City Council Meeting Jan 7, 2014

I attended this meeting via telephone as I was out of town on business, Prior to the formal council meeting a 30 minute work session was held to listen to a sales pitch by representatives of Dubli, an online shopping portal that offers discounts to shoppers on purchases made at linked stores.

Workshop (Dubli) Summary

Anyone can sign up for a free Dubli account and receive discounts at stores (from what I saw the discounts ranged from 1% to 26% depending on the merchant and product) and travel sites linked through Dubli’s portal. Increased discounts are available for those who sign up for one of two levels of premium membership (Premium ~$60/yr, or VIP $99/yr).

Dubli offers non-profits and cities the opportunity to create a branded “shopping portal” that members of their communities can use. In exchange for the increased exposure for Dubli, the company shares 30% of their net profit on transactions conducted through the branded portal with the city or non-profit. There is no cost  to participate nor is there a fee to discontinue participation. The city would need to provide a link on its web site to a page where residents can sign up for the branded Dubli portal.

I have no opposition to this, unless there is a liability of some sort to the city. However, if we elect to do this I would like for us to offer all Highland businesses the opportunity have a link on our website. In fact we should have a page on our site that provides an index to all Highland business, much the same as the map/directory you find at various locations in shopping malls.

Council Meeting

Actions:

• JoD’ Ann Bates and Jill Ballamis re-appointed city recorder and city treasurer respectively
• Mark Thompson, Tim Irwin and Brian Braithwaite appointed to Lone Peak Public Safety Board (Mark and Tim are members of the Police and Fire boards and Brian is a member of the Fire board only).
• Brian Braithwaite re-appointed to Timpanogos Special Service District Board.
• Brian Braithwaite nominated and approved as Mayor Pro-Tempore
• Council approved reimbursing Hadco Construction $38,134 to cover the costs associated with putting in a 16” water line instead of the 8” line which needed for their development. The 16” line was needed to support future development.
• Council asked the City Engineer to conduct a study on the land south of the Victor property (see picture below), for possible use as the new home of the storage facility now located near Wendy’s, and to redraft the sales agreement with WPI for the land on which the current storage facility is located. The redrafted agreement will provide up to two years for the city to relocate the storage facility.
  
  Note, the properties in my view which are still under consideration include the following:
  
  
  
  
  
  The property that is being evaluated by the city engineer is the land immediately south of the the Victor property (on the south side of Timpanogos HWY) and is being referred to as the Clay property.
  
  The Victor property has the advantage that it is away from residential, convenient to the the current engineering building (just to the west of it), and the land does not need a lot of prep. The downside is the property may have trade value or could be used as a recharge pond and park.
  
  The West Park Road property would not need a lot a prep but it adjacent to residential property. It has the advantage that it is adjacent to one of the parks that the lawn equipment stored in the building would be used to support and there is already parking nearby. Note some of the land is currently being as a storage site for road bed material (this is not particularly attractive).
  
  I would welcome any thoughts and opinions from residents on the subject as to where the storage facility could be relocated as we will be discussing it in the next meeting.
  
  I am predisposed to supporting the sale. of the land to the west of Wendy’s and Meir’s Meats for commercial use.  I can see a couple of viable options for relocating the storage facility. The extension of the timeframe from 1 year to 2 years for the relocation gives me some comfort that we will have time to complete the project within the deadline. Thank you Brian for pushing for the extension.

Notes to self:

• I would like to see the minutes from the previous meeting include a “Summary Sheet” that would list the motions voted on, follow-up action items (explicit or implied) and the status of previous follow-up items. Action items should include an owner and due date.
• My present understanding of how the city’s web site is managed is that each department is responsible for the content in their section of the site but that no one really owns the site as a whole nor is there anyone who assigned to manager our Facebook presence. I think this is an area where city volunteers could make a difference. I’ve already had two people with relevant experience and skills offer to help the city with its web and social media presence.