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All right, today is March 26th. 00:00:04
And we have a technical issue, so just give us one more second. 00:00:07
Are we ready? 00:00:13
All right, today is March 26th. 00:00:14
2025, the time is 6:00 and we're going to go ahead and start our Vineyard City Council meeting. 00:00:17
We'll start out with an invocation in the pledge allegiance by City Council member. 00:00:23
Brett Clausen. 00:00:28
Our Father in heaven, we're grateful that we can. 00:00:33
Gathered together as a as. 00:00:36
Community to discuss the business of our city, and we ask that we can. 00:00:38
Be respectful and mindful in that we can discuss the things that we need to and come to the resolutions that we need to. 00:00:45
And this we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 00:00:53
All the rise. 00:00:59
I pledge allegiance to the flag. 00:01:04
Of the United States. 00:01:07
And to the Republic for which it stands. 00:01:09
One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:01:12
All right, we now have time for public comment. This is a time to come and address the Council for things that are not on the 00:01:20
agenda. 00:01:23
Please come up to the podium. 00:01:27
Speaking of the microphone, state your name where you're from and we are excited to hear from you. 00:01:29
Can you give me a raise of hands of how many people think they might make public comment? 00:01:35
123. 00:01:40
Anybody else? 00:01:43
Four. All right. 00:01:45
Go ahead. 00:01:47
They'll put a 2 minute timer on. 00:01:49
Hopefully we'll have enough time because we only have four people, so come on up. 00:01:51
All right, I am Arianne Mix and I live in Bridgeport. 00:01:59
I actually attended the special meeting that was. 00:02:03
Called specifically to address parking needs in Vineyard. 00:02:07
And I just haven't seen any changes. 00:02:11
My husband sent an e-mail that wasn't responded to. 00:02:15
There is. 00:02:19
The people across the street from me, there are four single women. 00:02:21
And a family living in one home. 00:02:25
None of whom are related to each other and that is something that is seen throughout our neighborhood. 00:02:28
Which results in. 00:02:34
You know, you can imagine we have narrow streets and there are a lot of cars and. 00:02:35
I just worry about the safety and also it's inconvenient. 00:02:39
And then the second thing I wanted to bring up. 00:02:43
Was. 00:02:46
The uh. 00:02:47
Dog poop that is everywhere. 00:02:48
I'm wondering about if there's something that a plan in place or something to address the issue because I know that it's something 00:02:51
that I've heard a lot of people talking about. 00:02:55
When I'm on my runs on the trail in the morning to go down to the lake. 00:02:59
I can't look away from the trail for too long because. 00:03:03
I might step in poop. 00:03:07
And so that is just really sad. 00:03:09
Anyway, so those are the two things that I wanted to bring up. Thank you. 00:03:12
Before you go, I just wanted to let you know that your e-mail did make it over to code of our code enforcement. 00:03:15
At your husband's e-mail and it is being processed right now. 00:03:21
If you could put your name on the list. If you didn't. 00:03:25
We will also. Oh, you did OK. 00:03:27
They'll follow up with you as well. So all right, perfect. They're working out a plan for your area. So it's a little bit bigger 00:03:30
than that would be so great. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. 00:03:33
Your name that says something. 00:03:39
Bridgeport. 00:03:41
Yeah, something. 00:03:44
Hi my name is Oops. 00:03:51
Tip it over. 00:03:53
My name is Emily Larson and I. 00:03:54
I'm concerned about parking and rentals as well. 00:03:58
My best friend is actually moving because of the parking and the rental issues. She has an across the street neighbor. 00:04:01
And a next door neighbor that have six or seven men who are not related all living there. 00:04:08
She has reached out to the sitting multiple times and been shut down and she was told by the owner who does not live in the house. 00:04:13
That the city called and was telling him ways to get around it. And so I'm just really concerned. I've lived in Bridgeport for 7 00:04:21
1/2 years and I want to stay in Vineyard forever. 00:04:26
But I I want my kids to be growing up with kids around them and I want to be able to have them. 00:04:32
Be safe as they're walking and crossing the streets, but there's so many cars that. 00:04:38
It is concerning. And so I would have a quick question for you. Do you mind for clarity? For clarity, you're looking for removal 00:04:41
of parking or less parking like permits, right? Uh-huh. I would like permits and I also like 7 cars and some of these men have two 00:04:47
cars, a truck and a car and so. 00:04:53
There's nowhere for them to park these. The landlord is not providing parking. You know they can. So we're looking at you're 00:04:59
addressing overoccupancy, but this isn't a short term rental, it's over occupancy. Yeah, overoccupancy in the two that I'm 00:05:05
referencing and the one that Arianne was, is also long term with too many people living there. 00:05:12
Did you leave your name and number as well? I did. OK. Will you put a little note next years that you're looking at over occupancy 00:05:19
and yes, removal? Yes. Thanks, Emily. Yep, that's it. Thank you. 00:05:24
Daria Evansville's residence sounds like we need to get those business licenses for the rentals. 00:05:35
Going umm. 00:05:42
I just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. 00:05:44
It was. It's great. 00:05:48
First off, I want to say it's great to have those sun shades going up, especially since we've had some really nice weather today 00:05:50
and this week. 00:05:53
I also like to thank Maria Ortega Cash. 00:05:56
OK. 00:06:01
Naseem Gandauer and Sarah Cameron for attending our community meeting. 00:06:03
It was a lot of questions were answered, so that was good. 00:06:07
I do have some questions about the agenda items that were not addressed. 00:06:11
And I would like to pose those questions to you now. 00:06:15
The first one is about the road striping proposal. 00:06:18
The bid is 58,960 eight 916 dollars. 00:06:21
How much will traffic control, sweeping and layout of the roadways add to the cost of this project? 00:06:26
The Vineyard sewer repair will begin on March 31st. How much of Main Street? 00:06:33
Will be impacted? What sections? 00:06:39
And I believe it's probably a PVC pipe. 00:06:42
And I'd like to know. 00:06:46
How come? 00:06:47
This PVC pipe has deteriorated so quickly. 00:06:48
Since PVC pipe has a lifespan exceeding clay pipe, which is 50 to 60 years. 00:06:52
And I'd like to know. 00:06:58
Why it is deteriorating now? 00:07:01
Also the third that. 00:07:04
Municipal wastewater planning program. 00:07:07
I'd like to know where our sewer funds are maintained and in what fund. 00:07:10
When will a repair and replacement sinking fund be established and how much are we going to put in it? 00:07:16
How much is anticipated that WE Vineyard will need in reserve funds for the next 10 years and the next 20 years? 00:07:23
And why do we not maintain a plan of operations? 00:07:30
And why have we not updated our capital facilities plan within the last five years? 00:07:34
It was last updated in 2017. 00:07:39
And it seems that we are lacking emergency and safety plans for our sewer systems. 00:07:45
Are there plans coming this year for emergency response and safety? 00:07:50
And why hasn't a CCAP, a System Evaluation and Capacity Assurance Plan been completed? 00:07:55
And when? 00:08:02
Say that again. 00:08:08
What is the anticipated? 00:08:09
Grade lift #2. 00:08:11
Those were all in the M. 00:08:14
The MMWP. 00:08:17
Part of our agenda tonight. 00:08:19
And lastly. 00:08:21
I was disappointed. 00:08:24
On Saturday May 20, March 22nd, 25 about our Community Fair. 00:08:26
Held at Freedom Preparatory Academy. 00:08:31
I arrived at 11:20 AM. 00:08:33
And everything the vendors displays were already dismantled and removed. 00:08:36
The community fair was scheduled from 9:00 AM to 12:00 noon. 00:08:41
I felt this displayed a lack of commitment to the community. 00:08:47
It should have remained until the scheduled end time. 00:08:51
Who knows if someone else showed up after me and found the doors locked. 00:08:54
It was disappointing and disheartening. Thank you. 00:08:58
Thank you, Daria. 00:09:04
You're welcome. 00:09:05
Good evening, Karen Cornelius. 00:09:15
Villas. 00:09:17
I have a question about public safety and. 00:09:19
At our HOA meeting that we had such great attendance from the city leaders to. 00:09:22
Share with us the things that are going on in our city. 00:09:28
Sarah shared that the tax increase that we experienced last year. 00:09:31
Was 100% the vineyard. 00:09:36
The amount going to Vineyard City. 00:09:40
Was 100% going to public safety. 00:09:42
And I think that's wonderful because we need our public safety. 00:09:45
But my question to you is. 00:09:49
Within three months, I would imagine we are going to fill those units. 00:09:52
That have been being built in Utah City. 00:09:57
Which will obviously increase the population of Vineyard by a lot. 00:10:00
And they're not done yet, so. 00:10:06
About a year ago, I talked to Marty at length on the phone about a public safety impact plan because I asked about public safety 00:10:08
impact fees. 00:10:12
And she let me know that we had to have a plan in place. 00:10:16
And that helped me to understand why we were not charging them at that time. 00:10:20
And then in July of that year. 00:10:24
There was an article. 00:10:27
Voices of mayors in Utah City where? 00:10:29
Mayor Fulmer shared that a public safety impact fee. 00:10:32
Was a high priority for this fiscal year. 00:10:36
And when I asked Chance about. 00:10:39
Cash about that at our HOA meeting. 00:10:41
He told me it had not been begun. 00:10:44
So my question to you is. 00:10:46
Will there be any public safety impact fees charged before? 00:10:49
Occupancy takes place. 00:10:54
Over in. 00:10:57
Utah City. 00:10:58
Because we know that that's going to increase our public safety needs. 00:10:59
And if that doesn't happen, you know that our taxes will be increased again. 00:11:03
So that's my concern. Thank you. 00:11:08
Thank you, Karen. 00:11:12
Any other comments? 00:11:13
OK. 00:11:16
Did you have a comment? 00:11:21
Terry Ewing. 00:11:25
Phyllis Resident. 00:11:26
Since the City Hall has now been rebranded and expanded. 00:11:28
Into a Civic Center. 00:11:32
Can you clarify why? And was this change influenced by funding considerations, particularly the potential use of RDA funds? 00:11:34
If so, how does that impact the overall strategy? 00:11:43
And the financial strategy for the project, I'm sorry, say that last part. 00:11:47
I missed the funding portion of your question. 00:11:51
How does this change from a Civic Center to? 00:11:55
Or to a Civic Center? How does it change the funding? 00:11:58
That will be available for this I know we're talking about. 00:12:02
Bonds. But does this change from a City Hall to a Civic Center? Make RDA funds available? 00:12:05
All right. Thank you. 00:12:15
And what's the impact? 00:12:17
All right, any other comments? 00:12:21
David. 00:12:22
Thanks for the opportunity to. 00:12:35
To address you. 00:12:37
My question is to do with the RDA funding. 00:12:38
That's being applied to the. 00:12:42
Civic Center so far. 00:12:44
I understand. I've been given to understand that is $1,000,000. 00:12:46
Has been is being allocated towards the planning and there's two more million besides that reserve that have been earmarked for 00:12:50
that process. 00:12:54
I'm just wondering, will that list setter be funded? 00:12:57
Almost exclusively by RDA monies. 00:13:00
What? What proportion of? 00:13:03
30 Our portion, whatever our portion is of the 33 million or whatever it is going to be. 00:13:05
Will come from RDA monies. 00:13:10
And how do we and what's the justification for that? I'm just curious what? 00:13:12
What? What? How are we defending that when people ask about it? 00:13:16
So those are my. 00:13:20
Thank you. 00:13:22
All right, any other comments? 00:13:23
All right. If not, I'm going to go ahead and closeout the public comments. I'll take time to answer a few of them. 00:13:26
Daria, it looks like your questions pertain to some of our consent agenda items. So Council, you'll have an opportunity to pull 00:13:30
those off so we can get some answers. 00:13:34
For you there. 00:13:38
Let's see. 00:13:41
Umm, I believe the RFA is in a big process, so we have a lot of requests for. 00:13:44
What is it called? Proposals are peace. 00:13:51
Request for proposals that have been going through SO. 00:13:53
Cash might not be working on the one for public safety, but it is in movement right now. 00:13:58
And so we'll see that come forward. So you don't need to worry about that. 00:14:03
And then branding expansion. 00:14:06
Of the city center. 00:14:09
So since the beginning of our negotiations and goals for creating an opportunity that provides space for both our city and other 00:14:12
entities that are joining with us. 00:14:17
We've been planning this for the last two years with them. 00:14:23
Now, why do you feel like it expanded? That's the question. It would be because the name. 00:14:26
They named it. 00:14:32
And so something we were just referring my time zone. No, just kidding. 00:14:33
Something we were referring to as our space, we gave a name and so that's why it feels like it expanded. But it's actually always 00:14:36
been this way. And David, your question was, are we spending? 00:14:43
Of the funding for building this center on with RDA dollars and it will not be with RDA dollars. 00:14:49
So that is the answer. 00:14:56
We'll go ahead and move on to consent items. There were a few that came up in Daria's list. I don't know if you guys want to pull 00:14:58
those off. She talked about the striping. 00:15:02
She talked about. 00:15:06
I would say probably 3.33 point 5 and 3.6. 00:15:07
Does that seem? 00:15:11
All right, Devin is here. 00:15:13
So I don't know if you guys write Yeah, just. 00:15:16
Pointing out Devon, Devon is brand new in this position, but he has some of the. 00:15:22
The answers that were. 00:15:27
Questioned and Nasim will be here shortly and anything else we could defer to Naseem. So I'm going to have you come up to the 00:15:29
microphone and put you on the spot. 00:15:33
Yeah, we will. 00:15:38
But I need to ask the Council, are you OK with us pulling 3.33 point 5 and 3.6 off? 00:15:41
OK, then I just need a motion for three-point 13.2. 00:15:47
3 point. 00:15:52
4/4. 00:15:53
I move to approve consent items 3.13 point 2 and 3.4. OK I have a first by Marty. Can I get a second? 00:15:55
2nd. 00:16:03
Second by Sarah, any comments? 00:16:04
You seem to have one jade. 00:16:08
Yeah. 00:16:09
I don't think it's drinking water. I think it's sewer water line. We are taking that one off. 00:16:16
OK, all in favor. 00:16:21
This is done by resolution. 00:16:23
So, umm. 00:16:25
Jake, aye. 00:16:26
Brett, aye, aye, Marty, Sarah, aye. All right, we'll go ahead and start with striping. 00:16:30
Actually, can you answer questions on striping as well? 00:16:37
OK. We'll start with. 00:16:41
3.5 which is the. 00:16:43
Contract approval for the Main St. sewer Line repair Resolution 2025, Dash 10. 00:16:46
OK. 00:16:52
Did you guys have questions Otherwise, Daria, I'm going to have you come and repeat. 00:16:54
What you said and you'll share a microphone. 00:16:57
With seven. 00:17:00
And then Devin will stand next to you and answer. 00:17:01
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to ask these pertinent questions. My first question about this. 00:17:06
Sewer repair is. 00:17:12
How much of Main Street will be impacted? 00:17:14
Is it straight from Zinfandel Drive all the way up to the connector 800 N? 00:17:16
Or is it just sections? 00:17:21
So it's going to be 600 N. 00:17:23
To the to the connector on Main Street. 00:17:27
The contractors are trying to. 00:17:34
I mean, that's the area affected they are going to. 00:17:36
Do traffic control to keep. 00:17:40
Some flow. 00:17:42
Going there might be a little bit of detour because it will take out. 00:17:43
That intersection during a part of it. 00:17:47
So does that mean it's going to go through the villas? The traffic is gonna go through the villas. 00:17:50
That it shouldn't. 00:17:54
OK, because that's good. 00:17:57
600. 00:17:59
600 N is quite the thoroughfare. 00:18:00
From the preserves. 00:18:03
And Lakefront. 00:18:04
And if we're not getting through to Main Street there, they're going to go down through the Villas or third W to 4th North and 00:18:06
then up. 00:18:09
It's been good, OK. 00:18:13
Thank you. We would make them go down 3rd West. 00:18:15
Make them go down 3rd West. 00:18:18
Thank you. OK. And my next question? 00:18:20
Why is that pipe deteriorating so quickly? 00:18:25
Can you make sure you're speaking into the microphone a little bit more, Daria? 00:18:30
Sorry, the pipe set is being deteriorated and it's only 18 years old because it was installed at 2007, correct? 00:18:33
So what we got going on with the pipe is. 00:18:44
It's settled a little bit, so it's laying flat. So what it's doing is it's the sewers. 00:18:48
Kind of starting to backfill up into it. 00:18:54
So. 00:18:57
We don't know the main reason why it settled, but that roads really settled big time right there too. 00:18:58
So there's going to be a little bit of investigation during this project. 00:19:04
Like I said, we don't know if it has. 00:19:08
If it's the sewer that's caused the road to settle, or if it's. 00:19:10
What Rd. is it? 00:19:15
What's that? What Rd. are we talking about? 00:19:16
It's it's Main Street between 6 N. 00:19:17
And the connector, is it just on the east side of the road? 00:19:21
Is it just northbound or is it both? Like how much are we? So they will repair the road because of settling on both but they will 00:19:25
not close the whole thing down all at once. 00:19:31
And the expectation is not that the PVC pipe has deteriorated, rather that. 00:19:37
The material the the media below it has compacted and it's allowed that pipe to to lower a little bit and create that flat spot on 00:19:42
the road. 00:19:47
OK, that's. 00:19:52
That's good. Thank you. You're talking about the rush to put that? 00:19:54
Fill in wasn't compacted, yeah. 00:19:58
There's a lot of those layer areas of how quick it was done. 00:20:01
OK. Can he answer my other Is that is that under warranty? It's not under warranty. 00:20:05
18 years later. 00:20:10
Will you be able to answer my wastewater questions or is that someone else then? Yeah. OK. So that is for 3.5 Council. Are there 00:20:14
any other questions on 3.5? 00:20:19
3.5. 00:20:28
The sewer line, yes. 00:20:30
Let me look through my notes. OK Pam, I was planning on bundling these, but do you need me to prove them after we finish 00:20:34
discussion on them? 00:20:37
Put them all in OK. 00:20:44
All right. 00:20:45
Hold for just a minute. 00:20:48
Now I don't have any questions. 00:21:04
OK, 3.6, we're going to move on to that discussion. 00:21:05
This is at the adoption of the 2024 municipal wastewater planning program, the MWPP, which Daria mentioned earlier. 00:21:09
Survey Resolution 2025-12. Daria, go ahead. 00:21:18
Make sure you're talking into the microphone. 00:21:22
All right. Where are our sewer funds maintained? What fund is it? 00:21:24
Christy. 00:21:30
Can you give her a microphone? 00:21:33
Fund 52 is an enterprise fund just for the wastewater. 00:21:35
52 Enterprise Fund, OK, Thank you. 00:21:39
OK. 00:21:44
When will? 00:21:46
When will a repair and replacement sinking fund be established and how much are we going to put in it? 00:21:47
Oh, I wish the scene was here for that question. 00:21:59
I'm not 100% on that. Well, get back to you with that one. 00:22:01
Do you have? 00:22:05
I would just point out that we're we're completing our. 00:22:06
Our wastewater master plan. 00:22:09
And that would be definitely a consideration within that plan and I'll make sure that it's not there that it is. 00:22:12
That that is considered. 00:22:19
As part of the plan. 00:22:21
OK. How much? 00:22:23
How much is anticipated that WE Vineyard will need to reserve funds for the next 10 and 20 years? 00:22:27
On the wastewater, you're saying? 00:22:34
So that also will be part of the study that we're. 00:22:37
That we're doing so. 00:22:41
Why do we not maintain a plan of operations? 00:22:43
So we do have. 00:22:48
In our budget proposal this year. 00:22:51
Going forward to. 00:22:54
Do one of those. 00:22:57
OK. So that would be the 2526 fiscal year, is that correct? 00:22:59
This is going here. 00:23:04
26 OK. 00:23:08
Why have we not updated our capital facilities plan within the last five years? It was last updated in 2017. 00:23:10
Man, you're really putting me on the spot. 00:23:23
I said that. 00:23:26
That is a another part of our budget proposal is getting some of these. 00:23:28
Contracted out to get them updated. 00:23:33
Are there plans coming this year for emergency response and safety? 00:23:42
System safety sewer systems. 00:23:47
Are there plans coming this year for emergency response and safety because we are lacking safety plans and emergency. 00:23:53
Response plans now. 00:24:01
Just just to clarify, are you referring to? 00:24:03
Safety plans associated with our sewer or safety plans associated with Emergency Management. 00:24:06
So I'm asking why we do not have that yet? 00:24:19
I would say that it is not a have or have not question. We have SCADA systems in place to monitor our sewer systems. 00:24:23
There may have been a lacking. 00:24:30
Element of that that is being incorporated through this master planning effort that that revises our plans going forward. Yeah, I 00:24:32
feel like that's an important aspect of many of the questions that happen here. We we do have so many of these things, but this 00:24:38
request is going out and these discussions are moving forward to. 00:24:44
Improve the plans that we do have and update the plans that we do have because they were working up until the years that we've 00:24:51
been going and now we're saying, hey, we need to improve upon them. 00:24:56
2024 This was the. 00:25:02
Survey of 2024, right? 00:25:04
So. 00:25:07
When will we have the C cap? 00:25:09
Plan completed. 00:25:12
The system evaluation capacity assurance plan. 00:25:15
So. 00:25:20
Once again. 00:25:22
These are just all part of the plan. So this. 00:25:24
Maybe this will help. 00:25:26
Explain a little bit with this. 00:25:27
2024 Survey. 00:25:30
So what it is is it's a. 00:25:32
It's a state. 00:25:35
Send out survey. 00:25:36
And what they do is I. 00:25:38
Kind of try to focus. 00:25:41
Municipalities and. 00:25:43
Where they're at and some of the things that they might need to improve on. 00:25:45
So it's just kind of kind of set where we're at. 00:25:49
And, and I just, I want to expand on that. I think it's important for all of us to know. 00:25:52
This is kind of how. 00:25:57
All plans work within the within the city and you're going to have to pay attention to this as we put in our master plans. We 00:25:59
can't do everything at once. 00:26:03
And we assess and reassess and get audited to show where we need to grow and how we need to phase in. And so we do these surveys 00:26:07
to show, OK, next step in the phase. 00:26:13
Is this incremental step? 00:26:18
And that's what you're talking about when we say that's. 00:26:20
How we're adding on to it, yes, and and one thing with the state with especially water and sewer. 00:26:23
As they're always coming up with. 00:26:29
New requirements. 00:26:31
That that, you know, they're putting on us. So. 00:26:34
It really. 00:26:38
It's really hard to. 00:26:40
Do everything at once. 00:26:41
This is why we're trying to budget for it and get help is they're so expensive. It's a bunch of new stuff coming on. 00:26:43
And so we're just trying to do. 00:26:50
The best that we can as far as. 00:26:53
Umm, getting. 00:26:56
People on board like. 00:27:00
Sorry, contracts to help us get these up to date. 00:27:02
Then one last question. 00:27:06
What is the anticipated cost to upgrade lift #2? 00:27:07
So right now. 00:27:14
We've had, we've got 3. 00:27:16
Engineers that's looking at that, getting us some costs we don't have. 00:27:18
Those costs back to us yet? 00:27:23
I'm trying to think, do you remember when it closes? 00:27:26
Oh, where is lift #2? 00:27:29
Left #2 is over by the. 00:27:33
The public works department so. 00:27:35
Left #2 is the last lift station before it goes to TSSD. 00:27:37
So it's we just put that in like 4 or five years ago. 00:27:43
No, no, that would been lift #3. 00:27:46
OK, sorry. Yeah. So we have 850,000 budgeted for that. 00:27:49
That next year, for next year's budget. 00:27:54
860,000 total. 00:27:58
For everything that needs to. 00:27:59
We have eight $850,000 budgeted for Lift Station 2 upgrades. 00:28:01
OK. We don't know what that bids come in at, but that's what we got. 00:28:06
All right. Thank you. 00:28:10
Thank you very much. OK, Any other questions from the Council on Item 3.6? 00:28:11
My my question is on both of those and I know we were talking both about. 00:28:17
Water and wastewater. 00:28:22
On wastewater, we only have .9 months left in the fund when it's recommended to be sick. 3:00 to 6:00 right? 00:28:24
And also with the water fund. 00:28:32
We instead of being three to six, we're at 1.3 as well with those. 00:28:35
With that problem on. 00:28:40
The water issue. 00:28:42
Is that going to draw that fund lower or do we is that? 00:28:44
Emergency fix. 00:28:48
Is that where that money's gonna will drop even lower than that? 00:28:50
Take this off. 00:28:53
The emergency fix on, he's talking about an operational reserve and would you be able to use saved money on this and would it draw 00:28:54
down on saved funding and then would it take away from whatever operational reserve we're trying to maintain? 00:29:02
As a department. 00:29:11
Can you guys respond to that or do you have any, do you have any comments on that? 00:29:12
And so often when we have projects come up that require additional funding, we are taking down our fund balance. 00:29:18
But that's not always, you know. Some years you could save some, in other years you have to spend what you saved. 00:29:27
Right. I don't have an exact is that is that problem and the shutdown of the road going to be taking from? 00:29:32
The water Fund. 00:29:39
That'd be the waste or the wastewater. Wastewater. Yeah, that would. So right now we've got. 00:29:40
400 Five 100,000. 00:29:44
I mean I'm probably a month old on this so I don't have it your live data. 00:29:48
OK. So I don't, I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers. 00:29:54
But just as an example, we had 2.8 million. 00:29:57
In the wastewater fund at the beginning of fiscal year 25. 00:30:00
Correct. Yeah, at the beginning of the year, but we're clear the end. 00:30:04
Right. But we've had money come in. I don't have it. We are currently working on figuring out a cash flow analysis. I've got Zach. 00:30:08
Our treasurer working on that, right. I don't have that that I can quote the numbers on currently. I'm just doing the math based 00:30:14
off of how many months that have gone through the years. So that's how I'm getting that 400,000 number of like roughly that's 00:30:19
where we would, we'd be if we were month to month. 00:30:23
But is that where the money will be coming from on the on the when that road breaks? 00:30:29
That the money was budgeted for, for that repair, OK, Yeah, it we have money planned set aside as part of our budget for that. OK. 00:30:35
It's not an additional requirement. That's why I was wondering if it was an additional funding requirement, we would have to come 00:30:40
to you as a council. 00:30:45
And request a budget amendment. 00:30:50
Sorry, I didn't understand the question. Yeah, I was like, is this break gonna be? Yeah, I'm like we're we're really low on that. 00:30:52
The issue with the road has we've been aware of this for over a year. 00:30:56
And so at last year's budget, it was budgeted in to take care of this road issue. So it it doesn't dive into the reserve or 00:31:01
anything like that. It's just planned into the budget. 00:31:06
OK. Any other questions? 00:31:13
All right, that leaves us to let's see 3.3 with the striping services contract. 00:31:19
I don't see Naseem and Devin is not going to answer our questions here. Eric, will you be answering the questions? 00:31:25
Remind me what the question was? Daria, did you have a question on striping? 00:31:34
Council, did you have any questions or? 00:31:38
Can I reserve the time for Daria? 00:31:41
OK, Daria, come up to the microphone please. 00:31:44
OK, the road striping the bid is $58,916. 00:31:57
I would like to know how much traffic control, sweeping and layout of roadways will add to the cost of this project. 00:32:03
Because that's not included. 00:32:12
In the bid. 00:32:14
Yeah, Rd. Rd. maintenance, sweeping and so forth has is, is a separate line item in our budget under transportation and so that 00:32:15
won't have any additional fee associated with. 00:32:21
The striping project itself, it's right. 00:32:26
So how much will that cost though? How much will the traffic control, the sweeping and the layout? 00:32:29
Cost. So Daria, since it doesn't have anything to do with this current request, what I'm going to do is reserve time for you guys 00:32:35
to talk offline about that question. OK, OK, thank you so much. If there are no other questions from the Council, I need a motion 00:32:41
to approve 3.33 point 5 and 3.6. 00:32:47
Don't be shy. 00:32:55
I move to approve. 00:32:57
3.3. 00:33:01
I move to approve 3.33 point 5 and 3.6. 00:33:02
Consent items as presented. 00:33:07
Excellent. Can I get a second? 00:33:09
Second. All right. Thank you. First by Sarah, second by Brett. 00:33:11
I'm going to go ahead and call for a roll call, Sarah. 00:33:15
Jake, did you have something that you would rather talk about the striping services because I'm a little bit concerned about the 00:33:19
warranty on it? 00:33:22
So we just started talking about him. What other questions do you have? 00:33:26
It just. 00:33:29
I've got. I would, I would. 00:33:32
Just for Naseem, I wanted to go through and understand like why it's failing on a few different areas. 00:33:34
Do you have an area in particular that you're talking about with striping? 00:33:42
Or just normal wear and tear that happens overtime and This is why we have a budget to restripe or what are your questions on it? 00:33:45
You know, I can, I can take it offline on those issues. 00:33:54
OK. Did you want to? 00:33:57
Split up these. 00:34:00
Items and vote on them or did you still feel comfortable moving forward with? 00:34:01
These striping service contract. 00:34:06
I don't feel comfortable knowing enough about the striping services contract just with some of the issues that I've seen around 00:34:09
the city and I wanted to ask more information on. 00:34:13
I was hoping for a presentation on it. 00:34:18
Did you want a? 00:34:20
Did you want to make another motion? This would be the time for another motion to approve 3.5 and 3.6 and take 3.3 off, right? 00:34:22
Jamie. 00:34:32
It would have to be accepted by. 00:34:35
Whoever made the motion, yeah. 00:34:36
As a friendly, would you? 00:34:41
You just say that we're going to separate them, so 3.5 and 3.6. 00:34:43
Will be your amendment is what will be approving and then we'll approve 3.3 separately. 00:34:48
Amending the motion. 00:34:57
OK. 00:34:58
I move to amend my. 00:35:00
My motion. 00:35:01
To just approving 3.3. 00:35:05
And approve 3.5 and three-point. 00:35:08
6 consent items as presented. Thank you. Brett. Do you second that still? Yes, OK. 00:35:11
I'm going to do this by roll call Jake. 00:35:16
Aye, Brett. 00:35:19
Aye, aye, Marty, Sarah. All right. I need a motion for 3.3. 00:35:20
Are we going to postpone it? Is that what? 00:35:25
I Yeah. Could we vote to postpone that? I'd like to talk. 00:35:27
Yeah. Does that affect anything with our contract? 00:35:32
Should we just wait and see if Naseem comes? 00:35:36
And is able to explain we could come back to it. Yeah. OK, let's come back to it. Great solution. 00:35:39
All right, let's go ahead on to our presentations. We're going to have a. 00:35:44
Short presentation on our well Caraway update. They're moving along and Sam Brager will come up and from the Utah Lake Authority 00:35:48
and give us a quick briefing. 00:35:52
We're excited to hear from you. 00:35:57
Thanks, Mayor. 00:36:01
So I'll hit on just a couple of high level items. The Walker away effort right now is in the middle. 00:36:05
Of some sensitive negotiations, so I'm not going to dive into any specifics for the City Council at the moment. 00:36:11
But wanted to take a step back and just hit on some history of the project as background for anybody listening that might not be 00:36:15
aware of it. 00:36:18
So this is an effort that was started actually with Jake Holdaway and Eric Ellis when he was the executive director at the Utah 00:36:21
Lake Commission. 00:36:24
Really a collaborative effort that ended up bringing in over I think 30 different government entities, a variety of land owners to 00:36:28
try and find a way. 00:36:32
To conserve and protect this section of the shoreline of Utah Lake, which more or less is referred to as the Powell Slough, moving 00:36:35
from Vineyard down to Provo. 00:36:39
So that effort is kind of evolved over the years. 00:36:44
And there's been a few hang ups. 00:36:47
And so last year, the Lake Authority and the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. 00:36:48
Brought on a facilitator. 00:36:53
To try and work with the government partners that are involved and also with the land owners to try and find resolution and see 00:36:55
where we could find wins and directions to be able to move forward. 00:36:59
So Susan Putziba, I know she's been in touch with a few of you. 00:37:04
Is who we brought on for that contract and she's worked diligently. She did a assessment interviewing over 30 different 00:37:07
individuals. 00:37:11
From the land owners and also the various government partners to understand what some of the pain points were, some of the things 00:37:16
that need to be addressed and such. 00:37:19
And then since then? 00:37:23
Has worked with the government partners to try and analyze what the best options are moving forward. 00:37:24
The goal of the project is to protect the shoreline. As I mentioned, there was also discussion of things like having a trail, 00:37:30
because there's a goal to have a trail go all the way around Utah Lake eventually. 00:37:34
And some other amenities for the public in the area. 00:37:38
So we've worked diligently on that over the last several months. Things have gone very well. 00:37:42
Right now, it's been really great to see how collaborative everybody's been. We've had a variety of meetings, both with land 00:37:47
owners and the various families. 00:37:51
And also with everywhere from federal agencies, state agencies and local governments trying to talk through what options there 00:37:55
are. 00:37:59
And everyone has expressed support for that approach and has really appreciated. 00:38:02
The direction of trying to be collaborative on that. 00:38:06
Right now we're meeting with the various entities that. 00:38:10
Are the various parties that are involved in the dispute over the. 00:38:14
Land boundaries. 00:38:18
And trying to find resolutions. 00:38:19
Our goal is that in the next several months, we hope by the end of June to be able to wrap up the facilitation process. 00:38:21
So that involves discussion with the various land owners, trying to determine what trail alignment might work best for the various 00:38:29
interests of ownership, trying to minimize the impact on the lake, but also trying to provide public access and good amenities. 00:38:34
But Susan, our facilitators contract ends in June, and so the Utah Lake Authority's role is trying to help wrap up this process. 00:38:41
Hopefully with all the Landers involved by that. 00:38:50
Deadline. 00:38:52
Which was already an extension. We'd hoped to finish it by the end of the calendar year last year. 00:38:54
But if all goes well. 00:38:59
We hope to try and have resolution on all of those agreements by that deadline at that point. 00:39:01
Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. 00:39:06
We'll be making a determination on how to move forward on the project. 00:39:09
So a little background I may have skipped on that. The main contest station is that the Bureau of Reclamation claims land and some 00:39:14
private land owners claim land and there's even a couple government agencies that are there that claim that land. 00:39:18
BOR has been great to work with and is very amenable in trying to transfer this land into forestry, fire and state lands 00:39:24
ownership, but needs clarity on those boundaries. 00:39:28
And so Forestry Fire and State Lands has been a great partner in this, has been very supportive and worked very closely with our 00:39:32
facilitator. Their attorney general has been very supportive and spent hours. 00:39:37
