okay. Exactly. Okay, so, so can you walk me through an example of like where, where I'm wrong? Hypothetically, I'll come up with a hypothetical.

58:38Yeah. An owner or a lease, a lessee of a certain Maverick adjacent to a park. My purchase land in North Point to preserve that land might purchase the development potential in North Point and be able to build more height than is currently allowed by zone. Now, if that, right, so if that hypothetical, if you did not have that hypothetical land in the receiving area, it could not do that.

59:09But that's why deciding where your receiving area is and what your receiving area is is so important. And I think that last slide was a great example that it's important to think about both what is the land you want to preserve, but in my mind, especially from the seats you guys are in and the fact that it probably won't be a discretionary program, you need to think about where you are okay saying that the development can receive more height without discretion of the council without community, you know, being frustrated by it.

59:40So I guess my question like kind of stands. I don't know if you can, I know you have to, like, a requirement of this question is that you have to know what my position would be on something like that. But like, I guess I'm trying to think through an example of like where the council or like a majority of the council, like either all of us or a significant group of us, a majority of us wanted something, wanted to change, and we're like, you know, if only we had this tool, I can think of lots of examples where developers might have liked it.

1:00:16I can't really think of one like where the city was like. I mean, I think that you got one. No, but can you think of an example where a developer might have used it or needed it because there wasn't something else like I think your first lady, your first point is still where I am right where where. This feels like a great opportunity in places where zoning has been maxed out.

1:00:40Yeah, I'm struggling with that part. So if we're going to answer, could we? Yeah. Okay, I see a lot of folks jumping in. So let's have you answer the question. And then I want to come back to council member Dugan and then also council member young and then Lopez Chavez. So I think I think it comes down to like, I mean, I would have some clarifying questions to yours.

1:01:00But yes, but for example, you know, if when you say before we up zone things, if you're talking about like the zoning consolidation that we did, we did not actually do a lot of up zoning in that. Most things were within five to 10 feet of height. There were some specific areas like the sugar house business district that were up some.

1:01:23Whether or not those got those properties up to a spot where they are now feasible to develop at that height is yet to be determined. But most of that consolidation was not up zoning. Okay, so maybe I'm trying to say is like there. I don't think there's any debate that we as a council have made it. You like expanded the development options.

1:01:51Pretty significantly in pretty significant ways. So like it to me, it seems like we were giving developers a lot more options than they used to have already. That's kind of what I mean. So maybe I maybe up zoning was the wrong word. Yeah, we probably are giving more options, right? We definitely are. But I don't know that as a city, we've looked at how to fully protect the more sensitive lands in the city.

1:02:21And I think that's the missing piece to that conversation. All right, let's go to council member Dugan and then council member Young and then Lopez Chavez. Just kind of going on top of what was talking about there. So we have as a city council, we need to determine the receiving areas. And so in the example you show there where the developer wants another 30,000 feet. So you want the full 40 acres, still 44,000 square feet.

1:02:55And that was at an MU 5 zone. So we are going to allow him to build three extra floors, go another 30 feet, say 40 feet, whatever that is. Above that MU 5 without really going through the planning commission or any other development side of the house, allow them to go add those three stories to that site. So that goes back to the responsibility in our part to know where those receiving areas are so that we are feel comfortable with allowing those extra height to that building in this case.

1:03:34Do we put a limit to how much building can go up in those receiving areas? Yeah, you can. You can. Oh, you can't. Absolutely. You don't just lift the cap and let it go. You don't lift the cap. But that's what we're doing here is we're taking that one acre of land and we're saying that's a buildable spot, even though you can't build on the whole acre, because you know, step backs and stuff.

1:03:55We're going to say, okay, you can build, take that 44,000 square feet, add it to your building and build three four a high. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and I think you're, yeah, you're right. I also think consideration of if you just have it be as every property in a specific zone, there's some nuance there. There are some places in the city where you may have an MU 5 zone directly next to low density residential.

1:04:20That might not be a great spot, which leads to that mapping part where you map it maybe not so much. It's MU 5 zones in this part of the city that does result in limiting the receiving areas. And so that means that you'd have to prioritize how much of those sending areas you to actually be in the program. Okay. So I'm the owner of, you know, Sarah's the owner of property A.

1:04:50She's got this acre. And I've seen I want to buy your acre acreage and you're going to give me, you know, a buck a square foot. So I'm going to pay that acre at $44,000. And I'm going to take that, I'm going to buy that acre and she's going to take that 44,000 and I'm going to put it on top of my building. Now that acre that Sarah sold me, Councilman Young sold me is now we're going to restrict any bill and it's going to be open space.

1:05:16Whatever. So, is that? Yeah. So basically the sending property is restricted and it can be restricted in a number of ways. So you can still allow a minimum amount of development. Let's say there's already like an existing house on that property. They would, they get the right to keep that. You can put in there if they can expand it, they can do other things.

1:05:38They just couldn't like subdivide off and redevelop the rest of it. So programs can, can determine how much development right remains. It's usually based on a has what's there or if it's like in an agricultural zone, you still allow all those agriculture uses to occur. They just couldn't go through a process to redevelop it as something else.

1:06:00So the big here for us is the, the receiving areas we have to be very deliberate in the receiving areas. Absolutely. Yes. For the capital A. Thank you. That's, that helps out quite a bit. I'm not quite there all the way through, but I'm, I'm learning a little bit every day. Thank you. So I really appreciate this. And for me, I think one of the reasons that it resonates with me is that right now to the earlier point, if we're saying there's land.

1:06:33We want to protect. You're banking on the fact that there are individuals who that is their core value. Because right now there's no way to monetize unless you're prepared to sell. And usually to sell to the purpose of development. Right. And so like that to me is one of those. I will say. Generational values that I'm not sure is going to be here at the same level.

1:07:06It has previously historically been here over time. And so having tools and mechanisms in the city to say we've got a solution for you. We're not just relying on the fact that like. You believe in protecting these lands as well that there could be opportunities there. And that's why I'm interested in like what a solution could look like.

1:07:28I appreciate all the cautions and I share in the concerns related to we wouldn't just want to be like it's a free for all. It's going to be great. You know, but that it really does prepare like, you know, require a high degree of detailed attention related to sending and receiving and like how those pieces translate. I will say you mentioned that there are solutions out there related to historic properties.

1:07:54I'm very interested in that because it's certainly another aspect of the city that I know we've tried to figure out solutions around. So I just wanted to put that out there that that is also an area that that I'm interested in. But I do think that there's an inherent opportunity even starting with a smaller footprint, you know, not going like again across the city all at once.

1:08:24But to be able to explore what the opportunity is and whether or not there is a market related to, you know, individual property owners wanting to participate in this type of space. So I'm. Yeah, and I think so in that model code we created the force like city, we included a way to calculate for landmark properties. Now, whether you want to expand that to other historic properties, that's obviously an option as well, and it would be the exact same kind of formula.

1:08:57So there's that option. One option that I didn't include this slide that is actually gained some traction across the country now to is actually doing it with affordable housing. So somebody who has housing that they want to lock in, say your house of affordable housing provider and your 30 year term is expiring.

1:09:21If you have a program where they can protect those for longer. In exchange for more development right somewhere else, then you're eliminating the inevitable threat to our affordable housing when the term when they turn out. Right. We all know that housing goes away once it turns out. So there's other programs out there too. And that the idea is that we as a city, we just have to prioritize which what we want to do.

1:09:48And I will caveat like while this presentation had a lot of cautions. This I think that we generally are supportive of a program. We think that it should probably start as a smaller trial area to figure it out before we allocate money to do economic studies and everything else. Let's find something that's maybe a little more manageable and see how it works and learn from it before we go big.

1:10:16Yes. And I for what it's worth super supportive of that approach in terms of taking small steps in that direction is opposed to planning for a big step that could backfire. So I want to go to council member Lopez Chavez and then council member Pietro for comments and questions. Thank you and thanks Nick. I was just curious to see because immediately I thought of the TDR to be used for kill the court.

1:10:43And thinking about the grain re or other places that could receive more. If I'm not mistaken, can you just repeat in elementary terms so I can understand this is to max out the current density that the zoning of the receiving property can hold. Is that correct? Well, so it's not necessarily to max it out. One, the purpose is to protect something like a kill be court and in exchange for that, giving somebody that ability to perch that and transfer it.

