Council Meeting - June 18, 2013

Work Session

Presentation from Chief Freeman from Lone Peak Public Safety District (LPPSD). Gave brief history of how Cedar Hills joined LPPSD. Cedar Hills joined LPPSD in 2000 as city wasn't pleased with services received from Pleasant Grove. Cedar Hills is a partial owner of the district. LPPSD was first agency in North Utah County to combine EMS and fire services and to go to a paramedic service. Now has new transport engine that combines fire and paramedic truck into one. Has ordered an mobile emergency command center. Has created a flex squad program where if they are short staffed they will have a roaming until that unit is needed at any station. There will never be fewer than eight firefighters on duty ready to respond. Working on fire cadet 6th grade academy to work on educating kids on drug abuse and suicide concerns. Went through log for last year. 283 days had three staff members in Cedar Hills facility and only 46 days of two firefighters, 36 days had four firefighters. If we have three people call in sick on any given day then one of the fire stations would have to be closed down. Adopted budget for 2014 is $626,328, which is a 2.4% increase from last year. If we increased staff to four at all times then budget would increase to about $670,000. Eight firefighters from LPPSD live in Cedar Hills.

Council Meeting

Public Comment

Nobody signed up.

Public Hearings

Nobody signed up for public hearings.

Consent Agenda

City Council meeting minutes for May 7, 2013, May 21, 2013, and June 4, 2013 unanimously approved.

City Reports

David Bunker - Construction for CoRec is underway. Foundation has been poured and framing should start next week. Rest of basement has been framed. 3-4 weeks and the project should be complete. County and State working on who should update and maintain Canyon Road. They would like cities to look at snow plow services for Canyon Road and come up with cost. Tomorrow night is a candidate orientation for anyone running for office.

CM Zappala - Working on budgeting app for the city. Has a functional site that is almost ready to publish. Will next be working on ability for city staff to add notes to answer questions on budget issues.

CM Rees – Parks, Trails, Beautification and Recreation committee met last week. July 13th will be community breakfast.

CM Martinez - worked with Greg on Recreation portion of the State of the City. Did YCC interviews for next year. Nineteen applications were sent in. Family Festival committee had wrap up meeting. Success was amazing. Greg has finalized numbers and with all sponsors and other revenue we spent about $20,000 less than budgeted. Committee has recommended that we change date to July.

CM Augustus - Upcoming meetings for Planning Commission and North Point. Looking for slips of paper where ideas were written down for Clubhouse Drive name change.

CM Jackman - Finance committee met to finish budget.

Review/Action on Preliminary Plans for Bridgestone Plat D

Garbett Homes submitted plans to the Planning Commission. Plat D is a three-plex instead of four-plex unit. This change was due to a sewer lateral just west of the building site that cannot be disturbed. Rich from Garbett came to answer questions. Everything else is the same as was previously approved by the Council. Unanimously approved.

Review/Action on Final Plans for Bridgestone Plat F&G

Planning Commission made recommendations to change three items:

• wanted fence along Harvey Drive (staff feels this would hide the changed made to the building to improve look and is opposed);
• wanted to add sidewalk along 4380 West (Staff is opposed to this sidewalk should terminate at crosswalk as we have issues with cars queing up to drop kids off and pickup from Deerfield. There is a sidewalk on the other side of the street on this same road, which serves as the Kindergarten pickup area. Staff is concerned this is a safety issue. This is also private land so cannot build a public sidewalk);
• Wanted to increase setback between two buildings. This was OK with staff and shown on new drawings.

Motioned passed 4-1 with CM Zappala voting nay.

Review/Action on FY2013 Budget Amendments

• Line item 10-40-305: Legal expenses exceeded the budgeted amount by $75,000. Money needed will be pulled from line item 10-31-100 (property taxes of $11,000 that exceeded planned collection rate), line item 10-31-300 (sales tax revenue higher than anticipated), and line item 10-35-100 (Family Festival expenses less than anticipated).

• Line items 10-44-110 (salary and wages), 10-44-150 (employee benefits), and 10-60-150 (employee benefits) were over budget as severance costs and unemployment costs were higher than anticipated. The money needed will be pulled from line items 10-60-110 (salary and wages), 10-60-120 (part time salary and wages), 10-40-510 (insurance prepaid in prior fiscal year), and 10-60-215 (reduction in contract labor as there were less building permits issued than anticipated).

• Line item 10-65-120: Salaries and wages of events staff is being moved to general fund so that golf course items are separate and can be more transparent and line item 10-65-401 for $12,000 is for recreation equipment. Money will come from recreation programs line item 10-65-400.

• Line item 10-69-910: CARE tax revenue will be transferred to the Capital Projects Fund to pay for portion of basement construction.