Drafting agreements and working with us to try and facilitate these conversations. 00:39:41
And we're hopeful. We think the project can be a great amenity for the lake. It can do a great job of protecting and preserving 00:39:47
this section of shoreline and providing some wonderful amenities and educational resources in the area as well. 00:39:52
The only other thing. 00:39:59
That I had on that. 00:40:02
Oh, no, I did hunt on it. It's just that at the end of the facilitation timeline that will be up to FFSL on how to proceed 00:40:06
forward. If we're able to move forward with the project at that point, if we secured the necessary agreements or if not, what next 00:40:10
steps need to be taken in order to be able to find a path forward so. 00:40:15
Again, just reiterating, we've appreciated how collaborative the process is. We're hopeful to have more updates soon as things 00:40:20
wrap up. 00:40:23
But really appreciative of support from the various cities from the county. 00:40:27
From, for sure, fire and state lands, the Bureau of Reclamation and all the families that are owners here in the area and all the 00:40:31
conversations that have had. 00:40:34
Thank you so much, it's been so great. 00:40:37
As a community, this amenity has been so important to us, so we've appreciated the calls from Susan and the work that you guys 00:40:40
have done on it to keep this project moving forward. 00:40:44
Just for clarity for the public. 00:40:49
Sarah is our council liaison that sits on it and we appreciate the work that's gone on by the family and by Eric from the ula when 00:40:52
he was there. So thank you so much. Thank you. 00:40:57
We're going to go ahead and move on to our Arbor Day proclamation. Arbor Day is coming up. Do you mind if I make a comment on 00:41:03
that? I just want to make sure. 00:41:08
Yeah, I always want to make sure I'm the peacemaker. 00:41:13
But also set expectations with Wakarawa. 00:41:17
Umm, you know, six years ago I was the one that had the. 00:41:21
Idea and starting it, and I'm glad that Eric was also played a role. 00:41:26
And I'm, I'm always committed to. 00:41:30
Finding solutions. 00:41:33
And that's why, you know, I initiated that process. 00:41:35
That said. 00:41:41
I I don't speak for the family members that own that property. 00:41:44
I don't own the property. 00:41:48
Nor do all of my great uncles or aunts. So I have a. 00:41:50
Bias and a conflict of interest in that. 00:41:53
The lawsuit that started that with Bo R. 00:41:56
Started at statehood in 1896. 00:41:59
And. 00:42:04
That still remains today. 00:42:05
I I think it's inappropriate for for us to discuss publicly the ongoing or possible litigation between families and the federal 00:42:11
government. 00:42:15
In a public forum. 00:42:20
They're sensitive. They're two party matters. 00:42:22
You know, formal meetings are happening and there's great. 00:42:26
Agreements or ideas? 00:42:29
And to imply any resolution or to speculate any potential outcome. 00:42:32
Of possible. 00:42:37
Federal litigation would be. 00:42:39
Extremely premature. 00:42:41
And unwise and potentially harmful for. 00:42:45
The integrity of that process now. 00:42:49
The state is incredible. 00:42:51
Joel Fairies awesome Ula is also awesome. 00:42:53
And there are some really good people. 00:42:58
Especially even here at the city. 00:43:00
But ultimately. 00:43:02
The legal standing in the matter are two entities. 00:43:04
The federal government and the families. 00:43:07
And those two entities have to come together to find. 00:43:10
Resolve because they're the only ones that have standing in court. 00:43:14
And I just wanted to publicly say that I. 00:43:18
Try and help. 00:43:20
Foster agreement. Like Sam, he's also been wonderful. 00:43:21
Another and I just wanted to say that I do try to find. 00:43:25
The way and I love the presentation from Sam today, but. 00:43:30
Let's let them. 00:43:33
Work through that. 00:43:34
To try to find resolution. 00:43:36
For clarity for the public, I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware nothing was discussed. We talked about sensitiveness, 00:43:38
negotiations that are going on that weren't discussed. And I think there was positivity in the idea that everybody's working 00:43:43
together. I know there are a lot of stakeholders involved. 00:43:48
If you have more questions you can talk to FFSL and the ula to get. 00:43:54
Any of those questions answered? 00:43:59
Umm, and I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you. OK, we'll go ahead and move on to the Arbor Day proclamation. 00:44:02
Unless you wanted to add anything else. Sam. OK, thank you. 00:44:08
All right. 00:44:13
I'm going to go ahead and read this proclamation. 00:44:14
Whereas in 1872, the Nebraska Board of Agriculture established a special day to set aside for the planting of trees. 00:44:17
Whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world, and whereas trees can be a solution to combating climate 00:44:24
change by reducing the erosion of our precious topsoil, wind, water, cutting heat cooling costs, moderating the temperature and 00:44:29
cleaning the air producing. 00:44:34
Life giving oxygen and providing habitat for wildlife. 00:44:39
And it goes on, and I'm going to go ahead and save this for you guys to have a really good read when you go watch the posting. But 00:44:44
I'm going to say we find Arbor Day to really be important and I'm going to. 00:44:49
Umm, go ahead and proclaim April 25th, 2025 is Arbor Day. 00:44:55
And invite Vineyard residents to celebrate Arbor Day with us. And we'll have an event coming up to celebrate that. We hope you all 00:45:00
come and join us on. 00:45:04
Thank you. 00:45:09
All right. We will move on to the municipal alternative voting methods. We have quite a few presentations today. 00:45:11
And they're going to talk about some that are on the pilot. 00:45:20
Umm, what is it called? The pilot? 00:45:23
For the state that allows us to vote that we've been using ranked choice voting in Vineyard and then one that is not currently on 00:45:26
the states approval for that pilot process, but we're still going to hear about that today. 00:45:31
And so I'm going to go ahead and invite Adam Tischer up to speak about one of the moting methods and then I will. 00:45:36
Go through the presenters and have them come and talk to us about these different forms of voting. 00:45:43
So, Adam, you're welcome to come up. 00:45:49
It's a bit old, so. 00:45:55
You know, on slash legs. 00:46:00
Let's see, this one is going to be. 00:46:16
Actually 2 new. 00:46:17
I do have an HDMI to pull that. Got anything? 00:46:20
Yes, just the newest. 00:46:29
Should have thought about this. You know it's a problem when you have a 10 year old laptop, right? 00:46:39
Yeah. 00:46:51
Try that. 00:46:54
Yeah, I think I'm on that. 00:47:05
I was a little circle. 00:47:25
It's the funnest part of the day, right? 00:47:33
Haven't seen it yet. 00:48:00
I see. 00:48:12
I don't like cast or anything is. 00:48:18
OK. 00:48:28
Just to make sure there's no like. 00:48:32
OK, well. 00:48:54
Do you want to switch to one of them and I can fiddle around with seeing if I can just plug in directly to one of these TV's with 00:48:57
my HDMI cord? 00:49:00
That's OK. 00:49:05
As long as you guys can see the information, I think it's all right. 00:49:07
See if we can. 00:49:11
If I use this. 00:49:16
I've got a cable or that can work too. 00:49:18
Which one? 00:49:22
Yeah. 00:49:31
Yeah. 00:49:51
Go. 00:50:08
While you get going, we're going to just take a few minute break and then we will come back. 00:50:27
Anyone you are. 00:50:32
Make it work. 00:50:49
Very close. 00:50:52
That's probably a little bit. 00:50:56
Is that OK for you? 00:51:04
Yeah, that. 00:51:06
OK. 00:51:09
You know, sometimes I feel like old stuffs. 00:51:13
All right, go ahead and get started. 00:51:57
OK. 00:51:59
Just. 00:52:02
OK. All right. Well, thank you to the council and to all the residents that came to listen tonight. My name is Adam. 00:52:06
I am a Vineyard resident in the Windsor neighborhood, and I'm also a volunteer for Utah Proves, which promotes. 00:52:13
Approval voting here and you. 00:52:21
Utah and I'm joined tonight as well by Mark Midgley who is on the board of Utah Proofs. So my goal tonight is to kind of give you 00:52:23
a brief explanation of approval voting. This is the method that is not currently a part of the pilot project, but we have been 00:52:28
asked by the state legislature to. 00:52:33
Go around and make presentations to cities and towns that might be interested in using this method so that they can request the 00:52:38
state government to add it to the pilot project. 00:52:43
There's a few cities who've already done this. 00:52:49
I think I believe a couple up near Ogden, South Ogden. 00:52:52
Plain City. 00:52:56
Provo was one of them. One of the original ones actually. 00:52:58
And a handful of others that I actually can't remember right now. So. But if you need that information, definitely feel free to 00:53:02
come ask me. 00:53:05
But the basics is it's really about saving simplicity and security. So let's just jump right into it. 00:53:08
What is approval voting? 00:53:13
The simple answer is you're just voting yes or no for each candidate, rather than implicitly yes to only one and then no for all 00:53:15
of the rest of them. 00:53:19
Like our current method and so it's very simple how it works, you just add up all the votes and whoever has the most wins. Just 00:53:25
like our normal method. No rounds, no nothing like that. 00:53:29
Let's move on so we can compare these. This is very helpful because we have experienced. 00:53:35
Both of the two systems here in Vineyard. 00:53:41
So with the old system, which is called plurality. 00:53:44
This is, you know, where you just make your one choice. And this elects primarily based on exclusive support. 00:53:46
And it tends to favor candidates like with a passionate base of support, because as long as you can get to, I don't know, let's 00:53:52
say 40% of the vote, if everybody else is splitting the rest of it at like say 30/20/10, then the person with 40 is going to win 00:53:57
even if they didn't have an absolute majority of support, right? 00:54:03
It also works well with races with two candidates. 00:54:08
Our current system RCV it is a little bit. 00:54:11
Depends on. 00:54:14
It elects a little bit based on different factors, right? Because of the way that the rounds and ranking mechanics work, it can 00:54:16
result in a lot of unexpected events. 00:54:20
It does tend to favor candidates who can strike alliances. I think we've seen this in the past, both here and in cities around the 00:54:24
country. 00:54:27
And then it does work well with races where there are fewer than 5 candidates. If if you are able to rank 5, you know there's 00:54:31
different types of RCV, you may only be able to rank three, you may be able to rank 10, whatever, but 5 is typical. 00:54:36
Approval voting tends to work with. 00:54:43
Tends to elect based on favorability, so this is really like. 00:54:45
How broad of an appeal can you have as a candidate? 00:54:49
And it's great for any number of candidates. 00:54:53
So I won't read through everything on this slide, but this is kind of like in general what I want to cover tonight. 00:54:56
It's really It accomplishes a lot of the same objectives that rank choice voting does, but in my opinion it comes with a few less 00:55:02
of the drawbacks, including. 00:55:07
You know, some security issues that I know are important, so let's just hop right into it. 00:55:12
This is an example kind of drawn from. 00:55:18
The 2020 election. 00:55:21
For sorry, the primary election for the governor of Utah. 00:55:22
As you can see here in the red, this is Spencer Cox won that primary election, and this was under obviously a plurality system. 00:55:26
With 36% of the vote, next in line was Jon Huntsman Junior with 35%, right. And so it's kind of interesting because you don't 00:55:33
really see like a very strong mandate here. It's like. 00:55:39
He got by because he had the most, but it was only 36, right on the right side. Here is an approval election that was done in 00:55:45
Saint Louis. So there are some cities around the country that do use approval voting right now. Saint Louis is one of them. 00:55:51
And you can kind of see. 00:55:57
It's a lot more clear where that mandate is and who the most approved candidates were. You can see even the third place candidate 00:55:59
in this Saint Louis mayoral election had a higher approval than. 00:56:05
Or sorry, a higher general vote share than Cox did under the plurality system. And so there's really no strategy to to. 00:56:11
Try to game the system of approval voting. All you have to do is appeal to the most voters as possible. You want as many people to 00:56:19
mark your name on the ballot so that you can say hey, I was the most broadly liked and well accepted candidate. 00:56:25
Umm. And so showing the true levels of support, I think is meaningful both to candidates and to voters. 00:56:32
This is a simulation that was done by computer so. 00:56:39
Take that for what you will, but it kind of gives you an example of there's kind of this double axis thing we've got going on, 00:56:42
right? There's how simple is the voting method? 00:56:46
And how satisfied are the voters at the end of the day and at the end of the that's just kind of like how, how satisfied are you 00:56:51
with the results of this election under these different methods? 00:56:56
So you can kind of see. 00:57:01
All this is a good thing to point out. All the methods are the same. If there's only ever 2 candidates, that's probably pretty 00:57:03
unlikely for most. 00:57:05
Most elections in our city, right? 00:57:10
Plurality is simple, but it doesn't really have a lot of voter satisfaction because you get these people who are like, well, I 00:57:12
don't really like either of these two candidates, so I guess I just have to pick the one that I. 00:57:16
Like only slightly more, you know, 'cause I don't want the worst one to win. 00:57:22
So there's a small range there, but not much. 00:57:25
RCV, it can have higher voter satisfaction, that is true. It's definitely. 00:57:28
In general, better than our current than the plurality system that we're accustomed to using for federal and state elections. 00:57:33
But it can be a lot more complex, and with that complexity comes additional voter education that is required. Approval voting is 00:57:39
actually really simple. It requires only that one change to the ballot to say instead of choose one, you choose. 00:57:46
Any or approve. 00:57:54
Any mark, any that you approve of. And so it's a really quick, simple change. And candidates don't have to spend time explaining 00:57:56
the voting method. They can simply focus on the issues at hand and the voting method will, you know, make sense to voters. 00:58:02
Umm, here's where I'll get into the security topic, so I won't go too deep into this, but if we do want to talk about it, I'm 00:58:08
happy to, and I'm happy to send some questions to mark as well. 00:58:13
So there's a concept called precinct summability. You may have heard of, you may not. What this means. This is a common critique 00:58:18
levied at. 00:58:21
RCV which is basically. 00:58:26
It's not. 00:58:28
If you're printing assembly, it means that if votes were to be collected in different locations around the city. 00:58:29
You could tally the votes at those locations rather than bringing them to a centralized location because if you add up. 00:58:35
Plurality votes or approval votes in different locations, it will all be the same in the end. Whereas RCV needs to go through that 00:58:41
process of the different rounds and the eliminations, so. 00:58:45
This can be a security concern. 00:58:49
The county clerks in general have stated that approval voting is the only alternative that they are comfortable with the audit 00:58:51
trail for. 00:58:54
And then fewer spoiled ballots is another thing to point out sometimes with. 00:58:58
Ranked choice voting, you get some people who are like, you know, putting somebody as their second and third choice or. 00:59:02
I don't know, just under filling in the bubbles, there's a lot of things that can happen there. This is nearly impossible with 00:59:08
approval because you just. 00:59:11
Select the ones you are OK with and you leave the ones blank that you're not. 00:59:15
Cost effectiveness. 00:59:19
So again, this is just based on some costs that we gathered from other cities in the state. 00:59:20
Based. I wasn't able to pull vineyard numbers unfortunately, but I'm sure you all probably have a better insight onto this. 00:59:26
You can see here that as more cities participate in these programs, the cost does go down. 00:59:33
But we have been seeing, I mean, there's a little bit of back and forth, right, But even in Utah County, we've seen some cities 00:59:38
have had a little bit of motivation recently to pull out of the program. And so if they are pulling out and new ones don't replace 00:59:42
them, the cost will go up to administer that because. 00:59:47
There are fewer cities participating. 00:59:52
So that's the costs for RCV, but for approval voting the cost is minuscule to nothing because you're basically keeping the ballot 00:59:55
almost exactly the same as it is before, other than that one change where it says select as many as you approve of rather than 00:59:59
just vote for one. 01:00:04
The voter education aspect is also extremely simple because you can tell people, hey, this is a. 01:00:09
Just the same thing, just select all the candidates that you like rather than only one. 01:00:15
But what we get out of this is we get a lot of the same. 01:00:20
Benefits that RCV provides, which is getting rid of the spoiler effect, getting rid of that problem where it's like hey I. 01:00:23
Really want this person but I don't want this person win so I guess I have to do this one like option C you know so. 01:00:29
And no additional cost for administration. This is why the county clerks have also expressed an interest in approval voting 01:00:35
because it is very easy for them to administer on their end and the costs are. 01:00:39
Negligible. 01:00:44
So where is approval building been used? You can see it's been used in a lot of these, like international places, the Greek 01:00:47
legislature. I thought that was funny, the UN secretary general. 01:00:52
And then Fargo, ND, and St. Louis, MO, have used it here in the United States. 01:00:57
And it's received very positive feedback in general. I think that goes to show, you know, like we can do as many computer 01:01:02
simulations as we want, but the real life reality shows that people do tend to like this method. 01:01:07
And then again, I'll just come back to this slide. This kind of is just a. 01:01:15
Covering a brief thing about. 01:01:19
You know all the topics that we've discussed today. 01:01:21
Where you know? 01:01:23
Any of these things could be considered important to a city or a municipality that's. 01:01:25
You know, doing elections. 01:01:31
Right. Cost matters. Voter satisfaction, I think is extremely important. And that's why I would support, you know, moving to an 01:01:33
alternative method than the one that we currently use at the state and federal level. Because in most cases, you know, most people 01:01:38
I've talked to, I've been out on the streets, I go to farmers markets, I talk to people around here and they say, yeah, I've had 01:01:43
that experience where I have to basically vote for the lesser 2 evils and I don't like it. 01:01:48
And so in my mind, I advocate for approval voting simply because it is the simplest. 01:01:54
Alternative that solves most of these issues. 01:02:00
There is a moderate level of voter education, yes, but I think that's a lot easier to overcome than the education that we have had 01:02:04
to do with. 01:02:07
Choice voting. So I think that's basically it. And if you have any questions you can ask me now, I may. 01:02:12
Go to Mark on a few of those, but I don't know if you wanted to wait till the end of all the presentations but. 01:02:20
I just had one clarifying question you had. 01:02:25
Said that Rangers voting had. 01:02:28
Artificial winning percentages. 01:02:30
Yeah. Let me go back. Was that on this slide or? Yes, right here, second one. 01:02:32
Yeah. So to kind of explain that it's a little bit of. 01:02:38
The process is that kind of goes back to what I was saying where it's a little bit random, right? Because like, let's say you had 01:02:42
like. 01:02:45
7:00 or 8:00. 01:02:49
Candidates running, but you're only able to rank five of them, then you're kind of not able to Give your opinion on two of them. 01:02:50
And so first of all, that throws things for a loop a little bit. The second issue that comes up with these artificial winning 01:02:54
percentages is. 01:02:58
You can. 01:03:03
Just the way that the votes transfer, right? So like, let's say that you are. 01:03:04
Really. Uh. 01:03:08
In favor of a certain candidate, but yours gets eliminated right at the beginning. 01:03:09
Then like you may not be able to have like let's say you only put 3, for example, you may not be able to have a say in the final 01:03:14
voting if your candidates, if your ranks just didn't make it to the final round, if that makes sense. So it's still kind of making 01:03:20
you strategically vote. And it's somewhat artificial because those folks don't get to express the same amount of preference as 01:03:27
somebody would for an approval where they literally get to say yes or no to every single one. 01:03:33
So I don't know if Mark, if you want to also give a, you have to come to the microphone. 01:03:40
Thank you. 01:03:47
We just want to get you. 01:03:49
Yeah. So I would, I would add for the perspective on how the majority of. 01:03:50
The voters that are leftover at the end of an RCB election is somewhat of an artificial majority is because. 01:03:58
Often when you're dealing with. 01:04:05
Candidates are getting elected round after round. 01:04:08
That you're going to be having plenty of voters that have their ballots exhausted because all of the candidates that they had. 01:04:11
Ranked on their ballot had all been eliminated and so their ballot becomes technically exhausted and therefore. 01:04:17
Excluded from that calculation of that artificial majority. 01:04:25
And so when you are looking at. 01:04:29
What the overall percentage of the electorate that voted in that election? 01:04:32
Those majorities when you look at. 01:04:36
Let's say they report something like this. Winner won the 51% of the majority. 01:04:40
If you look at the actual percentage of. 01:04:45
All the Bellas that voted it might end up being more like. 01:04:48
48 or maybe in 42% of the original voters that cast a ballot in that election and that's why it's. 01:04:50
Kind of being referenced as an artificial majority, that's not a true majority of the electorate. 01:04:57
Another way to wrap your head around this is kind of like. 01:05:02
If this system, if you were able to rank every single candidate, then this issue would to some extent be mitigated. But. 01:05:06
That would result in these huge long ballots that a lot of people are fed up with, right? From what I understand from ranked 01:05:14
choice voting is that. 01:05:17
Every candidate can be ranked and is ranked. 01:05:21
So if we have 7 candidates, 7 candidates are ranked. If we have 8, all 8 are then ranked so. 01:05:24
Yeah, that does help. 01:05:33
All right, thank you so much. We're going to go ahead and move on to winning hearts important that I forgot so because it's not 01:05:35
actually on the municipal alternative voting methods project right now. Our our main ask to you is if that you're interested in 01:05:40
ever trying out this method as a city. 01:05:46
The primary directive or thing to do would be to write a letter together as a council to the state legislature, legislature 01:05:52
requesting that they add this to the project. And we can give you kind of examples of that Provost done that we can get them, we 01:05:57
can give you their letters. You can take a look at what it looks like. This is not saying we're going to use it. This is just 01:06:02
saying. 01:06:07
We'd like the option and then you would later on vote to opt in to it in the future if it were to be added. 01:06:12
Thank you. Thank you. So to ask your question real quick. 01:06:18
The state hasn't authorized us to be able to use this form. We would need to go and the legislature would need to vote to. 01:06:22
Have this as a form of approval. 01:06:28
So we first to start that process off. 01:06:30
We need to send a letter. 01:06:33
And then run a bill. 01:06:35
And then that bill needs to pass. So. OK, Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So you wouldn't be committing yourselves to it. You would 01:06:37
just be saying we're interested in, we're interested in. You would have a separate vote later to opt in. 01:06:41
Thank you. 01:06:47
All right, Wendy Hart. 01:06:48
Group, come on up. 01:06:49
Thank you so much for coming. 01:06:52
Thank you for inviting me. 01:06:54
Do you want me to try and move this back? 01:07:01
Oh, it's on wheels, OK. 01:07:04
Wendy, did you have anybody else joining you today? No, no, just me. 01:07:12
Let's see. 01:07:17
OK, thank you Mayor, for inviting me and City Council. 01:07:32
I normally have like this really long presentation so I'm going to try and just run through as quickly as I can and feel free to 01:07:37
stop me. 01:07:41
The the main issue that I'm going to focus on is that ranked choice voting a lot of what you'll hear that's presented. 01:07:47
Is the voter experience. What you need to understand is the back end and some of the anomalies that come from the algorithm and 01:07:53
things like that. 01:07:58
The biggest? 01:08:03
Focus that I want to give you is that ranked choice voting, as far as I'm concerned, is not one person, one vote. 01:08:05
And that that's that level of political equality that that we want. 01:08:11
And so I'm going to go through some of the concerns. 01:08:15
Especially things that are on the back end. The first issue is that complexity favors the well connected. So ranked choice voting 01:08:19
is complex, especially the algorithm on the back end. And so money and name recognition will dominate of of necessity. 01:08:27
Voters do like the ability to weigh in on each candidate, but once you get into the math again on the back end, you lose control 01:08:35
of how your vote is actually used. So an analogy that I like to make is that you know, you're, you're sticking your your ballots 01:08:41
into a river and you're hoping that they end up. 01:08:46
Where the way that you intended them to and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but you won't know that till till the end 01:08:52
of the election. 01:08:56
And finally, currently there's a lot of concern with transparency in elections. 01:09:00
And the complexity that we have calls into the results when people start to look into it, You're trusting the algorithm. And so 01:09:06
with election integrity concerns at a high level, people want something simple, transparent and straightforward, and ranked choice 01:09:11
voting does not do that. 01:09:16
I would have added approval voting stuff in here, but I didn't realize we were doing that as well. 01:09:22
I'm going to try and address all of these. 01:09:27
It is unfair and multi seat races like City Council. 01:09:30
Non it is a non condorcet Condor say means that it is. 01:09:34
Who the voters like the best when you compare them head to head. 01:09:39
Non monotonicity is a fun word. This is the paradox of causing your least preferred candidate to win by ranking them higher, or 01:09:45
your most preferred candidate to lose. 01:09:50
By rank or your Yeah. 01:09:56
Your least preferred candidate to win by ranking them higher in. Your most preferred candidate to lose by ranking them. 01:09:59
Higher it's It's backwards. 01:10:04
There is a lot of voter disenfranchisement and ballot confusion, and it does redefine a majority, as the previous gentleman 01:10:07
mentioned. 01:10:10
So it is. It is not one person, one vote. 01:10:15
Umm, what you need to understand is the reason why some of these anomalies occur is because the order in which things are 01:10:18
eliminated, voters are eliminated, can change the outcome with it's like a lever system. It takes very little input over here to 01:10:24
make a huge change. So it's kind of like order of operations with math, you if you add first, you get a different answer than if 01:10:30
you multiply. 01:10:35
So some voters are more equal than others with rank choice voting, if your first choice is never eliminated, you never get a 01:10:42
second choice. So if you have two council seats open in a traditional election, you get to vote for two separate people. Now in a 01:10:50
ranked choice vote scenario, you are going to rank everybody on down. But what the algorithm will actually see? 01:10:57
May not give you more than one person that is tallied at the end of the day. So in Vineyard in 2019 there were 25% of the 01:11:05
electorate who only got one choice. 01:11:12
For their City Council tabulated in 2021, that was 21%. 01:11:19
And in 2023, it was 16%. 01:11:24
And again, this is not the voter making any mistake, this is the algorithm. 01:11:27
And you will only see it. 01:11:32
At the back end. So here's an example from 2019. 01:11:34
If you look, Ty's flight got 277 votes as that the first round. 01:11:38
That's 25%. Those 25% will only ever get that first choice vote for Tice Blake counted for both City Council seats. 01:11:44
So if you look, he comes in, I believe it's a gentleman, comes in second in seat one. 01:11:53
Then Miss Welsh is her her first choice. Voters are redistributed. 01:11:58
Mr. Flake picks up a handful of more votes from his Walsh. 01:12:04
But again, and he does end up winning, but those 277 people that voted for him only voted for him. 01:12:10
They never got anybody else tallied in that scenario. 01:12:17
And some people say that's a feature and not a bug. I suppose it depends on, you know, if you're 1 of that, those 25%. 01:12:22
Here, just briefly, Lehigh City Council, same thing. Michelle Miles. 01:12:31
In this case, it was only 12% of the electorate. She comes in second, but she never makes it on to the City Council. 01:12:35
But her voters only ever voted for her. They didn't get 2 choices. 01:12:43
This leads us to the next thing, which is the Condorcet winner in a head-to-head matchup against all the candidates. 01:12:48
The Condorcet winner is the one that people prefer over all others. 01:12:54
Here's a very simplified example. If you assume that people ranked Mark, 35% ranked Mark, and then John, and then Tom, and then 01:12:58
35, four percent Tom, John and Mark and so forth. In an RCV race, Mark wins. 01:13:05
But if you look at. 01:13:13
John versus Mark. In all of those scenarios, 65% of the people preferred John over Mark, whereas only 35% preferred Mark over 01:13:15
John. 01:13:20
This occurred in Moab in 2021. If you look at the fourth line down, LW Luke W has. It's like a Polish name. Can't pronounce it, 01:13:25
not going to try. 01:13:30
He is the the head-to-head winner against all of the other candidates. 01:13:35
He won a, you know, these are his, the people who ranked him compared to everybody else. 01:13:39
But the first choice City Council winner was A Man by Jason. 01:13:44
I believe. Thomas, JT. 01:13:49
So again, there is a Condor safe failure. Whether or not that's important to you, it's just something to understand. 01:13:51
The next thing is non monotonicity. This is a known flaw with ranked choice voting. 01:13:59
Your first choice ranking can hurt your candidate. 01:14:05
Or your last choice ranking can help them win. This again comes from Moab in 2021. If you notice the people that rank JT, who was 01:14:08
the winner? 01:14:13
He was. All it takes is these three people. 01:14:18
There was a 45 point spread in the final round between JT and I believe it was Josie Kovac. 01:14:22
JK. 01:14:28
These three people that ranked Jason Taylor as their last choice or second to the last choice if they had elevated him to their 01:14:30
first choice. 01:14:35
He loses. 01:14:39
And so. 01:14:41
This is a major problem in my opinion because if my ranking someone higher causes them to lose or am I ranking them lower causes 01:14:42
them to win? 01:14:47
That's not how our brains work, right? 01:14:52
And three voters you know. 01:14:57
That. 01:14:59
That there should be a greater than 45 point. You know, if you change 45 votes, that should be the change, not just three. But 01:15:00
again, that order of operations, that change of three votes can, can totally change things. 01:15:06
The other thing is these three votes. 01:15:13
If these people had just simply not shown up, again, it was a 45 point spread. But if these three voters don't show up? 01:15:15
Then JT loses and the new winner is LW. That Luke. 01:15:22
Wachowski. 01:15:27
There is a great amount of ballot confusion. As was also mentioned, this would be the Weber County 2020 General Election ballot. 01:15:28
And Governor Jerry Brown, with whom I don't share a whole lot other than I came from California as well. 01:15:36
His last he vetoed the expansion of ranked choice voting in California because, he says, I believe it deprives voters of genuinely 01:15:42
informed choice. 01:15:47
And I believe that that's the case with some of these analogy analogies. 01:15:52
Umm Fair Vote, who supports ranked choice voting, said the prevalence of ranking three candidates or more was lowest among African 01:15:57
Americans, Hispanics, voters with less education than those whose first language was not English. 01:16:03
In a 2018 Maine congressional midterm, 26% of people said they stayed home. 01:16:09
Over confusion of the ranking system. 01:16:14
So there are problems there. 01:16:17
This is from the 2021 election. There were 17 ranked choice voting ballots. 01:16:20
Elections and that Utah County conducted seven of those had greater than 10% confusion so that's where the voter makes a mistake 01:16:26
on their ballot. They showed up to vote and. 01:16:32
And they made a mistake. 01:16:38
The most egregious was Janola in seat one. They had a total of 58% ballots that were confused and in seat 2 because you're using 01:16:40
the same set of ballots. 01:16:45
That went up to 74.7%. 01:16:51
Which is a huge, huge number. 01:16:54
Those are. 01:16:56
Elections outlined in red that you see highlighted in red. 01:16:58
That's 10% or more. 01:17:02
Total uh. 01:17:04
Ballots that were confused. 01:17:05
So that that's kind of a problem. The standard ballot confusion rate where there's some, you know, they, they have to be discarded 01:17:08
to some degree is usually 1% or less. 01:17:14
Here are a handful of places that have repealed it. 01:17:20
I would point out the level by which the repeal takes place, 52 percent, 62 percent, 65% and 71% of voters repealed it in these 01:17:24
different areas. 01:17:29
And we're seeing the same thing in Utah. Vineyard and Payson were the first two that implemented ranked choice voting in 2019. In 01:17:35
2021, there were 23 cities who did it, 21 of which were new. 01:17:41
And in 23 only 12. 01:17:47
Up Cities implemented it, so that's almost a 50% decrease. There was one new. 01:17:51
But of those 23 cities, more than half chose not to do it. 01:17:56
In 2023, so it does seem to be waning. 01:18:00
Finally, this was alluded to the. 01:18:06
Mayor race in Sandy in 2021. 01:18:09
The final round of balloting, there were only 21 votes that were different, the difference between the winner and the second 01:18:12
place. 01:18:16
Runner up. 01:18:20
But there were 4000 exhausted ballots, meaning there were 4000 people who chose not to rank. 01:18:21
Either one of the final two candidates. 01:18:27
Which means that the out of the ballots cast, it was only a 40.6% win. 01:18:30
I personally think exhausted ballots are fine because it's transparent, but it does not always guarantee you a majority. 01:18:36
Here's another scenario. 01:18:43
This is kind of the spoiler effect. We hear about the spoiler effect. The spoiler effect is actually good because if you have 01:18:45
somebody who can fund a lot of different people. 01:18:50
Umm, you can overcome a fairly significant win if you look in round one. Mr. Prada, This is Oakland, I believe in 2010 Oakland, 01:18:55
CA. 01:19:00
He's like 21,000 votes ahead of the next. 01:19:05
You know, level competitor and next runner up. 01:19:09
And it takes nine more rounds. 01:19:12
In order to get everybody else to overcome his win by by 2000 votes. So you're allowing people with a second or third or fourth 01:19:15
choice ranking to overcome those first choice ballots. 01:19:21
So, umm. 01:19:27
You know that that's just a feature, but it is a concern. 01:19:28
So again, one of the other things that I don't have that I think I have at the end here. 01:19:32
Again, complexity favors the well connected. Voters like to weigh in, but you don't know how that vote is going to turn out. 01:19:38
Transparency is a concern. 01:19:42
And then I just want to take a moment. Yes, one of the benefits of rank choice voting is that you can save money in not doing a 01:19:46
