Minutes of the Granite Community Council
Date: / November 2, 2016Location: / Metropolitan Water District Offices Conference Room
3430 East Danish Road
Council Members Present:
Michael Braun (Alternate, District 1 & 2, Acting Chair); Ryan Houmand (District 3); Drew Weaver, Treasurer (District 4); Katie Clayton (Alternate, District 4); Walt Widmer (District 5); Bill Clayton (District 6); Susie Albertson (District 6) and Mary Young (non-voting chief administrative officer).
Council Members Absent:
Terry Wood (District 1 & 2); Jeff Summerhays, (District 1 & 2); Bryce John (District 4); Josh Kanter (District 5); and Kelli Kammerer (Alternate, District 6).
Guests Present:
Rita Lund, Salt Lake County (SLCo) Liaison
Ron Vance, SLCo Planning Commission
Tod Young, Mountainous Planning District Planning Commission
Kathleen Riebe, State School Board Candidate
Capt. Del Craig, Unified Police Department (UPD)
Det. Paula Stinson, UPD
Batt. Chief Brad Lynn, Unified Fire Authority
Chief Jason Mazuran, UPD/Midvale Precinct
Michael Braun, Acting Chair of the Granite Community Council (the Council) convened the meeting at 7:03 and asked all attendees to stand and join him in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Walt Widmer moved to approve the minutes of the October 5th meeting. The motion passed unanimously.
Kathleen Riebe, a candidate for the Utah State School Board, spoke about her candidacy and the duties of the Board. She is a full-time school teacher and says that she will continue in that capacity if elected, and would take leave without pay to perform duties on the Board. She said that there are currently no teachers on the Board. She described what the State School Board does and discussed issues that the Board will consider, including alternative paths toward obtaining teacher certification, changing the rules for student transfers between high schools, and the Utah Core. Kathleen said she would like the School Board decision-making process to be more transparent than it currently is. [Congrats to Kathleen, who won this election!]
Mary Young discussed the new Council Picks and Pans idea recently introduced by Josh Kanter. A recommendation was made that picks and pans be kept directly relevant to the Granite community. Drew moved that we include Picks and Pans as an agenda item each month and that anyone can bring an idea, but that discussion be limited to 5 minutes per item. The person presenting a pick or pan that wins can write a letter on Council letterhead or create a certificate and present it. Ryan seconded this motion. It was approved unanimously.
Batt. Chief Brad Lynn advised that currently Unified Fire Authority (UFA) has no chief and no deputy chief. There are currently seven candidates for chief, all from outside the UFA. UFA is preparing for the winter season in general and house fires in particular. We are still some time away from full implementation of a uniform county-wide 911 system. Draper is going to withdraw from UFA. House fires in winter are caused by poorly maintained furnaces, poorly executed Christmas electrical wiring, candles, burning Christmas trees in the fireplace, dryer vents filled with lint, and kitchen fires. Bill Clayton asked whether electric baseboard heat presents a fire hazard, and Brad replied that it does not. Brad suggests having multiple smoke alarms per floor and pointed out that a house fire can double in size every 30 seconds once it gets going.
Det. Paula Stinson introduced Capt. Del Craig of the UPD Canyon Patrol. His direct number is 801-330-8000. Paula stated that vehicle burglaries are still a problem and encouraged people to hide their valuables in the trunk or elsewhere before arriving at their destination. Burglars tend to lurk in the vicinity of a parking lot and can see people transferring stuff. Also, the theft of garage openers left in cars is a problem.
UPD Capt. Del Craig reported that Cottonwood Heights (CH) Police Department, Sandy Police Department, and UPD met in the summer to work out a plan for canyon road closures in the winter. Sheriff Winder had publicly made commitments to have UPD take charge of road closures. The plan is to double-stack two lines of cars up to Seven Turns during closures for avalanche blasting. Essential canyon personnel need to be at the top by 6:00. Avalanche control needs to take place during daylight. Crews need to be able to see the target and avalanche area to make sure nobody gets buried. The state has begun to put in Gas-X so that avalanche control can be done more quickly. They will need to have 10 officers on hand for each closure under the new system. UPD may pay Sandy and CH for their help on this. UPD has 21 canyon patrol officers total. The road is engineered for 800 cars per hour, but they put 2,000 per hour though during peak times.
Capt. Craig stated that UPD wanted to give input to Mountain Accord but has not been allowed to be involved in meetings. Buses will be given priority during double-stacking and will be moved to the top. Double-stacking will occur in the uphill direction in the canyon. Parking in the Triangle will be single-stack. Two officers will rove the Triangle to make sure openings are left for ingress and egress at residential streets, driveways, etc. UDOT will put up signage to make it clear that cars should not block driveways or intersections. Sandy and CH will be put on the same radio frequency for these operations. There was a double-digit increase in ski resort business last year, though the exact amount of business done by the resorts remains a closely held secret. Susie asked who would be liable if a car rolls off the road. Capt. Craig said UPD might be culpable if they direct drivers to park on the shoulder. Michael asked about using Mountain Accord to disseminate to the public the details of the traffic plan. Drew suggested that Mountain Accord ought to widely publicize the new ski-bus schedules and routes. Capt. Craig said that UPD has reached out to Mountain Accord to provide a unified voice going out to the public. Ryan suggested a Twitter hashtag to keep people informed.
Rita Lund reported that County code enforcement stats were pretty minimal for October, with six enforcement actions for junk and one for parking.
Rita encouraged people to attend the upcoming Association of Community Councils Together (ACCT) training on January 14 [this is always excellent, so please mark your calendars!].
The County budget process has begun. The first budget workshops were yesterday.