• Line item 10-69-910, there will be a transfer from the General Fund to the Capital projects fund if our unrestricted fund balance exceeds 18%. This is required by law. The anticipated transfer amount is $300,000.

• Line item 75-80-250: Increase in golf cart rent of $24,800 as we replaced the lease with rented carts. Money will come from line item 75-80-300 (cart lease interest) and line item 75-80-900 (difference between undepreciated asset and liability for golf carts traded in).

• Line item 10-69-913: Additional golf subsidy of $150,000. This will come from the general fund.

• Line item 40-96-115: Transfer of $2,069,385 from the Capital Projects Fund to the Community Recreation Fund to zero out the internal loan. This wasn’t an actual transfer of money as the loaned amount was already being paid from this fund. A more detailed explanation will be provided in the State of the City newsletter.

Review/Action on FY2014 Property Tax Rate

Because property values have increased, Utah County has recommended the tax rate reduce from .003183 to 002873.  With this new tax rate most residents will pay the same amount this year as last year. This item was unanimously approved.

Review/Action on Public Safety Contracts

The City received bids on four different scenarios. Option 1: Status quo with AFPD as police, LPPSD and fire, and Utah Valley Dispatch. Budget would be $993,100. Option #2: Lone Peak fire and police with their dispatch. Budget would be $1.085 million. Option #3: Pleasant Grove police, fire, and dispatch. Budget would be $1,125,682. Option #4: Our current setup but with an additional firefighter paid for by Cedar Hills and community policing efforts. Budget would be $1.085 million. CM Jackman explained that there is no concern with quality of service. Board meetings show that the board is not in agreement on public safety issues. Dispatch is also an issue now that LPPSD is leaving Utah Valley Dispatch but AFPD is staying with them. One of the benefits of Option #3 is that is solves the border issue with Pleasant Grove with regards to dispatch calls. Concern is that Highland always gets better quality of service. He has concern that us adding our own firefighters will just break down the board. If we did add a fourth firefighter to our building the funds could come from increase in property tax due to growth and increase in sales tax revenue. We left revenue numbers the same from the FY2013 budget yet we know revenue is coming in higher than original estimate. Additionally, there has been discussion to move Family Festival to July, which would mean for FY2014 there would be no expense for Family Festival. Franchise fees are also increasing. From an expense side we could reduce sidewalks by $2500, parks by $2500, and legal expenses by $5000. If we have three firefighters in the building (current situation) and have roaming unit then response time is 60 to 90 seconds longer than always having four firefighters on site.

Some board members do not view this is a district but are focused on just the needs of their individual city. LPPSD is trying to become a taxing entity so that budget goes directly from line item in property tax and not through each city. Current average response times are less than four minutes. After discussing each option and the pros and cons the Council unanimously approved Option #1.

Review/Action on Adopting FY2014 Budget

After meeting with the finance committee, Mayor Gygi had staff go back and change revenue numbers to be more consistent with actuals for the past several years. We also increased the expected subsidy to the golf course. The LPPSD fees are accurate based on their recently passed budget. YCC has a new line item so that we can better track donations made to the YCC program. The FY2014 budget passed 4-1 with CM Augustus voting nay.

Review/Action on YCC Fundraising

In order to be compliant with governmental accounting yet have the ability to properly track and utilize YCC contributions, a new line item has been created to track these revenues and expenses. This allows YCC to keep fundraising money for Santa's Workshop program. This item was unanimously approved.

Review/Action on Business Licensing for Residential Rentals

Staff recommended a business license fee be required for all non-owner rentals in the City. Currently we have 225 rental properties, many of them owned by corporations. Problem we are having is that homes are not being maintained per zoning ordinances. We have a hard time finding some of these owners to fix these issues. We would notify landlords through notices and newsletter over a period of months letting them know of the new fee. Would be enforced January 1^st and license would be valid for calendar year. CM Zappala recommended we look to see if we can charge non-residents a higher business license fee since these are the main owners causing us issues. Chandler will discuss with Eric Johnson. Add to Application of License section that we add wording “and other items required by the City” so we don’t have to change ordinance if we make changes. This will also help us more quickly address zoning issues since we’ll know who owners are. Approved 4-1 with CM Jackman voting no.

Review/Action onResolution Regarding Restricting Open Fires & Fireworks

Because of dry weather conditions, LPPSD recommended that the city prohibit aerial fireworks and open fires on the east side of Canyon Road. This was unanimously approved.

Discussion on Roles of Council Serving on Boards (Added Item by CM Augustus)

Councilmember Augustus had concerns on how members of the Council were voting on boards they are assigned to. Are they supposed to vote based upon their own thoughts or the desires of the Council. This is a complex issue because many times members don't know what items are going to be discussed on these boards. We determined that each member should always vote based upon what they feel is in the best interests of the City and we have to trust that is happening as these issues can’t come back to the Council each time.