primary election. 01:19:50
But primary elections kind of like trash collection, I believe that they're worth the cost. You could save a lot of money by not 01:19:55
collecting the trash every week. 01:19:59
You could go to once a month or every two months. Save a lot of money on that. 01:20:04
But there are some things that are worth paying for and with elections, I think some of the benefit in primary elections is for 01:20:08
the electorate to get to know people and also if you're a grassroots candidate that's just getting started out. 01:20:14
You know, sometimes you need, you need that experience to be able to take the time to meet with people and things like that. 01:20:21
So at the end of the day, there are a lot of mathematical problems on the back end of this and it is not one person, one vote. And 01:20:28
so I would recommend that you. 01:20:33
Vote against. 01:20:37
Adopting it. 01:20:38
And if there's time, I'm happy to take questions. 01:20:40
Thank you so much. 01:20:43
We're going to hear, I think the other side of it, so maybe we'll have questions. Are you gonna? 01:20:45
I can I can wait for a little bit. 01:20:51
Well, does anybody have any questions for clarity purposes right now? 01:20:54
No, but I want to add context while I was laughing because you used an example of. 01:20:58
Taking out the trash. 01:21:03
And electing public officials like I thought it was. 01:21:05
Needs to happen more often. 01:21:09
I used to, I used to use, you know, police and fire as well and. 01:21:12
That's become, but yeah, yeah. 01:21:16
Thank you. 01:21:20
All right, we have John Kidd and Alan Perry. Are you guys here? 01:21:21
Hiding behind the pole. 01:21:25
I. 01:21:32
I was worried my laptop was too new for a moment. 01:21:38
They accommodate. 01:21:42
OK. 01:21:45
Yeah. 01:21:57
Yeah. 01:22:10
OK. 01:22:13
OK. 01:22:23
Hi, thank you for letting us address you today. My name is Doctor Alan Perry. I'm an associate professor of mathematics. 01:22:25
At Utah Valley University. 01:22:32
You guys might know him. This is Doctor John Kidd. He's an assistant professor of statistics at Utah Valley University. I only 01:22:33
mentioned our affiliation, just so that you guys know where we're from. 01:22:37
Certainly our opinions are our own. We're not representing anything from Utah Valley University. It's just our own opinion, our 01:22:41
own research. 01:22:44
We want to talk to you today a little bit about ranked choice voting and just voting in general. 01:22:47
One of the things that kind of gets a little lost, I think, when talking about voting is sort of what is the point of why we do 01:22:53
it? What is the goal with voting for a candidate? 01:22:58
And if you were to sum this up, the idea of voting for a candidate. 01:23:04
Is to attempt to accurately determine the collective opinion of the people about which candidate is actually preferred by that 01:23:08
group of people. 01:23:12
That's the goal. 01:23:17
And you could only have a hope of doing this if, for one thing, everybody actually communicated accurately what their own 01:23:18
individual preferences were. 01:23:22
And so one thing you might want to incentivize as part of this is that people actually express their actual preferences to to the 01:23:26
when they vote on their ballots. 01:23:32
It also would be nice if we could incentivize. 01:23:37
Civil elections, that's something that we kind of are missing, I think sometimes these days. 01:23:39
But just as a goal of voting. 01:23:44
And and we also would like to disincentivize what's called strategic voting. 01:23:46
So strategic voting is the idea when a voter. 01:23:50
Strategic vote, it does not communicate that voters honest opinion about who they actually want. It misrepresents that. So that's 01:24:24
that's an example of strategic voting. There's lots of different ways in which this can be done, but that's just as an example. 01:24:31
So let's talk a little bit about plurality. This is the pick one voting method that we typically are familiar with that we use. 01:24:38
To just give a quick description of what it is, you guys are familiar with it, but just to give some context. 01:24:45
Voter tallied. Everybody only gets to pick one person, and the candidate with the largest number of them is declared the winner. 01:24:49
And so let's talk about does that actually satisfy the purpose of voting? 01:24:55
And so, and maybe this could be a question of like, why would you want to change from plurality, which also is something that I 01:25:00
feel like gets lost in this discussion. Everybody's talking about new voting methods, but nobody's talking about why should we 01:25:04
even change from the one we have? 01:25:07
Well, plurality does a couple of problems. First, we've already talked about spoiler candidates a previous person did. Spoiler 01:25:11
candidates are common in in easily influenced and spoiler candidates. 01:25:17
Can dramatically impact how people vote and the likelihood that a particular candidate can win. To be clear on what a spoiler 01:25:23
candidate is. 01:25:27
A spoiler candidate is a candidate that wasn't going to win the election, but by their presence in the election they change who 01:25:31
the winner was going to be. So if they had not been in the election, the winner would have been a different person. 01:25:37
And in either case, would it be them? 01:25:43
That's what a spoiler candidate is too. Also, I use the word consensus here because I didn't want to use the word Condor save, but 01:25:45
since that was already used here, I'm going to I'm going to mention this. So plurality has a problem. Not only is it a non 01:25:50
condorcet method in which it can just like rank choice voting all. 01:25:54
Fail to elect a Condorcet winner. A Condorcet winner is a winner who would win in every pairwise runoff that they're in. So if you 01:25:59
ran 5 candidates and you did, you know, A versus BA versus CA versus D and so on and did that with every possible pair, if there's 01:26:04
somebody who wins in every possible case, that's a Condorcet winner. 01:26:10
Both plurality and ranked choice voting can fail to elect Condor, say, winners. 01:26:16
In fact, quite regularly. 01:26:20
The opposite also exists. A Condorcet loser. Somebody who could, who would lose every pairwise runoff that they're in. 01:26:22
One curious thing about plurality is that it is capable of electing the converse a loser. 01:26:29
So the current voting method that we use right now can elect. 01:26:34
Somebody who would lose in every pairwise runoff to every other candidate. 01:26:37
It also highly incentivizes strategic voting and strategic campaigning. For example, it results in things like voting for the 01:26:42
lesser of two evils, which is a form of strategic voting. You are misrepresenting what your actual preference is. 01:26:48
Because it's not advantageous to do so, so the system incentivizes you to not tell what your actual preference is. 01:26:54
And then finally. 01:27:01
How do I go back, John? 01:27:04
OK, finally, it also has been shown to induce the two party system so that matters to you. This is a natural game theoretic 01:27:07
consequence of using plurality voting. It naturally forms A2 party system over time. 01:27:13
It can take a long time for these kinds of events to occur. For example, the United States didn't devolve into a two party system 01:27:19
for about 80 years after its after its creation, even though it had been using plurality voting for a long time. 01:27:24
This is mainly due to the fact that you don't vote very often. 01:27:29
So it takes a little while for you to figure out what the optimal strategies are. 01:27:32
To give an example, here's a plurality election where you have two candidates, R1 and R2, who have similar political leanings, and 01:27:36
then a third candidate, D, who has maybe opposite political leanings. 01:27:41
And they run in this election, and you can see that if you were to run plurality, everybody gets to vote one. The people in the 01:27:47
party for R1 and R2 are kind of split on who the right one would be. And so they vote that way. You get 30% for 125% for the other 01:27:52
and 45% for the other side. 01:27:57
In a plurality election, D would win, but it kind of begs the question, should D win? 01:28:03
Because if you look at the makeup of the electorate, you have two candidates from roughly the same political, basically the same 01:28:08
political party if you want to put similar political leanings. 01:28:13
Making up 55% of the electorate. 01:28:18
Plurality cannot capture that. It cannot see that because that's not what it calculates. And so a plurality election would think 01:28:20
that the other candidate is the most preferred, even though 55% of the populace is saying I would like a candidate from this 01:28:25
party. 01:28:29
Or from this group. 01:28:34
So in divergent laws, the idea of a two party split, which by the way is kind of where where this comes from. Like you might say, 01:28:35
you might look at this and say, well, the party of R1 and R2 ought to just run one candidate. And that's precisely what causes the 01:28:39
two party candidate A2 party system thing. They're going to try to consolidate and run one candidate so they have a higher 01:28:44
likelihood of winning. 01:28:48
That's what divergent law is about. 01:28:54
On the other hand, instant runoff voting RCV. 01:28:57
What it does is as we've kind of seen it. 01:28:59
It has everybody rank order, all the candidates and then it looks at everybody's first. 01:29:02
Highest ranking. 01:29:06
And sees if any, if any candidate has a majority of highest ranked votes. If there is, they get elected. If not, the person with 01:29:07
the lowest first place votes is eliminated and all of those votes are now distributed to their next the next candidate that they 01:29:12
indicate. 01:29:16
And the process is repeated until a candidate obtains a majority of the remaining votes, Not necessarily, as you pointed out, 01:29:21
majority of everybody. 01:29:25
So to give an example, here's here's back to that same. 01:29:29
Plurality election. If instead of just voting one, everybody was offered a chance to rank order the candidates, let's suppose that 01:29:32
it would look like this and you can see that R1 and R2 are very similar politically and so everybody. 01:29:38
Who listed them? Listed them next to each other. This is a type of candidate that we call a clone. 01:29:45
Basically, they're acting similarly in the election. 01:29:51
In the sense that if either one of them were gone, the same thing would happen. 01:29:55
In this case here, if you look, nobody has a majority of first round votes. 01:29:58
And so the person with the least amount of votes is eliminated, which in this case would be R2. 01:30:03
And So what you do is you eliminate R2 from everybody's, I'm sorry a Star Wars fans, but you eliminate R2 from all of the listings 01:30:08
there and you would get this resulting. 01:30:14
New list of what everybody's preferences are, which you can then recombine. 01:30:19
Because that will do it. 01:30:24
There we go. And you'd see that R1 would win with 55% of the vote, which is more accurate in terms of like what the people wanted, 01:30:26
because that is showing that the people actually wanted a candidate from that side of the political spectrum. 01:30:31
So R1 would win in this case. 01:30:38
In this case here I want to point out a couple of things. First off, R1 actually was the Condorcet winner in this particular 01:30:39
election, and so this is an example of plurality not electing a Condorcet winner. 01:30:44
In fact, D is the Condorcet loser in this election. Both R1 and R2 would have beaten him 55 to 45. So plurality elected the person 01:30:50
that would have lost head to head against every other candidate. 01:30:55
Moreover, as we point out, they are to 1 and R2 were clones, and IRV avoided that kind of spoiler effect. Now there are lots of 01:31:02
different kinds of spoilers, so let's talk about. 01:31:07
Does RCV actually fix the problems that we addressed with plurality? 01:31:12
First off, RCV is immune to a particular type of spoiler called a clone. 01:31:16
There are other types of spoilers, and it is incredibly hard for a voting method to be immune to all types of spoilers. Almost 01:31:21
every voting method out there is susceptible to some kind, but this particular type of spoiler is. Plurality is highly susceptible 01:31:26
to, but RCV is immune to. 01:31:31
Other types of spoilers RCB can fall victim to, as was kind of pointed out. 01:31:36
RCV will not elect a Condorcet loser. It's impossible for that to happen. 01:31:41
Mathematically impossible. 01:31:46
However, it can fail, as was pointed out, to elect a Condorcet winner if there is one. 01:31:48
It also, while strategic voting is still possible in RCV, it provides considerably less benefit than it would in our in plurality. 01:31:52
In plurality, voting for the lesser of two evils is a common strategy, enough so that we almost feel like that's the right way to 01:32:00
do it. 01:32:03
And so that provides a lot of incentive. Strategic voting in RCV is possible, but it's not as useful. And so there's less utility 01:32:06
in doing it. 01:32:10
It also can result in different outcomes than plurality that some people were worried. Does it really make a difference? It does, 01:32:14
especially in cases where plurality presents a problem where it's not representing what the people want. 01:32:19
However, RCV does have some problems too. 01:32:24
It can fail to elect the Condorcet winner, as we pointed out. 01:32:29
It can fail to be monotonic, which was described. This is if you. 01:32:32
This is the idea that if you increase support for your candidate, you can potentially make that can't hurt that candidate's chance 01:32:37
of winning. And it is precisely the point that you pointed out that it can change who was eliminated first, and that dramatically 01:32:41
changes what happens later on in the election. 01:32:46
Also, I take a little issue with the idea that it's kind of confusing. 01:32:51
If it were, you know, 100 years from now people were still confused, then maybe it's an issue. 01:33:25
And of course, like I said, new voting methods take time to change voting behavior for people to find out what the right strategy 01:33:29
is inside there. 01:33:33
I'd like to take just a quick minute though and talk about this because we've talked about several different voting methods here. 01:33:36
So the idea of voting methods, there's two parts to one, there's a. 01:33:40
Voter opinion data collection portion, which is the ballot. 01:33:45
And then afterwards you take that data and you have to interpret it somehow. And the question of whether or not this interprets it 01:33:48
correctly is important. So the different types of ballots that you can talk about are things like single choice ballots or a 01:33:53
ranked choice ballot or as was talked about, an approval ballot. 01:33:58
Or a score ballot are some popular types of voter data opinion data collection. 01:34:03
Methods that you can do. 01:34:08
On top of that though, as soon as you collect that data, that's just information about what the people's preferences are. 01:34:10
Now the purpose is, how do I correctly interpret that data so that I can accurately represent what the people are trying to say 01:34:16
collectively? 01:34:20
And there are lots of different ways in which you can do this. Plurality is one way where you just take the first first choice 01:34:24
vote of everybody and you can actually calculate the polarity winner off of a single choice or a ranked choice ballot. Curiously, 01:34:28
one of the examples that you provided. 01:34:32
Showed when RCV failed to elect the Condorcet winner. 01:34:37
In that election that you described, plurality would have elected the same person. 01:34:40
So really there wouldn't have been much difference in some of those kinds of scenarios. 01:34:44
But anyway, so that's one type. You can also talk about instant runoff voting. That's the actual name of what most people refer to 01:34:48
when they say ranked choice voting. 01:34:52
But there's more modern forms of ranked choice voting. 01:34:55
For example, something called ranked pairs which has only been around since about the 80s. What it does is it actually compares. 01:34:58
If it were to fail either one of those, even if it was good at the other, it would be bad. If it incentivized people to tell the 01:35:35
truth, but it couldn't tell what the what the right thing is from that, that's bad. If you could tell what the right thing is, if 01:35:40
everybody votes honestly but everybody's incentivized to vote dishonestly, it doesn't help either. Both of those would be a 01:35:45
problem. So you need one that does its best at preventing, at making both of these occur. 01:35:50
One way that mathematicians actually try to understand this is by looking at things called fairness criteria. 01:35:55
And what a fairness criteria is, you can see here. I've listed several. These are ideas in an election that should make that we 01:36:00
should argue that a good election method should be able to do so. For example, we talked about Condorcet winners. 01:36:06
If there's a Condorcet winner, an election method ought to pick it. It means that person is going to beat every other person in a 01:36:11
head-to-head matchup. It's hard to argue that that's not the favorite candidate in that pool. 01:36:16
So that's one fairness criteria. If there's a condensing winner, it should pick it. You can see plurality and instant runoff both 01:36:20
fail that, but rank pair satisfies it. Score voting fails it. 01:36:25
Condor say loser. If there is a Condorcet loser you don't want to elect that plurality can elect a Condorcet loser. Instant runoff 01:36:30
won't. Rank pairs won't. 01:36:35
Clone invariants. That's that special type of spoiler that we talked about. Plurality is highly susceptible to. In fact, it's 01:36:40
actually referred to as being strongly cloned negative. If there's a presence of a clone, it significantly impacts one of the 01:36:44
clones ability to win. 01:36:48
Instant Runoff is immune to that type of spoiler. On the other hand, you have monotonicity, which plurality actually does satisfy. 01:36:53
An Instant runoff fails. Rank pair satisfies that one too, and you can see there's a few more. These certainly isn't an exhaustive 01:36:57
list of. 01:37:01
Of fairness criteria. But certainly I think it gives you an idea that there's more to this question than anything else. 01:37:06
I think personally it would be a mistake to just stick with plurality because you can see it's kind of one of the worst ones there 01:37:12
are. 01:37:15
Mathematically, like most mathematicians would agree, plurality is probably one of the worst ways that you can try to actually 01:37:18
really like, figure out what the people want. 01:37:22
It has the worst mathematical properties of almost every voting method. 01:37:27
Instant Runoff is a slight improvement. It's not great, but there are other methods out there that are possible and available that 01:37:30
are far more robust. 01:37:33
And I think it's more important to keep the conversation going and keep talking about this stuff. 01:37:37
And I'll turn time over to John. 01:37:41
And so a couple final. 01:37:43
Couple final last little things. 01:37:45
We also have a little bit of information about how people feel about this. 01:37:46
In a couple last couple of years. 01:37:50
The pilot study has been going on in Utah to determine how RCV is going to work. 01:37:54
We have access and I've been able to analyze data from the survey that was conducted by Y2 Analytics in 2021 and 2023. 01:37:59
Now, there were some guidelines. Most of this data was designed to see how voters felt about, you know, throughout the entire 01:38:08
state. There were mathematical procedures done so we could try to focus on voters that were in ranked choice communities. 01:38:14
And they did a very good job of this. 01:38:51
And from this I have some results from the state of Utah. 01:38:53
So in the state of Utah, various questions were asked. 01:38:56
One of which being, hey, are you more or less likely to vote for your favorite candidate? 01:38:59
And a vast majority of people indicated they vote. They were more likely to vote for their favorite with RCV than they were with 01:39:04
other methods. A fair number said maybe, maybe not. 01:39:09
But definitely much more likely to than not. So we see more of that on. 01:39:14
Accounting for their votes. 01:39:18
Additionally, most people do feel that the instructions are clear. 01:39:20
We see from this that the majority felt that the instructions were very clear. Quite a few felt that they were somewhat clear and 01:39:25
maybe somewhat unclear. 01:39:29
But we do see. 01:39:33
Quite a few people understand and for those that don't, hopefully we can, like seatbelts, continue to learn about this procedure 01:39:34
and help them to better understand. 01:39:38
Most people felt that RCV was easy. 01:39:43
All right, either very easy or somewhat easy. 01:39:46
Additionally, most felt most were satisfied with the election form that they used. 01:39:50
And a couple of final ones. Most felt that they were very confident. This one I actually like just beyond RCV. 01:39:56
Because we know that there is some concern. 01:40:02
Most people in Utah are still indicating that they are confident in the results of their election. 01:40:04
And then as a final one. 01:40:10
The question was asked, and this one was across 2021 and 23. 01:40:12
How do you feel about? 01:40:16
RCV in the future. 01:40:17
They asked would you prefer more elections, maybe you keep it only in municipal or to eliminate it entirely And while there is a 01:40:19
little bit more of a split here. 01:40:23
We do see that a majority, and statistically we could see this a majority preferred more, or at least keeping RCV elections as 01:40:28
they were. 01:40:32
Now the fun part about the fact that I live here in Vineyard is I got to delve into the data and I could look very specifically at 01:40:38
results for those that indicated they lived in Vineyard. 01:40:43
Now, it's not an exhaustive. 01:40:48
Set. These are not a lot of participants, but once again, they were selected randomly. There's not bias in who was selected for 01:40:50
this and of those that participated in this survey. 01:40:56
There were 19 and 2021. 01:41:02
Almost over 90% indicated that. 01:41:04
RCV was easy to use. 01:41:07
Most indicated that instructions were clear. They liked RCV. They liked that a majority needed to be voting for a winner. 01:41:09
And that they were very satisfied with the elections. 01:41:18
And 57 percent, 58% indicated they wanted RCV not only used in municipal elections, but used more and an additional 31 1/2 01:41:21
percent. 01:41:26
Wanted it used at least in municipal elections. 01:41:31
In 2023 we got five more people. 01:41:35
And the numbers stayed roughly the same. 01:41:38
And particularly at the end, we see. 01:41:41
Half of these wanted. 01:41:44
More RCV used in more elections. 01:41:47
Plus an additional almost 17% that wanted it to at least stay in the elections. Now again, we don't know for certain that this is. 01:41:50
Perfectly representative of Vineyard. This is a small sample size. 01:41:57
But I do wish to say that there is some evidence here as these are randomly selected individuals. 01:42:01
That there does appear to be some evidence, not just throughout the state of Utah, but here at home that individuals are not as 01:42:06
opposed to RCB. 01:42:10
As loud voices may indicate. 01:42:15
And that is all for us if we have any questions for. 01:42:20
All of the above. We can step aside or. 01:42:23
Continue to answer Can I ask a question? 01:42:25
Yeah, thank you God. 01:42:27
Can you explain ranked pairs a little bit more? Because. 01:42:29
Sure, I'd be happy to so. 01:42:34
The so the idea, let's go back to the idea of a Condorcet winner, right, which is the notion if I take every possible pairwise 01:42:37
runoff and I try to see if they win. 01:42:40
If there's if there is somebody who wins everything, they win ranked pairs as well. So that's great. It'll elect a Condorcet 01:42:45
winner. The problem is, is that sometimes. 01:42:49
You get a sort of rock, paper, scissors scenario where the electorate indicates that they prefer candidate A to candidate B, they 01:42:53
prefer candidate B to candidate C, but they prefer candidate C to candidate A. 01:42:59
And that's not transitive. So how do you determine who they actually prefer? 01:43:05
And So what ranked pairs tries to do is it says when you run into this thing, it's called a Condorcet paradox, but it's a rock, 01:43:09
paper, scissors problem. 01:43:12
It says when you run into this, how do you break that chain in order to determine a ranking that is most accurate? And So what it 01:43:15
does is it looks at the strength of victory of each of those. Maybe candidate A was preferred to candidate B by like 70 to 30. 01:43:22
Maybe candidate B was preferred to candidate C, you know, 55 to 45 and candidate C was preferred to candidate A only 5151 to 49. 01:43:29
The weakest victory there would be the last one and so it would throw that victory out and and rank it ABC. 01:43:37
So is that something because you said that? 01:43:43
So we know that approval. 01:43:47
Voting is not something that our legislature allows, and we know that ranked choice voting only has instant runoff voting from my 01:43:48
understanding, so ranked choice voting would be paired with. 01:43:54
Sorry, paired. 01:44:00
I lost it. 01:44:02
Thank you. 01:44:04
But that's not something approved by our legislators, right? So, so here, yes, you're right, this is a little tricky. In fact, as 01:44:06
I understand the law that that set up the rank choice voting pilot, it's specifically specified instant runoff voting in its 01:44:11
description of what method was approved for use. 01:44:16
If you wanted to use another form of ranked and This is why I hate the notion the term ranked choice voting because anything that 01:44:21
uses a ranked ballot is a ranked choice voting method, not just instant runoff. 01:44:26
But if you wanted to use a different interpretation method for a ranked ballot. 01:44:31
You would require just like approval voting something from the legislature that would that would say that. But that honestly, I 01:44:36
think that's something that that hasn't even really been brought up with the legislature, that there are other ideas. The 01:44:41
conversation has almost been unilaterally between plurality and instant runoff voting. Most people I don't even think are aware 01:44:45
there are other ones out there. There are. 01:44:49
Dozens of election methods, all with varying levels of robustness. Ranked pairs. In fact, if you want, you can check out a 01:44:54
Wikipedia page, you can Google rank pairs. Go to the Wikipedia page, Scroll down. There's a whole list of like. 01:44:59
Two dozen different voting methods and two dozen fairness criteria, and it shows you which ones satisfy which. It's all very well 01:45:05
understood mathematically. 01:45:09
But anyway, so. 01:45:13
Yeah, there's a lot of out there. Ranked pairs is my favorite because of all the methods that are out there. It seems to satisfy 01:45:15
the really most important. 01:45:18
Fairness criteria. 01:45:22
While still being relatively easy to explain that it's an important balance there. 01:45:24
The other issue is that there's some mathematical theorems that show that you can't really find one that satisfies everything. And 01:45:30
so it's kind of an unfortunate mathematical problem too. And so this kind of optimizes. How can you address the purpose of voting? 01:45:36
Thank you. 01:45:42
All right, I'm going to invite up our next speakers. 01:45:43
Mark Roberts, Brad DAW and Nancy Lord, come on up. 01:45:46
Thank you so much for being here. 01:45:55
Thank you for having us. 01:45:58
So I was just. 01:46:01
Guess I'll start off by saying. 01:46:02
If you're tired of hearing about ranked choice voting, talking about this stuff. 01:46:05
I'm to blame. 01:46:09
It's my fault. 01:46:11
I served in the Utah Legislature from 2012 to 2020. 01:46:13
And in 20. 01:46:17
Actually 2013 was my first session. 01:46:19
2014 the Legislature changed how we do primary elections. 01:46:22
So that you could have multiple people on a primary ballot that we've seen the last several years. 01:46:26
And when that happened? 01:46:31
Umm, they promised us when this whole deal went down that hey, we're going to fix this plurality issue now that's going to exist 01:46:32
on the primary ballot. 01:46:36
And I looked around and nobody was offering anything up. And I've always been a big fan of instant runoff voting or ranked choice 01:46:41
voting. 01:46:45
I have a real hard time with the current plurality method. 01:46:49
For many reasons that were just stated by both the approval and the ranked choice voting people here. 01:46:52
It's mathematically it's worth worth worse method. 01:46:58
I hated getting in the situation where I'm stuck trying to pick between the worst of two evils, right and like playing this game 01:47:02
well if I well, if I vote for this person. 01:47:06
That I really like. It's going to pull votes away from this person. I'm going to end up with this person that I really don't want. 01:47:10
So for me, rank choice voting always solved that in a perfect world. 01:47:17
We would all show up. 01:47:21
And we would all vote. 01:47:22
Right. Umm. 01:47:24
And. 01:47:25
And if nobody gets 50% or more, we drop off the last vote getter. 01:47:26
And we all stick around in a perfect world and we vote again. Everybody votes, right? And we repeat this process until somebody 01:47:31
gets 50% or more. 01:47:35
In a perfect world. 01:47:40
Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, right? So how do you best approximate this right? 01:47:42
And there's no, you know, you did your little finger things. I don't know if you're talking about money, but there's no time or 01:47:46
money to do this. 01:47:49
So what best approximates this? In my opinion, it's been ranked choice voting. 01:47:53
And that's how you can best approximate this perfect world of. 01:47:58
Multiple rounds where we get together, we cast our vote, nobody gets 50% or more, we're going to do it again. 01:48:02
There's a lot of talk about the algorithm on the back end. Essentially, that's how the algorithm works. 01:48:08
You rank your choices and so you say hey in the first round with this. 01:48:14
Field of candidates. 01:48:19
This is who I would vote for. This is my preference. OK, now if my candidate doesn't get through the first round. 01:48:20
And we moved to the second round and nobody's made it 50% or more. Who would I vote for out of who's left? 01:48:26
To represent me right on the legislature or the City Council or whatever it is. 01:48:33
That would be my second preference. 01:48:38
And then if there's more people on the ballot, I would say, all right, if these two people aren't in and I have to choose between 01:48:41
these three people, in a perfect world, that would be the situation, right? Three people left. 01:48:46
And I'd have to choose between these three people. Who's my preference in that scenario. 01:48:52
So that's exactly how the algorithm works on the back end, it just does it. 01:48:56
With the algorithm instead of in real time with people dropping people off. 01:49:01
So I propose this to the legislature. Ran the bill and the county clerks. 01:49:05
Don't like this? 01:49:10
They don't like a lot of change. 01:49:12
They put a big fiscal note on it. It was going to cost millions of dollars and and so. 01:49:15
I worked with them for several years. 01:49:20
And went back and forth. At one point we had it passed all through, all the way through the House and Senate, and we were going to 01:49:24
have rank choice voting in the primaries and the general election. 01:49:28
And it fell by one vote in a Senate committee. 01:49:32
So at that point started work with the county clerks and came to a compromise in which we said, all right, let's try this thing 01:49:35
out. 01:49:40
Because you guys keep saying that it doesn't work. People don't understand. It's going to be hard for people to do, It's going to 01:49:45
be hard for clerks to administer. This was the argument always going on. 01:49:49
And so I said, all right, fine, let's try it out. Let's make it optional at the city level. Let's not force anybody to do it. 01:49:54
And let's see what happens. So they agreed. 01:50:00
We passed the bill. 01:50:03
Made it optional for cities to do it And thank you Vineyard City. You guys were one of the first cities to do it the first year 01:50:05
along with Payson City. 01:50:08
Unfortunately. 01:50:12
Even though the county clerks said, OK, let's do this, let's compromise, let's see what really happens. 01:50:14
They then went out and refused to administer this for any of the cities. So any of the cities. 01:50:18
Only Vineyard and Payson did it that year. There was more that wanted to, but the county clerk's refused to administer it for him. 01:50:24
Fortunately at this time. 01:50:30
Million Powers was the county clerk for Utah County, and she agreed to administer and do it. And so Pace and Vineyard. 01:50:31
We're able to do it and then. 01:50:37
From there, more cities did it in the future. So that's how we ended up with this. 01:50:39
That's why it ended up as a pilot project. 01:50:43
And the reality is when I first ran this. 01:50:46
It actually did include approval voting, so approval voting was part of the original bill. 01:50:48
And was amended out on the Senate floor. 01:50:54
On the last day of the session. 01:50:56
Because I wanted to have kind of a. 01:50:59
Sandbox environment of hey, let's try these things out. The cities, you know, are good place where you can test these things out. 01:51:01
Not at like a general election where we're electing the governor and stuff. The cities is a good environment to try these things 01:51:05
out. 01:51:10
If they want to. 01:51:14
I would love to see actually the option for approval. 01:51:16
You know some of these others on there? 01:51:19
And see what that looks like. But we ended up with ranked choice voting and. 01:51:21
That is my personal bias. 01:51:25
Just sorta on the same page so. 01:51:29
We ran it. It works. It's not complicated. People understand it. We did education campaigns, but. 01:51:31
Even without the education campaigns, we went to some senior living centers. 01:51:38
And said hey, rank the five national parks. 01:51:42
And we're going to see which one everybody prefers. We didn't explain to them how ranked choice voting works or anything. They're 01:51:44
all able to do this. 01:51:48
So. 01:51:51
Anyway, one person, one vote. We've talked about this. 01:51:53
Maine was one of the first states to do ranked choice voting. This was challenged. A federal judge already ruled that it's 01:51:56
constitutional. And if you just think about how this works. 01:52:01
Multiple rounds of voting. 01:52:06
It's what you get one vote each round. There isn't more than one vote. You're not casting more than one vote. 01:52:08
I had a list of a bunch of advantages, but before you move on from that. 01:52:16
Could you explain why that's important? 01:52:21
The one person, one vote. And why if we're getting one vote on each candidate, why they so it is constitutional, right? You, you 01:52:23
get one person, one vote. 01:52:28
And people like to say rank choice voting is not one person, one vote. 01:52:33
And like I said, this was challenged by some people in Maine, went to a federal court and. 01:52:38
They ruled on the constitutionality of it that. 01:52:43
That it is one person, one vote and. 01:52:45
And if you just think about how it works, in a perfect world we'd show up first round of voting. Everybody votes once you get one 01:52:47
vote. 01:52:51
And if nobody gets 50% or more? 01:52:55
We gather everybody back again, we vote again, Everybody gets one vote. 01:52:58
And it's the same way you know ranked choice voting works. You just do it all at once. 01:53:02
And they? 01:53:06
You count everybody's first choices, and if nobody gets 50% or more, you drop off the ballot. 01:53:08
Does that answer your question? Yeah. So is the and just for clarity purposes, so was the ruling that? 01:53:14
The one person, one vote constitutionally is one person. 01:53:20
Has to get the same fairness and vote as the next person. So if you're voting for each candidate. 01:53:24
Then everybody gets to vote, has the opportunity to vote for each candidate, and that's why it's one person. 01:53:31
I believe voting method. 01:53:37
I believe the challenge was people are claiming that. 01:53:39
People are able to vote for more than one person. 01:53:42
Right, So if you want to get into the weeds of this too, right, like you look at approval voting and other things and, and even 01:53:45
the current plurality method, we say, hey, vote for three, right there's. 01:53:50
I don't know how it is here and maybe there's two seats open and so it says. 01:53:55
Five people are running. Vote for two, right? So everybody's voting for. 01:53:59
More than one, especially in a plurality city situation. 01:54:04