1:11:13If they own it already, great, they can transfer it. But the idea is that if they're in a zone where they're not maxing out their existing zoning, it's unlikely to be economically viable to transfer it. Sure. So that's the caveat, right? And now in some places like the area surrounding a kill the court property, they're already allowed to go up to the 150 feet.

1:11:44So they're really, really close. So that might be an area, a receiving area that a program like this could work. That's great. I mean, I immediately think of certain historic areas that we have left over in the downtown that could be protected. I also think about grain re being a great place that we can receive. I have two other questions. Can TDRs be used for other attainable individual assets or just multifamily assets?

1:12:14They basically be used for anything that's allowed in that zoning district. Okay. So it could technically be used in residential as well. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay. That's interesting. Could it be in that case by right? Could they develop within residential, you know, let's say a quadplex, you buy multiple blocks or townhomes, they could maximize that density as well?

1:12:36Yeah, there are programs that do that, especially in areas where it's single family only zoning. So they'll allow it. They'll have a formula. It's a lot easier formula where you can transfer it and they put a cap on how many dwellings can be there. And then they also allow those to be basically any housing type that can accommodate those number of dwellings.

1:12:58So it could be, you know, a six unit apartment building, six townhomes, six detached small single family homes, any of those accommodations. Okay, that's interesting. I mean, if you have any more research on that, I'd love to see if this is the right tool to think about in being inclusive of attainable housing as well.

1:13:15And then my last question was just can an owner, can a seller and receiver be legally different entities but held by the same shareholders? Yeah, probably. What we're looking at through this is just restricting the sending land and then authorizing in the receiving land. So ownership almost doesn't matter as long as everyone agrees that this sending property has restrictions on all future development in perpetuity or until a future city council changes the rules.

1:13:49Interesting. Okay. I was just thinking about how many land bankers we have in the city and if this is a tool to try to stimulate them to develop. Okay. Thank you. Is a transfer of development rights the same thing as air rights buying air rights? Yeah, it can be. Yeah, they're similar. So if you're purchasing air rights isn't, you know, we've had properties actually do that in the city, but mainly to get around our approval processes.

1:14:26And it was just one off kind of negotiation, but it's a very similar tool. Yeah, I'm interested in that as a community wealth building attribute to especially as we watch the power district develop. Allowing like the little Nico stand to stay there by selling off what would go above to give to someone else around there who might want to take that extra.

1:14:49You know, feet and then that infuses them with cash. For me, TDR has is the North Point area. It's always been like that thing that I wish we could solve for to preserve the natural area. I don't know that we can create the demand. Like you said, like no one's maxing out now. So it's difficult to say, hey, you do this out of the goodness of your heart.

1:15:15We know that every goodness of the heart aligns with a balance sheet very frequently for developers. And so it's kind of hard for natural land, but as a community wealth building tool, I'm definitely deeply interested in that sort of concept. And if we do a TDR policy, I would like to see it explicitly inclusive of air rights concepts so that those lower profile family owned businesses in the places that are rapidly gentrifying could be more protected.

1:15:44Yeah, one of the things to think about with that kind of a program is that's a situation where oftentimes a sending area and receiving area are within the same geography. And so there's ways to develop a program that deals with that. But yeah, it's certainly possible. All right. I think you're seeing that we have a lot more questions about this and curiosities that seem to be servicing the council on it.

1:16:17Anything else? So just so I'm on the same page with the council is from what I'm hearing is we'll continue to move forward with developing a program and an ordinance. We'll do the research. We'll probably start small and we'll keep the council updated on that as it goes through the process. I think that's what I'm hearing.

1:16:43I think that's what that's what you're hearing as I look around the room. Yes. Perfect. Thank you so much. Sorry. One other just it sounds like it would be especially important for the council to know like in that starting small. Where are the receiving areas? Because it sounds like there's pretty large consensus about what sending areas might look like.

1:17:01Obviously there's details to be worked out with that. But the receiving areas I think are going to be really important to kind of dial in. Yeah. I think we'll bring several options out. That's really moving forward. Because I don't want to make that call for the council. Excellent. Thank you so much Nick. Thank you. Let's go ahead and take a 20 minute break and come back together at 345. Does that work for folks? Great.

1:41:40All right. Welcome back everyone. We are now going to move to item number seven, which is a fiscal year 2026, 2027 proposed budget for the Department of Airports at the table. We've got Nick Tarbit, Council Deputy Director Bill Wyatt. Thank you for being here. Director of Airports as well as Sean Anderson Airport Controller. I'll turn it over to you Nick.

1:42:08Okay. Thank you. I'll just give a super quick briefing or intro to this. Bill will then kind of give a high level overview and then Sean will go through the presentation. This is the budget briefing for the Department of Airports, which is an enterprise fund. As most of you know, and for the public enterprise funds as the city program funded separately from the general fund, operated like a business. So all of the expenses are covered by revenue generated from user fees or charges at the airport.

1:42:38Bill, I'll let you go. Great. Thank you. Nick, great to see all of you. Once a year, if not more. So this is kind of a big year for us in a lot of ways, but not least of which is during this next fiscal year, the report redevelopment program after really 14 years of construction will conclude. And we're really excited about it. I mean, it's quite a period if you imagine this Council 15 years ago, approving this project and then kind of one year after another. And finally, here we are.

1:43:21You know, this airport will have gone from an airport that had 52 jet bridges to one that will have 94 at the end of the day. We have a very long term lease with Delta Airlines, which is important because, among other things, if we for some reason have a challenge paying our bills, they step into our shoes and do that for the city.

1:43:46It feels great, although I guess I would say if we're having trouble paying our bills, they're probably having trouble paying their bills as well, but that's another matter. It feels good nevertheless. And I think what you'll see in the budget that John will present here is an indication of the continued growth that we're experiencing in facilities to manage.

1:44:08And so we'll be growing into that. We'll be adding in the fourth phase the total number of new gates is 16. And that comes with obviously all of the staff required to manage that additional janitorial staff required to clean that. And we probably spend more on janitorial than most airports in the United States. I would just say that is reflected in passenger feedback who not surprisingly really like to have a clean airport to either depart from or to land in.

1:44:46So it's incredibly satisfying. There isn't anything really surprising in my opinion about the budget, except that you will see we're beginning to pay all of the debt now. And so that number is pretty substantial. Airlines tend to look at airports in terms of cost purposes as what they cost per in plain passenger. And when we're done, and I think Sean will probably have a charter to in here reflecting that, we'll be in the early 20s, early to mid 20s per passenger.

1:45:21And that puts us right about in the middle of a large hub category in the United States. Most of those who are lower than us are just beginning major capital programs. And so we started at the bottom and ultimately I think we will gradually go down to the bottom as our debt gets paid off. And as those other airports begin the kind of construction activities that we're now concluding.

1:45:48So I feel like we're in a really strong position. It's a very weird time in the world with commercial aviation right now. I don't know that that's a surprise to any of you. The situation in the Middle East is definitely having an impact. Currently that impact in the US is on fares. That ultimately does affect the number of people who travel and that could have some impact on our budget.

1:46:14And we will account for that to the extent that it occurs. But if things don't get resolved pretty soon, there are areas of the world, not ours, who will actually run out of the molecules, the fuel itself. In the US that's not a particular challenge, but jet fuel is priced on a global basis. And so the prices will go up to reflect whatever those shortages turn out to be.

1:46:43And it's just another day at the beach in the world of commercial aviation. We'll find a way to work our way through that. But just a reminder that it is a very volatile business that always has been. And this airport I think historically has a reputation for being really good at addressing those things quickly. And obviously we'll be in close touch with the council if matters develop in such a fashion that requires us to take action. What you're doing here is authorizing expenditures, not mandating them.

1:47:18And if we need to, we can obviously make adjustments. So this is Sean's first budget experience. Go ahead and you know whatever you need, he's there for it. And he's done several of these already. And so we're very happy to be with us today.

1:47:42All right, well it's good to be here today. This is Bill said this is my first time in front of city council, not first time doing the budget, but first time here. It's a good opportunity. I think we have a good story to tell with the airport project wrapping up later this year and how we're managing our costs. If I could have the next slide please.