Rita explained how various local taxes and fees are collected. The law-enforcement fee will be placed on people’s property-tax bills. Municipal services are paid for out of sales tax receipts. Waste and recycling services cannot be placed on the property tax bill and continue to be billed separately.
Rita thanked the Council for the recent Tour de Granite.
She mentioned that County Councilman Richard Snelgrove had recently suggested that a public meeting be held regarding the proposed Central Wasatch Commission (CWC) so that citizens would have an opportunity to express their views to the County Council and ask questions. She said that the Council and the Mayor’s office are planning to hold town hall meetings on the matter. Kimi Barnett of the Mayor’s office will work with Sally Jacobsen to foster outreach.
Bill Clayton provided an update on the proposed Central Wasatch Commission (CWC) Interlocal Agreement (ILA). Bill explained that since the time of the October Council meeting he had presented, in writing, additional concerns to the County Council while also presenting the Council with a list of proposed revisions to the CWC agreement that would address some of these concerns. He said that Aimee Winder Newton’s assistant had contacted him and discussed possible revisions, and that Aimee had presented these revisions to the County Council for consideration at the Council’s October 18th meeting.
Bill said that he and others had recently been collaborating to produce additional revisions in an effort to further constrain the powers that the CWC would have as an ILA entity, and that he would present these amendments to the Council and the County Council and Mayor when the revisions were ready. He expressed the opinion that even with such amendments, the proposed ILA entity agreement would still give too much power to the proposed CWC.
Bill invited Tod Young to explain his “chicken and egg” scenario, in which, ideally, CWC would only be granted minimal powers initially as a new entity, after which any proposal to add powers would undergo thorough scrutiny. The text of the present CWC agreement, by contrast, hands CWC a full-grown “chicken” instead of giving it a minimalist “egg” of the sort that Tod envisions, which could later be grown incrementally as needed.
Bill emphasized that, when speaking to the County Council and others about CWC, he had always made it clear that he was speaking as a private citizen and not as a representative of our Council.
Michael Braun suggested that someone make a motion that Bill be given the backing of the Granite Community Council and be authorized, going forward, to speak on behalf of the Council on the issue of the CWC. Drew Weaver made this motion. Ryan Houmond seconded it. The motion passed unanimously.
UPD Regional Chief Jason Mazuran introduced himself. Jason is chief of the Midvale Division of UPD and of the southeast unincorporated areas. The Council welcomed him to our meeting and to our area.
Tod Young reported on the Tour de Granite, saying that the people who went on the tour found it very interesting. Wasatch Resort and the Poulson Farm were of particular interest to them. During the tour, Mary had discussed the possibility of Council contributing funds toward repair of the Wasatch Resort Bridge [the County has not yet released its findings on the ownership/responsibility for bridge maintenance. When that occurs, this issue should be discussed further.] Mary also described to the tour participants Sandy’s use of water policy to require annexation into Sandy. One County official exclaimed that this sounded like extortion, which some Granite residents agreed with.
Tod talked about the recent Metro Solutions Symposium which he attended. The symposium was done in association with the Wasatch Front Regional Council, Envision Utah, and the American Planning Association. He said that the main message given at the symposium was that we are likely to have total urbanization of Salt Lake County in the future and will likely be living in a higher density environment.
Mary observed that with increased density you get increased crime and other problems. She also observed that Sandy and other cities are paving the way for these sorts of problems by rezoning for higher density. Is this what our officials and residents really want?
Tod noted that nobody at the symposium asked questions about future water supply. Presenters at the symposium speculated that after Rio Tinto runs out of ore and, the taxes it pays could be replaced by having an expanded tax base created by high-density housing, but Tod questioned whether this would be worth the price. The concept presented at the symposium is that city centers would be interconnected by public transit ways. Sandy, South Jordan, Draper, etc., would have city centers. Tod said that there were lots of planners at the symposium but he expressed concern that their pursuit of high-density development could destroy our way of life along the Wasatch Front, and observed that the only way the high-density mindset is going to be changed is by citizens of the county speaking out against it.
Michael observed that one can give the planners some benefit of the doubt, and noted that at the low-density end of the spectrum a nice 2.5-acre property in Dimple Dell has finally been sold. The buyer will keep the property as-is. Another citizen is keeping his large property as-is. Tod commented that some planners recognize that certain types of development are not suitable in certain areas.
Council Elections: On Nov. 9th, Tod will need an elected non-candidate member of the Council to witness the opening of the ballots. Tod has been counting ballots but cannot open them yet. Ryan Houmond volunteered for this duty. A few people got the wrong ballots. Lots of ballots have been received.
Drew provided the Treasurer’s Report: We have a combined $12,581.91, with $1,251.35 in checking and $11,330.56 in savings. The expense for election data center were $709.84.
Katie moved that we pay that bill, which passed unanimously. Tod recommended a bonus for the mailing company of $140, because of their on-time, under-budget excellent performance. Bill moved to approve the $140 bonus using funds greater than 5 years old, which was seconded and passed unanimously.
Tod said we had 35 views per day of website for past week and a half.
Mary proposed a contribution of $500 for the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance to continue their graffiti removal efforts. Drew said we gave them $750 in May and asked whether we need accounting from the Climbers Alliance to show that they had spent the money as intended. Katie agreed that this would be a good idea and suggested that the Alliance be asked to send copies of receipts. Katie suggested a contribution of $250 to make it a total of $1,000 for the year. Ryan moved to fund $250, which was passed unanimously. [The funds have been provided, elephant snot (cleaning agent) purchased, receipt received, graffiti removed, pictures received of removal, with thanks expressed to all!]
The meeting was adjourned at 9:25.