But the argument was. 01:54:08
For like the main. 01:54:09
Primary. 01:54:12
That people were able to vote for more than one person instead of one person, like my vote was counting more than once. 01:54:13
And. 01:54:22
That was ruled. 01:54:23
No, in fact it doesn't. And RCV fits the constitutional requirement for one person, one vote. 01:54:24
Thank you. 01:54:31
But this is another problem with the current method that I've always felt like at the City Council level. 01:54:33
I've had people tell me, hey. 01:54:39
You know, a bunch of us were running for City Council, several of us, and. 01:54:41
We all had this opinion about this zoning thing. You know you. 01:54:46
Issues that people run on in cities, right? 01:54:50
And a bunch of people had this issue about this zoning thing. If five people are running or four people running, and then they 01:54:52
have to get in a room and get together and be like, all right. 01:54:56
One or two or three of us has got to drop out because we're all going to cancel each other out if we all win. And then this person 01:55:01
who wants the other type of zoning thing. 01:55:05
Is going to win. 01:55:10
In pace in one year. 01:55:12
A guy was disqualified, so we have Melon. 01:55:15
Ballots, right? That ballot goes out early. People cast their vote. Well, a guy was disqualified after the ballot had already gone 01:55:19
out. So now you have all these people that have cast the ballot. 01:55:24
Their votes. You can't go back and change this. 01:55:29
Rank choice voting solves this. 01:55:31
Because now you just go to their next choices after that. 01:55:33
So there's a number of ways it solves. 01:55:36
You know, issues that happen at this city level. 01:55:39
And then you get scenarios where. 01:55:42
It's hey, vote for three. 01:55:44
Or vote for two right? And there's five people on the ballot. 01:55:47
And I've had City Council members in other cities tell me that their friends and neighbors and. 01:55:50
And people who really support them will tell them. 01:55:55
Hey, I'm only voting for you. 01:55:58
Because they're worried about diluting their vote if they cast all three of their votes. 01:56:00
And so they're really disenfranchising themselves because they can't participate fully in the election. 01:56:05
With ranked choice voting at this level. 01:56:10
It's a majority winner for each seat and so everybody gets to participate each time and maybe you only. 01:56:12
Vote for one person each time as was brought up. 01:56:19
That's a real possibility, but in a real life scenario? 01:56:22
If we all sat here and did it. 01:56:25
And we're filling these seats. 01:56:27
Well, I may be voting for Jacob every single time and he's just struggling getting through each, you know, each round and then 01:56:30
finally on the last round he gets in. 01:56:33
Or maybe he doesn't. 01:56:37
But every single round we do that. He's my choice and I'm going to be voting for him every time. 01:56:38
So that's what rank choice voting does for us here. 01:56:43
So umm. Uh. 01:56:46
We've got this. Umm. 01:56:47
This survey that was done. 01:56:49
After the first year that Vineyard did the used rank choice voting. 01:56:52
And it was done by the elections division of Utah County. 01:56:58
So turn out. 01:57:01
1100 voters. 01:57:03
Umm, 31 percent is good. So this is a little bit on turn out. 01:57:06
And so there's been questions about, hey, people are confused, they don't know how to do this. 01:57:10
300 Office calls to the office. 01:57:15
From Vineyard, only two were about RCV. 01:57:18
Poll response is 618 emails sent out, 111 responses came back. 01:57:21
86%. 01:57:27
Of the respondents favored using RCV, this is just vineyard. 01:57:29
Data next slide. 01:57:33
And so this is the results. 01:57:36
From that election. 01:57:39
Most of the voters. 01:57:40
Citizens in Vineyard. 01:57:43
That participate in the survey. 01:57:45
Said they are confident in how it worked and how their vote was counted and how it was intended. 01:57:47
110. 01:57:53
Respondents here. 01:57:54
Could you clarify what year was this? 01:57:57
What was the first year you guys did this? It was. 01:58:00
19 Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is 19. 01:58:03
Yeah, because. 01:58:08
That's when we did. 01:58:09
The data on how many calls would come in because everyone say you're gonna have all kinds of calls of people confuse people. Well, 01:58:11
there's. 01:58:14
What was there 2/3? 01:58:18
So did you find ranked choice voting easy to use? 109 respondents. 01:58:21
And overwhelmingly people said, yeah, it works, wasn't hard. 01:58:25
Next slide. 01:58:30
And how much did you like using ranked choice voting? Great response here as well. 01:58:31
And I think that's it. 01:58:36
Oh, how satisfied was your voting experience so overwhelmingly? This is a survey with Vineyard citizens after doing the election. 01:58:38
In 2019. 01:58:46
And how they felt about the experience in using ranked choice voting. Is there another one? 01:58:48
I think that might be it. 01:58:52
Yeah. And do you think it should be used in future city elections? 01:58:54
And this was. 01:58:57
You know, 86% said yes, it should be. 01:58:59
Umm, and. 01:59:02
Yes, now that's Leslie. 01:59:04
So. 01:59:07
Bottom line is, you know, we can get into all these numbers and crazy things and theoretical scenarios that might happen a very 01:59:08
small percentage of the time, if ever. 01:59:12
Right but the but the bottom line is. 01:59:17
Do we prefer using this method? 01:59:20
Versus the current method. 01:59:23
Right. Or do we want to just stick with the existing method on ranked choice voting? 01:59:25
So that's all I have. 01:59:31
Got questions? We can do questions later. Thanks, Tony for the slides. 01:59:34
Awesome. Until Jeremy. Hi. 01:59:38
I haven't seen him for years. 01:59:40
Thanks, Mark. 01:59:46
Hi, my name is Nancy Lord. Just a little background on me. 01:59:47
I'm a lifelong Republican activist. 01:59:52
And I'm actually one of the people who originally one of the original conservatives within the Utah Republican Party. 01:59:55
That brought ranked choice voting into Utah. 02:00:01
And I can tell you I've never received any money from any outside group. 02:00:05
Or Liberal group, except for the $50 we got one year. 02:00:09
To have a booth at the state convention because we called them and asked for it. 02:00:13
So. 02:00:18
I have been. 02:00:19
A supporter of ranked choice voting for over 20 years. 02:00:22
And I I'm really disheartened at a lot of the arguments that are currently being used to oppose it. 02:00:25
Because I think. 02:00:32
To some degree, they're specious. 02:00:34
And their. 02:00:37
Kind of straw man arguments honestly. 02:00:38
So I'm going to address some of those and then I'm going to. 02:00:42
Pretty much the reasons why I support it you've already heard. 02:00:44
But I'm going to specifically address some of the. 02:00:48
Arguments against it. 02:00:51
First off. 02:00:54
There's an argument that. 02:00:56
Somehow ranked choice voting. 02:00:58
In rank choice voting money. 02:01:00
Dominates. 02:01:02
And it favors the well connected. 02:01:03
I can tell you. 02:01:06
That if that were true, if. 02:01:08
Then the state Republican Party would be pushing it big time. 02:01:11
Because that's where the well connected people are. 02:01:16
But I can tell you that once we got it in place in the rules, in the state party constitution, it was the well connected. 02:01:20
Who began fighting us? 02:01:26
And bringing out these arguments against it, even though the delegates loved it. 02:01:28
And wanted to use it more and that's why we did not continue to use it in the state party convention. 02:01:36
Until COVID when it kind of had to be used. 02:01:42
Because. 02:01:45
There were some very well connected. 02:01:47
Incumbents who did not want ranked choice voting to be used. 02:01:50
Another argument that was. 02:01:56
Used is that. 02:01:57
Some voters are more equal than others. 02:02:00
And that the voters who ranked. 02:02:03
The second choice winner in your City Council. 02:02:05
Race in 2019. 02:02:08
Did not get a chance to weigh in on. 02:02:11
The first choice. 02:02:14
I mean on a second winner. 02:02:15
I'd like to speak directly to that because if on 1st blush. 02:02:18
That sounds like a reasonable argument. 02:02:22
Oh, and by the way, I have a degree in accounting and I worked as an auditor. 02:02:25
In recent years until. 02:02:31
Retired so I do have a little bit of knowledge about numbers. 02:02:32
OK, so. 02:02:38
The 277 voters that voted for what was his name? 02:02:40
Tithe, yeah. 02:02:44
OK, so that was their first choice on their ballot. 02:02:45
So the claim is that they never got to weigh in on a second candidate because by the time they got down to those first choices on 02:02:50
on those ballots. 02:02:54
Now you had the two winners. 02:02:58
OK, think about it. There were four candidates, OK. 02:03:00
If those voters who voted for ties. 02:03:03
Had ranked all the other candidates. 02:03:07
Let's assume they did. 02:03:10
OK, then their second. 02:03:12
Or third or fourth choice would have been. 02:03:15
The guy that won first, right? 02:03:19
There was actually 7 or 8 candidates that year. OK, but. 02:03:21
Yeah, OK. 02:03:26
So the point is if they had ranked that person second. 02:03:27
They already got one of the people they wanted. 02:03:32
Because. 02:03:35
He was already elected. 02:03:36
OK. And then if they would have if they ranked lower ones? 02:03:38
Those candidates were eliminated. 02:03:43
And so they did get to weigh in. 02:03:46
It's just that it doesn't show itself on the surface. 02:03:49
Does that make sense? 02:03:53
It actually doesn't to me. I'm really I, I. 02:03:55
Yeah, I know. It's I'm sorry. It's embarrassing. No, it's OK, because this is. 02:03:58
It is a little complex and I think it's important well and I want to make sure I understand because. 02:04:02
OK, umm. 02:04:08
This is I actually really like ranked choice voting. If you hand me a piece of paper, I like to tell you the order. I like things. 02:04:09
But runoff counting is where I get. 02:04:17
A little bit. 02:04:20
A little bit disappointed in some of the scenarios that can happen and I like your argument of the straw man. 02:04:24
Where these aren't always going to happen, but I still I. 02:04:29
If I vote. 02:04:34
If there's two seats. 02:04:35
And I vote my ranks and my if. Let's say I voted for Tice. 02:04:37
That surprises me that. 02:04:42
My second vote. 02:04:45
Never got counted right? It did, in a way. 02:04:47
Like it was definitely registered in the county, but. 02:04:50
Essentially, I only got to vote for one seat, right? 02:04:53
That's how I understand it. 02:04:57
No, I would suggest that you did get to vote for the whole range. 02:05:00
The the only difference is that if you chose that candidate, who. 02:05:05
Acquired The Who acquired the majority first? 02:05:11
In the 1st. 02:05:14
Round of counting. 02:05:15
You got that person. You voted for them down farther, but you got the person you voted for. 02:05:18
But it wasn't by any action I made that got them that win right. 02:05:24
Like, I just want to clarify, well, it wasn't technically counted in because you didn't choose that candidate first place, OK? 02:05:29
OK, but you chose the second winner? 02:05:37
First place. 02:05:40
And there were no other candidates that could have won. 02:05:42
Because and and even if you had chosen them, you chose them lower as well as. 02:05:46
All the other voters. 02:05:51
In the city. 02:05:53
So it's not like your vote was ignored. 02:05:54
And it's not like it was unfair because you all got the same ballot and you all had the same opportunity. 02:05:58
To rank all of the candidates or less than all of the candidates. 02:06:05
And it's very important. 02:06:11
And, and I believe you do this in your, you have done this in your city. 02:06:13
With our. 02:06:17
To let the voters know that they do not need to rank every candidate. 02:06:18
Because you would not want your vote to count. 02:06:24
For someone. 02:06:28
Who you can't stomach. 02:06:29
Right. 02:06:31
You know my husband won City Council in Bluffdale. 02:06:33
Two years ago. 02:06:36
And he actually went on a non ranked choice voting ballot. 02:06:38
But the reason is because the opposite side. 02:06:41
Of the issues we were dealing with in the city at the time. 02:06:44
Had four candidates for three seats. 02:06:48
And we only had two good candidates for the three seats. 02:06:51
So I said, when I heard about that, I said. 02:06:55
They chose not to do ranked choice voting. 02:06:59
They could have won had they chosen ranked choice voting. 02:07:02
But now they're going to split each other's votes. 02:07:05
And so we don't want to support somebody we can't support. 02:07:08
These critical issues of taxes in a referendum, etc. 02:07:13
So it's important that our people know they are not required to vote for. 02:07:17
3 candidates and so that is an issue that applied. My point is that's an issue that applies in. 02:07:23
Both uh. 02:07:30
Single choice elections. Plurality elections. 02:07:31
And ranked choice voting elections you should never. 02:07:35
Feel like you have to vote for a candidate that. 02:07:39
You don't support. 02:07:41
And so they're they're similar in that way. 02:07:43
And anything that makes them do that is wrong in my opinion. 02:07:46
I think that was my first frustration with ranked choices. It wasn't really clear, you know, And so I, I thought I had to. 02:07:51
Place everyone. 02:07:59
And there were people that I. 02:08:00
Didn't want to support at all, right? So. 02:08:02
So it's important that that be on the website on the ballot talked about. 02:08:04
Absolutely. 02:08:10
Very important. 02:08:11
Yeah, and, and most people don't understand that issue though as I said, even in a. 02:08:12
First past the post plurality. 02:08:18
When they don't, they do not understand that. 02:08:20
So, umm. 02:08:23
This idea that the ballot is going to be longer if you have ranked choice voting. 02:08:28
No, it's not going to be longer. It's going to have the same number of candidates, which determines the length. 02:08:32
Of the ballot. 02:08:37
It might be wider. 02:08:39
Because you're going to need more columns. 02:08:41
For the number of candidates you have. 02:08:43
But it's not going to make it longer. 02:08:47
Ballots are already crazy long, but you know that doesn't even really apply so much when it comes to your city. 02:08:50
Because you only have. 02:08:56
The mayor seat. 02:08:57
And the City Council seats at any given and or the City Council seats, there are no down ballot issues. 02:08:59
That it will affect. 02:09:06
That it will. 02:09:08
You know, sometimes people claim that it tires people as they go down the ballot. Quick question. I want some clarity for Marty's 02:09:09
question. OK, Marty, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you were saying is. 02:09:15
You want to understand. 02:09:21
How it counts? 02:09:23
If there's two people or they say there's five people you want to understand and there's two seats open. 02:09:25
You want to understand how you got to vote for the two seats? 02:09:32
And right now? 02:09:36
If I heard your question is that you understand that you only voted for Tice. 02:09:37
Because he was your first choice. 02:09:43
But that you're counting never went back into play. 02:09:45
For the second seat. 02:09:48
That's your question. 02:09:50
Yes. Can you come up and explain it? 02:09:53
Yes, come up and explain it, because we actually did a counting. 02:09:55
We actually did like a little. 02:10:01
What is it called? I'm losing my words tonight. Simulation. 02:10:03
Thank you. A simulation where we got to watch the counting, but I think it would be good to have that. So the way the law works 02:10:06
is. 02:10:09
If there's. 02:10:13
Let's just say two seats available. Is this the scenario? 02:10:14
In Vineyard 2. 02:10:17
OK. Let's say three seats available, OK. 02:10:19
Think of go back to my scenario where we all show up and we vote and it's multiple rounds. 02:10:22
So we're going to fill the first seat. 02:10:27
First. OK, so we all vote. We fill the first seat first. 02:10:30
That seat is full. 02:10:34
That seats been filled. 02:10:35
And let's say Brett won that seat. 02:10:38
Now we're going to. 02:10:41
Job right, We start over again. OK. 02:10:43
Now Brett's not up here, the rest of your up here. 02:10:46
And so we all vote again and repeat this process again, the way the law works for the second seat. 02:10:50
And so you do vote for the second C. 02:10:57
OK, so you. 02:11:00
And you're. 02:11:02
If you had voted for Brett. 02:11:04
He was your first choice, like you want him no matter what. 02:11:06
Then the second round, he's not an option, so we're going to look at, OK, who's left up here. That's your choice and that's what 02:11:10
your preference was. 02:11:15
So you do that, then you fill the second. 02:11:20
Then we start over again. We say OK. 02:11:22
Brett and Jacob filled the first two seats. 02:11:24
And now we're going to fill the third seat, OK? And everybody participates in the third round just like we would do in person. 02:11:27
But uh. 02:11:35
The ballot does this for us by your preferences. What happens if my number one pick was the third person that got the seat? 02:11:35
So. 02:11:44
So I guess it still takes me back to the Tice situation. 02:11:45
If I voted for Tice as number one, that was the only technique, yes, Yeah. 02:11:49
Weighted vote that I had. 02:11:55
For that first round so so it was for the 1st. 02:11:57
Yeah, so. 02:12:02
This is correct and they are correct in this scenario. Like I acknowledge they're correct in this scenario where. 02:12:03
If time says your first. 02:12:10
Let's just say. 02:12:12
The mayor is your first option. Can we'll go back to the three of these guys run the mayor is your first option and so on your 02:12:13
ballot. 02:12:17
You've got. 02:12:21
Julie Brett, Jacob. Right, That's your order. Well, she doesn't. 02:12:22
Win the first seat, Brett does OK, so we go to the next round. 02:12:28
You still have. 02:12:31
Julie, Brett, Jacob. Well, Brett's not an option now. So now you have. 02:12:33
Julie Jacob. 02:12:38
But think about it in a real life scenario. 02:12:41
You're gonna stand there. 02:12:44
The second round. 02:12:45
You're probably gonna vote for Julie in a real life scenario anyway. 02:12:47
Right. Like you only get one vote, one person. 02:12:52
So in a real life scenario, you're going to vote for Julie? 02:12:55
On the ballot, you did vote for Julie. 02:12:57
Twice. And that's the only person you voted for for each seat. 02:13:00
But. 02:13:05
Julie wasn't very popular. 02:13:06
So she didn't make it through, right, even though you may have had her? 02:13:08
You know, first choice, there was only two seats available and they filled those seats. 02:13:13
So they are correct from the perspective that. 02:13:18
You may look at that and say, well, I only ever voted for one person. 02:13:22
Well, if. 02:13:26
We go to the real world scenario like we all come up here and vote and we fill the seats. 02:13:27
In multiple rounds. 02:13:33
That same scenario would probably play out. 02:13:35
And that's what this approximates. Does that help? Yeah. I just wanted to make sure you had your hand raised. Did you have 02:13:38
something you wanted to add to that, or did you feel like you got to come to the mic? I'm not a mathematician. He's much more 02:13:42
intelligent than I am. 02:13:47
If you wanted to. 02:13:52
Yeah, feel free. 02:13:54
So I, I think that the point was the points well made that if you were to, if you're just trying to simulate sort of what would 02:13:56
happen if you just ran multiple plurality elections, like, you know, or multiple instant runoff voting, that that's kind of what 02:14:01
it would do. And because your person doesn't keep winning, you'd keep. 02:14:06
You know, keep voting for that person because you want that person there. But I think your concern is, well, like, you know, two 02:14:11
other people, one beforehand. What if I had a preference between them or maybe there was another close vote or whatever because 02:14:16
I've locked in my position on this other person. I'm not getting to register a preference on those. 02:14:22
Now that is a valid concern with this. It's also a valid concern with using a plurality method too, right? I think that the issue 02:14:28
here is. 02:14:32
When we run into these problems. 02:14:37
We sometimes have this. 02:14:39
Either my way, my idea is all right and if I identify something wrong with this, then the other one must have been right. In this 02:14:41
case, they both kind of suck like the you know, the the issue is like if you were to do like a vote for two or vote for three. If 02:14:47
you have like a three City Council race, you only get to register those three people. What if the only person that. 02:14:53
That had a chance of getting sort of top round votes was was your tice person and then the other two. 02:15:00
The ones that you really wanted aren't likely to be up there. So you're still kind of making that sort of juggling strategic 02:15:06
choice of how do I pick those things? It's still going to miss some of your other preferences as well. So you're going to run into 02:15:11
problems like this. 02:15:15
Regardless of whether you use a vote for three method or you use an instant runoff method. 02:15:19
Uh, ranked pairs helps a little bit with this, you know, in that it would actually. 02:15:25
Because what it would do is it looked like at each possible pairwise thing, and so your preference between any two of them would 02:15:29
be looked at every single time and it would look at everything that's down the ballot. And there are other methods that kind of do 02:15:34
that. But I think that's kind of the issue here is that we're running into a discussion about, hey, this method sucks this way, 02:15:39
but we're not realizing that it's also meaning the other method sucks that way too. Presentations. I'm like, whoa, whoa, we're 02:15:43
screwed. 02:15:48
Marty, Marty, quick question for clarity. 02:15:54
Were you concerned about the preference in the ranking or were you concerned about the? 02:15:57
Rounds of counting and how they attributed your ranking. 02:16:03
To the seats available. 02:16:07
Both. I have several concerns about instant runoff. I really don't. I have concerns with what we just talked about, right. And I 02:16:10
felt like you did a great job explaining that and I agree that there are issues. 02:16:16
Across the board. 02:16:23
And I actually am really sad because I mean, I I would write a letter maybe about the ringed pairs because that sounds like it 02:16:24
might be all over supporting that. 02:16:27
But another issue I have is. 02:16:31
I don't know if this is a great argument after hearing all of yours, but. 02:16:37
In the past I have. 02:16:41
I feel like it's very easy. 02:16:44
For people to understand how to vote. Like it makes sense to me that the elderly community had no problem voting that way, but I 02:16:46
feel that they don't always understand how their vote is weighted. 02:16:52
And it's taken, it took me a long time and I've spent, it's embarrassing how much time I've spent on these different voting right 02:16:58
options. And I still was talking to Sarah the other day and I was like. 02:17:03
OK. And if you didn't vote for someone and your ballots exhausted, you're taken out of the statistics, I'm pretty sure. But let's 02:17:09
make sure to ask John next time we see him, right? 02:17:13
And so that one's one of my concerns is I feel like it. 02:17:18
You start to go through and your your votes taken out but. 02:17:22
I like the arguments that in plurality it's the same problem. You vote for one person and you're done. 02:17:26
But my concern just specifically for our City Council election that's coming up. 02:17:31
Is we will have three seats we're going to have. 02:17:36
Two candidate or two seats that are a four year term and then we'll have a two year term because of our change of government. 02:17:39
We'll also have a mayor up for election and so for me, I have. 02:17:44
Deep concern for my own ballot when I'm voting. If I'm picking maybe the third most popular person, then yeah, that does bring me 02:17:49
concern that maybe my voice won't be heard to the top 2 candidates. 02:17:56
Right. And so that's just my personal concern. Yeah, No, I, I. 02:18:03
If it's OK if I address that, I think your concerns. 02:18:08
Present the results in a better way so we could actually so the voter could go if they wanted to and recreate the election and see 02:18:40
how it went. That is a significant transparency issue which I think is resolvable. 02:18:46
By presenting it better. Rcviz tries to do this, but it still has some issues. I think that's a problem that we could talk about. 02:18:51
One thing I worry about too, is the idea of abandoning something that might be good simply because we're running into logistical 02:19:00
problems initially. 02:19:04
You know, because we haven't figured it out or or I don't know what the right strategy is yet. The thing is, it takes a long time 02:19:08
for a random walk through a strategic game to figure out what is the best option for me to do or what is the best way I should 02:19:13
vote. 02:19:18
The problem with plurality? We've been playing that game for 250 years. 02:19:23
All the strategies are well worn out. We know what they are. They've become ingrained in our soul. We're taught that's how you 02:19:28
vote. You vote for the lesser of two evils. That's a strategic voting strategy. You vote for one of the two parties. But it's 02:19:32
ingrained in our hearts because that's where it led. But it's been doing that for over 100 and 200 years or whatever. So we just 02:19:37
accepted. 02:19:41
But that took 80 years for us to figure out. Right from the inception of the country until we got to a two party system. It took 02:19:46
80 years to optimize the plurality game. 02:19:50
We've been doing ranked choice voting, you know, in Utah for like 6, like 3 or 4 election cycles. You're not going to optimize the 02:19:55
game within that. 02:19:59
And it's really complicated if you try to analyze it mathematically what the right strategy is. 02:20:02
So honestly, a better way to do it is John Will like this statistics or a stochastic way of just walking through and trying to 02:20:07
figure things out. You'll try something and maybe it doesn't work this time, so then you try a different strategy next time. 02:20:13
That's kind of how it works. And eventually you find a strategy that does produce the results you want. 02:20:18
If you've constantly tied their hands. 02:20:54
And so I guess the question is, do you spend some time trying to? 02:20:56
To fix that, maybe muddying through that. 02:20:59
But yeah, I agree there are issues with Instant Runoff and that's why I presented other ideas is I just want to kind of open that 02:21:02
discussion up a little bit more. 02:21:05
I would hate what what I'm most worried about. 02:21:10
When I see these kinds of. 02:21:13
Attacks on RCB? I agree. I think there are legitimate concerns with RC with instant runoff voting too. 02:21:15
What I worry about is people who who attack it, who are then saying that plurality is better and we should just stay with what we 02:21:21
had. 02:21:25
That is also bad. 02:21:29
And it's worse to do that, to just stick with the status quo, something that's already a problem. 02:21:31
Than it is to try to solve the problem that we see. 02:21:38
And that's the danger with just accepting sort of the the the criticism without actually trying to go in and solve that problem 02:21:42
that you have with it. And see if there's maybe a better method or something like that that can improve on the thing that you're 02:21:46
seeing. Because remember. 02:21:50
We're starting with a problem. 02:21:55
We're not starting with something that was working and we're trying to change it because somebody didn't like that. 02:21:57
Like it didn't work. It doesn't represent the people. That's the thing that I kind of think it's lost in the conversation. And 02:22:02
this might be more of a question. Tell me your name again, Nancy or Mark, because this is a politically driven question. 02:22:07
But umm. 02:22:13
Vineyard is a very. 02:22:14
We'll call it exciting political atmosphere and we just had a seat open up and we had 20 applicants. 02:22:16
And. 02:22:24
I-17 Originally I had 20 resumes or application we did and then they and then it kind of filtered out. 02:22:25
But. 02:22:34
There were a lot of people interested. I know Lehigh last election I believe had several candidates. I don't want to exaggerate 02:22:35
their number, but they had a surprising amount of candidates and luckily they foresaw maybe and they put in a primary election. 02:22:43
Which typically the ranked choice voting part of the lure. 02:22:52
Or I can't? 02:22:55
Thank you. Is that it's more affordable so you don't? 02:22:58
There's sorry you're all standing we all want to talk about. 02:23:02
But umm. 02:23:07
I worry that Vineyard is getting worn out. We're like. 02:23:08
I feel like we are a very progressive city. We love to try new things and we're. 02:23:14
We're really cool in so many ways. I'm very proud of Vineyard and how progressive we can be. 02:23:19
But I feel like we are getting a little bit worn out from being somewhat of the Guinea pigs. 02:23:25
And we get a lot of attention politically and I think ranked choice voting. 02:23:31
Is really. 02:23:36
Great. Like I love it, but then my concerns. 02:23:37
Draw to voter fatigue. There's a lot of candidates, there's a lot to search through and then. 02:23:41
You kind of throw your hands up in the air at one point and then it's just hard on our community. Go ahead, Nancy, I said your 02:23:47
name first. Kind of. 02:23:51
So just tell me a little bit about this. So you already had this election where 17 candidates? No, no, we had. It was an 02:23:54
appointment for the City Council. Oh, OK, so let's say it was an election. 02:24:00
I mean if it would have been done under. 02:24:05
Plurality. 02:24:08
Vote for one. 02:24:10
It would have still been long. We would have had a primary. 02:24:12
Yes. 02:24:15
You would have had a primary and look at the incredible vote splitting. 02:24:17
That would have occurred because you would have only had two people. 02:24:21
End up at the end. Well, now it'll be 3, but yes. OK, yeah. 02:24:24
So so. 02:24:29
We would have had so we would have. Let's let's pretend we had 7. Let's say this November we have 17 people running for our three 02:24:30
council seats. 02:24:34
During the primary, which would last over the summer, we would go through this political chaos of 17 people knocking on my door. 02:24:39
Let's be realistic, maybe only six or seven that are that interested, but there would be so much chaos in how many people are 02:24:48
trying to get their message out there. It sounds exhausting to me. And so then we will weed it out. It's one summer, we can get 02:24:56
through it and then we go and have our final or after our primary we're down to only 6 candidates. And to me I'm like OK. 02:25:03
Now I can really look at those six candidates and I can feel more confident that I know each one of their missions, I know their 02:25:11
statements, I know what their priorities are. 02:25:15
And then come November, I'll be able to confidently vote right. That's that's just. 02:25:19
How I saw Lehigh situation I do believe we can vote in a primary if we wanted to and I guess that's one of my questions I and I 02:25:26
know that's a possibility that's what I'm I'm wanting this to be a part of the conversation. Well, I don't I don't know that you 02:25:31
have a need for a primary if you use ranked choice voting because. 02:25:37
A ranked choice vote is like a primary and a general election in one. It's like multiple balloting at a. 02:25:43
State party convention or county party convention. 02:25:50
In one ballot. 02:25:54
So it. 02:25:58
You can't. Originally the law didn't allow you to do in the primaries. 02:25:59
Lehigh wanted to do in the primaries. The Lieutenant governor's office was like, well, this doesn't make sense to have it in the 02:26:03
primaries if you're doing rank choice voting because of what Nancy just said. 02:26:08
Lehigh want to do the primaries. We changed the law. 02:26:12
You know, I think it's personally perfectly reasonable if the city says, hey, we still don't have a primary, but we want to have 02:26:16
our primaries ranked choice voting and just narrow it down a little bit more and then we'll do it again, so. 02:26:20
The law allows for it now. 02:26:25
OK, well, I didn't realize that, so that's fantastic. 02:26:27
That that does happen, yeah, because then you eliminate the vote splitting factor, which I'm not OK with. 02:26:30
Some people here tonight have suggested that they think it's great. The spoiler effect is great. 02:26:36
I think anyone who believes. 02:26:42
That the will of the people should be able to be heard in an election. 02:26:45
Implies that that should. 02:26:50
At least strive to get as close to a majority as possible. 02:26:53
Not a minority, and certainly not a tiny minority when you have a huge field like that and. 02:26:57
And, you know, consider also that. 02:27:03
And. 02:27:06
Mark Roberts touched on this. 02:27:08
There is a tremendous pressure and incentive to. 02:27:10
To force candidates out of the race. 02:27:15
I mean, you hear about that all the time on a national level. 02:27:18
This person S got to get out of the race because they're going to mess it up for. 02:27:21
You know, Ross Perot S got to get out of the race because he's going to mess it up for Bush. 02:27:24
And maybe he actually did. 02:27:29
You know, and enabled Clinton to get in. 02:27:31
I can tell you that Mia Love probably lost her first run for Congress. 02:27:33
By 768 votes. 02:27:38
Because. 02:27:40
The Libertarian got around 10,000. 02:27:41
Votes. 02:27:44
But because. 02:27:45
A plurality vote does not allow the. 02:27:46
The voters to to give us more data. 02:27:49
Like these gentlemen mentioned, it doesn't allow us to have more information about voter preferences. 02:27:54
We had no way of knowing. 02:27:59
But we can guess that libertarians probably would have shifted towards Mia Love. 02:28:01
As their second choice more than the Democrat candidate. That's just one example no and I I've heard the political games that are 02:28:06
being played like. 02:28:10
I don't. There are so many. Yeah, I. 02:28:15
I've talked to experts that are like, Oh well, these are the candidates, let's make sure we get a third candidate to exactly. 02:28:19
Sometimes they are recruited to create the spoiler effect. I do see a lot of issues with Polar. 02:28:25
Morality I I sincerely do. 02:28:31
It's just. 02:28:34
Oh, I lost my other question. It actually was keep thinking. 02:28:36
Well, remember you have two choices. You can either have a plurality. Well I guess now you have 1/3. 02:28:40
You could have a plurality election for and that would by nature require a primary if you have more than. 02:28:46
6 candidates. 02:28:52
For three. 02:28:54
And then you or more than you know 2 for the mayors race. 02:28:56
Or you can have ranked choice voting and just one. 02:29:01
At the general election, or you can have ranked choice voting for your primary. 02:29:04
And then you you're down to your. 02:29:08
6 for the general election, but you've avoided the spoiler effect in that primary. 02:29:11
So, uh. 02:29:16
I don't know. I think that's a great option. All of these other ideas about ranked pairs and approval voting, I think it's great 02:29:16
that we're thinking outside of the box more. 02:29:21
But those aren't options under the current state law. 02:29:26
So you have these three choices, so which one is? 02:29:29
Best among those 3. 02:29:33
And I think he probably hit on it with the ranked choice voting in the primary, so you get it done sooner. 02:29:35
So that it minimizes the time that you have voter fatigue. 02:29:42
And candidate fatigue. 02:29:45
I I really do see interject for a second talk all night, John right, I'm sorry. That's OK. I was thinking are you also going to 02:29:48
present branch? 02:29:54
Couple minutes, all right. 02:30:00
I'm going to have us wrap up this conversation, then we can ask any clarifying conversation. 02:30:01
Questions right after. 02:30:06
To help everybody get to their house. OK, that's great. I'm trying to think if there's any. 02:30:08
I just think that ranked choice voting, you know, maybe it's not perfect. 02:30:12
But it's so much more fair. 02:30:16
Than plurality voting. 02:30:19
It minimizes the spoiler effect. 02:30:22
It's kind of an elegant way to deal with it, even though it may not be perfect. 02:30:25
And. 02:30:30
I just, I've loved it for a long, long time and I really. 02:30:31
Think that we need to continue the pilot. 02:30:35
Program to. 02:30:39
To play it out and to learn more about how we carried out. But your city has carried it out. 02:30:41
Quite well in it. 02:30:46
You know, you're, I think your city recorder has been really good about. 02:30:48
Helping people understand how it's supposed to be done. And you can continue that by educating your voters. Thank you. Thank you, 02:30:52