1:48:04So the first thing to want to highlight is a few accomplishments the airports had over this last fiscal year. So back in July we did our final bond issuance to get us to the finish line of the project. That gives us about $4.1 billion in debt. We do share most of that with the airlines who as we'll see a little bit later on in their share of the revenues that we generate.

1:48:31We opened 10 gates in October of 25 with the final 11 coming later this year. So in 12 month span we'll have opened 21 gates which is to finish off as Bill said to get us up to the 94. And then out at our airport in West Jordan, South Valley regional we signed a new contract with a new fixed based operator to operate our general aviation activities out there.

1:48:58And that was went into effect on April 1st of this year which is a huge benefit to us. There was a lot of time and resources that we used out there to kind of keep things going but they'll be able to do the full job and we can use the staff and those resources back in Salt Lake City. Next slide. So some of the efficiencies that we found this year, one clearly being the FBO out there.

1:49:25Just to kind of give a little highlight there in our fiscal year 25, we lost $3 million just doing normal operations out there. And through December of this year we were tracking about that same amount. We'd lost about $1.5 million. So with a new FBO being able to operate that they will pay us a percentage of their revenue, a small fee to operate that.

1:49:53We'll be able to take again all those expenses and things that we had out there and be able to reallocate them. And then as the project comes to a finish here in October, we are tracking to be on time and under budget with that, have funds returned to the airport to be able to use for either reserves or future CIP projects that we have planned.

1:50:16Next slide please. So our current ONM budget is for fiscal year 26 is 242 million. We have 670 full-time employees and 4.3 part-time employees. So our request is to have an additional 17 million in cost and additional 19 FTEs. And because we are ceasing our own operations down at South Valley Regional, we had three part-time employees down there that we eliminated those positions, which equates to 1.5 positions.

1:50:52So that reduces our part-time number to 2.8. And again, I have other slides we can go into the details of what that 17 million is. Next slide please. So just quick high level on what each of the categories are, where we are getting the change for ONM and our capital expenditures as well. And again, I have another slide that we will get into details here.

1:51:18So next slide. And before we get into those details, I just want, I like this chart because it highlights, I think, how well we have done at the airport, how well our commercial and properties team has done in generating non-Arunautical revenue. The effort we have done to control our costs even with inflation, with opening new gates in additional space.

1:51:44You can kind of see that second to bottom line for operating expenses. In fiscal year 27, we are looking at about a 7% increase, which is actually our lowest percentage increase in the last five years. And while we have had some double digit growth in these previous years in expenses, and almost double digit over the past year, we have a number of different types of expenses.

1:52:04And again, we have double digit over the five years. Our revenues have grown at double the same, double the rate of our expenses. And again, wanted to highlight the non-Arunautical revenue, which is all of the revenue we generate from parking, rental cars, concessions. And that's all revenue that the airport gets to keep and use for improvements.

1:52:26Although the Arunautical revenue, a lot of those big increases is due to the debt service that the airlines help us pay and to cover that big line item. Next slide. This is chart highlighting where we're sitting at on our in-plane passenger count. So for fiscal year 26, we're looking at about 14.1 million, which is about a 1.5% growth over our fiscal year 25 number.

1:52:54And the budget that we have been given by the airlines for fiscal year 27 is 14.4, which equates about a 2.4% growth. And Delta's given us a number that's pretty flat. Most of that growth is coming from Alaska, American in Frontier, kind of showing their desire to continue to grow and expand here. And a big part of that growth in Alaska is their acquisition of Hawaiian, which started at the airport last year.

1:53:21They'll be taking over that operation as well. Okay, next slide. So high level income statement, the few items that I wanted to focus on here, again, with revenues and expenses, we'll get into the next few slides into the details there. Our grant level is pretty stable. The bipartisan infrastructure law funds are coming to an end this year, but our AIP grants that we get yearly will continue to be a source that we use for any of the CIP projects that are eligible.

1:53:59Our passenger facility charges and our customer facility charges are, they are very much in line with passengers. They fluctuate as passengers fluctuate. And so those, you can see the forecast budget increase. Those are pretty much in line with where we're seeing the passenger increases. Interest income, a little bit of a decrease there.

1:54:20That's just mainly as we spend our bond proceeds, we have less cash earning interest and the fluctuation in interest rates as well. And then the bond issuance costs, we have the 2.8 million they're budgeted because our first bond issuance all the way back in 2017 is up for refunding, it can be called next year during this fiscal year.

1:54:43Depending on how the market is going and what the world economics are looking like, as of now we do plan on refunding those bonds and finding some savings there. And then again on the capital and CIP, I have another slide that shows some more of the details there. But overall for fiscal year 27, we're looking at about $180 million increase to reserves for the airport.

1:55:12Next slide please. So these are our airline revenues. These are the categories that we generate revenue directly from the airlines. I'm only going to focus on the top two unless anyone has questions otherwise. So our landing fees and terminal rents, and those are highly influenced by our debt service. Our terminal rent rate is actually coming down a little bit this next year, but the overall balance is going up due to the additional debt service coming online.

1:55:47And we're a couple years away from hitting the peak on what that debt service will be. This coming year we're looking at about $260 million and we'll peak between 280 and 285 in the next two to three years. So that's where we're seeing those large increases in landing fees and terminal rents. Next slide please. So these are our concession revenues, our primary non-arrenautical revenues, the revenues that we generate at the airport.

1:56:19Again, I'm going to focus on the top two, and if there are questions again I can go into more details on the other items. So parking is our largest single source of revenue. And people continue to utilize our parking garage, our economy lot, the employee lots, very heavily. During the weeks, the middle of the week, kind of Tuesday through Thursday, I don't know if anyone's been out to the airport recently, but the garage is closed almost every week in the middle of the week due to business travel and people using that source.

1:56:55And so a couple years ago we got authority from you guys to raise the rate to $45 when we saw fit, and we do see fit now to raise that from $40 the current rate per day to $45 per day starting on July 1st. And along with that increase in the garage, we are also planned to raise the economy lot from $12 to $14 per day, just to be more competitive with some of the other lots that are close to the airport and the customers who utilize those.

1:57:26And the car rental, the reason for the big increase, our initial contract with the car rental agencies when we opened all the way back in 2020 and before when they started occupying the space, that has come to an end and we've negotiated new contracts with the rental car agencies beginning July 1st of this year. And so bringing those rates up to market rates has really driven up the revenue there.

1:57:52And plus bringing in another company into the counter and the garage space is bringing that as well. So sixth will be joining the others directly inside the airport gateway. Next slide please. So our operating expenses, we can get into some of the details of what the $17 million increase is going to look like. So for payroll, it's about $3.1 million.

1:58:21The 19 new FTEs accounts for about $1.7 million of that. And then between COLA and insurance increases, that's the remaining $1.4 million. Our direction was to do a 3% increase across the entire ledger of salaries and benefits and doing the math with the increase to insurance. It left us with about a 1.8% COLA. And again, that's just an estimate, depending what the mayor and city council ends up approving there.

1:58:52Some of the other areas I wanted to highlight are intergovernmental charges, police and fire. Police get an increase of about 400,000. Fire about 500,000. And that's almost all exclusively due to payroll, due to their union increases. Very little related to equipment and supplies in each of those budgets. IMS is increasing about 500,000 and the remaining administrative service fees is about $1 million, which gets us to the $2.8 million increase there.

1:59:25Some of the large individual items, utilities, is a $2.1 million increase. That's obviously due to the expansion, a lot more square footage to handle the heating and cooling of that space. Janitorial, we're looking at about a $3.8 million increase. That's to handle the salary increases of the employees and then the additional employees and equipment for the additional square footage that we'll be adding as well.

1:59:51And then the last one I wanted to highlight that's kind of in a couple of these different areas, maintenance contracts, as well as materials and supplies, is our IMS charges. IMS is going to be going up about $6 million. A lot of that is due to the cost of supplies. And again, we opened the first phase of the airport back in September of 2020.

2:00:12So it's been almost six years that I opened and a lot of our equipment now is due for replacement. A lot of cameras, a lot of servers and things like that. So we've developed a plan to stagger that so we don't have massive influxes of equipment needing to be replaced at one time. So that'll be staggered over the years.

2:00:32And then we're also taking on some additional contracts that are program management team that's been overseeing the construction of the facility. They've been managing these IT contracts. But as the construction is completed, we're going to be taking over the management of those. So there's additional fees associated with that as well.

