City Council 15-Jul-2014: Deer, Road Safety, & 5-Year Road Maintenance Plan

Note all votes cast for motions were unanimous. There was a good amount of citizen interaction on two issues: Highland’s Urban Deer Management Program and Safety and Road Condition Issues on W Country Club Drive. Thanks to those who participated: Dale Wheeler, Brian Cook, Linda Walton, Devirl Barfuss, Lynn Bullock, Dave Dorton, and Rachel Springer.

Please refer to the formal agenda on the city website and the meeting presentation for more complete background info all issues.

Highland 2014 Fireworks and Open Fire Restrictions

The council received the following note from the Mayor’s office on Monday June 30th.

“Fire Chief Brad Freeman has discussed his concern regarding fire hazards due to upcoming holiday fireworks with Mayor Thompson and upon his recommendations Mayor Thompson has issued an Executive Order Restricting Firework and Open Burning for parts of Highland City. 

This order will stay in effect until the Chief and the Mayor feels the circumstances improve.  This order may also be increased or decreased the areas restricted during this time.   For your information I have attached the order and the map showing the restricted areas.  This has also been placed on the doors and front counter at city hall, on our website, distributed to the police department and Chief Freeman has provided a map to all firework stands in Highland for display. “

Below is a copy of the Executive Order:

City Council 17-Jun-2014: 2014-15 Budget and Library Tax.

APPEARANCES

1. Public Comment: There were about 50 people in attendance. 20 spoke, all in support of the library and keeping the dedicated library property tax. More on that later.

City Council and Budget Work Session 3-Jun-2014

Here is the meeting agenda with my notes in line (in italics)

APPEARANCES

1. Public Comment: Just a few people were in attendance (15). Scott Smith made a few comments about the budget and city employees.

City Council 20-May-2014: Budget Public Hearing

Here is the meeting agenda with my notes in line

APPEARANCES

1. Public Comment

• An award was presented by the mayor to Karre Nevarez, a teacher a Westfield Elementary who worked with students that won several awards in local and state LEGO competitions. Student teams design, build, test and program robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology.
  
  

A Hidden Lesson in the Sermon on the Mount

I recently learned a new lesson when reading the sermon on the mount Matthew 5-7. As I was reading I was struck by the number of times Christ referred to the Father. When I reviewed the chapters I found that there were 3 references to Him in chapter 5, 12 references in chapter 6, and 2 references in chapter 7. Here is how they break down:

City Council Meeting 6-May-2014

Here is the agenda and my brief comments on each item:

APPEARANCES

1. Public Comments
   Two residents from the Dry Creek development (southeast of Highland Blvd & 11800 N) expressed concern that the developer had not completed a fence along the S. side of 11800 N. A representative from Ivory was at the council meeting and agree to research the issue and report back to the council. Below is the summary page from his report. Click here to see the full report.

City Council Budget Work Session 29-Apr-2014

The finance director (Gary LeChaminant) gave a high level review of the budget and the council asked questions as they arose. We had received a copy of the preliminary budget prior to the meeting, which I’ve uploaded to Google and made accessible to everyone. The spreadsheet I’ve shared has questions that I inserted as comments (cells with black triangle in the top right corner). Note, if you put your cursor over a cell with comments they will be displayed in a pop-up box. Gary reviewed my questions in advance of the meeting and added his responses to the relevant rows in the last column. I’ve highlight categories where the requested increase as a percentage exceeded the projected revenue growth.

Here are some quick bits of information:

City Council Meeting15-Apr-2014: Library Funding Discussion

This was a very good council meeting (aside from the fact that we ended earlier than normal).  What I especially liked is that we were able to have a vigorous discussion and share differing points of view without being disagreeable.

Agenda:

1. Public Comment: Most of the comments (7 out of 9) were about the library. I will summarize at the end of the post. One of the other commenters wanted more info about the trail system and shared a trail safety item; the trail sign near Caddy Lane is too close to the bike trail and riders risk hitting it as they turn onto the trail.

2. Highland Fling 2014: Ron Jewett discussed the upcoming fling. He pointed out that they expect to raise significantly more funds this year than last. They are already well ahead of last year in terms of ads for the Fling Booklet (Good job Emily!). One issue is that because the Fling budget only reflects net costs (expenses less anticipated revenues) when they try to spend more than the budgeted amount difficulties arise even though there are offsetting revenues from sponsors. Our finance director will look into how this can be resolved.. Evidently public accounting practices make this less than straightforward. Here is a video from last year’s Fling that was put together by one of the sponsors.