Nancy. 02:30:55
Brad. 02:30:59
Thank you. My name is Brad Dodd. I'm. 02:31:03
Here on behalf of ranked choice voting. 02:31:04
My goal is to keep eye contact and not see your eyes drifting over to the clock. 02:31:07
Which at this stage of the game is very understandable. 02:31:12
I could talk about this all night and you know what? Maybe we should. Maybe we should grab lunch somewhere and do that. Bring 02:31:17
whoever you want. But. 02:31:21
When you're approached by one of the more conservative members of the legislature in Mark Roberts. 02:31:27
And one of the more liberal members of legislature and Rebecca Chavez hawk. 02:31:33
And they're both united on an issue. You need to be one of two things. Terrified or excited? 02:31:37
And possibly both. 02:31:43
Anyway, they they proposed this pilot and I thought about and I thought, you know what, this seems like a good idea. 02:31:45
Ranked choice voting for me personally. 02:31:52
I like it for the simple reason that it's how I think. 02:31:55
In other words, when I look at a ballot of candidates, there's not one that's like, OK, he's great and everybody else sucks. Or 02:31:58
she. 02:32:01
They're great and everybody else sucks. That's not how I think. Usually unless, well, sometimes it is, but usually not very often. 02:32:05
But it's how I think is OK, this ones the best, this, then this one then, and then there's a couple. It's like, OK, they do suck. 02:32:12
I'm not going to rank them at all, right? 02:32:16
In other words, it fits my thinking and it's a more natural way to vote now. 02:32:20
If you want to get into the. 02:32:25
Another couple things that kind of go along with that was the first time I was elected legislature. 02:32:27
Right after elections and before they're certified, we have what's called leadership elections. 02:32:32
And obviously the Republican caucus gets together and they elect their the speaker and so forth. 02:32:37
And in that room, there was a person who had. 02:32:43
Quote UN Quote Won a seat in Salt Lake Valley. 02:32:46
Well, it turns out they actually hadn't won. 02:32:50
Because when the votes were all tallied. 02:32:52
The Libertarian had taken more votes than the gap, and the Democrat had won that seat. 02:32:55
And so the fact is that in that case, plurality I think really failed to reflect. 02:33:02
The will of the people. 02:33:08
Now, there's been a lot of talk up here about the Condorcet method, and they call it Condorcet because when I looked in Wikipedia, 02:33:09
that was the pronunciation. 02:33:13
It's a French word, who really knows, right? 02:33:17
Yeah, anyway, like I say, Wikipedia says Condorcet, but. 02:33:20
If you want to really dig into the nitty gritty, there's a website called Equal Vote. 02:33:26
Equal dot vote. You go there and they'll they'll go down the list. 02:33:32
And what that tell you is they don't like, they don't. They don't particularly like instant runoff for rank choice voting either. 02:33:36
They like their own Condor set or condorcet method Condor set. 02:33:42
Which there's a couple different methods that fit that criteria, but they're all pretty uniform on one thing. Plurality is the 02:33:47
worst. 02:33:50
Ferrari is the absolute worst method for voting because it most consistently fails to reflect. 02:33:53
The will of the people. 02:33:59
So if you're interested in trying your best to actively reflect the will of the people, which in all but. 02:34:01
Some edge cases where the will of people. 02:34:06
Fuzzy. It's going to work very well. 02:34:10
So, and I will say this, I am aware. 02:34:12
Of in my home city of Orem, at least one. 02:34:16
City Council member who no longer serving. This is years ago, but this City Council member encouraged. 02:34:20
Her followers to only vote for her. 02:34:28
And she won consistently, so for her it worked really well. 02:34:31
But does that really reflect the will of people? Or is that again gaming the system so. 02:34:35
If you want to talk about gaming the system, there's lots of different ways to game the system, but I do believe that. 02:34:39
Rank choice is less susceptible to gaming than others, and again, plurality is the worst so. 02:34:45
I would say you know what, you've tried it. 02:34:51
Your your electorate, by and large, from the polls that we've seen like it. 02:34:54
I think it is understandable. I don't think it's that difficult. 02:34:58
To mark a ballot that way, they're already used to it. 02:35:01
And I would say, you know what, stick with it. I think it works really well. Thank you. 02:35:04
Thank you. 02:35:09
So listen. 02:35:11
To my thoughts on this, unless there's any clarifying questions where we don't know something. 02:35:13
I'm going to give a 5 minute break to just go and speak to these people and say hi really quick and thank you. And then. 02:35:19
We will come back to the meeting because we all need to stand up. I have one question that we didn't talk about the to for 02:35:26
clarification sake, Mark, you might be able to answer this. 02:35:31
The Legislature. Legislature. 02:35:37
Voted to end this or they didn't renew it and so it'll go up for vote. 02:35:41
Right, next session next year. Yeah, there was a sunset closet I didn't negotiate with with. 02:35:46
Senator Bramble. 02:35:54
On the floor of the Senate, when this thing passed, it put a send sunset date on the legislation. So it did. 02:35:56
The sunset was not renewed, so this is the last year unless we. 02:36:03
Pass, you know, Yeah, we passed another law next. 02:36:08
Next cycle. OK, Thank you. 02:36:12
OK. All right. We're going to take a 5 minute break. 02:36:15
Thank you so much everybody that presented. 02:36:18
Yeah. 02:36:21
We're rolling. We're going to go ahead and get started. Please take your seats or your conversations to the hallway. 02:36:22
All right, we're going to go back to our consent item 3.3 that we pulled off Naseem is here. So Jake, you, you said you had some 02:36:29
questions on the striping services. 02:36:34
Yeah, I actually was able to go through everything on the document. I'm good. 02:36:40
Sorry I went through OK perfect because we have been here for a long time and but we love your presentation. 02:36:45
No, I. 02:36:53
Just for the record, I emailed my presentation to Pam, so if you would like to read it, this only 23 slides. It's only 23 slides. 02:36:56
Go ahead and even. 02:36:59
To all of us. 02:37:03
We all want to, I mean really incredibly stock stacked as well, so. 02:37:05
All right, let's go ahead and get a motion then. Jake, do you want to go ahead and make that motion? 02:37:10
Yeah, I make a motion to. 02:37:13
Yeah, I don't have the language. 02:37:20
To I make a motion to approve 3.3 on the consent. 02:37:23
Agenda. 02:37:27
As presented. 02:37:28
OK, we have a first by Jake. Can I get a second? 02:37:31
Second, second by Brett. I'm gonna do this by roll call, Jake. 02:37:34
Aye, Brett. Hi, Marty. Hi, Sarah. Hi. 02:37:38
All right, great. We're going to go ahead to our business items. 02:37:42
This is a public hearing for the Parks and Recreation Master Plan and Impact Fee Analysis. 02:37:45
What we're going to do is we're going to go into a public hearing and then we're going to hear the presentation and then we will 02:37:51
close the public hearing have. 02:37:55
The deliberation by the Council and then make a determination. 02:38:00
So I need a motion to go into a public hearing. 02:38:04
Marty, did you want to do that? Sobu, Marty. 02:38:10
All right, can I get a second? 02:38:13
Second Second by Sarah. 02:38:16
All in favor. 02:38:18
Aye. All right. We're now in a public hearing and I'm going to turn the time over to Parks and Recreation Director Brian Battery. 02:38:19
OK. Good evening. 02:38:43
OK. 02:38:56
So yes, we're here to present the Vineyard City Parks and Rec Master Plan. 02:38:57
Partnered with. 02:39:03
Impact fee analysis. 02:39:05
And I want to recognize Laura Smith here with CRSA. 02:39:06
Has done a lot of work on the consultant side to help get the necessary data. 02:39:11
To make this what it is. So I also want to recognize Lee Johnson, who's here with Zions Bank Public Finance, who will present. 02:39:17
After this. 02:39:27
A quick kind of rendition on. 02:39:29
The impact of your study. 02:39:31
What that looks like. 02:39:33
So, umm. 02:39:35
Let's just jump right in. 02:39:38
Laura and I will kind of tag team this but. 02:39:41
To give you a brief overview on the executive summary of what all. 02:39:44
Went into play with this Parks and Rec Master plan. 02:39:49
We really established it into five steps, so. 02:39:52
We established the goals of the project. 02:39:56
We collected. 02:40:00
Inventory of the existing amenities across the city. 02:40:03
Who owns it, whether it's Vineyard, city, HOA or state land? 02:40:07
ETC. 02:40:11
We also did an evaluation. 02:40:13
Lara and and her team did a lot on this of investigating into the National Recreation and Parks Association. 02:40:16
Metrics where they provide. 02:40:24
Recommendations based off of population and cities. 02:40:26
Based off of what population will populate. 02:40:31
Or necessitates a specific amenity. 02:40:34
From there we did a lot of needs assessment from. 02:40:39
Public outreach so. 02:40:42
We had a. 02:40:44
Survey. 02:40:46
Went out, we fired the city. 02:40:48
We had a booth at Vineyard Days last year. 02:40:50
We had, I think a couple. 02:40:53
Town halls, uh. 02:40:55
And in that we got a lot of public feedback. We had like over 1000. 02:40:56
Surveys submitted for. 02:41:00
That survey. So that was exciting. We felt like we got a lot of good feedback. 02:41:03
After addressing that, we also had staff. 02:41:08
Provide their recommendations. 02:41:13
And then we evaluated the cost of how much everything is going to cost with the recommendations and how that's going to be funded. 02:41:16
Yeah, thank you for having me tonight. 02:41:28
So one of the. 02:41:31
First things that we did with your your group was. 02:41:33
Was do some. 02:41:37
You know, some soul searching to see, you know what we're kind of the guiding principles. 02:41:39
That should should lead this effort so that we can always go back and make sure that the decisions we are making were really 02:41:43
reflecting the values of your community. 02:41:48
And what we were finding was that, you know. 02:41:52
Umm, the the sense of community and the sense of family and like creating. 02:41:56
Spaces for your growing community. 02:42:00
To grow in a healthy way and to prevent Wellness was was really key. 02:42:04
So conserving the open space that you have and the beautiful. 02:42:09
Access to the mountains and the and the lake. 02:42:14
Is something that that was very important too. So it's sort of this. 02:42:18
This umm. 02:42:21
Triad of you know, community, Wellness and and conserving your natural space as you grow. 02:42:22
And so we we all weren't together to land on. 02:42:29
You're in Parks and Rec mission statement, which is vineyards. 02:42:33
Parks and Rec mission is to foster a sense of community, promote health and Wellness. 02:42:37
Conserve the natural beauty of the nearby, creating inclusive, safe and enjoyable spaces. 02:42:42
And inspire an active lifestyle and lifelong memories. 02:42:47
OK. Getting into the inventory portion of the project. 02:42:54
We sent master plans over to our consultants to. 02:42:59
Really dive in to understand them and what open space is available. 02:43:03
So this is a list of various master plans existing in the city. 02:43:08
Just posted there on a map. 02:43:14
Yeah. And so the intent of that is we know that you guys are, you know. 02:43:18
Currently you have a lot of plans that are actually implementing. You have plans that are in place. 02:43:22
And so it's kind of an art because you have a lot. 02:43:27
Private development, then you have public open space. And so we are just really trying to inventory what are those connections 02:43:30
that are already existing with your trails in transit. Where are those opportunities for open space? 02:43:35
And how can we kind of just pair, you know, the entire picture? 02:43:41
With, you know, the feedback that we get from the community. 02:43:46
To create. 02:43:50
You know, a connected network of trails and open space that everyone can use. So that's why we went through this exercise of 02:43:51
gathering an inventory of what you have. 02:43:56
Under the lens of your. 02:44:02
Your plans? 02:44:05
So so then we went through and worked with Brian on. 02:44:08
And team to see. 02:44:12
You know where your existing city parks are, where your existing amenities are. 02:44:15
Where you have open space. 02:44:19
And where you have. 02:44:21
Potential space for future parks. 02:44:23
And this data rolls into. 02:44:26
The recommendations that we make. 02:44:29
From the NRPA. 02:44:31
By looking at the amenities that you have and looking at what you'll need. And so one of the things that we. 02:44:34
Struggled with but we we landed on a solution that we that everyone feels comfortable with was. 02:44:41
You already have some amenities that are HOA. 02:44:47
That our HOA amenities so. 02:44:51
For example, if you had a pool. 02:44:54
Umm, that is not a public poll, but building another public pool would be redundant. 02:44:58
If it's already being supplemented by this HOA, So what we chose to do is if it's an HOA amenity like a playground or a dog park. 02:45:02
We chose to give that half a point. 02:45:10
Because we know that. 02:45:13
Some of that. 02:45:15
Use will be will be used there. But again, it's not a public amenity. So wait, wait, that's how we kind of balance that. 02:45:16
Situation. I didn't, so we make our own scoring. 02:45:23
On that, I didn't know that. 02:45:27
When like when you say we gave our like. 02:45:29
So this is not the NRP 8, this is how we counted. 02:45:33
The existing amenities. So if it's a public amenity, we gave it a whole point, right? But if it's a HOA amenity, we gave it. 02:45:37
Half of a point because we know that some of your population will use that, so you might not have a need for a whole nother. 02:45:46
Tennis court, for example. But yeah, but like, isn't there a national, there's no national standard for how that is counted. 02:45:52
So it's not a law, it's not a national standard, it's just kind of a recommendation and there is no recommendation for private. 02:45:59
Facilities. 02:46:07
So it's all for public facilities is what the NRP A is. 02:46:08
So that's kind of how we took that into account because we didn't want you to have to build. 02:46:13
So what would the scoring be if we didn't count all the HOA's? We would be really bad. 02:46:18
If you don't count. 02:46:23
Not necessarily because of some of the future. 02:46:24
Future amenities that are and. 02:46:28
That are planned. 02:46:30
But you can dig through this and look at it. 02:46:32
I think both arguments have. 02:46:36
A little bit of standing ground, but I do think that a lot of the amenities within the HOA was part of a negotiation, also part of 02:46:39
some of our city's codes and requirements, so. 02:46:44
Like open space specifically? 02:46:49
So I do like that we are recognizing them. 02:46:51
But I mean, we can keep talking about it. 02:46:54
Great. 02:46:59
Just make sure. 02:47:01
Oh yeah, yeah, OK. 02:47:02
So this is just in a table format all of the parks and open spaces within the city. 02:47:04
It's organized by acreage and then we also have labeled who owns that specific area and if it qualifies for the impact fee. 02:47:10
That's what the IFU stands for, Impact Fee eligibility. 02:47:19
And then on the right hand side page it just goes through various parks and also on to the next couple pages. 02:47:23
That are used within vineyard city and what amenities are. 02:47:30
Currently existing at those specific parks. 02:47:34
The next section was in regards to land acquisition. So there's 8 areas of focus. 02:47:40
Of where Parks and Recreation can be potentially expanded. 02:47:47
Within the city. 02:47:51
So just to quickly highlight these #1 is. 02:47:52
Vineyard City owns about 1/3 of the park at Lakeside Park. 02:47:57
But due to an agreement. 02:48:02
Entered into years ago. 02:48:04
We're unable to. 02:48:06
Program at the park. 02:48:08
And, umm. 02:48:09
Orem pays for the maintenance of that park. So essentially. 02:48:11
Vineyard is not paying any costs for that park, but we have about 10 acres of land there that. 02:48:15
Would be worthwhile to revisit. 02:48:22
With Orem and the contract there to figure out an agreement of how we can utilize that space? 02:48:26
Or, uh. 02:48:31
Acquire. 02:48:33
Similar amounts of space elsewhere nearby. 02:48:35
#2. 02:48:39
This is Vineyard City owned land. It's well known as the Pumpkin Patch and Vineyard. 02:48:41
Located adjacent to Gammon Park. 02:48:47
So this is about 11 acres and is a great opportunity to easily start building. 02:48:50
Umm, parks and recommendities there. 02:48:55
#3 is privately owned land, about 10 acres. 02:48:58
An idea from Orem was that we potentially. 02:49:03
Purchase that land. 02:49:07
We sell the Lakeside property. 02:49:10
By that #3 property. 02:49:12
We put soccer fields or baseball and we then partner with Orem to recruit tournaments. 02:49:14
And due to that we could qualify for T tab grants. 02:49:21
Which actually could allow us to finance those fields with those grants. So it essentially. 02:49:25
Be costing the city any money, but we're getting those amenities that. 02:49:32
That we're looking for. 02:49:36
So not only does service the Vineyard City recreation programs, but it's also a revenue source for for renting out was. 02:49:38
Amenable to buying Lakeside. 02:49:46
Yes, in that contract. 02:49:48
Sorry, just to clarify meaning. 02:49:51
Is Oram interested in buying that land? Yeah. 02:49:54
I don't know if it states in the contract, but in our previous conversations, yes, they're very interested in that. 02:49:58
And then we could potentially buy the three acres. 02:50:05
The 10 acres or sorry, the 10? 02:50:08
Probably the most important thing. That's huge. 02:50:12
Yeah, Yep. 02:50:15
OK #4 This is also privately owned land. 02:50:19
There's about 20 acres. 02:50:22
There's potential. 02:50:25
Get that land if that's of interest. 02:50:27
#5 is the wetlands area. So just kind of having a focus on how we can. 02:50:30
You know, help enhance the beautification of that area. 02:50:36
Number six is Vineyard Beach with the Lakeshore. 02:50:40
Projects coming in that could potentially be a good opportunity to recruit that land. 02:50:44
Just so that we have more freedom to offer programs and events. 02:50:49
Kind of how we want to do them. 02:50:54
#7 is Geneva Park. 02:50:56
Established within Utah City. 02:50:59
So that would likely not be built out for, you know, 15 to 20 years, but it's good to plan ahead and. 02:51:03
You know, ensure that we can have some land on that northern side of. 02:51:09
The Vineyard connector to ensure we have. 02:51:13
As much balance across the city and park space as possible. 02:51:16
And then the eighth option is. 02:51:20
Currently the Linden Marina. 02:51:22
Which is within Linden city limits. I believe it's privately owned. 02:51:24
And run. 02:51:29
But potentially, if that's of interest, to Vineyard City. 02:51:31
That could allow us to host water sport activities and also be. 02:51:34
And added revenue source to the city. 02:51:39
OK, so we had a booth with. 02:51:45
Parks and Rec at. 02:51:48
Vineyard Days. 02:51:50
And we also, we paired that with a survey that that Brian sent out. 02:51:52
That was digital, but we asked people these questions. 02:51:58
What gets you outside? What's most valuable to you? What's your favorite natural feature? 02:52:02
All your favorite park your. 02:52:07
Favorite amenity? Why? 02:52:10
And what's missing in Vineyard? 02:52:12
And what we found was that these were the top three choices of each group. There are other. 02:52:15
Other options to you, but these were the ones that came in. 02:52:20
1st and so again, people really love your walking trails. They love the access to nature. 02:52:23
They like to go to the parks because they like to spend time with their family. 02:52:30
The splash pad is very. 02:52:35
Um, popular because. 02:52:38
You know people. 02:52:41
People like to. 02:52:42
To keep their kids entertained. 02:52:43
And then there is a lot of input on. 02:52:45
On that desire for. 02:52:49
For more amenities with the wreck and the. 02:52:51
Rec Center and Jim, I'm really impressed with the results. How many people participated? I think that alone shows how much 02:52:55
interest there is in these open spaces. 02:53:00
Yeah, and we got a lot of just. 02:53:05
Really specific feedback where people said oh, they like this and the playgrounds, but. 02:53:07
You know they don't like this in the playgrounds like they have. 02:53:11
Sufficient. 02:53:14
You know, they want to see more pickleball courts. They are excited about seeing baseball fields because those are kids. 02:53:16
Grow older, they're gonna want that kind of thing. So we got like very, you know, specific on the ground kind of feedback about 02:53:24
what people are interested in. But yeah, everyone was really excited to, to get their, their voice out there. 02:53:30
I'm saying then this again is your plan trails and say what we are doing is prioritizing where those missing links would be and so 02:53:40
where. 02:53:45
Connecting. 02:53:50
That network would be a top priority. 02:53:52
And say you can dig into this a little more, but really completing that network so that people can. 02:53:55
Access all of your open space without having to drive if they want to, you know, go for a run or, you know, ride their bike or use 02:54:02
public transportation. 02:54:06
We were trying to complete that that network of trails. 02:54:09
And then I will let you. 02:54:16
I'm going to talk about these plans. 02:54:18
This one is. 02:54:20
A little bit more added to the last one. This just includes transit as well across the city and various projects that. 02:54:22
Are in the works. 02:54:28
Now getting into the NRPA. 02:54:33
Standards. Umm. 02:54:35
So this is where Laura and her team really did a lot of research and work to identify the metrics and. 02:54:37
The standards that NRPA has, do you want to expand on that at all? Yeah, yeah. So again, this is not codified anywhere. It's just. 02:54:43
It's just a recommendation. 02:54:51
By the NRPA. 02:54:53
About you know what? 02:54:55
You know what population in your city would qualify? 02:54:56
You know, to recommend different amenities, you know, just to kind of keep up with with the national standards. 02:55:01
And so. 02:55:07
We then measured you know your current amenities to. 02:55:09
What we would recommend based on population growth, we gave it a buy of the next. In the next year, you would want to do this. In 02:55:13
the next 5 years, you would want to do this. In the next 10 years, you would want to do that. 02:55:18
And so that's kind of how we we use this national standard to to make those recommendations paired with. 02:55:24
Plans that you already have in place and paired with input that we got from the community. 02:55:31
OK. 02:55:39
So this is based off of the NRPA data that they got. 02:55:41
The table on the right page just shows with the inventory that we currently have. 02:55:46
That is the number of additional. 02:55:53
Amenities needed by the specified year according to NRPA recommendations. 02:55:56
It has the population threshold on the right column. That just explains, you know, when there's that many. 02:56:03
Residents. 02:56:09
There should be another one of those amenities built. 02:56:11
Because Vineyard is a unique. 02:56:14
Community and. 02:56:17
You know our community doesn't. 02:56:19
Has their wants and desires aren't. 02:56:21
Exactly matching this. 02:56:25
We have our own recommendations that we're providing based off of. 02:56:27
This information, their feedback, staff input and our master plans. 02:56:31
So we'll get into that here shortly. 02:56:35
But this is also something important on the left. 02:56:37
Page includes the population estimate for the next 10 years. So that's how. 02:56:41
Also, these numbers were based. Can I ask a clarifying question on the table? Yeah, when you've got population threshold on there. 02:56:48
That means I'm going to. 02:56:56
I'm going to pick the multi use basketball, volleyball, courts, indoor. 02:56:59
And it has 14,577 population and it says. 02:57:04
You need one at each of those. 02:57:09
Does that mean that? 02:57:12
Every time we get another 14,000. 02:57:15
577 people. We need another one. 02:57:18
Correct. That's it. That's what that means. 02:57:21
It doesn't mean that OK, we got to 14,577. 02:57:25
We got what's on the list now. We're done. 02:57:28
Right, exactly. 02:57:31
Yeah, good question. 02:57:33
OK, So maybe I'll expand on this one as well. So after getting that information and like I said, the public input staff input 02:57:38
master plans, this is what? 02:57:43
Recommended that Vineyard City implement. 02:57:49
So it's categorized by time frame. So in 2025 you can see what. 02:57:53
The recommended priorities are for this current year. 02:57:58
You can see it for the next 5 years, 10 years and then also 20 years. 02:58:02
All right, so then we went in to look at, you know, again, places on the map and look at where the locations are and where we 02:58:13
might. 02:58:16
You know, locate these suggested amenities and so this is a comprehensive. 02:58:21
List of what's existing. 02:58:26
The places where you will have. 02:58:29
Recommended. 02:58:32
Additional amenities. 02:58:33
And at what? 02:58:35
At what? 02:58:37
What stage? So whether it's this year, the next five years, 10 years. 02:58:39
Or 20 years and it's all color-coded so you can dive into that. 02:58:43
A little more and then we took that information. 02:58:47
And looked at these open spaces that we know are currently being looked at and planned. 02:58:50
And made recommendations. 02:58:57
Based on, you know, what would fit in these spaces and where we would locate them. So for example, in the near Grove Park. 02:59:00
We have suggested you know your pickleball courts and your mountain bike. 02:59:07
Park down on the southern side. 02:59:12
And then this on the right is the Utah City Master Plan. 02:59:17
And it shows all the amenities that are planned out for that master plan. 02:59:21
Then we have the current, you know, this land here and so we looked at the master plan that you guys have already put into the 02:59:27
works and that will cover your Ninja Warrior course in the next 5 years. 02:59:33
For pickleball courts in the next 5 years and the skate park also in the next 5 years. 02:59:41
Holdaway fields. 02:59:45
Can accommodate additional. 02:59:47
Taught lot playgrounds and pickleball courts. 02:59:50
And then Gammon Park will accommodate a rectangular field, an overlay field in the next 5 years. 02:59:53
And all abilities park by 2035. 02:59:59
Community Center. 03:00:03
On that site and then. 03:00:05
Tennis courts. 03:00:07
And then Ryan can talk about the cost analysis. 03:00:10
OK, so on this table a little bit hard to see from back here but. 03:00:15
It itemizes each amenity and what the unit cost would be, and then again it just has in each column how many of that amenity is 03:00:20
recommended for the specific time frame. 03:00:26
And then it also specifies in the furthest right column. 03:00:32
If it's needing to. 03:00:37
Be paid for by Vineyard City. 03:00:39
Or if that is a developer funded amenity. 03:00:41
Or if it is already funded. 03:00:45
And in the works to. 03:00:49
To build and then again it puts a map to. 03:00:51
To each of those. 03:00:55
Location across the city. 03:00:57
OK, so then. 03:01:02
Just to lay it out even more clear. 03:01:04
Umm, this just lists the amenities that are recommended. 03:01:08
To be built in each time frame. 03:01:12
As well as what the focus is. 03:01:15
So maybe just as an example, so the one to five year plan. 03:01:18
The focus would be get. 03:01:23
Grant acquisition and build amenities. 03:01:25
And so the recommended amenities to be built during or by the end of 20-30 would be those bolded items. 03:01:28
The source of financing. 03:01:36
For those as an example, dog park, Aquatic Center, basketball court, volleyball court. 03:01:39
And performance amphitheater are planned to be provided within Utah City at no cost of Vineyard. 03:01:45
The Tot Lot playground for ages three to five and four pickleball courts are to be provided within the Holdaway Fields development 03:01:50
at no cost of Vineyard. 03:01:55
And all the other amenities. 03:01:59
Listed aside from that would likely need funding through Vineyard City. 03:02:02
Of those that would need funding through Vineyard City. 03:02:06
The estimate is just under 5 million. 03:02:10
And then underneath that is explained how that would be paid for. 03:02:14
So it's recommended that Vineyard City obtain. 03:02:17
$500,000 through grants. 03:02:21
We actually just applied for a $500,000 grant. So if we were to get that, that already fulfills that requirement. 03:02:24
Getting $2,000,000 in T tab grants, which is going back to the potential agreement with Orem. 03:02:31
Of selling the lakeside portion and buying a 10 acre parcel nearby. 03:02:38
Using $1,000,000 from the Wrap Tax Fund. 03:02:44
$500,000 from the Parks impact fee that Lee will explain in just a little bit. 03:02:47
And then the remaining almost million from the Vineyard City Capital Projects Fund. 03:02:53
Now that's not. 03:02:58
Final I mean that can be moved around if we. 03:03:00
Make more in parks impact fees. That's less of a burden needing to come from the capital projects fund. 03:03:02
And then just total in the bottom right. 03:03:09
Corner. This goes over more of the. 03:03:12
The bigger numbers, right, So. 03:03:16
Of over the 20 years of the recommended amenities, it totals to just over 7 million. 03:03:18
And it's important to note that. 03:03:26
That does not account for the trail connection costs needing to. 03:03:29
Be had. 03:03:35
It also doesn't include unforeseen projects or repairs that are that are needed. 03:03:36
And so. 03:03:42
It's really nice to have this impact fee study done because. 03:03:43
It identifies that we need about $9 million. 03:03:47
For parks. 03:03:52
And just under. 03:03:53
I guess just over 6,000,000 for. 03:03:55
For trails. 03:03:57
In order to meet the recommended needs over. 03:03:59
The next 10 years. So in total it's about 15,000,000. 03:04:03
And I apologize, I actually have the wrong number I have in there for trails, 5.9 million, it's actually 6.1. So I'll ensure that 03:04:06
we get that fixed. 03:04:11
Before this is final, but. 03:04:17
Anyway, so the goal is to have that 15,000,000. 03:04:19
And then this next last. 03:04:23
Slide. 03:04:26
Includes our specific funding. 03:04:27
Opportunities. 03:04:31
So it's projected that by June 30th of this year. 03:04:32
We'll have about $500,000 remaining in the wrap tax fund. 03:04:36
And then our current wrap tax goes through 2029, so it's recommended that. 03:04:43
We put the wrap tax on the ballot again in 2029 for residents to vote on. 03:04:49
So that we have the potential to renew that revenue source for an additional 10 years. 03:04:56
The wrap tax revenue of 2.15 million. 03:05:03
That is considering between July 1st of this year. 03:05:08
Through uh. 03:05:12
December 31st. 03:05:13
Of 2029. 03:05:15
Sorry I lied. July 1st, 2025 through. 03:05:18
December 31st of 2035. So that's. 03:05:22
10 year period. 03:05:27
Grant money earnings projection 3 million, I've kind of already explained that a little bit about. 03:05:29
The 2 million from T tab, that would really make that more feasible. 03:05:35
But I feel like that is realistic, specifically if we get those T tab funds. 03:05:39
And then knowing all of that. 03:05:45
That essentially puts us needing about 9 point. 03:05:48
$5,000,000 in impact fee revenue. 03:05:52
In order to cover the rest of our projected cost. 03:05:56
Our recommendations. 03:06:01
With the impact fee that is about to be presented on. 03:06:03
Vineyard City can charge $3422.88 per household on new incoming development. 03:06:08
To help fund these different amenities and parks. 03:06:17
And so if we take. 03:06:21
The needed nine point. 03:06:23
5 million. 03:06:25
And divide that by the cost per household. It ends up being about 2800 new households. 03:06:26
Is all that would be needed. 03:06:33
Paying that full fee. 03:06:35
To reach that amount. 03:06:37
Correct. So Lee will explain that a little bit. Currently we just have one fee for all house types. 03:06:46
So maybe we'll just turn the time over to. 03:06:53
Right. That's for ownership of that, correct? 03:06:57
Yeah. 03:06:59
Yeah, so like. 03:07:02
Right. 03:07:05
Yeah. 03:07:13
What are the rent? Yeah, what are the rentals? 03:07:15
So maybe can we turn the time over to? 03:07:18
Yeah. I mean with this specific question, it would be a class fee. 03:07:21
Here I'll pull up your presentation as well if you want to. 03:07:27
Sounds good. 03:07:31
But with this particular issue, we see that we have the calculated impact fee of around $3400 that would be. 03:07:33
Blanket fee for all new new households. 03:07:39
Not, uh. 03:07:41
Not distinguishing between certain household types or for rental versus. 03:07:42
Home like, oh, OK. 03:07:47
Sorry, if a developer built 500 units type of a situation they would be paying 500. 03:07:49
House will even if they continue to own it. 03:07:55
Correct that. 03:07:58
Yes. 03:07:59
Thank you. 03:08:00
Yeah, you're good to go. Just hit the. 03:08:07
OK, Sounds great. Thank you. 03:08:10
I don't think you got your question. 03:08:12
All right, So thanks Brian and Laura for presenting the master plan this. 03:08:19
The impact fees and impact fee facility plans are. 03:08:23
More or less legal documents that I'm gonna be presenting to you today. 03:08:25
Are taken to account that master plan. 03:08:28
So that's how those work together. For those who don't know me, my name is Lee Johnson. I'm a science, public finance. If you're 03:08:31
familiar with who Susie Becker is, I worked with her on these impact fees. 03:08:34
And I'm excited to present the information to you today. 03:08:38
This presentation is by number means absolutely comprehensive, doesn't have every detail that will be found in the legal documents 03:08:41
that were provided the IFFP and IFA. 03:08:45
I'm more so here to. 03:08:49
Answer questions and to give you a. 03:08:51
More or less overview of what we accomplished and why we did it. 03:08:53
So one thing that I think is always good to do real quick before we get into the nitty gritty. 03:08:58
Is to talk about. 03:09:03
To define what we're talking about. 03:09:05
So I always like to ask what is an impact fee? Luckily, this slide answers that question. 03:09:07
It's a one time fee charged to new development to offset the capital costs associated with new development. 03:09:12
So when all this new development comes in, they bring people. Those people are going to use roads, they're going to call the 03:09:17
police, they're going to use water, sewer, all of that. 03:09:20
And that comes with the cost that puts more stress on the system. Impact fees are a way for new development to pay their. 03:09:24
Fair share to maintain the current levels that the city is experienced that the city is providing right now. 03:09:30
So in terms of the Parks and Recreation fee. 03:09:37
This can only cover the cost of system improvements, not project improvements. 03:09:40
So it was. 03:09:44
Touched on a little bit between, you know, HOA parks and. 03:09:45
System parks. 03:09:49
And how it's defined in the legal documents is a system park or improvement is something that benefits the whole city, not just 03:09:50
one or two developments. 03:09:54
So a little pocket park that. 03:09:58
Is in between one big one little development. There's no parking, there's just little top lot that that can't be used. 03:10:00
In the calculation of these impact fees. 03:10:06
And finally, all of this is governed by Utah Code Title 11, Chapter 36. 03:10:09
I will be using the acronym very regularly, IFFP and IFA. These are the legal documents that will. 03:10:13
Tell you step by step how we came to the these fees and these amounts. 03:10:19
So for the IFFP, the impact fee facilities plan, if it's your first time going through these documents, really what you want to 03:10:24
look for is the service levels. 03:10:27
This is how we define how the city is being serviced right now with their current inventory and how that's going to be maintained 03:10:31
throughout the future. 03:10:36
So that serves as the basis for calculating these fees. That's what you'll find in the IFFP. 03:10:40
Among it, you also find demand created by new development, impact on existing facilities by new development, new facilities needed 03:10:45
and cost. 03:10:48
And there is some overlap between the IFFP and the IFA. 03:10:51
But when you're looking at the IFA, what you want to be looking for is something that's titled the Proportionate Share Analysis. 03:10:55
This is specifically mentioned in the Utah State Code. 03:10:59
And this is more or less just saying. 03:11:03
We're taking the qualifying expenses that we can apply to new development and dividing it proportionally and equally. 03:11:06