2:00:54Okay, next slide. So this is where Bill is talking about our cost per employment. So way back in 2019, before we opened and before any of our debt service came online, we were at $3.90. I might just do that. That's about the time I started. So you can see the impact. So this is Bill's fault. But the good thing about this, this has all been planned out.

2:01:22Everybody knew what was going to happen with the City Council, the Mayor's Office, the airlines. They all knew what it would take to finance this project and what it would do to our cost per employment. So our budgeted amount for fiscal year 27 is $23.47. Again, in a couple of years, we'll peak in about the $23.80 mark and then we'll start coming down.

2:01:46And again, at that same time as we're coming down, like Bill said, all these other airports are going to start coming back up as their projects get into full swing as they take on the debt and start opening phases of their new facilities as well. So we're still very competitive amongst other large hubs and the regional area as well.

2:02:08Okay, next slide, please. So our capital projects, we have about 134 million planned for our capital projects. Not all of that will be spent in fiscal year 27. That's just how much we're budgeting for the projects. Some of these are very long term projects. The down at South Valley Regional, we're looking at an FAA tower down there, which would be about $50 million, but that will be almost 100% grant funded if we move forward with it.

2:02:37We're spending about $500,000 this year to do a citing study to see where it would make sense to place that. Up on our terminal projects, we're looking at possibly expanding our baggage service office area. Well, moving our some of our baggage service offices to expand the security checkpoint. It's already filling a little bit pinch there.

2:03:02We're currently working with the FAA, sending in the plans to see if we can get grant approval. Those three projects on the three bottom projects in that terminal area would be about $10,000,000,000. If all goes according to plan, half of that would be grant funded as well. The longer we wait to do that stuff, the more expensive it will be.

2:03:26We're really pushing to get this through to the FAA to get this in their current fiscal year to get that approved. Airfield projects, we're just continuing with our taxiway uniform, which is to assist out by the cargo area, to assist the movement of aircraft out there. We've got the two taxiways that are being developed and constructed.

2:03:52That's a $20 million project, but again, $15 million of that is grant funded. Our big one down there in the land side area is the continuing construction of our south employee parking lot. We plan on opening phase one of that in August, which is about 2,100 stalls. Then continuing with the funding, about $23 million to relocate the surplus canal and continued construction out there.

2:04:24Next slide. Just as just a highlight of a few of our main asks and additions that we're looking at for the year, again, our new FTEs. We talked about 19. I didn't get into much detail there, but that's primarily for maintenance and IT to handle all of the additional IT stuff that we've got coming on board and then maintenance to handle the extra capacity.

2:04:49Along with that, our janitorial increase and utilities and our IT costs as well. Next slide, please. I just wanted to highlight a few things that we've done to really show our effort to control the costs that we have. It's a big number, but we put in a lot of work to make sure that number is not even bigger. Our original ask for FTEs was 23.

2:05:19We brought down to 19, which saves $500,000 a year. The original ask for O&M increases was $23.5 million, which we got down to $17.1, which is a 27% reduction, almost $6.5 million. Keeping in mind, usually, once those get approved, they often stay in there unless it's a one-time expense that we identify. That would be an ongoing savings that we have.

2:05:50Then, again, the need to increase in general, just the CPI in our contracts, we are seeing some inflation pressures with some of our supplies. But keeping in mind that fiscal year 27 is the last year that we're adding space, so we should be able to see a lot fewer increases related to construction and capacity issues.

2:06:15Again, just to highlight, the revenue continues to outpace operating expenses, and that we've never had a problem since we've taken on all of this debt, making our debt service payments and all of the other necessary payments that we have. I believe that concludes things for us. Thank you so much. Council Member Dugan?

2:06:35I appreciate it very much. I always love going to the blue tunnel. I have to say that first of all. I love music, and it's always a joy to walk through there, and sometimes, like the other day, we walk through. We went through the other tunnel, because we were further out. She's like, we're not going through the blue tunnel.

2:07:01I'm like, sorry, honey. So add it to yourself. Exactly. I appreciate the budget. My question is really not so in line with what you just presented. It was more on the getting people in and out of the airport, and the bus services and tracks, and how we're sharing the cost with, or how we're working on the cost with the airlines on getting people out there, the state.

2:07:29Next year, we have the opening of the temple, and 20,000 people coming there, but there's probably going to be a number of people coming through the airport at the same time. The Olympics coming up, and the demand for parking. We had long debates about the parking lot for the employees, and how we are negotiating, how are we working on the transfer of the airport?

2:07:57On the transportation in and out of the airport, not from the airport, other places. And how was that affect your revenue and expenses? So you mentioned both the temple opening and the Olympics, and a couple of things to note there. First, we serve on the state task force for transportation logistics for the Olympics.

2:08:18It's kind of a slow start, as you'd guess, but we'll be a very active part of that. We still have people at the airport who are involved in the O2 Olympics. Many of them kind of get ready to retire, so we've appointed a group of people within the airport who, just by looking at the photo, you go, I think they may be here in 2034.

2:08:40You know what I mean? And they are quite active. They've already reached out to LA, for example. We'll be going to LA. The folks in LA have been terrific about saying, come on over, sit with us, watch what we're doing. And then we will go to the following Winter Olympics as well to do the same thing, essentially, and observe.

2:09:06And I feel like having done this once before, having people around who've documented what occurred, and having an active group of people who are also connected with the state, with the organizing committee, we're going to be ready. These big events for an airport are typically big on the last day. People arrive over a period of time, and they all leave on the same day, which is our experience with the NBA All-Star game.

2:09:37Last time, for example, the airport in Delta collaborated and used their hangar as a ticket lobby overflow. The ticket, you know, that may or may not be available to us in 2034 because we actually now own their hangar. They're leasing it from us, and it needs to go eventually to build a concourse C, but it'll go somewhere.

2:10:03And if we have to use a sprung structure of some kind or whatever, we will figure that out. I'm not really too concerned about that, but we also have a group of people who are very devoted to this. And are excited, connected, and going to learn. I don't imagine that we would need to build much in the way. In fact, I don't think it would be a terrific idea to build anything really significant solely for the Olympics.

2:10:34It's a short-term event, and we feel like we're equipped. We'll be able to handle it. We're also, we've had a lot of interaction with the church. Our air service development people have actually traveled with the church, most recently in South America and Brazil. And we are talking with not only Delta and our existing carrier base, but with other airlines about operating charters during that period of time, which I think makes a lot of sense. I know the church is very interested, and we, to be blunt, see it as an opportunity to really market the airport to additional foreign carriers, who might otherwise not be aware, not know, or be interested.

2:11:23And a good part of this next year, I'll be spending probably traveling to meet some of those carriers and to talk about what it means to provide charter service. It's doubtful that anybody would start permanent service simply for that event. They're going to want to know what's here. And this is really a great opportunity for us to let them sample this experience.

2:11:45Salt Lake has some very unique, large overseas markets, places like Fiji, for example, or the South Pacific Islands, that when you first think about Salt Lake City, you might go, wow, really? Where'd that come from? Well, for obvious reasons. And so we're going to do what we can to tap into those markets and hopefully promote additional, particularly international service.

2:12:11The church is going, when I arrived here, actually, they had shuttle service from the airport to Temple Square. And ultimately, I think they agreed with tracks to basically convert that into a tracks situation. I think they're going to do both this time, which is to take advantage of tracks, but also provide shuttle services.

2:12:37The only thing about the Temple opening is, and this goes for the Olympics as well, we will see a lot of private general aviation activity, sort of like a Sundance-Rit-Large. I think if you remember this, we closed the, or we're in the process of closing. It's actually closed. You got the short runway, 14th or July, 1432, which is a very short runway.

2:13:03One of the originals, it was used for air mail in the 20s. And we don't really need it anymore. We're going to close that so that it's also a very hot spot. For runway incursions. So we're going to eliminate that possibility, but we're going to save the pavement for parking for large GA type events, like the Temple opening, like the Olympics and other activities of that sort, which I think the Olympics itself will generate.

2:13:33There will be lots of activities that are Olympics related that general aviation will play an important part of. We've obviously expanded the FBO facilities on the east side of the airport. Most importantly, I'd love to know if you all get very many phone calls about this, but Salt Lake historically was known for having too much small general aviation propeller-driven aircraft.