City Council Meeting 1-Apr-2014

The most interesting part of the council meeting was the Road Maintenance Presentation and Discussion, which I will discuss at the end of the post. Here is a brief summary of the votes which were taken:

#	Description	Pass/Fail
1.	Motion: Ratify the Mayors Appointment of Kristi Vick to the Open Space Committee	P
2.	Motion: Ratify the Mayors Appointment of Scott Smith to the Library Board	P
3.	Ordinance: Amend Municipal Code 15.04.010, Adopting State Construction Code.	P
4.	Motion: Final Plat Approval for Pinnock Estates	P
5.	Ordinance: Amend Chapters 12.30 & 13.31, Removal of Neighborhood Trails	P

Issues and Information Meeting 2014-Q1

Mike Kennedy, our local state representative, joined me for my first Issues and Information meeting as a councilman. Thanks Mike! When Mike arrived at 6:50 PM we were the only two people in the meeting room. A few minutes later we were joined by one person and by the time people stopped coming (about 8:20 PM) over twenty people had attended the meeting.

The meeting was very interactive and since I was involved in the meeting I was not able to take notes. Lesson learned: ask someone to be the note taker for future meetings. Here is my brief summary which includes a link to the slides I used for my presentation.

City Council Meeting Mar 18, 2014

Below is the agenda with my comments in italics. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions (mannrw@gmail.com).

PRESENTATIONS

• Randy Paul – Economic Development
  Randy presented his views on what he sees as the most likely and best paths of growth for the city. In very short terms he does not see Highland seeing a lot growth in terms of businesses and he doesn’t think we should plan for that to be a significant source of revenue for the city. He does think that maintaining standards and services which make the city attractive to residents is one of the most important things the council can do. Subsequent to the meeting Randy sent an email to the council summarizing his points.
• Kent Loosle – IASIS Healthcare, Mountain Point Medical Center
  IASIS is building a new hospital and medical office complex on the west side of I15 near the Thanksgiving Point Exit. Kent wanted to review the services that will be provided and share the desire of the IASIS to serve N. County residents.

Road Maintenance and Your Dollars

Last year as part of my campaign for city council I researched the issue of roads and wrote a post on the subject for my campaign website that I believe has continuing relevance so I am reposting on my regular blog. Here it is:

City Council Meeting and Work Session 4-Mar-2014

There were two items that were discussed at length in council meeting. The first was the minutes from the previous work session. Brian Braithwaite made the commend that the minutes should more accurately reflect the conversation so that someone in the future did not read them and incorrectly interpret the discussion. He offered a couple of points to clarify portions of the discussion. I agreed and did the rest of the council with his comments.

City Council Work Session 11-Feb-2014

The purpose of the work session was set goals for the city. The agenda for the meeting was as follows:

CALL TO ORDER – Mayor Mark Thompson
Goal Setting Work Session
ADJOURNMENT

Essentially the meeting had no agenda so each council member prepared based on their expectation of what the meeting would be like. Here is the text of an email I sent to council members prior to the meeting:

City Council Meeting Feb 18, 2014

I had expected this council meeting to be somewhat exciting (translated contentious). Although there were lots of questions regarding the several zoning changes and strong interest from several residents and a developer the meeting was very cordial and the council was united in its decision. I want to thank those that participated (Gary Wright, Tori Gagon, Cori and Ryan Ollerton, Rebekah Kaylor, and Greg Nield) in the discussion for the professional manner in which they conducted themselves.

Below is the meeting agenda with my comments in italicized text.

City Council Meeting Feb 4, 2014

This week’s agenda had only three motions, a presentation by Republic Garbage, and one staff report. Prior to the start of the meeting Kasey Wright gave a short presentation on Open Meetings, ethics and disclosures. He did a good job making it informative and fun.

Prior to the meeting Gary LeCheminant, city finance director, sent the council answers to questions that were raised last council meeting about the audit.

During the time allotted for council members to make comments there was an extended discussion on the changes to the minutes and agendas I requested last council meeting. We unanimously agreed that we wanted to include action items in =-the minutes as part of a summary section and to include unfinished action items in the agenda section. I volunteered to send a sample of what this would look like to the city recorder.

City Council Meeting Jan 21, 2013

During the council member comment time I asked that future minutes include a summary section that lists actions taken by the council and identifies requests of city staff. The requests should show up in the agenda’s of the following meetings until they are resolved. This request is not reflected in the agenda of the upcoming meeting. I will ask to have the council vote to support the concept at tomorrow’s council meeting but will do so with some reluctance because I don’t want city staff to feel like they don’t own their work product.

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).

Why I Ran For Highland City Council

I ran for city council in large part because I did not feel the city communicated well with residents. My strategy for running was quite simple. (1) Articulate a sincere positive message in person (door-to-door and in person meetings) and (2) support this with a flyer and online presence (web site and Facebook page). A number of friends helped me by handing out flyers and setting up home meetings. Most importantly, I had the support of many friends who simply told others about me. I sincerely believe that they were the key to my primary and and general election victories. There are too many to name individually but thank you.

Here is the message I put on my flyers and web site.