And there's some other elements here that can be found in the impact fee analysis as well. 03:11:13
So going over all of that, a quick little crash course on impact fees. 03:11:18
This is the population projections that we have over the next 10 years taken from Mountain Land Association of Governments. The 03:11:22
study period for the impact fee analysis was from 2024 to 2034. 03:11:27
These same numbers were found in the master plan. 03:11:33
Now using these numbers, what we're going to be getting the levels of service both existing and proposed. 03:11:36
And this you can find in the IFFP. 03:11:43
So how do we identify these service levels and in this case for Parks and Recreation? 03:11:47
This is going to be identified as acres per 1000 residents. 03:11:52
For improved parks. 03:11:56
And for trails that will be miles per 1000 persons. 03:11:58
So we have a blue section and yellow section of some columns on this table. So what you'll see on the left on the blue? 03:12:02
Is when the first column. 03:12:07
In 2024 the these are the current service levels. 03:12:09
So there's 2.56. 03:12:13
Improved acres of Parkland for every thousand residents. 03:12:15
.0112. 03:12:18
Concrete trails, so on and so forth. 03:12:20
And if nothing is done, more people move into the city, no new assets are acquired. What we're going to see is that service level 03:12:22
dropping, which makes sense. More people are using the same number of facilities. 03:12:28
In the yellow columns on the right, we more or less just took those service levels and. 03:12:34
Converted them to a dollar amount. 03:12:39
And this was done by taking the entire current existing inventory in 2024. 03:12:41
Calculating how much it would cost to replace in today's dollars and dividing it by the population in Vineyard. 03:12:46
So we can see the same effect, right? More people move in if nothing is done that. 03:12:52
Cost that has been spent per person will go down. 03:12:56
So this has already been touched on by Brian. 03:13:00
The park improvements projected at around 9,000,006 million for trail improvements for total costs around 15. 03:13:04
We take all of these improvements. 03:13:10
And divide them per the number of people coming into the area. 03:13:13
And we get these numbers per capita. So for park improvements, 707, for trail improvements, 475, and for consultant costs for 03:13:16
people like me and Laura, we divide that by the anticipated growth over the next 10 years. 03:13:22
To get a total cost per capita of nearly $1200. 03:13:28
So the final step is what we were discussing a little bit earlier was how do we determine the impact fee to charge each additional 03:13:32
household coming in? 03:13:36
And what we did is we took the average household size from the 2023 ACS, American community say. 03:13:41
Survey from the US Census Bureau. 03:13:46
And multiplied that cost per capita by the average household size in vineyard. 03:13:49
Now there was a lot of discussion and. 03:13:53
I guess questions on why we're just doing 1U fee rather than discerning between different household type or? 03:13:57
Other variables. 03:14:03
And the reasoning behind that is because this is the most. 03:14:05
Transparent and verifiable source that we could find. 03:14:08
We had a meeting where we included different stakeholders and some members from the city. 03:14:12
Some representatives from the city to go over this and. 03:14:17
Make sure we were on the same page. 03:14:20
So that's why we only have one fee. 03:14:22
Now naturally when you see fees like this, you ask yourself where you are relative to peers. So. 03:14:24
Looking at this next slide. 03:14:30
This is for Parks and Recreation impact fees. 03:14:32
And all of those red bars represent a city in Utah Valley and the fees that they charge. 03:14:35
So Vineyard currently does not have a Parks and Recreation impact fee, but with implementing this impact fee, they would be right 03:14:40
under the average that is being charged in Utah Valley. 03:14:44
And all this information can be found from these individual cities, but in this case, it was collected from the Utah Valley Home 03:14:49
Builders Association, which collects that disinformation regularly. 03:14:54
So going to the next slide, when you Add all of the. 03:14:59
The fees up. 03:15:02
This might be a little. 03:15:03
Bit of a noisy graph, but the Gray bar represents just impact fees and the red bar is what developers are going to be looking at 03:15:05
when they're developing in an area. 03:15:09
Because that includes everything that they're going to be anticipated to pay. So that includes hookup fees. 03:15:13
Impact fees from special districts and other entities like that. 03:15:18
The yellow bar represents the average for the total. 03:15:22
Fees that a developer would be expected to pay. 03:15:25
So this can give you an idea of where Vineyard would stand relative to its peers. On the left you have the green bar that 03:15:28
represents where Vineyard is at right now. 03:15:31
And on the right is where it would go. 03:15:35
With this new impact fee. 03:15:38
So. 03:15:40
I know that was a lot of information that was a very quick little crash course through the IFFP and IFA, but I'm here to answer 03:15:41
any questions or just any concerns if. 03:15:45
You have any? So I just wanted to clarify my question. 03:15:50
That I had earlier specifically, and I think you already said this, but I just want to restate it so it's clear. 03:15:55
Each household would be charged. 03:16:03
For $3400 roughly, yeah. But then if a developer or if the developer is building a significant amount, a significant amenity. 03:16:06
That could go towards that amount. 03:16:16
Per household that they're building. 03:16:18
Yeah. My understanding is that they can pay in lieu of impact fees through assets or other capital improvements. Thank you. I 03:16:20
wanted that clarify. 03:16:24
Thank you. 03:16:28
Before we take questions from the Council, I'm going to ask the public. 03:16:34
Are there any questions from the public? 03:16:38
It's a lot. 03:16:45
All right, I'll let the Council deliberate a little bit and maybe that'll spur some thoughts. So I'll leave the public hearing 03:16:47
open. Go ahead. 03:16:50
Jay. 03:16:55
I get up a little bit leery when people create their own scoring. 03:16:57
But if there's no standard, I guess we have to create our own, right? 03:17:01
Why isn't there a scoring standard? 03:17:05
In the state I can't answer that question. I don't know. 03:17:07
So I do know that when we've done these fees throughout different states, we do work with the city to kind of determine what that 03:17:11
should be. 03:17:14
If everyone creates their own scoring method for doing it. 03:17:19
But it has to be defensible, legal. 03:17:22
Who's the one that's going to find out if it is defensible or not? 03:17:25
Typically it's the developers and they'll challenge it and that can the process of challenging an impact fee can be found in the 03:17:29
Utah State Code and then it'll go to court and say is this constitutional or not? 03:17:34
At that point, I actually don't know. 03:17:39
But. 03:17:42
I would imagine some sort of process that means we have a lot of leeway then if there's no. 03:17:42
Standard. Umm. 03:17:46
There's leeway, but it can be policed by people. They're paying the impact fees and right, yeah, I mean, they could come and take 03:17:47
you to court and say, yeah, this is too high or whatever. And there and there have been, you know, challenges that have been 03:17:52
successful and unsuccessful, right, from my experience sitting on these. 03:17:57
Plans across the state. 03:18:03
Typically there is. 03:18:05
A group that comes together and makes scoring. Maybe we could talk about the purpose for the scoring. 03:18:08
Just for the public. 03:18:13
So that they could understand. 03:18:15
Why we score or why that makes sense? 03:18:17
Well, I do know that when Susie and I worked on these impact fees. 03:18:21
I think that our scoring was a little bit different than what's in the master plan. 03:18:24
I don't, I don't believe we use those metrics. Those were. 03:18:29
They're kind of in different lanes, if that makes sense. OK. 03:18:33
Is that scoring different that you use primarily because of what you were saying earlier that? 03:18:38
If we have private amenities or smaller amenities that always serve a subset of the community, yeah, the argument is because they 03:18:43
only serve, you know, one or two developments, there's no parking. 03:18:48
Right the. 03:18:53
My concern is the complaint that I get a lot from residents is the heavy burden that we have on HOA's and. 03:18:55
How a TOAS do kick out? 03:19:03
The public, you know, don't allow them to use their amenities, even though they're like, hey, we're elect. 03:19:05
You can be here but. 03:19:09
Don't use any of this. 03:19:10
And they'll say, hey, do you actually live here? 03:19:12
And I worry about scoring it as half because it's like, it's really not public. 03:19:14
I mean, I get that. 03:19:19
People. 03:19:20
And visit, that's the only thing that I see that kind of jump I can see like. 03:19:21
It's there's value to it. 03:19:26
But if there's no national or state standard that says score it that way, it's like. 03:19:28
I see the complaint a lot. 03:19:33
Around the county, where Vineyard is just so heavy heavily, we're just all HOA for, you know, for the most part. 03:19:36
So I worry about that. 03:19:42
Does anyone, does anyone have any comments in the gallery? I'd love to hear Marty go ahead. Pro or against. What do you what do 03:19:44
you mean like around the county? 03:19:47
We're so heavy. HOA. Yeah, I was just curious what that means. 03:19:52
Well. 03:19:56
If you have an HOA park or whatnot, no. I mean like who's complaining about us having a lot of HOA's? Like what do you? 03:19:58
Oh, the conversations that I have. 03:20:04
Like I'm just what? Because I think that's a big statement. 03:20:07
I just was wondering what it like the context of it? When you have HOA parks it limits the ability to do public recreation in them 03:20:10
and so. 03:20:13
If you're counting them towards tax dollars or whatever they're, I mean, they're great for dog parks and different things like 03:20:18
that, but. 03:20:21
At the end of the day, they don't put on recreation. 03:20:25
Like organized recreation and so. 03:20:28
A lot of the. 03:20:31
Complaints that. 03:20:32
Are in the sporting world like soccer softball, baseball all that that type of world that makes more sense of like hey let's get 03:20:34
down to Vineyard and it's like. 03:20:38
We don't have any enough to complain. Well, I don't I don't think we have big enough HOA spaces that would actually even be able 03:20:43
to be a baseball. That's what I'm saying, like to raise funds. 03:20:48
Like this is our opportunity to set that and go, man, I wish if it wasn't scored that way, I'd really like to take that out of the 03:20:54
scoring so we could up the impact fee to get some more baseball fields is what our base soccer open fields, you know? 03:21:00
Can I offer a little legal perspective? I'm happy to go after Maria. 03:21:07
Oh, please go legal and then I'll go. 03:21:11
So I think Councilmember Holloway makes a really important point. 03:21:14
And your impact fee facility plan is you're walking a tightrope and you have to make sure that your data has some support. 03:21:18
So I believe the facilities plan. 03:21:27
And our consultants can speak up if I'm wrong, but it's written in a conservative way. 03:21:29
So that we can fully support the impact fees that we're assessing. 03:21:35
But your point about HOA amenities not being available to the public is absolutely true. Yeah. So if you're doing. 03:21:39
The math on what is our community demand? 03:21:46
For pickleball courts, Basketball courts. 03:21:49
And if you're counting the HOA amenities, they're truly not available to everybody. 03:21:52
And so. 03:21:56
I get where you're coming from. I think the reason why it is included in your impact feed facilities plan is so that you can 03:21:58
support. 03:22:02
That figure if you're challenged. 03:22:06
Because you're requiring as a threshold. 03:22:08
To development that a developer pay. 03:22:11
Into our systems. 03:22:14
And so you have to have the support for that if you were to. 03:22:17
Strip out all the HOA amenities, then I think you might have a little bit more. 03:22:20
Difficulty supporting that figure. 03:22:24
At the end of the day. 03:22:27
So what I wanted to say is I like where we're landing on the graph. So you want everyone's opinions and I'd love to hear from the 03:22:28
public. 03:22:32
But I like where we're landing on the graph when you compare us other cities. 03:22:37
In part of. 03:22:41
Why I want to be conservative in this number is I want to make sure that we're asking for enough from our developers, but I also 03:22:43
want to make sure this does add it. It's per household, right? Like these? 03:22:49
These developers pass that cost on to. 03:22:55
Our new residents. 03:22:58
And so I don't want to go too heavy. 03:23:00
I really like kind of picking that middle ground. 03:23:03
And just to help with. 03:23:06
Being able to afford to buy here, right? It's just one more. 03:23:09
Fee and we have we'll have a lot of fees as we try to grow and it makes sense and I. 03:23:12
Completely supportive of that. I just want to make sure that we're. 03:23:16
I like the idea. 03:23:19
Landing in the middle. 03:23:20
Jamie, going back to your legal explanation. 03:23:21
So. 03:23:26
Would one of their opportunities to challenge it be that they are putting in these parks that are serving the public in the HOA 03:23:27
realms even though they're not serving the greater public and so if they're paying too much? 03:23:33
And we're not conservative on it. And then we're not if we weren't accounting for those things then. 03:23:39
That would be them being able to come back and say look at what we've done for your entire community that you negotiated. Yes, 03:23:44
yes. And to put a little finer point on it, you. 03:23:49
When you're doing the legal analysis on a new development and what they provide the constitutional analysis is whether. 03:23:53
What you're demanding of a developer is roughly proportionate to the impact that they. 03:24:01
Create. 03:24:07
And it also has to have a direct relationship to their development. So those are for the development specific amenities. 03:24:08
And then when you look at impact fees, you also have to look at. 03:24:16
Proportionality, but that's really the math of the underlying study. 03:24:20
And the documents that you're considering today? 03:24:25
And then what they're paying into for that are not the amenities that they bring forward, but this the systems. 03:24:28
Systems is a word that lends itself better when you're talking about. 03:24:37
Sewer and water. 03:24:41
And transportation. 03:24:42
It's a little bit harder sometimes to understand with parks, but. 03:24:44
We still consider any of the park amenities that would serve the broader. 03:24:48
Community, not just a specific development to be your park system. 03:24:52
Thank you. 03:24:57
All right. Any, any other thoughts from the public as we keep going? 03:24:58
Just raise your hand when you I have one clarifying question. So this pot of money. 03:25:03
That we raise even though we score half a point for HOA. 03:25:08
The money can't then be used to build an HOA. It would only be for public parks right? Just to be clear. 03:25:12
Correct. It has to be spent on things in your. 03:25:19
In your plan document. 03:25:22
And so we write the plan document to. 03:25:24
Right to have expansive language right So that if you decide. 03:25:27
In three years that you need more tennis courts than pickleball courts. But they listed the HOA's in the document. That's why I 03:25:31
was scared. It's like they're the HOA's are used to. 03:25:35
To determine what your needs are in your community. 03:25:40
And they factored that in but. 03:25:44
You cannot use impact fees for. 03:25:45
Non public. 03:25:48
Amenities. 03:25:50
And HOA amenities are by definition non public. 03:25:51
You also have a limitation on the amount of time. 03:25:56
You can hold the impact fees, you have to spend them within six years. 03:25:59
On systems that are included in your documents. 03:26:03
That's meaningful, OK. 03:26:09
Any other questions from the Council? 03:26:10
Any questions from the public? 03:26:13
Karen, come on up. 03:26:17
You've got to come to the microphone. 03:26:19
Thank you. 03:26:24
I'm just trying to get my name and everything. 03:26:30
Yeah. 03:26:33
We're in Cornelius Vineyard. 03:26:34
I'm just curious about Marty's question, being concerned that that's a high amount for each. 03:26:36
New residence. 03:26:42
No, I'm not concerned that it's a high amount. I just want a balance. I want a reasonable number. I'm curious then, could we cut? 03:26:43
Then what we're offering so that the. 03:26:50
So that the balance is there because it seems like monetarily. 03:26:53
We can't have everything and cut 2. 03:26:57
So. 03:27:01
Well, I mean, I've. 03:27:02
I want to understand your question better, but from my understanding. 03:27:04
We have a list of everything we need and then we made a number. So if we want to increase that number, then we would add things 03:27:08
that we want to add to the list. But if we cut it, if we cut the list down, then we could cut the impact fee down. 03:27:14
So what is your goal here? Well, I just would hate to see us. 03:27:21
Keep everything that's on the list and cut the impact fee. Yeah, OK. That. I was just curious if that's what you were suggesting. 03:27:25
No, no. 03:27:29
I, I guess I'm, I guess what I'm trying to say is I like the plan as a whole so far. I feel like we're balanced. OK, that wasn't 03:27:34
my question. Thanks. Thank you. 03:27:38
I do have a question as we take a vote on this, if we vote on it today. 03:27:45
For the little corrections here and there like some of the. 03:27:51
Things Brian noted. 03:27:54
Do we need to? Would we need to? 03:27:56
Yeah, we'll put in a stipulation for it. OK. I had one question, Brian. Did we figure out my my neighborhood's green space? 03:27:58
Thing it's listed as an HOA, but I think it's actually public property. Just to know, yes. Yep, and that is included in the. 03:28:06
Oh, in the new one, I think I have this is the newer one. OK, cool. Yeah, thanks. 03:28:14
So and one note that I would. 03:28:18
Want to propose to before this is voted on is. 03:28:20
In the IFA and IFFP documents. 03:28:24
It lists a number of amenities. 03:28:27
That the. 03:28:32
Impact fee revenues can go towards. 03:28:34
And the list that's in there actually doesn't fully match what's in the. 03:28:37
Recommendations for the Parson McMaster plan? So I would just. 03:28:42
Recommend that we. 03:28:45
Have that updated in the IFA and IFFP documents so that we are covering our bases to. 03:28:48
To build those amenities with. 03:28:55
That revenue as well. 03:28:57
So in short, we would need to update the list of amenities that the impact fees could pay for. 03:28:59
Correct. 03:29:07
IFA and IFFP. 03:29:10
FA and IF. 03:29:12
FP update The list of is that. 03:29:14
Yeah, and a simpler way to phrase it could be to take the list of amenities from the park plan. 03:29:18
And include it in the Impact V documents. 03:29:24
No. 03:29:29
I might need help on that one again. 03:29:31
OK. 03:29:34
OK, any questions from the Council? 03:29:46
Any feelings, thoughts on this plan from the public? 03:29:50
As you've watched it and heard about it. 03:29:53
This is your time and your moment. 03:29:56
All right, I'm gonna. 03:30:00
David is are you coming? Come on up. 03:30:01
I wouldn't want you to miss out on this opportunity. 03:30:04
Sorry I will slow tonight. 03:30:17
Thanks again. Let me. 03:30:20
So my question about this is we pointed out that it would. 03:30:22
You know, that's a very large fee to tack on each new household. 03:30:25
And it would be a burden. 03:30:29
Is there? 03:30:32
How much of this would any of this be retroactive to the people who are already here? 03:30:34
Are we going to increase this at all anywhere else? No, you're not allowed to apply retroactively. I was pretty sure if I want to 03:30:38
confirm that. 03:30:41
So this is all just new growth. 03:30:44
And we have new growth coming in. 03:30:46
All the way fields and a few other places were almost. 03:30:49
Built out in the housing areas. 03:30:51
Houses apply to apartments. 03:30:53
And in Utah City, for example. 03:30:55
It's a great question. 03:30:57
Who wants to answer it? 03:30:59
Yeah, as far as I'm aware it would be the same so. 03:31:04
We have this set impact fee with the analysis, it allows for credits to take place right. So if Utah City is providing an excess 03:31:07
number of amenities for the public to utilize. 03:31:13
We can reduce this fee. 03:31:20
Some of that new growth that comes in. 03:31:23
So I think that's important to note. 03:31:26
But there are explain that part a little bit more to me, they can reduce their fee. 03:31:28
Yes, let's answer David's question then jump there. 03:31:33
Answer your question. All housing units are counted. 03:31:36
It doesn't discriminate. 03:31:42
Against rental or owner occupied. 03:31:43
The impact on the city's facilities is the same for a housing unit. 03:31:46
The the individual that pays for it is not the person that buys the home, it's the. 03:31:51
Developer that constructs them. 03:31:57
Right. Who then passes it on to the person who sells it to if you can. 03:32:00
That's usually what happens, right? 03:32:04
So will this be assessed by per apartment? 03:32:05
Or just for the larger building. 03:32:10
How would you make that differential door? 03:32:12
Per door. 03:32:14
Per household. 03:32:15
OK, so everyone's apartments would pay that. 03:32:17
You know that they would. The developer would pay that 3 grand or so for each apartment. 03:32:19
They don't get a building permit until they pay them. 03:32:23
Essentially, Thank you. 03:32:26
Brian, can you come back and explain how they can lower it? 03:32:28
Yes, so. 03:32:33
Just to go off of that. So let's say there's an apartment building that comes in. 03:32:35
That has 100. 03:32:40
Households within that apartment complex. 03:32:42
Take that 342288 times that by 100. That's the cost that the developer would have to pay. 03:32:45
Before they can build those units. 03:32:51
If that developer is providing green space for that specific complex or has recreation type amenities being offered. 03:32:53
Then that developer has the opportunity to get a credit, meaning they get some of this. 03:33:03
Impact fee amount reduced how much? 03:33:10
Or where is it? Can you show me? The city would have to approve it. It's a slightly different, Brian has the idea right. It's just 03:33:13
slightly different in application. 03:33:18
If they're providing green space, that's required by the zone. 03:33:23
For the benefit of that particular development. 03:33:27
That would not be eligible for an impact fee, credit or offset. 03:33:30
Can you show me where that word? 03:33:35
Oh, it's in your, it's not going to be in the plan. It's in your overall ordinance. 03:33:38
Oh, it's in the overall ordinance and in the Impact Fees Act. 03:33:41
That would allow you to do it. 03:33:45
If they with the development are contributing. 03:33:47
Park to your park system. So if they're. 03:33:50
A large scale park that would. 03:33:56
Benefit the entire community. 03:33:58
Then you could take the value of that. 03:34:00
And that construction? 03:34:03
Approve an impact fee. 03:34:06
Essentially a credit, OK, can I, can I do something really quick? Were there any other questions from the public? 03:34:08
Not at this time can we go out of a public hearing. 03:34:17
So moved. 03:34:19
1st from Marty, can I get a second, second, second from Brett? All in favor, aye aye. 03:34:22
All right, continue. 03:34:27
So I just want to restate what I think I heard. 03:34:29
And use a real example that's happening right now even though. 03:34:33
This hasn't passed and so you know whatever may not apply immediately. 03:34:37
The apartment buildings that are that are going up. 03:34:42
They have courtyards in them that could be considered. 03:34:45
Park or green or what you know, they're amenities. 03:34:50
But they are only available to the residents of those buildings. 03:34:54
That would not count towards reducing their fee. 03:34:58
But if flagship is building, say the promenade. 03:35:02
That has massive amounts of green space in it. 03:35:06
That would count. 03:35:09
That's correct. 03:35:10
I have a request from the council I many of you may be ready to vote on this. Something just came into my mind that I think I need 03:35:12
to work through. 03:35:16
And I would love to continue this to the next regularly scheduled meeting. 03:35:20
If that works. 03:35:25
You can continue to deliberate and go through it, but. 03:35:26
Well, one thought, one question I had, and I actually agree with you, Mayor. I think it would be better for us to push it. 03:35:29
If yeah, yeah. 03:35:36
But. 03:35:38
One thought I had is. 03:35:39
I don't want to get too specific but like if someone's already. 03:35:42
Got their building permits. 03:35:46
They and they're building some of these parks already. They're already in agreement. 03:35:49
Would that be retroactive? 03:35:54
You know what I mean, Jamie. 03:35:57
Like. 03:35:59
I'm building. 03:36:00
I'm building units right now, and I'm building all of this space for those units. 03:36:02
I'm not paying impact fees. 03:36:06
Now I have another group of buildings. 03:36:08
I almost feel like we could. 03:36:10
Yeah, I almost feel like we could negotiate that to an extent. 03:36:13
Per but they already got the permits so. 03:36:18
I'm saying yeah, they already have the permits and they already have. 03:36:21
The the green space plan. So it's almost like I wouldn't want to retroactively count all of that green space necessarily, like, 03:36:24
right. Yeah, I mean. 03:36:28
Consideration. 03:36:32
Yeah, like that green space was negotiated with the density and all the different the entire plan that it was. He did say that if 03:36:33
it's a part of our codes and zoning that that would be that wouldn't count anyway. 03:36:39
That like, yeah, I think it's something to take into account for sure as we're going through it all. 03:36:45
Yeah. 03:36:50
All right. Do you guys have any more discussion for tonight? Otherwise can can I get a motion to continue to the next regularly 03:36:53
scheduled meeting? 03:36:57
OK. OK. Just to the next meeting. I moved to push this to the next schedule, just say to the next meeting, to the next meeting. 03:37:03
Actually to the next regularly scheduled meeting. 03:37:12
Yeah. Do you mind her face? I don't. I don't know if I like. 03:37:16
I think what Pam's saying is you, there's no public hearing involved, so you can just continue it. Let's just continue. And then 03:37:20
when you create the agenda, you put it where you want. 03:37:24
I just want to know timing wise, I will clarify. I am just continuing this. All right, first by Marty, can I get a second? 03:37:28
2nd thank you for doing that, I appreciate. 03:37:36
That any other discussion before we take a vote. 03:37:39
All in favor, aye? 03:37:42
All right. Does that mean that we need to continue the public hearing? 03:37:44
There's still stuff on there if you want to do those or. 03:37:50
So when we make that motion, we would take that stuff off. 03:37:53
And then we would have to re. 03:37:57
Notice. OK, that's what I was wondering if we had to do that. 03:38:01
For the you're talking about the consolidated. It depends what edits you want to make. You've already held the public hearing, so 03:38:05
you're. 03:38:09
You can now make changes to it still. 03:38:13
Oh no, I mean for 9.2. 03:38:15
Because I think they're slightly attached, you would need to continue that. 03:38:19
Fully or or have Pam re notice the hearing either one OK or we'll read notice. OK, Maria, did you want to come up and we'll go 03:38:23
through that. 03:38:27
Council, I need a motion to go into a public hearing for the consolidated fee schedule amendment, Resolution 25. 03:38:31
2025 Dash 11. 03:38:37
So moved. Thank you, Sarah. Can I get a second? 03:38:41
Second, second by Brett, all in favor. All right, Maria, you're on. 03:38:44
OK, so. 03:38:49
Starting off, we're going to be on Page 3. 03:38:51
This kind of going to continue to page 4. 03:38:53
A lot of the things that we're just changing is just to clarify on whether the fees for. 03:38:56
Recreation are individuals or teams. 03:39:01
So you kind of go through those. 03:39:04
For the public, can you? 03:39:07
State them, yeah. 03:39:09
So for adult pickleball, it was $50. That's for teams. 03:39:11
We have adult tennis clinic that's for individuals. 03:39:16
The CUDA tennis is individual. 03:39:20
Esports is individual. 03:39:23
The race T-shirts. That's individual. 03:39:26
Senior program is individual. 03:39:28
Sports trivia and fantasy classes individual. Peewee sports clinic is individual. 03:39:33
Youth Arts Individual. 03:39:38
Youth baseball clinic individual. Youth basketball clinic individual. 03:39:40
Youth coach Pitch individual Youth Street Hockey League individual. 03:39:44
Use Pickleball League individual. 03:39:49
Youth flag football individual Youth Junior jazz basketball individual Youth kickball individual. 03:39:52
Use machine pitch individual. 03:39:58
Youth soccer programs individual. 03:40:01
Use t-ball individual. 03:40:03
Youth tennis clinic individual. 03:40:05
Youth. Ultimate frisbee individual. 03:40:08
Youth volleyball individual and youth wrestling is individual. 03:40:10
All right, for the public do. 03:40:15
Any of you have the agenda before you? Can you pass that to the audience? It's just the numbers that you just stated for 03:40:17
individual and pass it out so that they can see what the individual numbers are. 03:40:21
Thank you. 03:40:27
All right. 03:40:30
And then on page 6. 03:40:32
We are just removing the replacement can at no fault fee. 03:40:35
That is just because usually if there isn't a fault it's if it's normal wear and tear. 03:40:38
We just get that replaced. 03:40:44
So there wouldn't be a cost to that. 03:40:46
And then the next one will be on. 03:40:53
Page 12. 03:40:57
We are adding an address change request as well as an Adu secondary address request that will be 150. 03:41:00
But that will not include the additional physical mailbox charge. 03:41:07
That will be charged to the property owners by USPS. 03:41:11
And then that should be it just because the last one was the parks impact fee that will be moved to the next one. 03:41:16
All right. So we would just are there any questions from the public? 03:41:22
Not at this time. 03:41:27
OK, so just for the public, what we're talking about right now is taking the. 03:41:29
Parks and Recreation facilities be off, and then everything else would remain. 03:41:34
You don't have any questions? 03:41:38
All right. Can I get a motion to close the public hearing? 03:41:39
So moved. Great. Thank you. Marty. Can I get a second? 03:41:43
2nd, thank you, Brett. All right, all in favor, aye. 03:41:46
All right. We need a motion unless there's any questions. 03:41:50
I move to approve the consolidated fee schedule amendment, Resolution 20 to 2025, Dash 11. 03:41:54
With the exception of the Parks and Recreation facilities. 03:42:02
On page 15 can I get a second? 03:42:08
Second, any discussion? 03:42:10
All right, we'll do it by resolution, I mean by roll call, Sarah. 03:42:13
Hi, Marty. Hi, I, Brett. Aye. 03:42:16
Jake. All right. 03:42:19
Thank you. 03:42:21
I believe that means this meeting is adjourned. 03:42:22
Did I miss anything? 03:42:25
All right. Thank you. Have a good night. I thought we had reports. 03:42:26
Oh, yes, we do. I'm sorry, Jake. This meeting is not adjourned. 03:42:29
I moved that on the agenda. 03:42:32
Anybody. 03:42:34
Yes, we're back. We're back in business. Jake, let's start with you. 03:42:36
OK, I want to be as nice as I can, but I want to have a public conversation about these two items. 03:42:41
Which two items? 03:42:47
Just my issue in getting the general Ledger and having a CPA. 03:42:49
Umm, I. 03:42:55
Yes you can. 03:42:56
Take care of my son. Yes, please. 03:42:59
All right, go ahead, Jake. 03:43:02
You know, last year having a CPA helped me was wonderful. 03:43:03
It put the whole world together. 03:43:08
In terms of financial, I have a guy named Keith. 03:43:11
I know I found a lot of things that I disagreed with last year. 03:43:15
And I made my voice very. 03:43:19
Public about him. 03:43:22
And you know, in working with the state auditor to be able to get the Ledger last year, I thought the standard was pretty clear. 03:43:24
About that ability to do it. 03:43:31
To have a CPA. 03:43:34
Thank you. I know the Council last year was very clear about. 03:43:36
From the state auditor was to make sure. 03:43:40
In coming years, there wouldn't be. 03:43:43
Minor private information in the Ledger because they even said that. Why would there be names? 03:43:45
They should put it in a way that it would be easier to share. 03:43:52
Coming back this year. 03:43:56
You know, I was really. 03:43:58
I was really disappointed. 03:43:59
That and I there was number public. 03:44:01
Vote from this Council about. 03:44:04
Why I wouldn't be given a? 03:44:06
CPA or the ability to go through and do that. 03:44:09
And so when I got the e-mail. 03:44:13
You know, I did e-mail back Christy and I just said. 03:44:15
You know, hey, I feel this is needed. 03:44:20
It gives me some depth. 03:44:23
Also, to give context, I always am sent rumors or different things about happenings in the city that I have oversight over. 03:44:24
Some of them are true. 03:44:31
Some of them. 03:44:33
But sometimes when they're financial, you have to go and. 03:44:34
Look at the Ledger and grab somebody that it is. 03:44:37
So when? 03:44:40
When I got the e-mail from Christy and she said that they had spoken with Seth. 03:44:42
At the state auditor's office, Seth is the same one that sent me the letter. I didn't choose Seth. 03:44:47
I just said, who told you that? 03:44:52
So I wanted to add context to that. 03:44:55
And. 03:44:58
When I. 03:45:00
Emailed set back. 03:45:01
All I did is provide. 03:45:02
Christie's letter directly to Seth and to Nora. 03:45:04
And within 30 minutes, they both said that's not true, that's not what we said. 03:45:08
And so I said, well. 03:45:13
And I just said I'm just getting a CPA. 03:45:16
The CPA's. 03:45:19
We can talk about the data publicly. We didn't say we would. 03:45:20
Make miners names. 03:45:24
Or. 03:45:26
Citizens names public, but we would make the spend, we could talk about it the the spending publicly. 03:45:27
To be able to have that. 03:45:34
And then? 03:45:37
From that there there came a lot of questions, obviously because they read the e-mail and I know the city staff were. 03:45:38
Contacted by them and said hey, this was mischaracterized, we didn't say that. 03:45:45
You know, and so that was. 03:45:49
A struggle for me. 03:45:52
And then? 03:45:54
You know I'm going to stop you just for a second. 03:45:56
I appreciate. 03:46:00
The outline of the journey that you're going through. 03:46:01
Since this. 03:46:05
Discussion really ended in. 03:46:06
You hearing one thing and staff hearing one thing and the meeting being called that everybody needed to be in the same room. I 03:46:10
don't think it's appropriate at this time for anybody to be saying what was and what wasn't said when we have all agreed, Jake, 03:46:16
hold on one second, when we have all agreed to go to a meeting. 03:46:22
To clarify the outcomes of those phone calls and those emails, I was actually going to say the same thing. I think that the 03:46:29
meeting is the best thing possible because Jake, if you're allowed certain things and there's a misunderstanding and the auditor 03:46:36
and staff and you are all in the same room, I just do that then and then report back after because what's happening right now is 03:46:43
that I believe people are being mischaracterized and I think there's a misunderstanding and that is really clear. 03:46:50
In the e-mail that said let's all get on the same page. 03:46:56
And so right now I don't feel. 03:47:00
Like this representation is clear, there's not an outcome that we can state. And so when we go to that meeting. 03:47:03
And we have that meeting, then we can bring it to the public. Then there's something that can be brought forward. It's digestible, 03:47:12
it can be presented to the public, It'll be transparent. 03:47:16
But right now? 03:47:20
It is your interpretation on something versus another person's interpretation on something, and that is why we have to set this 03:47:21
meeting for clarity. 03:47:25
Well, yeah, and that's why I wanted to clear the air tonight, was that. 03:47:29
In the last meeting it was. 03:47:33
Who is this Seth? Is he a real person? And I thought. 03:47:35
OK. For point of clarity. For point of clarity, nobody said who is this person? Well, we don't know. Nobody said who, nobody said 03:47:38
who is this person for point of clarity. And This is why this is not ready for public consumption because. 03:47:45