2:14:02And they're slowly going away down to South Valley, hopefully out to Tuella. And what we're seeing is large corporate hangar construction, which I think is a sign of what's happening in the economy overall here, but we'll be much more able to accommodate those larger GA aircraft that you associate with those big events.

2:14:28In so far as tracks and UTA are concerned, our planning staff in particular is a very close relationship with UTA. And as you know, they're planning on expanding tracks in a way that will really provide additional service to the airport more lines, which we're excited about. We continue to talk with them about bus service to the airport. And I know they're interested in doing that.

2:14:53They have their own financial constraints, but nevertheless, the relationship there I think is very strong, and I expect it to continue. There's no reason why it wouldn't. It's a very robust kind of relationship. I don't know if I answered. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for the details on the big events, but my real concern is the seven days a week employees going out there and having passengers going out there on a daily basis. And that's where the buses and the tracks is really my push to, for you and also my push to the state legislature, but through you to get that services because that helps the, back to the quality of life for the employees and people getting out there and re-saving the 100 bucks on transportation and parking,

2:15:44because now they're just taking tracks there with the bus there. So that's my push on that. One thing I just wanted to raise to really at the, at the behest of the mirror, we've been working with Delta and we have a task force going right now with Ski Utah and with the Visitsault Lake and Utah Tourism to allow people to book not only their airfare, but also ground transportation as a part of their ticket.

2:16:11It sounds easy. It's apparently incredibly complicated, but we're going to work through that. And I'm hoping, you know, really by the end of the year, at least with Delta, and once they start, I could imagine other airlines allowing that as well. But this is a place where that would work particularly well. It works extremely well with convention business because if you're coming to Downtown Salt Lake, the easiest, fastest, cheapest way to get here is to jump on tracks. And so we're making steps, I think.

2:16:44Other questions? Oh, sorry. Council Member Pietro? I mean, I think our airport isn't just the best for passengers, but I think it's the best executed and I'm always really proud that it's in district one and that I get to hang out with you guys so much. We've seen instability with federal funding in other places that we didn't expect under this administration.

2:17:14Is this something that we should be nervous about? Or is I, we know that TSA has experienced significant disruption and that they may have a reconfiguration coming up based on ordinance, but I'm thinking more in terms of FAA and thinking in terms of those grants that help us pay for the large capital projects. Are you nervous at all about the stability of that funding coming up for future planning?

2:17:40You know, I'm not really nervous about, we call it AIPHC Airport Improvement Program, which is part of the FAA trust fund, so it's not subject to annual appropriations. And the trust fund gets its resources from the federal jet fuel tax. And like other trust funds have its sort, they spend about half of that on the intended purpose and about half of that on the federal debt.

2:18:05So it's pretty steady and I wouldn't expect to see too many changes fortunately.

2:18:13You know, we've been the beneficiaries of a tremendous amount of federal funding on the airfield for the new airport and we're done with that. And our local airport development office, which is located in Denver, said, okay, you guys can take a deep breath for a little while because you're not going to see this avalanche continue forever.

2:18:32There are other airports in the, in the Mount West and we have disputed that, but to no avail. But we will continue to get a steady flow of the AIP grants. In terms of the staff funding, you know, the Department of Homeland Security part that we see is still not funded. The little thing they did to essentially get everybody their paychecks was a one time.

2:19:02We have almost a permanent pantry going in our office now, which has been, I will say, incredibly successful. And thank you all for proving that appropriation. We're about 70% or so through that. So that's about $70,000 that was spent, made a huge difference. We really, we had one day where there were long lines and interestingly, it was that day because people were reading the news going, you better get there four hours early.

2:19:33And by everybody got there four hours early. And TSA is, they know, when you go through the checkpoint, they know that your flight isn't until 10 o'clock and you're here at seven or six or whatever. And so they were able to determine that's what happened. And you don't want to tell people not to get there early, but it is what it is.

2:19:52So until there is a new at least one year extension, we're just always paying attention. I'm on a large hub call with other airport directors, probably twice a week, just talking through this. That thus far is the only service part that we get from the federal government that's been really problematic. You always worry about air traffic control for us.

2:20:21That's two parts. One is directly affecting Salt Lake City. The other is the Salt Lake Center, which is across the street from the airport. That controls all airspace between Canada, Mexico, roughly Denver, and LA. And it's been good, but this is a national airspace. And so it can be just fine here in Salt Lake, but if you're going to New York and they're closed, you're not going to New York.

2:20:51So we, with other airports, approach this in that fashion. And I would say, depending on what your bandwidth for nervousness is, it probably ought to be there somewhere. There isn't a lot that we can do about it, except what we have done and would continue to do in the event that folks aren't getting paid. We're going to do whatever we can to help them through all of this.

2:21:17Yeah. Thank you. And thank you for taking care of our people. I think for us, it's been amazing to watch how it's another level of government that when they don't execute, pushes it down to us, and which inevitably pushes it down to our citizens and property taxpayers and sales taxpayers. But taking care of those employees and those working across people, I think, is a shared priority.

2:21:39So thank you. Now, too, we had a huge community response this time, too. It's weird to see people showing up at the airport with a case of beans under their arms, but we had a little of that. And then one day, somebody knocked on the door and said, hey, the church just delivered eight pallets of food. And, yeah, well, and behold, they did.

2:21:58And, you know, it was just very much a community response, which has been really heartwarming. Council Member Warren? Also, just wanted to congratulate you on doing such a great job and running one of the best-run airports in the world. And I had the chance to meet with some Delta representatives recently, and they just had great things to say about our airport and working with you.

2:22:28And so I just want to pass on their appreciation and mine as well. So thank you. And I'll just close this out by just echoing that sense of gratitude. I mean, you shared two or actually four words. You never hear often, which is under budget and on time. And so just my gratitude to you, Bill, Sean, and all of the airport staff that make our airport really, I think, one of our crown jewels in something that we're really proud of here in Salt Lake.

2:23:05So thank you for your hard work and diligence. All right. I think that closes us out. Let's move on to our next item, which is an informational fiscal year, 2026 legislative intense and open intense from previous years following up or follow up. We'll be joined at the table by Alice in Roland, Council policy analyst. And we've also got Mary Beth Thompson and Randy Hiller, a present to answer questions.

2:23:37Thank you, Madam Chair. As soon as I share my screen will be good to go. This is really just to finish off your review of legislative intense before the budget comes along. And your attention is pulled even more directions. Sorry, I can't talk and do this at the same time. So the remaining two items or rather two sections of the legislative intense for today are one item, I believe now remaining in the public services department after it sounded like it may be time to close and continue the neighborhood district signs in the public services department.

2:24:41The second one there is the famous old FY 15 maintenance of business districts item. I believe there may be enough for a briefing on this, but we do have Director Jorge Chamorro here for to be able to respond to any questions. So I guess we can take it from there. Council Member Young. So I mean, I would be interested, I guess, in the briefing before we closed it.

2:25:21I just it's still a question that I get repeatedly related to opportunities for both expansion of services, cost of services, things like that. I know sugar houses working very closely with economic development on what that looks like. But to me closing it, I think signals to the community like we're good and I wouldn't be able to reflect that for my district needs at this time.

2:25:48So I'd advocate for keeping it open. And I apologize. I didn't mean to to imply that the maintenance of business districts would be closed. It's the previous one on the signs.

2:26:05Other comments and I'll just share that I share your concern. Council Member Young about trying to understand what the appropriate level of service in these business districts is.

2:26:18I think maybe a good next step would be a briefing. I think the administration has done some good work recently. With specific business districts and might have a way to talk it through that the council could be helpful for the council. I think with the budget schedule coming up, we may want to work with the chair and vice chair and the administration about the timing of that briefing just logistically.

2:26:39So we'll just plan on that. Other questions and concerns? Council Member Dugan? Go on once? Twice? I knew you had one there. I knew there was one there. I'm basically going back to the neighborhood district signs keeping that one open and probably just instead of scared of their briefing, can that just be added to the budget discussion on that one?

2:27:04The top one about the design? We just did a discussion about the historic signs 30 minutes ago. Yes, we could include it in the budget discussions. We could always include things in the budget discussion. Instead of having a separate discussion. I think what I was talking about is the separate discussion for the maintenance of business districts.

2:27:25Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so it sounds like close and continue is the next step for neighborhood district signs and then legislative intent remains open for maintenance of business districts. Am I capturing that correctly? Okay. So just keeping them both open. Keeping them both open. And we could close them after the... Okay.

2:27:52Okay. Let's maintain. And then the remaining... What's the function of keeping the signs open? You just want to do pending funding to finish it all? Really not just for the historic signs but all signs in general and just have it part of the discussion of the budget. I see which... Okay, because it's not just historic.

2:28:13Thank you. Yeah, not just historic time. Yeah. Thank you. And then finally, there are four council that intense. You may recognize them because some of them were assigned to departments earlier and then staff realized that actually there needs to be discussion among all of you. The first one is FY26 police reporting and privacy ordinance.

2:28:34My understanding is that council staff is working on convening a meeting with IMS and the attorney's office to identify components of this. But I'm not sure if anyone else or if anyone wants to comment or you want to discuss any questions. Council Member Pietro? I'm happy to talk. Council Member Puis and I had a long discussion about this.

2:28:57And I know this issue kind of took like came to a head with the license plate readers. But it appears some of the people who came to comment that night are not our typical constituents who comment to comment. They were software engineers who work for these firms. And when those people come to me and say you need to know that the pressure in my agency is for me to get to market and the quality assurance isn't there and we're making promises that I don't know that our products can deliver.

2:29:24That does feel like a place for us to slow down. So for me in asking for this one and what we did, I would actually any place that we have a repository of digitized information about people who either visit or call this place home. That is potentially a vulnerability in what we're seeing emerge as a surveillance state.

2:29:45And so I think we do owe it to ourselves and to our constituents to be more forward looking in how we not only deal with this, but also how we prioritize it. I mean theoretically a library card database is digitized personal information. Maybe it doesn't tell you where that person is at any given time like a license plate reader would.

2:30:07So maybe it's a lower priority, but I think with the advent of the cloud, the advent of surveillance capability we really need to. And this to me doesn't feel like a couple meetings and it's done. This feels like a paradigm shift in the way we make policy because these technologies are here and are not going back. So that's my context for wanting this.

2:30:29And it was spurred by the license plate readers, but for me it is so much more expansive. It's business licenses. It's all of it. Thank you, Council Member Pietro. Other questions? Concerns? Okay. All right. The next one is from FY29 on Council Member Compensation. The idea was to return to a discussion of the ordinance governing elected official compensation.

2:30:58And I can chime in on the status of this one since I'll own part of it. We had some good conversations with Council Members who volunteered to sort of do a deeper dive thinking about it. And they have made a recommendation about a path forward. Staff hasn't had the bandwidth given other events that have popped up to move that ball forward, but we have a good kind of scaffolding outline of how that might look moving forward.

2:31:26I don't think it will, I can pretty much confirm it won't be ready for the budget. Obviously the Council compensation is automatically adjusted along with all city employee compensation. And so at least it's not ignored. But that is still a program we need to push forward. It just will take staff time. Thank you. It would be clear we're not speaking about the Council pay amount.

2:31:51We're talking about the Council pay ordinance and the mechanism that determines what we're paid. We are not talking about amounts and increasing as well. Right. Currently the ordinance ties the Council, it automatically calculates the Council Member compensation based on a percentage of the Mayor's salary. And I think that there's a desire to look at different ways to come up with what that amount is.

2:32:17Not using the amount as the determining factor. Excellent. Thank you. Next is from FY 24, the Legal Defenders Association. This is one that the Council decided they'd like to keep it open as a reminder to consider sometime during the coming year. So this is one that I believe still also needs more time. But I don't know if anyone has additional comments on it.

2:32:43I think it's also accurate to say that there's a little bit of an overlap with this intent and the intent related to the justice system review in general and the capacity and the justice system in general. So we are aware of that overlap. Okay. And the last one is from FY 23, the rotating outside auditing of each city department.

2:33:07Jennifer may have an update on this one as well. So we are required to do our annual financial audit that is presented each January or February by I'd be late. That continues. We have gone through a successful RFP process to select five firms. So we now have five firms on contract that we can go to if we need a deeper review.

2:33:38I was hopeful that we would have kind of a proposal for you of what might be a good first sort of crack at a review. I think in the past it was department by department, right? You would do an audit of the fire department or a can. I think that's very burdensome on the departments. And so we were working with the administration to figure out if there are ways to evaluate either things that they're wrestling with and would like answers to that can be win-win or ways to make it less burdensome.

2:34:09So again, it's kind of been pushed a little bit to the side based on recent things going on, but it's not forgotten. Thank you, Jen. Questions on this item? Okay. Excellent. That's it. I think that means we're done. Excellent. Thank you for this portion anyway. Thank you, Allison. I will now ask for a motion for us to enter into a closed meeting.

2:34:37And the request to go into the closed meeting is for the purpose of discussing pending or reasonably imminent litigation and attorney client matters. I'll look for a motion. And I'm trying to move that we go into a closed meeting for the purpose of discussing pending or reasonably imminent litigation and I'll do a roll call.

2:35:03Council member Deugene. Council member Deugene. I'll now do a roll call. Council member Deugene. Yes. Council member Lopez Chavez. Aye. Council member Warren. Yes. Aye. Council member Pietro. Aye. Council member Yugg. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. All right. We're now entering into a. Motion passes. We're now entering into a closed meeting.

2:35:33At the end of the closed meeting, we will now proceed with the rest of the work session. If we could ask anyone who is not here for the closed meeting, I don't think that Eddie what is here. But if you are, please step into the hallway. Thank you. All right. Welcome back, everyone. I have to say I am very excited for the next item on our agenda.

2:35:58And next item on our agenda is a U-City State of the City Address. And with that, I'd like to turn the time over to U-City Government who will present that U-City State of the City Address. Over to you. Hello, my name is Ashram Iris. I'm a senior at West High School and District 4. This is my first year in U-City of Government.

2:36:23And I can't fully express how grateful I am for this experience. Honestly, my only regret is not finding it out about it sooner. I joined because I wanted to prove to myself that I could grow as a leader and truly help my community. For a long time, I struggled with low self-esteem and worried that I couldn't make a difference.

2:36:45Sometimes I find it hard to communicate with others and to often see the world a bit differently. But I decided those challenges shouldn't stop me. I pushed myself to step out of my comfort zone and now I'm doing things I never saw possible. One of the YCGU events that stood out to me was the Student Unity Summit to eradicate hate.

2:37:07Where students from different schools came together to address hate, motivate, violence and bullying. It was powerful to see over 100 high school students collaborating, sharing ideas and personal stories about how to improve not only our schools but our communities as well. This year, YCGU students also raised $5,925 for the Utah Food Bank MLK Junior Day of Service Project.

2:37:36Enough to provide more than 18,000 meals for families in need. That's what makes this program so powerful. YCGU gives us teenagers a chance to engage with real issues, talk to city leaders and elected officials and participate in meaningful service. The program empowers us to become the leaders our city needs. I want more teenagers to realize they have a voice and I truly believe everyone is welcome in this program.

2:38:09Thank you. Perfect. Thank you, Ash. Hello, Salt Lake City Council members. My name is Yumado Larwell. I'm a senior at East High School this year and I live in District 6. I have only been a part of youth city government for one year, but my short time as a participant has given me numerous lessons and what has felt like years of experience.

2:38:36Being a part of YCGU has truly enlightened me to the various pathways that lead to change within my community. One such event that had a profound impact on me was the National League of Cities Conference held in Salt Lake last November. It was incredible meeting students from all over our country that were passionate about their democracy and education.

2:38:57Giving tours of Salt Lake City and participating in workshops at the conference with delegates from Florida to California and from Washington to Texas led me to the knowledge that our seemingly different problems in our communities were not so different at all. One message that resonated with me that I continuously find myself thinking about was given by Mary Victoria Woodards of Tacoma, Washington.

2:39:23She simply stated, the youth are not our futures. They are present. And I had the opportunity to prove that during the legislative session this year. This February, Rebecca Cummings, a leader with Let Utah Read, explained that 32 books have been banned in Utah. This cementing Utah as the state with the highest book banning rate in the U.S.