Well, and let's clarify. 03:47:52
What happened was. 03:47:54
The city received a draft, an e-mail that was water stamped draft. 03:47:56
Nobody said is this a real person. Not once was that stated in fact, you were given the contact. 03:48:01
By the city. 03:48:08
And when we presented it, we said. 03:48:09
It's an unofficial document because it has a water stamp of draft on it and that is why we went and asked for clarity because we 03:48:12
need to understand it. 03:48:16
And that is why we also agreed to also in a meeting and make sure that we were on the same page for clarity. But So what you're 03:48:21
doing. 03:48:24
Is you are making. 03:48:28
You are stating things and making accusations against something that there is no clarity on. 03:48:30
And you're telling not Yeah, there is, because there is no clarity. You just said that. We said we didn't know who Seth was, and 03:48:36
we were pretending he wasn't. There was an insinuation. There was no insinuation this Seth is. There was no insinuation of that. 03:48:41
That is your interpretation of words. 03:48:46
And This is why we need to sit down in a room and have this discussed. OK, now moving on though. 03:48:51
There was number city vote from last year getting a CPA. 03:48:56
Let me let me tell you what did happen though to change in a policy actually for no public vote to change. I'm going to talk 03:49:01
about, I'm going to turn the time over to Jamie. Jamie, I think at this point it would be good maybe to. 03:49:08
To talk about right but if Brett's not voting to allow it and there's no vote, who is making the decision OK actually hold on no, 03:49:14
not not for a second I the reason why I want this stated for your. 03:49:21
For what? 03:49:27
Happened. 03:49:29
As a background is because, and. I don't even know if this discussion outlines it, but. 03:49:30
The reason why is because we had multiple discussions. 03:49:36
On. 03:49:40
Creating a financial committee. 03:49:41
That allowed you to work with people and allowed the city to work with people. 03:49:44
On review. 03:49:49
We talked about as a council. 03:49:50
About how one individual council person cannot deputize or train somebody. 03:49:53
As a deputy, as deputizing. 03:49:59
And give them documentation that is not public. 03:50:01
And we talked about how what we could do is formalize the committee, at which point you had mentioned. 03:50:05
This has no bearing on what it actually does have bearing, because it doesn't. Because there was number vote taken on that. You 03:50:10
guys didn't vote. It's not about a vote. 03:50:15
I just a point of clarification. 03:50:21
We don't have to vote on everything. Not everything is a legislative order. So you guys just vote just hey, so how do how do we 03:50:23
get this letter to 100% sure what we're talking about? I do know what we're talking about. So let me finish. Let me finish. Help 03:50:29
me with the no, it's not a it's not about, it's not about that. What you're not understanding is this. You can have as much 03:50:34
advice. 03:50:39
As possible. 03:50:45
For things that are. 03:50:46
To the public and then you can work in with. 03:50:49
Your hired experts. 03:50:51
And the people that have been put on that committee. 03:50:55
And the reason why this is important is because. 03:50:58
You had wanted to create a committee where you could get this advice. 03:51:01
We as a Council. 03:51:06
Had uh. 03:51:08
An agenda item. 03:51:09
Where we welcomed that conversation to formalize. 03:51:10
A committee and bring people to the table that people felt comfortable with. 03:51:15
It was clarified to you that every felt, everybody felt, really. 03:51:20
Good about supporting that opportunity. 03:51:23
In that meeting you said you weren't interested in that, and yeah, I wanted a citizen committee, not a committee of the staff. 03:51:26
And I understand that it's not that you you had, it is not. 03:51:33
It is not a changing of the subject because the point is. 03:51:37
What you want to do? 03:51:42
Is hand documents over to people? 03:51:44
In a way that. 03:51:46
Does not. 03:51:47
That that is. 03:51:50
Has protected information on completely not true a point of order? 03:51:51
That's not a point of order, Jake. I'm in the middle of discussing the actual order on the table. 03:51:55
There, that's not a point of order. The the idea of what we're saying is whether or not whether or not you agree with grammar law. 03:52:01
The grammar law, It does exist. 03:52:10
And the reason why we're having this discussion and why we wanted to get on the same page before this all came together is to say 03:52:13
if there is something. 03:52:17
The auditor feels we should be doing. 03:52:21
That we are a letter that we are not doing. 03:52:24
Let's go ahead and meet on it. Clarify your interpretation of that letter. 03:52:27
And the interpretation that's being read, We're all going to sit in the same room, get on the same page so that there aren't these 03:52:32
back and forth of accusations, but that there's actual reality. 03:52:37
That we can publish for the people and the council to make the decisions because if you need, Jake. 03:52:43
If the auditor says we need to be giving them something, you something that the city is not doing. 03:52:50
We need to make that right. 03:52:56
And if the auditor explains something and you're not understanding it? 03:52:59
Then we need you to understand it, and so we're all going to sit in the same room and make sure that you get exactly what you need 03:53:04
and the city is in compliance with the law. 03:53:08
That is our only goal. 03:53:12
Mayor, there was number public vote to change the policy to have a CPA and yet somehow the policy is shifted and I can't use this. 03:53:15
There is no policy that shifted. 03:53:21
You can. OK, You can keep talking over that, but we need to address it. Jamie, can you please address what he's talking about with 03:53:28
the deputization of a CPA in order to get protected documents? 03:53:33
When he says the law has shifted, can you clarify for us what what that means? It was last year. There's no change. You just said 03:53:38
the law has shifted, that you guys have changed the policy. 03:53:44
Internally saying, Jake, you can't share it with the CPU. We didn't change that policy. 03:53:49
So you have no problem with me? We have the same standard that we had last year and. 03:53:55
And Jamies gonna clarify it, so wait. 03:54:01
I can frame the issues as I understand them and then. 03:54:04
I think the. 03:54:07
The everybody weighing in on it really ought to happen together with this representative from the auditor's office. 03:54:10
On a portion of it. 03:54:16
There there have been multiple requests for. 03:54:18
The general Ledger. 03:54:23
Overtime. 03:54:25
I know that copies of the Ledger have been provided to you. I've been in meetings when it's been handed to you. 03:54:26
The instructions when you've received the document are that. 03:54:33
As a council member and as a city officer and an elected official, you have every right to review the the Ledger, the full Ledger, 03:54:38
everything that's in it. 03:54:41
We have to balance. 03:54:46
Your ability to provide that kind of oversight and to. 03:54:49
View the Ledger with. 03:54:52
Our obligations under records laws not to disclose publicly. 03:54:54
Information that would be classified as private and protected. 03:54:59
Without getting into why they're there or whether they should be there, I think that's maybe something we can talk about with the 03:55:03
auditor. 03:55:06
Our Ledger does have information that our records officer believes to be private or protected, correct the. 03:55:10
The few cat there I wouldn't call them really. 03:55:17
Important. Or really, no, They're tiny. 03:55:20
They're small expenditures, right? There are things like youth council and library books. 03:55:23
Right. Well, I don't think their library funds, I think their utility, utility fines. 03:55:29
And there's a lot of line items that fall into that, but it screws out the number, yeah. 03:55:33
They have names associated with them and so. 03:55:37
The instruction when you've got the Ledger is. 03:55:40
You're entitled to review it. You're entitled to have the whole thing. 03:55:44
You just can't. 03:55:48
You can't put it on Facebook, you can't share it with the citizen that's not an employee or an officer of the city. 03:55:49
So. 03:55:55
There are. 03:55:57
And Christy will correct me if I misstate this, but there are two reports that the city routinely files with the state you're 03:55:58
required to. 03:56:02
The Polaris system that the city uses to. 03:56:06
To keep its Ledger is the same system cities across the state use, correct, and it has a built-in feature. 03:56:09
Where in the system Christie keeps the Ledger? 03:56:16
And then the state required public reports that contain every line item expense but they. 03:56:19
Don't have some of this private or protected information in it. 03:56:26
Correct. Is a feature of the system where she. 03:56:30
Basically hits publish. 03:56:33
And then quarterly, it sends a revenue and expense report to the state transparency website. 03:56:35
And then there's an employee compensation report that's submitted annually that has that information. 03:56:40
What I understand from Christie is that with the exception of some of this. 03:56:46
Private or protected information, that is. 03:56:51
I would say small dollar amounts and individual names. 03:56:54
The revenue and expense report provides the full snapshot of the city's. 03:56:58
Revenue and expenses. 03:57:04
And is available to anybody that wants to see it. 03:57:06
You, I know, have asked not just for a paper copy of the Ledger, but also like an Excel file export from the system. And again, 03:57:09
I'm not accusing anyone of any. Hold on, let's let Jamie keep going. Unless you're clarifying. 03:57:16
And you're entitled to that individually. 03:57:24
The instruction is just you. You can't. 03:57:26
Right. Publicly or share it with somebody who's not an employer officer of the city, because then we lose control of that data. 03:57:29
And we have that risk. 03:57:36
So as far as next steps, I know you reached out to the auditor's office and Christy has had some conversation with the auditor's 03:57:40
office. 03:57:44
They have a. 03:57:48
The local government portion of the auditor's office, I think this is where it's Seth Elvis and works. Yeah. And one of his roles 03:57:49
is to provide guidance on. 03:57:54
Financial Bookkeeping. 03:58:00
Things like that and what the auditor's office would look at if they were to perform an audit. 03:58:02
To help give us some instruction on what information can be shared in what context. 03:58:08
And in the back and forth with Seth, I know that a draft. 03:58:13
Document was shared, it's watermark draft. We weren't sure exactly what the status of that was. 03:58:18
I sent a letter to him asking to have a meeting and to. 03:58:24
Understand what that document is. Make sure he gets whatever information he needs. 03:58:29
He sent an e-mail I know to you saying. 03:58:33
I don't want to provide you more guidance or information until we meet with the full group. 03:58:37
And we're in the process of scheduling that. 03:58:42
I sent to you. It's not a doodle poll, but it's the same thing. 03:58:45
And I think we've heard back from just about everybody. If you can mark your availability, we can get that meeting scheduled. 03:58:48
You had wanted to hold it before. 03:58:55
The meeting today and in fairness to you. 03:58:57
I have a litigation schedule, the next little bit that's making that difficult to hold the meeting this week, but I think next 03:58:59
week. 03:59:03
We have a few days where people are available, so we need to hold the meeting with the auditor. 03:59:07
As far as we know right now. 03:59:11
The city still has that obligation under grandma. 03:59:14
I would love to get cess input on. 03:59:17
What we do with that information, with those names? 03:59:19
But right now, I'm not comfortable having that information public. I think people who. 03:59:23
Are inadvertently laid on the utility bill. Wouldn't want their names floating out there. 03:59:28
So. 03:59:32
And then we just want to clarify and then a quick clarification on authority. 03:59:33
Is anyone council member can't. 03:59:38
You know, tap somebody on the shoulder with a sword and say I deputize you too. 03:59:41
So that's where I got clarification. 03:59:47
The liability of the individual that you select. We called Nora's office and went through that training and David was on the call 03:59:50
and we figured out how to do it. 03:59:54
They have the same professional licensing requirements. 03:59:58
Had Chris Brown, well, even walk us through as to why? 04:00:01
And that's where the difference is. And I don't mind going, well, I want to discuss that with the auditor's office, right. And I 04:00:04
don't mind you. But The thing is, is that. 04:00:08
It's this song and dance and and and. 04:00:12
It's not a song and dance. We have a very collaborative meeting. 04:00:16
Jointly scheduled. 04:00:20
To make sure that you get what you need. And we, we are. 04:00:22
As a city and I would say as a full council. 04:00:26
Committed to that. 04:00:29
So there is no there is no back and forth. 04:00:31
There, there. This conversation does not need to be had. We are on your side with getting you the information. Devil's advocate 04:00:34
here, Jake. 04:00:38
You call it a song and dance, but this right here feels like a show. Can we just let you have the meeting where you guys all 04:00:41
figure it out so that we're not keeping here? I know, but you're having this meeting you're going to. 04:00:46
It hasn't. It has not. It has not been a month in the way that you're stating it. It has been very collaborative. 04:00:53
You had an initial request on the 19th. 04:00:59
That you were immediately sent information on the 22nd and the 24th. It was then you asked once it was told that this could not be 04:01:02
shared with the public. You asked for a redaction on the 24th of February. 04:01:08
Then there was a question about that with the auditor. You disagreed with the e-mail and requested for the auditors contact on the 04:01:15
26th. 04:01:18
There was a letter that there was saying it's been a month. No, but what you're saying is it's been a month as if people have been 04:01:22
ignoring you. 04:01:25
Immediately you received your initial request, then you asked for the redaction, then they made sure that they did it right. Then 04:01:29
you disagreed with it and said you wanted to share it publicly. Then they felt like they couldn't and they gave you what you 04:01:33
needed and you didn't like. It's not a block. 04:01:38
Then you changed your request from a current year and two year prior to an 8 year on the 13th right? Then you rejected the 04:01:42
transparency Gov because you wanted it different but you want to share it with the public who? 04:01:48
What you're saying is that you feel like you went and got somebody trained. 04:01:54
And that you feel like your authority extended to making it so people could see private protected documents. And we're saying if 04:01:58
that's the case, that's twisted. You just said you met with the auditor who trained your CPA. And if that is the case, that allows 04:02:03
them. 04:02:07
The editor walked through the steps for them to be able to professionally. 04:02:12
Deal with the documents and treat them in a private protected way and what could be shared publicly and what could not be shared 04:02:17
publicly, which is wonderful. CPA's already know how to do this. We still have to we Jamie just clarified with you that we have an 04:02:23
obligation to share those things with the elected officials and the officers and that we have to protect private protected 04:02:29
information. So if you feel. 04:02:34
That your conversation with the auditor. 04:02:40
Allows for anybody that goes through that training. 04:02:42
We must clarify it. 04:02:45
All along the way, almost every other day, collaboratively working together to say we've got to get this to you. 04:02:48
Immediately set the request. Then you asked for in a specific way that you wanted to see it so you could share it with who you 04:02:56
wanted to. Now you're having an interpretation of it that's not true. I mean, do I do I need to do a point of order on everything? 04:03:01
I have it. We can read through the emails that explain it Point of order. 04:03:06
Is to return to the business item. 04:03:11
We are on the business item correct of. 04:03:13
Point of clarity, go ahead, clarity. But I'm telling you the emails that you have this you, you had an initial request. 04:03:18
On the 19th you received the documentation. 04:03:25
On the 22nd and the 24th, you asked for a redaction on the 24th Point of clarity, Sure. 04:03:29
Asked for a CPA and said no you can't get it on the 26th. 04:03:36
On the 26th let's see e-mail we were advised against sharing the general Ledger for various. No, we can't This is very important 04:03:40
Marty and I think this is important because I mean I've read all the emails so we just we really want the public to know about 04:03:45
this argument you guys are having. We just yeah no, no Jake, I guess this is This is why I feel like it's important Marty and if 04:03:51
you want to call this to. 04:03:56
If you want to close the meeting because it's past 10:00, I totally get that on all respective, but This is why I feel like it's 04:04:02
important. 04:04:05
You guys are always telling me that we need to be able to explain this transparently for the people. Right now this is. 04:04:08
Out in the public and people feel like we are not working in good faith and hiding and not being transparent with our legal 04:04:15
document. I just feel like as soon as you guys have that meeting with the auditor, we're going to have all the answers. No, I 04:04:21
agree with you. Right now it's like we want to argue about how we haven't had the answers. Why can't we just move forward? 04:04:27
Move on, get this meeting with the auditor and then we can come together and say, hey, Julie was wrong here and Jake was wrong 04:04:33
here and staff was wrong here and the auditor miscommunicated and then we're done. But it's like this song and dance for both 04:04:38
like. 04:04:42
It's like we're doing a song and dance right here, is what I'm saying. 04:04:47
And let me tell you why I don't think so. I am reading a timeline. 04:04:51
Hold on, timeline is helpful. I need you to listen. 04:04:56
I'm reading a timeline of where he says he's waited for a month for our staff. 04:04:58
Who have not worked well with him. 04:05:04
This is a big problem. 04:05:06
Next, I've already said that we have a collaborative meeting where we want to work together. Point of clarity, he's I'm in the 04:05:08
middle of talking. You need to wait, then you need to stop. You need to stop. 04:05:14
Then. 04:05:22
We are in the middle of saying something where he is say stating that we are violating the law. And to your point. 04:05:23
I'm returning back those things to this conversation. So in in this conversation where you say. 04:05:31
I guess what I'm trying to say is there's no back and forth where there's not an interpretation being handed from you, me or 04:05:38
anybody else. My whole point in stating this for the public is so that they understand we are doing what you are hoping will 04:05:44
happen. 04:05:49
And collaboratively. 04:05:55
It protects our staff, it protects the transparency of the community, it protects the council. 04:05:57
And these conversations come up. 04:06:02
Frequently. 04:06:04
And so if. 04:06:05
If we want to be clear, we need to state it. 04:06:07
And we have an opportunity where we just. 04:06:10
We just kind of talked about it and Jamie gave the background. So if you. 04:06:13
If you guys don't want to. 04:06:16
And I don't know, I guess if we don't feel like we need any more clarity, we can call it, but I feel like it was important because 04:06:18
that is the only way that we can stop these conversations. 04:06:24
And work together and come together as a community. 04:06:30
From my perspective, I don't, I don't think we're going to get to any kind of resolutions. Yeah, I won't belabor the point. Do you 04:06:34
guys have any council reports, Marty or Brett? 04:06:39
Sorry, Jake, I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting because it's late. Please submit your report and then we can do it in that 04:06:47
council meeting. I literally can I get a second vote? Jake would like me to call for a vote. 04:06:52
Honestly, I. 04:06:58
I just want to know the topic of what you want to say and then I'm going to and actually I don't need a second vote. 04:07:00
Are you guys all gonna vote against me to keep the meeting open? That's what the vote is. Just for the clarity of it. I'm Jake. I 04:07:08
would rather talk about this later when I actually can process. I don't do well after 10:00. Awesome. We're adjourned. 04:07:14
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All right, today is March 26th. 00:00:04
And we have a technical issue, so just give us one more second. 00:00:07
Are we ready? 00:00:13
All right, today is March 26th. 00:00:14
2025, the time is 6:00 and we're going to go ahead and start our Vineyard City Council meeting. 00:00:17
We'll start out with an invocation in the pledge allegiance by City Council member. 00:00:23
Brett Clausen. 00:00:28
Our Father in heaven, we're grateful that we can. 00:00:33
Gathered together as a as. 00:00:36
Community to discuss the business of our city, and we ask that we can. 00:00:38
Be respectful and mindful in that we can discuss the things that we need to and come to the resolutions that we need to. 00:00:45
And this we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 00:00:53
All the rise. 00:00:59
I pledge allegiance to the flag. 00:01:04
Of the United States. 00:01:07
And to the Republic for which it stands. 00:01:09
One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:01:12
All right, we now have time for public comment. This is a time to come and address the Council for things that are not on the 00:01:20
agenda. 00:01:23
Please come up to the podium. 00:01:27
Speaking of the microphone, state your name where you're from and we are excited to hear from you. 00:01:29
Can you give me a raise of hands of how many people think they might make public comment? 00:01:35
123. 00:01:40
Anybody else? 00:01:43
Four. All right. 00:01:45
Go ahead. 00:01:47
They'll put a 2 minute timer on. 00:01:49
Hopefully we'll have enough time because we only have four people, so come on up. 00:01:51
All right, I am Arianne Mix and I live in Bridgeport. 00:01:59
I actually attended the special meeting that was. 00:02:03
Called specifically to address parking needs in Vineyard. 00:02:07
And I just haven't seen any changes. 00:02:11
My husband sent an e-mail that wasn't responded to. 00:02:15
There is. 00:02:19
The people across the street from me, there are four single women. 00:02:21
And a family living in one home. 00:02:25
None of whom are related to each other and that is something that is seen throughout our neighborhood. 00:02:28
Which results in. 00:02:34
You know, you can imagine we have narrow streets and there are a lot of cars and. 00:02:35
I just worry about the safety and also it's inconvenient. 00:02:39
And then the second thing I wanted to bring up. 00:02:43
Was. 00:02:46
The uh. 00:02:47
Dog poop that is everywhere. 00:02:48
I'm wondering about if there's something that a plan in place or something to address the issue because I know that it's something 00:02:51
that I've heard a lot of people talking about. 00:02:55
When I'm on my runs on the trail in the morning to go down to the lake. 00:02:59
I can't look away from the trail for too long because. 00:03:03
I might step in poop. 00:03:07
And so that is just really sad. 00:03:09
Anyway, so those are the two things that I wanted to bring up. Thank you. 00:03:12
Before you go, I just wanted to let you know that your e-mail did make it over to code of our code enforcement. 00:03:15
At your husband's e-mail and it is being processed right now. 00:03:21
If you could put your name on the list. If you didn't. 00:03:25
We will also. Oh, you did OK. 00:03:27
They'll follow up with you as well. So all right, perfect. They're working out a plan for your area. So it's a little bit bigger 00:03:30
than that would be so great. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. 00:03:33
Your name that says something. 00:03:39
Bridgeport. 00:03:41
Yeah, something. 00:03:44
Hi my name is Oops. 00:03:51
Tip it over. 00:03:53
My name is Emily Larson and I. 00:03:54
I'm concerned about parking and rentals as well. 00:03:58
My best friend is actually moving because of the parking and the rental issues. She has an across the street neighbor. 00:04:01
And a next door neighbor that have six or seven men who are not related all living there. 00:04:08
She has reached out to the sitting multiple times and been shut down and she was told by the owner who does not live in the house. 00:04:13
That the city called and was telling him ways to get around it. And so I'm just really concerned. I've lived in Bridgeport for 7 00:04:21
1/2 years and I want to stay in Vineyard forever. 00:04:26
But I I want my kids to be growing up with kids around them and I want to be able to have them. 00:04:32
Be safe as they're walking and crossing the streets, but there's so many cars that. 00:04:38
It is concerning. And so I would have a quick question for you. Do you mind for clarity? For clarity, you're looking for removal 00:04:41
of parking or less parking like permits, right? Uh-huh. I would like permits and I also like 7 cars and some of these men have two 00:04:47
cars, a truck and a car and so. 00:04:53
There's nowhere for them to park these. The landlord is not providing parking. You know they can. So we're looking at you're 00:04:59
addressing overoccupancy, but this isn't a short term rental, it's over occupancy. Yeah, overoccupancy in the two that I'm 00:05:05
referencing and the one that Arianne was, is also long term with too many people living there. 00:05:12
Did you leave your name and number as well? I did. OK. Will you put a little note next years that you're looking at over occupancy 00:05:19
and yes, removal? Yes. Thanks, Emily. Yep, that's it. Thank you. 00:05:24
Daria Evansville's residence sounds like we need to get those business licenses for the rentals. 00:05:35
Going umm. 00:05:42
I just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. 00:05:44
It was. It's great. 00:05:48
First off, I want to say it's great to have those sun shades going up, especially since we've had some really nice weather today 00:05:50
and this week. 00:05:53
I also like to thank Maria Ortega Cash. 00:05:56
OK. 00:06:01
Naseem Gandauer and Sarah Cameron for attending our community meeting. 00:06:03
It was a lot of questions were answered, so that was good. 00:06:07
I do have some questions about the agenda items that were not addressed. 00:06:11
And I would like to pose those questions to you now. 00:06:15
The first one is about the road striping proposal. 00:06:18
The bid is 58,960 eight 916 dollars. 00:06:21
How much will traffic control, sweeping and layout of the roadways add to the cost of this project? 00:06:26
The Vineyard sewer repair will begin on March 31st. How much of Main Street? 00:06:33
Will be impacted? What sections? 00:06:39
And I believe it's probably a PVC pipe. 00:06:42
And I'd like to know. 00:06:46
How come? 00:06:47
This PVC pipe has deteriorated so quickly. 00:06:48
Since PVC pipe has a lifespan exceeding clay pipe, which is 50 to 60 years. 00:06:52
And I'd like to know. 00:06:58
Why it is deteriorating now? 00:07:01
Also the third that. 00:07:04
Municipal wastewater planning program. 00:07:07
I'd like to know where our sewer funds are maintained and in what fund. 00:07:10
When will a repair and replacement sinking fund be established and how much are we going to put in it? 00:07:16
How much is anticipated that WE Vineyard will need in reserve funds for the next 10 years and the next 20 years? 00:07:23
And why do we not maintain a plan of operations? 00:07:30
And why have we not updated our capital facilities plan within the last five years? 00:07:34
It was last updated in 2017. 00:07:39
And it seems that we are lacking emergency and safety plans for our sewer systems. 00:07:45
Are there plans coming this year for emergency response and safety? 00:07:50
And why hasn't a CCAP, a System Evaluation and Capacity Assurance Plan been completed? 00:07:55
And when? 00:08:02
Say that again. 00:08:08
What is the anticipated? 00:08:09
Grade lift #2. 00:08:11
Those were all in the M. 00:08:14
The MMWP. 00:08:17
Part of our agenda tonight. 00:08:19
And lastly. 00:08:21
I was disappointed. 00:08:24
On Saturday May 20, March 22nd, 25 about our Community Fair. 00:08:26
Held at Freedom Preparatory Academy. 00:08:31
I arrived at 11:20 AM. 00:08:33
And everything the vendors displays were already dismantled and removed. 00:08:36
The community fair was scheduled from 9:00 AM to 12:00 noon. 00:08:41
I felt this displayed a lack of commitment to the community. 00:08:47
It should have remained until the scheduled end time. 00:08:51
Who knows if someone else showed up after me and found the doors locked. 00:08:54
It was disappointing and disheartening. Thank you. 00:08:58
Thank you, Daria. 00:09:04
You're welcome. 00:09:05
Good evening, Karen Cornelius. 00:09:15
Villas. 00:09:17
I have a question about public safety and. 00:09:19
At our HOA meeting that we had such great attendance from the city leaders to. 00:09:22
Share with us the things that are going on in our city. 00:09:28
Sarah shared that the tax increase that we experienced last year. 00:09:31
Was 100% the vineyard. 00:09:36
The amount going to Vineyard City. 00:09:40
Was 100% going to public safety. 00:09:42
And I think that's wonderful because we need our public safety. 00:09:45
But my question to you is. 00:09:49
Within three months, I would imagine we are going to fill those units. 00:09:52
That have been being built in Utah City. 00:09:57
Which will obviously increase the population of Vineyard by a lot. 00:10:00
And they're not done yet, so. 00:10:06
About a year ago, I talked to Marty at length on the phone about a public safety impact plan because I asked about public safety 00:10:08
impact fees. 00:10:12
And she let me know that we had to have a plan in place. 00:10:16
And that helped me to understand why we were not charging them at that time. 00:10:20
And then in July of that year. 00:10:24
There was an article. 00:10:27
Voices of mayors in Utah City where? 00:10:29
Mayor Fulmer shared that a public safety impact fee. 00:10:32
Was a high priority for this fiscal year. 00:10:36
And when I asked Chance about. 00:10:39
Cash about that at our HOA meeting. 00:10:41
He told me it had not been begun. 00:10:44
So my question to you is. 00:10:46
Will there be any public safety impact fees charged before? 00:10:49
Occupancy takes place. 00:10:54
Over in. 00:10:57
Utah City. 00:10:58
Because we know that that's going to increase our public safety needs. 00:10:59
And if that doesn't happen, you know that our taxes will be increased again. 00:11:03
So that's my concern. Thank you. 00:11:08
Thank you, Karen. 00:11:12
Any other comments? 00:11:13
OK. 00:11:16
Did you have a comment? 00:11:21
Terry Ewing. 00:11:25
Phyllis Resident. 00:11:26
Since the City Hall has now been rebranded and expanded. 00:11:28
Into a Civic Center. 00:11:32
Can you clarify why? And was this change influenced by funding considerations, particularly the potential use of RDA funds? 00:11:34
If so, how does that impact the overall strategy? 00:11:43
And the financial strategy for the project, I'm sorry, say that last part. 00:11:47
I missed the funding portion of your question. 00:11:51
How does this change from a Civic Center to? 00:11:55
Or to a Civic Center? How does it change the funding? 00:11:58
That will be available for this I know we're talking about. 00:12:02
Bonds. But does this change from a City Hall to a Civic Center? Make RDA funds available? 00:12:05
All right. Thank you. 00:12:15
And what's the impact? 00:12:17
All right, any other comments? 00:12:21
David. 00:12:22
Thanks for the opportunity to. 00:12:35
To address you. 00:12:37
My question is to do with the RDA funding. 00:12:38
That's being applied to the. 00:12:42
Civic Center so far. 00:12:44
I understand. I've been given to understand that is $1,000,000. 00:12:46
Has been is being allocated towards the planning and there's two more million besides that reserve that have been earmarked for 00:12:50
that process. 00:12:54
I'm just wondering, will that list setter be funded? 00:12:57
Almost exclusively by RDA monies. 00:13:00
What? What proportion of? 00:13:03
30 Our portion, whatever our portion is of the 33 million or whatever it is going to be. 00:13:05
Will come from RDA monies. 00:13:10
And how do we and what's the justification for that? I'm just curious what? 00:13:12
What? What? How are we defending that when people ask about it? 00:13:16
So those are my. 00:13:20
Thank you. 00:13:22
All right, any other comments? 00:13:23
All right. If not, I'm going to go ahead and closeout the public comments. I'll take time to answer a few of them. 00:13:26
Daria, it looks like your questions pertain to some of our consent agenda items. So Council, you'll have an opportunity to pull 00:13:30
those off so we can get some answers. 00:13:34
For you there. 00:13:38
Let's see. 00:13:41
Umm, I believe the RFA is in a big process, so we have a lot of requests for. 00:13:44
What is it called? Proposals are peace. 00:13:51
Request for proposals that have been going through SO. 00:13:53
Cash might not be working on the one for public safety, but it is in movement right now. 00:13:58
And so we'll see that come forward. So you don't need to worry about that. 00:14:03
And then branding expansion. 00:14:06
Of the city center. 00:14:09
So since the beginning of our negotiations and goals for creating an opportunity that provides space for both our city and other 00:14:12
entities that are joining with us. 00:14:17
We've been planning this for the last two years with them. 00:14:23
Now, why do you feel like it expanded? That's the question. It would be because the name. 00:14:26
They named it. 00:14:32
And so something we were just referring my time zone. No, just kidding. 00:14:33
Something we were referring to as our space, we gave a name and so that's why it feels like it expanded. But it's actually always 00:14:36
been this way. And David, your question was, are we spending? 00:14:43
Of the funding for building this center on with RDA dollars and it will not be with RDA dollars. 00:14:49
So that is the answer. 00:14:56
We'll go ahead and move on to consent items. There were a few that came up in Daria's list. I don't know if you guys want to pull 00:14:58
those off. She talked about the striping. 00:15:02
She talked about. 00:15:06
I would say probably 3.33 point 5 and 3.6. 00:15:07
Does that seem? 00:15:11
All right, Devin is here. 00:15:13
So I don't know if you guys write Yeah, just. 00:15:16
Pointing out Devon, Devon is brand new in this position, but he has some of the. 00:15:22
The answers that were. 00:15:27
Questioned and Nasim will be here shortly and anything else we could defer to Naseem. So I'm going to have you come up to the 00:15:29
microphone and put you on the spot. 00:15:33
Yeah, we will. 00:15:38
But I need to ask the Council, are you OK with us pulling 3.33 point 5 and 3.6 off? 00:15:41
OK, then I just need a motion for three-point 13.2. 00:15:47
3 point. 00:15:52
4/4. 00:15:53
I move to approve consent items 3.13 point 2 and 3.4. OK I have a first by Marty. Can I get a second? 00:15:55
2nd. 00:16:03
Second by Sarah, any comments? 00:16:04
You seem to have one jade. 00:16:08
Yeah. 00:16:09
I don't think it's drinking water. I think it's sewer water line. We are taking that one off. 00:16:16
OK, all in favor. 00:16:21
This is done by resolution. 00:16:23
So, umm. 00:16:25
Jake, aye. 00:16:26
Brett, aye, aye, Marty, Sarah, aye. All right, we'll go ahead and start with striping. 00:16:30
Actually, can you answer questions on striping as well? 00:16:37
OK. We'll start with. 00:16:41
3.5 which is the. 00:16:43
Contract approval for the Main St. sewer Line repair Resolution 2025, Dash 10. 00:16:46
OK. 00:16:52
Did you guys have questions Otherwise, Daria, I'm going to have you come and repeat. 00:16:54
What you said and you'll share a microphone. 00:16:57
With seven. 00:17:00
And then Devin will stand next to you and answer. 00:17:01
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to ask these pertinent questions. My first question about this. 00:17:06
Sewer repair is. 00:17:12
How much of Main Street will be impacted? 00:17:14
Is it straight from Zinfandel Drive all the way up to the connector 800 N? 00:17:16
Or is it just sections? 00:17:21
So it's going to be 600 N. 00:17:23
To the to the connector on Main Street. 00:17:27
The contractors are trying to. 00:17:34
I mean, that's the area affected they are going to. 00:17:36
Do traffic control to keep. 00:17:40
Some flow. 00:17:42
Going there might be a little bit of detour because it will take out. 00:17:43