2:39:46The law should not take outlets of expression away from teens. Youth voices need support and love. Banning books can stunt critical thinking, reduce reading engagement, and impact academic achievement, which ultimately harms our future. After the disheartening news of the extensive book bans, I attended the read-in at the Utah State Capitol.

2:40:08Older generations embrace their tote bags. Middle-aged adults chatted about important messages found in their novels. And finally, smiling children were everywhere reading, thinking, and loving books they had in hand. Education is so important, and books are the backbone. Books serve as an opportunity for reflection and in some cases even lifelines.

2:40:34I urge you to create policy protecting freedom of expression like you did with those amazing flags behind you. I envision a future where youth know their importance and can speak their voices and know they are in fact the present and do not have to wait for the future. Thank you. Thank you for that, Imano. My name is Elise Monk and I'm a junior at Salt Lake Center for Science Education and District 1.

2:41:03This is my first, sorry, this is my second year with U-City Government, and during my time here I've learned several things like the operation of local and state government, public speaking, and resources available to the community. This is my first time addressing the city council and I'm honored to be here, but that honor is mingled with the responsibility to bring to the council's attention a problem that seems to go completely in.

2:41:24On the east side of Salt Lake proper there are seven hospitals and west of I-15 and Salt Lake proper there are none. There's just one hospital in West Valley City, Pioneer Hospital which is known for its poor quality. This lack of hospital access is then exacerbated by the fact that people on the west side are far more likely to suffer from preventable conditions like type 2 diabetes and obesity, pulmonary illness is related to the poor air quality caused by industries and refineries intentionally placed west of the Jordan River.

2:41:54This is also worsened by the lack of availability of public transportation connecting the east and west sides. Depending on where you live it can take up to 55 minutes to get from the west side to a university hospital. This is unacceptable. A hospital is not something that someone should have to wait for a bus to take them to.

2:42:11This lack of specialized and in some cases even primary care makes it not only inconvenient but also dangerous for people living on the west side. It's been proven in studies that being further away from a hospital can greatly increase the probability of life threatening injury and illness by delaying. I understand that there are plans to build a hospital funded by the University of Utah in 2020.

2:42:30This is a step in the right direction but it is not a total solution and we will need more than one hospital to bridge the gap. I understand that hospital placement is not determined by the city but I believe that the council is in a position of power and can help advocate for better access. I trust that all council members, especially those representing the west side, will continue to make our city as equitable as it can be.

2:42:52Thank you. Thank you Elise. Hello, my name is Tommy Peralta Flores. I'm a senior at East High School. I represent District 6 and this is my first year as a part of YCG. I joined because I wanted to talk about issues that don't get a lot of attention. And learn how to stand up for others. This year YCG received funding through the youth advocacy grant innovative from Salt Lake County, which focused our attention on public health policies.

2:43:23We were able to look at several issues that I want to tell you more about. Homelessness is an ongoing problem. We learned through guest speakers that range from people working as grassroots level to legislative level, that high cost of housing, low wages and poor policies continue to push more people into difficult situations.

2:43:44I believe homelessness is a problem we can solve. If we work to understand the cause and effect and development ideas such as more accessible shelters and community based solutions, we can better support those in need. In addition to homelessness, we were able to learn about Naloxone, the opioid anti-gengen. Naloxone is not harmful to administrators, even if it is given to someone not suffering from an overdose.

2:44:14YCG worked with Senator Jennifer Plum to educate other legislators about the bill, a bill that increases access to this life-saving drug. We were also able to participate in the Loxone training which taught us how to recognize the signs of an opioid overdose and how to respond in a life-saving way. The training is available to everyone through the organization, Utah and the Loxone.

2:44:41Bills like SB87 and the three trainings that we took Utah from being the fourth highest in a nation for opioid overdose in 2014 to the 42nd by 2024. From my personal observation in our city, there should be more awareness and greater availability of Naloxone in public spaces to give people an even greater chance of saving someone's life.

2:45:12The YCG and the YAGI grant, I was able to talk about these issues in a national level earlier this year. I had an opportunity to travel to Washington, DC for the 2026 Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America, Cateca. While there I spoke with Senator John Curtis and Representative Blake Moore, where I was able to talk about Naloxone distribution made possible by Utah Senate Bill 87, sponsored by Senator Jennifer Plum.

2:45:42That experience showed me that youth can play a role in real policy discussions and it made me even more committed to raising awareness here in our city. Thank you for your time and for listening to the issues that matter to me and to our community. We know we don't do a round of applause, but do more, do more, okay, awesome.

2:46:07Okay, we still give them a round of applause. I know we're not all the way done yet, but. Good evening. My name is Evelyn Nalah Martinez. I'm a senior at East High living in District 2 and this is my first year of participating in YCG. I believe it is truly one of the most community driven experiences I've ever been the part of.

2:46:47I joined this program looking for ways to better understand my city, but it wasn't until I saw my community in action that I truly understood the power of young voices. In February, East High and Salt Lake City Schools walked out of class to protest federal immigration enforcement. In that moment, when I saw hundreds of my peers walking out, I realized that the youth representing our city are passionate, brave and intelligent.

2:47:10Being part of this youth movement has empowered me to speak up and waste my concerns to those who have the power to create change. It hurts me and all those who participated in the protest to see a facility being sold to ICE in our city. Converting a warehouse into the Tension Center is inhumane and unsafe. The building was designed to store goods, not people.

2:47:28The community has whisked concerns that the existing sewage, water and road infrastructure in the industrial area cannot support a potential detention center. With a projected capacity of 7500 to 10,000 beds, the facility would be one of the largest in the U.S. Not only will this drain public resources, but it will lead to civil rights violations, family separations and the terrorizing of immigrant communities.

2:47:49Beyond their physical walls, detention facilities endanger human lives through systemic neglect and abuse. Reports highlight a lack of necessities, preventable deaths due to ignore medical conditions and disappearances occurring when they, or are transferred without notifying their families or legal counsel. My vision for Salt Lake City is one that is welcoming, humane and grounded in dignity, not fear.

2:48:11I want to express my sincere gratitude to the mayor and the mayor of the council who have expressed great concern about this issue. It is encouraging to see this body engage so meaningfully with resident input, and I truly appreciate your commitment to taking initiatives for our community. I believe that together, as members of Salt Lake City, we can come up with better solutions. Thank you.

2:48:32Hello, my name is Avery McAfee. I am an internationally adopted immigrant who currently lives in District 7. I am finishing my junior year at Highland High School and my first year working with YCG, which I'm so glad to have joined because of all the opportunities to work on my leadership and speaking skills. I'm so thankful to YCG for also cultivating a diverse and welcoming environment, especially during mounting anti-immigrant attitudes.

2:49:00As I am sure you are aware, we are seeing increased arrests and hatred for immigrants across the nation. In our own state, debates over HB88 highly edeeptivide between legislators seeking to restrict undocumented immigrants' access to public services and passionate community members like my classmates who strongly oppose such measures.

2:49:21I want you to know that my classmates are concerned about the effects of anti-immigrant legislation. A couple weeks ago, my school hosted our annual multi-cultural picnic. It's an event hosted jointly by all the cultural clubs of Highland. At this picnic, I had the privilege of sharing personal experiences with other diverse students.

2:49:41After meeting more of my peers, I've learned that many of my classmates and their parents have taken long journeys to reach Salt Lake City, only to be confronted with the fear of being deported and separated from their loved ones or facing inequitable treatment. Fear not though. I also learned that my classmates are grateful to have connected with people who share similar experiences and backgrounds.

2:50:04My friends are just as Utahn as you and I are, and they shouldn't have to live in quiet fear of being mistreated or deported. Despite this mounting uncertainty and fear, I'm glad that in Salt Lake City, my community and my friends have made it known that I am welcome here. As an immigrant, our community has been so good to me.

2:50:24I feel seen and valued. Here, I am called by name, not by slur. I am a friend, not a foe. I am equal, not inferior. In 2024, Salt Lake City earned a certification for being immigrant inclusive. Now, we need to defend it. I ask you to not back down from these blatant infringements of civil rights and to oppose and act.

2:50:48I love Salt Lake City, and I know you do too. I love this place I call home, and I don't want to see it ruined by hate and malice. Thank you for supporting LICG, Youth City, and other Youth City sponsored programs. They make a difference for all members of our community. I'd love to open it up as we typically do to council members for comments, questions, follow-ups.

2:51:23Council Member Dugan? Sure. Powerful message, and I appreciate it. I really am inspired by your desire to engage and by your desire to help out and promote the city. I really like the idea that, you know, you've, as I think the first speaker talked about, stepping out of this comfort zone, and I really am impressed that your age, you're doing that, and you're going this far.

2:51:57I was never at this level at your age, and it just warms my heart that we have upcoming leaders. I shouldn't say upcoming leaders. We have leaders of your caliber helping out the city, making changes at your school, but also making changes across the board. So I appreciate that. Keep it up, keep reading, and keep pressing the boundaries.

2:52:25So thank you very much. Council Member Lopez-Travas, and then I guess we'll go down the line because I think we all want to say something. Thank you, Chair. I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to join you city, but also taking the time to educate us about the issues that concern youth in our city.

2:52:46And also wanted to give a shout out. I got to participate with the 1,000 plus students that marched from East High School all the way to the top of the hill, and to really listen to the significant impact that it's having on families, friends, and our community. And although it might seem that you are young and in high school, it's truly you that lead us, and promote an ideal place of living in Salt Lake City, a place that is welcoming, a place that is safe, a place that is unified across so many experiences.

2:53:16So I just want to challenge you and ask you, when are you going to run for office? Because I can't wait to help you, and I can't wait to work for you one day. Thank you.

2:53:28Thank you so much for presenting and for taking the time to be here and for putting such thought and care into your remarks to us. I feel really good about the points that you raised that you make you feel, or help make me feel like I'm doing the right thing because I share a lot of those concerns, and I share a lot of those, the positions that you articulated, even though some of those things are outside the city's control.

2:53:56I think it's still really important for you to come and share that with us, because those are still part of things that are happening in Salt Lake City. I first got involved in politics and government and things like that in my last year of high school, and I'll just say that as you continue to get older and do whatever you decide to do after high school and go into the workforce or go to college or whatever, you're going to have more things that are going to compete for your time and your attention and your talent, which is a good thing.

2:54:34But I hope that you will, whether you decide to run for office or whether you decide to serve the community in a different way. I hope that you'll always keep this desire you have right now to speak up and to get back and to be involved and to help others and be a leader in whatever way that you choose for your life, because like I said, you're going to have lots of other things that are going to come up and other paths that you might want to take, but I hope that you'll remember what's keeping you interested and wanting you to be here at the table speaking to us today, because you can help continue to inspire others in whatever leadership role you decide to take on.

2:55:17Thanks for being here. I'm so excited. This is like one of the best things that we do every year, mostly because we don't have to listen to ourselves. We get to listen to you and listening to you so much better. This is like a really weird moment in time. I know you come here and like you're speaking to the council, right?

2:55:38And so we are council members. We're also people who are living through this moment in history. And none of us thought in the year 2026, we would have to literally convince people that putting humans in warehouses was a bad idea. We thought we would be, I don't know, like doing some great scientific advances and moving in a forward trajectory.

2:56:01And so it's really easy to get real discouraged. It's really easy to feel really limited in what we can do. And then you all come. And you remind us that just because this is an exhausting timeline, this by no means is the end of the timeline. We have a commitment to making the city just a little bit better, just moving the needle in the direction of improvement, of more welcoming, of more prosperous, of more sustainable.

2:56:29And then we're handing it off to you. And you're going to do the same thing. And thank you for coming and offering your energy because I know it's exhausting. I have a ninth grader whose bottom I am constantly trying to kick to make sure he has a future for himself. So you guys are in the thick of it. I know your AP Psychology class at West is intense.

2:56:50I know you guys are facing tough stuff. So not only are you facing headlines that are scary, you're also at a really tough moment where you're having to make decisions for the rest of your life and should have the freedom to. And instead of just focusing on your individual future, you came here. You shared with us what your priorities are.

2:57:08And you read a little life into at least this council person who is feeling like it's a heavy moment to trot through. So thank you for what you offer to me. And thank you for the hope that you represent for what comes next. I promise that we'll do as best we can. I'm with you. We're going to, we're going to, that warehouse.

2:57:27All right. So thank you. I echo the comments of my fellow council members. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to hear from you about the issues that you're experiencing and that you have concerns with here in the city. A lot of times when we're making decisions, it feels like, you know, we're making a decision about what is tomorrow look like or what a Salt Lake City look like in a month or a year.

2:57:57And you really represent the importance of, you know, pushing me and my fellow council members to think on that. We're not talking about just what it looks like tomorrow. We're really talking about, you know, the future of Salt Lake City that you will inherit as our leaders moving forward. And whether that's looking at it through the lens of, you know, pushing yourself and wanting to belong to a larger community, looking at it through the lens of wanting to be able to.

2:58:26Wanting to be able to go to the public library or your school library and check out a book that you're interested in and not having two people in the state of Utah have the ability to limit that decision. And whether we're looking at, you know, the future of being able to make sure that our families feel welcome here regardless of their backgrounds and instead celebrating those opportunities to learn from people who have a different set of experience.

2:58:55As opposed to having those families worry about what it means when they walk outside the door or when they drop their children off at school, whether or not they will be there when they come home in the afternoon. I also really wanted to honor your call for more health care related to what we're doing holistically across the city.

2:59:19You have some amazing champions up here who have taken a lot of time to make sure we all as council members are educated about some of the historical inequities that continue to exist in our city and really inspire us to look at health care to look at grocery stores, you know, to look at safe routes to school and sidewalks and making sure that those are holistically available across the city.

2:59:47And finally, I want to make sure that we also call out your topic of looking at how we're treating individuals who are currently unhoused or who may be suffering with, you know, various needs related to whether that's a substance abuse or a need for housing. To me, one of the things that often becomes true of individuals is they're in middle school and of high school is you start to look at it through the lens of what does this mean for me.

3:00:21And you really did an excellent job of turning that around and saying, you know, what does it mean for the people around me? And I really want to create a space where we're looking out for the people in my community, not just for what your current like lived experiences and bringing that to our congressional representatives is incredible.

3:00:42So thank you for that. Two things that I would challenge you all to consider is you move forward. I think the first thing that I love to hear from not just my residents, but students and, you know, no matter what your age is, if you see an issue in your community, be curious. Ask the question, who's in charge of that?

3:01:07Who's helping us, you know, to make that aspect of the community a better place? Because in a lot of ways, it's not always obvious. And it's not something where you're like, oh, I bet I know which elected official that is. So by being curious and being open to, you know, the problem solving, the critical thinking and the learning, it makes you a better advocate.

3:01:31The second thing I challenge you is to consider the role you have through this amazing experience that the adults around you and here in the city have fostered. To also be an educator of your peers. There are so many individuals who share your concerns and you have the opportunity to help educate others, whether it's encouraging them to participate in public comment at the local level, the state level, or even the national level, being able to encourage them to engage in their local community organizations.

3:02:08But people will listen to you because you have that title of having served with you city here in Salt Lake City. And so use that to help benefit the community around you. Last but not least, I just want to take an opportunity to hopefully join you in thinking all of the adults who made this possible for you. It's not just our amazing leaders here in the city and the staff who have really created this experience, but it's also all the other adults in the room you see here who helped to make sure that you were able to be where you needed to be to participate in the learning.

3:02:45So if you'll join me in giving those folks a round of applause, I would appreciate it.

3:02:59I echo the comments made by my fellow council members up here and I think I just want to express my gratitude to each one of you for sharing your lived experience with us, for sharing your very real recommendations about what we can do differently and for sharing your courage. I think that as you probably know already in your life being a leader is not an easy thing.

3:03:27And by you coming up here and providing the state of the city, youth state of the city address to us, you showed some courage, not only in coming here but in what you shared. And I want you to know that that courage is contagious and your courage makes me feel a little bit more brave today to be able to tackle some of the big challenges that you talked about.

3:03:49And so thank you for your courage and I think my challenge is I'm looking for more of it. Thank you so much. And I think now we will move towards taking a picture.

3:06:03So we've got, we've got I believe two final items. The first is report of the chair and vice chair and there is no report from the chair and vice chair. And second item is report and announcements from the executive director. No reports. Okay. The council work session is now adjourned and we will convene as a group for lunch with you city.

3:06:29Thank you so much. Dinner. Dinner.