That intersection during a part of it. 00:17:47
So does that mean it's going to go through the villas? The traffic is gonna go through the villas. 00:17:50
That it shouldn't. 00:17:54
OK, because that's good. 00:17:57
600. 00:17:59
600 N is quite the thoroughfare. 00:18:00
From the preserves. 00:18:03
And Lakefront. 00:18:04
And if we're not getting through to Main Street there, they're going to go down through the Villas or third W to 4th North and 00:18:06
then up. 00:18:09
It's been good, OK. 00:18:13
Thank you. We would make them go down 3rd West. 00:18:15
Make them go down 3rd West. 00:18:18
Thank you. OK. And my next question? 00:18:20
Why is that pipe deteriorating so quickly? 00:18:25
Can you make sure you're speaking into the microphone a little bit more, Daria? 00:18:30
Sorry, the pipe set is being deteriorated and it's only 18 years old because it was installed at 2007, correct? 00:18:33
So what we got going on with the pipe is. 00:18:44
It's settled a little bit, so it's laying flat. So what it's doing is it's the sewers. 00:18:48
Kind of starting to backfill up into it. 00:18:54
So. 00:18:57
We don't know the main reason why it settled, but that roads really settled big time right there too. 00:18:58
So there's going to be a little bit of investigation during this project. 00:19:04
Like I said, we don't know if it has. 00:19:08
If it's the sewer that's caused the road to settle, or if it's. 00:19:10
What Rd. is it? 00:19:15
What's that? What Rd. are we talking about? 00:19:16
It's it's Main Street between 6 N. 00:19:17
And the connector, is it just on the east side of the road? 00:19:21
Is it just northbound or is it both? Like how much are we? So they will repair the road because of settling on both but they will 00:19:25
not close the whole thing down all at once. 00:19:31
And the expectation is not that the PVC pipe has deteriorated, rather that. 00:19:37
The material the the media below it has compacted and it's allowed that pipe to to lower a little bit and create that flat spot on 00:19:42
the road. 00:19:47
OK, that's. 00:19:52
That's good. Thank you. You're talking about the rush to put that? 00:19:54
Fill in wasn't compacted, yeah. 00:19:58
There's a lot of those layer areas of how quick it was done. 00:20:01
OK. Can he answer my other Is that is that under warranty? It's not under warranty. 00:20:05
18 years later. 00:20:10
Will you be able to answer my wastewater questions or is that someone else then? Yeah. OK. So that is for 3.5 Council. Are there 00:20:14
any other questions on 3.5? 00:20:19
3.5. 00:20:28
The sewer line, yes. 00:20:30
Let me look through my notes. OK Pam, I was planning on bundling these, but do you need me to prove them after we finish 00:20:34
discussion on them? 00:20:37
Put them all in OK. 00:20:44
All right. 00:20:45
Hold for just a minute. 00:20:48
Now I don't have any questions. 00:21:04
OK, 3.6, we're going to move on to that discussion. 00:21:05
This is at the adoption of the 2024 municipal wastewater planning program, the MWPP, which Daria mentioned earlier. 00:21:09
Survey Resolution 2025-12. Daria, go ahead. 00:21:18
Make sure you're talking into the microphone. 00:21:22
All right. Where are our sewer funds maintained? What fund is it? 00:21:24
Christy. 00:21:30
Can you give her a microphone? 00:21:33
Fund 52 is an enterprise fund just for the wastewater. 00:21:35
52 Enterprise Fund, OK, Thank you. 00:21:39
OK. 00:21:44
When will? 00:21:46
When will a repair and replacement sinking fund be established and how much are we going to put in it? 00:21:47
Oh, I wish the scene was here for that question. 00:21:59
I'm not 100% on that. Well, get back to you with that one. 00:22:01
Do you have? 00:22:05
I would just point out that we're we're completing our. 00:22:06
Our wastewater master plan. 00:22:09
And that would be definitely a consideration within that plan and I'll make sure that it's not there that it is. 00:22:12
That that is considered. 00:22:19
As part of the plan. 00:22:21
OK. How much? 00:22:23
How much is anticipated that WE Vineyard will need to reserve funds for the next 10 and 20 years? 00:22:27
On the wastewater, you're saying? 00:22:34
So that also will be part of the study that we're. 00:22:37
That we're doing so. 00:22:41
Why do we not maintain a plan of operations? 00:22:43
So we do have. 00:22:48
In our budget proposal this year. 00:22:51
Going forward to. 00:22:54
Do one of those. 00:22:57
OK. So that would be the 2526 fiscal year, is that correct? 00:22:59
This is going here. 00:23:04
26 OK. 00:23:08
Why have we not updated our capital facilities plan within the last five years? It was last updated in 2017. 00:23:10
Man, you're really putting me on the spot. 00:23:23
I said that. 00:23:26
That is a another part of our budget proposal is getting some of these. 00:23:28
Contracted out to get them updated. 00:23:33
Are there plans coming this year for emergency response and safety? 00:23:42
System safety sewer systems. 00:23:47
Are there plans coming this year for emergency response and safety because we are lacking safety plans and emergency. 00:23:53
Response plans now. 00:24:01
Just just to clarify, are you referring to? 00:24:03
Safety plans associated with our sewer or safety plans associated with Emergency Management. 00:24:06
So I'm asking why we do not have that yet? 00:24:19
I would say that it is not a have or have not question. We have SCADA systems in place to monitor our sewer systems. 00:24:23
There may have been a lacking. 00:24:30
Element of that that is being incorporated through this master planning effort that that revises our plans going forward. Yeah, I 00:24:32
feel like that's an important aspect of many of the questions that happen here. We we do have so many of these things, but this 00:24:38
request is going out and these discussions are moving forward to. 00:24:44
Improve the plans that we do have and update the plans that we do have because they were working up until the years that we've 00:24:51
been going and now we're saying, hey, we need to improve upon them. 00:24:56
2024 This was the. 00:25:02
Survey of 2024, right? 00:25:04
So. 00:25:07
When will we have the C cap? 00:25:09
Plan completed. 00:25:12
The system evaluation capacity assurance plan. 00:25:15
So. 00:25:20
Once again. 00:25:22
These are just all part of the plan. So this. 00:25:24
Maybe this will help. 00:25:26
Explain a little bit with this. 00:25:27
2024 Survey. 00:25:30
So what it is is it's a. 00:25:32
It's a state. 00:25:35
Send out survey. 00:25:36
And what they do is I. 00:25:38
Kind of try to focus. 00:25:41
Municipalities and. 00:25:43
Where they're at and some of the things that they might need to improve on. 00:25:45
So it's just kind of kind of set where we're at. 00:25:49
And, and I just, I want to expand on that. I think it's important for all of us to know. 00:25:52
This is kind of how. 00:25:57
All plans work within the within the city and you're going to have to pay attention to this as we put in our master plans. We 00:25:59
can't do everything at once. 00:26:03
And we assess and reassess and get audited to show where we need to grow and how we need to phase in. And so we do these surveys 00:26:07
to show, OK, next step in the phase. 00:26:13
Is this incremental step? 00:26:18
And that's what you're talking about when we say that's. 00:26:20
How we're adding on to it, yes, and and one thing with the state with especially water and sewer. 00:26:23
As they're always coming up with. 00:26:29
New requirements. 00:26:31
That that, you know, they're putting on us. So. 00:26:34
It really. 00:26:38
It's really hard to. 00:26:40
Do everything at once. 00:26:41
This is why we're trying to budget for it and get help is they're so expensive. It's a bunch of new stuff coming on. 00:26:43
And so we're just trying to do. 00:26:50
The best that we can as far as. 00:26:53
Umm, getting. 00:26:56
People on board like. 00:27:00
Sorry, contracts to help us get these up to date. 00:27:02
Then one last question. 00:27:06
What is the anticipated cost to upgrade lift #2? 00:27:07
So right now. 00:27:14
We've had, we've got 3. 00:27:16
Engineers that's looking at that, getting us some costs we don't have. 00:27:18
Those costs back to us yet? 00:27:23
I'm trying to think, do you remember when it closes? 00:27:26
Oh, where is lift #2? 00:27:29
Left #2 is over by the. 00:27:33
The public works department so. 00:27:35
Left #2 is the last lift station before it goes to TSSD. 00:27:37
So it's we just put that in like 4 or five years ago. 00:27:43
No, no, that would been lift #3. 00:27:46
OK, sorry. Yeah. So we have 850,000 budgeted for that. 00:27:49
That next year, for next year's budget. 00:27:54
860,000 total. 00:27:58
For everything that needs to. 00:27:59
We have eight $850,000 budgeted for Lift Station 2 upgrades. 00:28:01
OK. We don't know what that bids come in at, but that's what we got. 00:28:06
All right. Thank you. 00:28:10
Thank you very much. OK, Any other questions from the Council on Item 3.6? 00:28:11
My my question is on both of those and I know we were talking both about. 00:28:17
Water and wastewater. 00:28:22
On wastewater, we only have .9 months left in the fund when it's recommended to be sick. 3:00 to 6:00 right? 00:28:24
And also with the water fund. 00:28:32
We instead of being three to six, we're at 1.3 as well with those. 00:28:35
With that problem on. 00:28:40
The water issue. 00:28:42
Is that going to draw that fund lower or do we is that? 00:28:44
Emergency fix. 00:28:48
Is that where that money's gonna will drop even lower than that? 00:28:50
Take this off. 00:28:53
The emergency fix on, he's talking about an operational reserve and would you be able to use saved money on this and would it draw 00:28:54
down on saved funding and then would it take away from whatever operational reserve we're trying to maintain? 00:29:02
As a department. 00:29:11
Can you guys respond to that or do you have any, do you have any comments on that? 00:29:12
And so often when we have projects come up that require additional funding, we are taking down our fund balance. 00:29:18
But that's not always, you know. Some years you could save some, in other years you have to spend what you saved. 00:29:27
Right. I don't have an exact is that is that problem and the shutdown of the road going to be taking from? 00:29:32
The water Fund. 00:29:39
That'd be the waste or the wastewater. Wastewater. Yeah, that would. So right now we've got. 00:29:40
400 Five 100,000. 00:29:44
I mean I'm probably a month old on this so I don't have it your live data. 00:29:48
OK. So I don't, I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers. 00:29:54
But just as an example, we had 2.8 million. 00:29:57
In the wastewater fund at the beginning of fiscal year 25. 00:30:00
Correct. Yeah, at the beginning of the year, but we're clear the end. 00:30:04
Right. But we've had money come in. I don't have it. We are currently working on figuring out a cash flow analysis. I've got Zach. 00:30:08
Our treasurer working on that, right. I don't have that that I can quote the numbers on currently. I'm just doing the math based 00:30:14
off of how many months that have gone through the years. So that's how I'm getting that 400,000 number of like roughly that's 00:30:19
where we would, we'd be if we were month to month. 00:30:23
But is that where the money will be coming from on the on the when that road breaks? 00:30:29
That the money was budgeted for, for that repair, OK, Yeah, it we have money planned set aside as part of our budget for that. OK. 00:30:35
It's not an additional requirement. That's why I was wondering if it was an additional funding requirement, we would have to come 00:30:40
to you as a council. 00:30:45
And request a budget amendment. 00:30:50
Sorry, I didn't understand the question. Yeah, I was like, is this break gonna be? Yeah, I'm like we're we're really low on that. 00:30:52
The issue with the road has we've been aware of this for over a year. 00:30:56
And so at last year's budget, it was budgeted in to take care of this road issue. So it it doesn't dive into the reserve or 00:31:01
anything like that. It's just planned into the budget. 00:31:06
OK. Any other questions? 00:31:13
All right, that leaves us to let's see 3.3 with the striping services contract. 00:31:19
I don't see Naseem and Devin is not going to answer our questions here. Eric, will you be answering the questions? 00:31:25
Remind me what the question was? Daria, did you have a question on striping? 00:31:34
Council, did you have any questions or? 00:31:38
Can I reserve the time for Daria? 00:31:41
OK, Daria, come up to the microphone please. 00:31:44
OK, the road striping the bid is $58,916. 00:31:57
I would like to know how much traffic control, sweeping and layout of roadways will add to the cost of this project. 00:32:03
Because that's not included. 00:32:12
In the bid. 00:32:14
Yeah, Rd. Rd. maintenance, sweeping and so forth has is, is a separate line item in our budget under transportation and so that 00:32:15
won't have any additional fee associated with. 00:32:21
The striping project itself, it's right. 00:32:26
So how much will that cost though? How much will the traffic control, the sweeping and the layout? 00:32:29
Cost. So Daria, since it doesn't have anything to do with this current request, what I'm going to do is reserve time for you guys 00:32:35
to talk offline about that question. OK, OK, thank you so much. If there are no other questions from the Council, I need a motion 00:32:41
to approve 3.33 point 5 and 3.6. 00:32:47
Don't be shy. 00:32:55
I move to approve. 00:32:57
3.3. 00:33:01
I move to approve 3.33 point 5 and 3.6. 00:33:02
Consent items as presented. 00:33:07
Excellent. Can I get a second? 00:33:09
Second. All right. Thank you. First by Sarah, second by Brett. 00:33:11
I'm going to go ahead and call for a roll call, Sarah. 00:33:15
Jake, did you have something that you would rather talk about the striping services because I'm a little bit concerned about the 00:33:19
warranty on it? 00:33:22
So we just started talking about him. What other questions do you have? 00:33:26
It just. 00:33:29
I've got. I would, I would. 00:33:32
Just for Naseem, I wanted to go through and understand like why it's failing on a few different areas. 00:33:34
Do you have an area in particular that you're talking about with striping? 00:33:42
Or just normal wear and tear that happens overtime and This is why we have a budget to restripe or what are your questions on it? 00:33:45
You know, I can, I can take it offline on those issues. 00:33:54
OK. Did you want to? 00:33:57
Split up these. 00:34:00
Items and vote on them or did you still feel comfortable moving forward with? 00:34:01
These striping service contract. 00:34:06
I don't feel comfortable knowing enough about the striping services contract just with some of the issues that I've seen around 00:34:09
the city and I wanted to ask more information on. 00:34:13
I was hoping for a presentation on it. 00:34:18
Did you want a? 00:34:20
Did you want to make another motion? This would be the time for another motion to approve 3.5 and 3.6 and take 3.3 off, right? 00:34:22
Jamie. 00:34:32
It would have to be accepted by. 00:34:35
Whoever made the motion, yeah. 00:34:36
As a friendly, would you? 00:34:41
You just say that we're going to separate them, so 3.5 and 3.6. 00:34:43
Will be your amendment is what will be approving and then we'll approve 3.3 separately. 00:34:48
Amending the motion. 00:34:57
OK. 00:34:58
I move to amend my. 00:35:00
My motion. 00:35:01
To just approving 3.3. 00:35:05
And approve 3.5 and three-point. 00:35:08
6 consent items as presented. Thank you. Brett. Do you second that still? Yes, OK. 00:35:11
I'm going to do this by roll call Jake. 00:35:16
Aye, Brett. 00:35:19
Aye, aye, Marty, Sarah. All right. I need a motion for 3.3. 00:35:20
Are we going to postpone it? Is that what? 00:35:25
I Yeah. Could we vote to postpone that? I'd like to talk. 00:35:27
Yeah. Does that affect anything with our contract? 00:35:32
Should we just wait and see if Naseem comes? 00:35:36
And is able to explain we could come back to it. Yeah. OK, let's come back to it. Great solution. 00:35:39
All right, let's go ahead on to our presentations. We're going to have a. 00:35:44
Short presentation on our well Caraway update. They're moving along and Sam Brager will come up and from the Utah Lake Authority 00:35:48
and give us a quick briefing. 00:35:52
We're excited to hear from you. 00:35:57
Thanks, Mayor. 00:36:01
So I'll hit on just a couple of high level items. The Walker away effort right now is in the middle. 00:36:05
Of some sensitive negotiations, so I'm not going to dive into any specifics for the City Council at the moment. 00:36:11
But wanted to take a step back and just hit on some history of the project as background for anybody listening that might not be 00:36:15
aware of it. 00:36:18
So this is an effort that was started actually with Jake Holdaway and Eric Ellis when he was the executive director at the Utah 00:36:21
Lake Commission. 00:36:24
Really a collaborative effort that ended up bringing in over I think 30 different government entities, a variety of land owners to 00:36:28
try and find a way. 00:36:32
To conserve and protect this section of the shoreline of Utah Lake, which more or less is referred to as the Powell Slough, moving 00:36:35
from Vineyard down to Provo. 00:36:39
So that effort is kind of evolved over the years. 00:36:44
And there's been a few hang ups. 00:36:47
And so last year, the Lake Authority and the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. 00:36:48
Brought on a facilitator. 00:36:53
To try and work with the government partners that are involved and also with the land owners to try and find resolution and see 00:36:55
where we could find wins and directions to be able to move forward. 00:36:59
So Susan Putziba, I know she's been in touch with a few of you. 00:37:04
Is who we brought on for that contract and she's worked diligently. She did a assessment interviewing over 30 different 00:37:07
individuals. 00:37:11
From the land owners and also the various government partners to understand what some of the pain points were, some of the things 00:37:16
that need to be addressed and such. 00:37:19
And then since then? 00:37:23
Has worked with the government partners to try and analyze what the best options are moving forward. 00:37:24
The goal of the project is to protect the shoreline. As I mentioned, there was also discussion of things like having a trail, 00:37:30
because there's a goal to have a trail go all the way around Utah Lake eventually. 00:37:34
And some other amenities for the public in the area. 00:37:38
So we've worked diligently on that over the last several months. Things have gone very well. 00:37:42
Right now, it's been really great to see how collaborative everybody's been. We've had a variety of meetings, both with land 00:37:47
owners and the various families. 00:37:51
And also with everywhere from federal agencies, state agencies and local governments trying to talk through what options there 00:37:55
are. 00:37:59
And everyone has expressed support for that approach and has really appreciated. 00:38:02
The direction of trying to be collaborative on that. 00:38:06
Right now we're meeting with the various entities that. 00:38:10
Are the various parties that are involved in the dispute over the. 00:38:14
Land boundaries. 00:38:18
And trying to find resolutions. 00:38:19
Our goal is that in the next several months, we hope by the end of June to be able to wrap up the facilitation process. 00:38:21
So that involves discussion with the various land owners, trying to determine what trail alignment might work best for the various 00:38:29
interests of ownership, trying to minimize the impact on the lake, but also trying to provide public access and good amenities. 00:38:34
But Susan, our facilitators contract ends in June, and so the Utah Lake Authority's role is trying to help wrap up this process. 00:38:41
Hopefully with all the Landers involved by that. 00:38:50
Deadline. 00:38:52
Which was already an extension. We'd hoped to finish it by the end of the calendar year last year. 00:38:54
But if all goes well. 00:38:59
We hope to try and have resolution on all of those agreements by that deadline at that point. 00:39:01
Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. 00:39:06
We'll be making a determination on how to move forward on the project. 00:39:09
So a little background I may have skipped on that. The main contest station is that the Bureau of Reclamation claims land and some 00:39:14
private land owners claim land and there's even a couple government agencies that are there that claim that land. 00:39:18
BOR has been great to work with and is very amenable in trying to transfer this land into forestry, fire and state lands 00:39:24
ownership, but needs clarity on those boundaries. 00:39:28
And so Forestry Fire and State Lands has been a great partner in this, has been very supportive and worked very closely with our 00:39:32
facilitator. Their attorney general has been very supportive and spent hours. 00:39:37
Drafting agreements and working with us to try and facilitate these conversations. 00:39:41
And we're hopeful. We think the project can be a great amenity for the lake. It can do a great job of protecting and preserving 00:39:47
this section of shoreline and providing some wonderful amenities and educational resources in the area as well. 00:39:52
The only other thing. 00:39:59
That I had on that. 00:40:02
Oh, no, I did hunt on it. It's just that at the end of the facilitation timeline that will be up to FFSL on how to proceed 00:40:06
forward. If we're able to move forward with the project at that point, if we secured the necessary agreements or if not, what next 00:40:10
steps need to be taken in order to be able to find a path forward so. 00:40:15
Again, just reiterating, we've appreciated how collaborative the process is. We're hopeful to have more updates soon as things 00:40:20
wrap up. 00:40:23
But really appreciative of support from the various cities from the county. 00:40:27
From, for sure, fire and state lands, the Bureau of Reclamation and all the families that are owners here in the area and all the 00:40:31
conversations that have had. 00:40:34
Thank you so much, it's been so great. 00:40:37
As a community, this amenity has been so important to us, so we've appreciated the calls from Susan and the work that you guys 00:40:40
have done on it to keep this project moving forward. 00:40:44
Just for clarity for the public. 00:40:49
Sarah is our council liaison that sits on it and we appreciate the work that's gone on by the family and by Eric from the ula when 00:40:52
he was there. So thank you so much. Thank you. 00:40:57
We're going to go ahead and move on to our Arbor Day proclamation. Arbor Day is coming up. Do you mind if I make a comment on 00:41:03
that? I just want to make sure. 00:41:08
Yeah, I always want to make sure I'm the peacemaker. 00:41:13
But also set expectations with Wakarawa. 00:41:17
Umm, you know, six years ago I was the one that had the. 00:41:21
Idea and starting it, and I'm glad that Eric was also played a role. 00:41:26
And I'm, I'm always committed to. 00:41:30
Finding solutions. 00:41:33
And that's why, you know, I initiated that process. 00:41:35
That said. 00:41:41
I I don't speak for the family members that own that property. 00:41:44
I don't own the property. 00:41:48
Nor do all of my great uncles or aunts. So I have a. 00:41:50
Bias and a conflict of interest in that. 00:41:53
The lawsuit that started that with Bo R. 00:41:56
Started at statehood in 1896. 00:41:59
And. 00:42:04
That still remains today. 00:42:05
I I think it's inappropriate for for us to discuss publicly the ongoing or possible litigation between families and the federal 00:42:11
government. 00:42:15
In a public forum. 00:42:20
They're sensitive. They're two party matters. 00:42:22
You know, formal meetings are happening and there's great. 00:42:26
Agreements or ideas? 00:42:29
And to imply any resolution or to speculate any potential outcome. 00:42:32
Of possible. 00:42:37
Federal litigation would be. 00:42:39
Extremely premature. 00:42:41
And unwise and potentially harmful for. 00:42:45
The integrity of that process now. 00:42:49
The state is incredible. 00:42:51
Joel Fairies awesome Ula is also awesome. 00:42:53
And there are some really good people. 00:42:58
Especially even here at the city. 00:43:00
But ultimately. 00:43:02
The legal standing in the matter are two entities. 00:43:04
The federal government and the families. 00:43:07
And those two entities have to come together to find. 00:43:10
Resolve because they're the only ones that have standing in court. 00:43:14
And I just wanted to publicly say that I. 00:43:18
Try and help. 00:43:20
Foster agreement. Like Sam, he's also been wonderful. 00:43:21
Another and I just wanted to say that I do try to find. 00:43:25
The way and I love the presentation from Sam today, but. 00:43:30
Let's let them. 00:43:33
Work through that. 00:43:34
To try to find resolution. 00:43:36
For clarity for the public, I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware nothing was discussed. We talked about sensitiveness, 00:43:38
negotiations that are going on that weren't discussed. And I think there was positivity in the idea that everybody's working 00:43:43
together. I know there are a lot of stakeholders involved. 00:43:48
If you have more questions you can talk to FFSL and the ula to get. 00:43:54
Any of those questions answered? 00:43:59
Umm, and I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you. OK, we'll go ahead and move on to the Arbor Day proclamation. 00:44:02
Unless you wanted to add anything else. Sam. OK, thank you. 00:44:08
All right. 00:44:13
I'm going to go ahead and read this proclamation. 00:44:14
Whereas in 1872, the Nebraska Board of Agriculture established a special day to set aside for the planting of trees. 00:44:17
Whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world, and whereas trees can be a solution to combating climate 00:44:24
change by reducing the erosion of our precious topsoil, wind, water, cutting heat cooling costs, moderating the temperature and 00:44:29
cleaning the air producing. 00:44:34
Life giving oxygen and providing habitat for wildlife. 00:44:39
And it goes on, and I'm going to go ahead and save this for you guys to have a really good read when you go watch the posting. But 00:44:44
I'm going to say we find Arbor Day to really be important and I'm going to. 00:44:49
Umm, go ahead and proclaim April 25th, 2025 is Arbor Day. 00:44:55
And invite Vineyard residents to celebrate Arbor Day with us. And we'll have an event coming up to celebrate that. We hope you all 00:45:00
come and join us on. 00:45:04
Thank you. 00:45:09
All right. We will move on to the municipal alternative voting methods. We have quite a few presentations today. 00:45:11
And they're going to talk about some that are on the pilot. 00:45:20
Umm, what is it called? The pilot? 00:45:23
For the state that allows us to vote that we've been using ranked choice voting in Vineyard and then one that is not currently on 00:45:26
the states approval for that pilot process, but we're still going to hear about that today. 00:45:31
And so I'm going to go ahead and invite Adam Tischer up to speak about one of the moting methods and then I will. 00:45:36
Go through the presenters and have them come and talk to us about these different forms of voting. 00:45:43
So, Adam, you're welcome to come up. 00:45:49
It's a bit old, so. 00:45:55
You know, on slash legs. 00:46:00
Let's see, this one is going to be. 00:46:16
Actually 2 new. 00:46:17
I do have an HDMI to pull that. Got anything? 00:46:20
Yes, just the newest. 00:46:29
Should have thought about this. You know it's a problem when you have a 10 year old laptop, right? 00:46:39
Yeah. 00:46:51
Try that. 00:46:54
Yeah, I think I'm on that. 00:47:05
I was a little circle. 00:47:25
It's the funnest part of the day, right? 00:47:33
Haven't seen it yet. 00:48:00
I see. 00:48:12
I don't like cast or anything is. 00:48:18
OK. 00:48:28
Just to make sure there's no like. 00:48:32
OK, well. 00:48:54
Do you want to switch to one of them and I can fiddle around with seeing if I can just plug in directly to one of these TV's with 00:48:57
my HDMI cord? 00:49:00
That's OK. 00:49:05
As long as you guys can see the information, I think it's all right. 00:49:07
See if we can. 00:49:11
If I use this. 00:49:16
I've got a cable or that can work too. 00:49:18
Which one? 00:49:22
Yeah. 00:49:31
Yeah. 00:49:51
Go. 00:50:08
While you get going, we're going to just take a few minute break and then we will come back. 00:50:27
Anyone you are. 00:50:32
Make it work. 00:50:49
Very close. 00:50:52
That's probably a little bit. 00:50:56
Is that OK for you? 00:51:04
Yeah, that. 00:51:06
OK. 00:51:09
You know, sometimes I feel like old stuffs. 00:51:13
All right, go ahead and get started. 00:51:57
OK. 00:51:59
Just. 00:52:02
OK. All right. Well, thank you to the council and to all the residents that came to listen tonight. My name is Adam. 00:52:06
I am a Vineyard resident in the Windsor neighborhood, and I'm also a volunteer for Utah Proves, which promotes. 00:52:13
Approval voting here and you. 00:52:21
Utah and I'm joined tonight as well by Mark Midgley who is on the board of Utah Proofs. So my goal tonight is to kind of give you 00:52:23
a brief explanation of approval voting. This is the method that is not currently a part of the pilot project, but we have been 00:52:28
asked by the state legislature to. 00:52:33
Go around and make presentations to cities and towns that might be interested in using this method so that they can request the 00:52:38
state government to add it to the pilot project. 00:52:43
There's a few cities who've already done this. 00:52:49
I think I believe a couple up near Ogden, South Ogden. 00:52:52
Plain City. 00:52:56
Provo was one of them. One of the original ones actually. 00:52:58
And a handful of others that I actually can't remember right now. So. But if you need that information, definitely feel free to 00:53:02
come ask me. 00:53:05
But the basics is it's really about saving simplicity and security. So let's just jump right into it. 00:53:08
What is approval voting? 00:53:13
The simple answer is you're just voting yes or no for each candidate, rather than implicitly yes to only one and then no for all 00:53:15
of the rest of them. 00:53:19
Like our current method and so it's very simple how it works, you just add up all the votes and whoever has the most wins. Just 00:53:25
like our normal method. No rounds, no nothing like that. 00:53:29
Let's move on so we can compare these. This is very helpful because we have experienced. 00:53:35
Both of the two systems here in Vineyard. 00:53:41
So with the old system, which is called plurality. 00:53:44
This is, you know, where you just make your one choice. And this elects primarily based on exclusive support. 00:53:46
And it tends to favor candidates like with a passionate base of support, because as long as you can get to, I don't know, let's 00:53:52
say 40% of the vote, if everybody else is splitting the rest of it at like say 30/20/10, then the person with 40 is going to win 00:53:57
even if they didn't have an absolute majority of support, right? 00:54:03
It also works well with races with two candidates. 00:54:08
Our current system RCV it is a little bit. 00:54:11
Depends on. 00:54:14
It elects a little bit based on different factors, right? Because of the way that the rounds and ranking mechanics work, it can 00:54:16
result in a lot of unexpected events. 00:54:20
It does tend to favor candidates who can strike alliances. I think we've seen this in the past, both here and in cities around the 00:54:24
country. 00:54:27
And then it does work well with races where there are fewer than 5 candidates. If if you are able to rank 5, you know there's 00:54:31
different types of RCV, you may only be able to rank three, you may be able to rank 10, whatever, but 5 is typical. 00:54:36
Approval voting tends to work with. 00:54:43
Tends to elect based on favorability, so this is really like. 00:54:45
How broad of an appeal can you have as a candidate? 00:54:49
And it's great for any number of candidates. 00:54:53
So I won't read through everything on this slide, but this is kind of like in general what I want to cover tonight. 00:54:56
It's really It accomplishes a lot of the same objectives that rank choice voting does, but in my opinion it comes with a few less 00:55:02
of the drawbacks, including. 00:55:07
You know, some security issues that I know are important, so let's just hop right into it. 00:55:12
This is an example kind of drawn from. 00:55:18
The 2020 election. 00:55:21
For sorry, the primary election for the governor of Utah. 00:55:22
As you can see here in the red, this is Spencer Cox won that primary election, and this was under obviously a plurality system. 00:55:26
With 36% of the vote, next in line was Jon Huntsman Junior with 35%, right. And so it's kind of interesting because you don't 00:55:33
really see like a very strong mandate here. It's like. 00:55:39
He got by because he had the most, but it was only 36, right on the right side. Here is an approval election that was done in 00:55:45
Saint Louis. So there are some cities around the country that do use approval voting right now. Saint Louis is one of them. 00:55:51
And you can kind of see. 00:55:57
It's a lot more clear where that mandate is and who the most approved candidates were. You can see even the third place candidate 00:55:59
in this Saint Louis mayoral election had a higher approval than. 00:56:05
Or sorry, a higher general vote share than Cox did under the plurality system. And so there's really no strategy to to. 00:56:11
Try to game the system of approval voting. All you have to do is appeal to the most voters as possible. You want as many people to 00:56:19
mark your name on the ballot so that you can say hey, I was the most broadly liked and well accepted candidate. 00:56:25
Umm. And so showing the true levels of support, I think is meaningful both to candidates and to voters. 00:56:32
This is a simulation that was done by computer so. 00:56:39
Take that for what you will, but it kind of gives you an example of there's kind of this double axis thing we've got going on, 00:56:42
right? There's how simple is the voting method? 00:56:46
And how satisfied are the voters at the end of the day and at the end of the that's just kind of like how, how satisfied are you 00:56:51
with the results of this election under these different methods? 00:56:56
So you can kind of see. 00:57:01
All this is a good thing to point out. All the methods are the same. If there's only ever 2 candidates, that's probably pretty 00:57:03
unlikely for most. 00:57:05
Most elections in our city, right? 00:57:10
Plurality is simple, but it doesn't really have a lot of voter satisfaction because you get these people who are like, well, I 00:57:12
don't really like either of these two candidates, so I guess I just have to pick the one that I. 00:57:16
Like only slightly more, you know, 'cause I don't want the worst one to win. 00:57:22
So there's a small range there, but not much. 00:57:25
RCV, it can have higher voter satisfaction, that is true. It's definitely. 00:57:28
In general, better than our current than the plurality system that we're accustomed to using for federal and state elections. 00:57:33
But it can be a lot more complex, and with that complexity comes additional voter education that is required. Approval voting is 00:57:39
actually really simple. It requires only that one change to the ballot to say instead of choose one, you choose. 00:57:46
Any or approve. 00:57:54
Any mark, any that you approve of. And so it's a really quick, simple change. And candidates don't have to spend time explaining 00:57:56
the voting method. They can simply focus on the issues at hand and the voting method will, you know, make sense to voters. 00:58:02
Umm, here's where I'll get into the security topic, so I won't go too deep into this, but if we do want to talk about it, I'm 00:58:08
happy to, and I'm happy to send some questions to mark as well. 00:58:13
So there's a concept called precinct summability. You may have heard of, you may not. What this means. This is a common critique 00:58:18
levied at. 00:58:21
RCV which is basically. 00:58:26
It's not. 00:58:28
If you're printing assembly, it means that if votes were to be collected in different locations around the city. 00:58:29
You could tally the votes at those locations rather than bringing them to a centralized location because if you add up. 00:58:35
Plurality votes or approval votes in different locations, it will all be the same in the end. Whereas RCV needs to go through that 00:58:41
process of the different rounds and the eliminations, so. 00:58:45
This can be a security concern. 00:58:49
The county clerks in general have stated that approval voting is the only alternative that they are comfortable with the audit 00:58:51
trail for. 00:58:54
And then fewer spoiled ballots is another thing to point out sometimes with. 00:58:58
Ranked choice voting, you get some people who are like, you know, putting somebody as their second and third choice or. 00:59:02
I don't know, just under filling in the bubbles, there's a lot of things that can happen there. This is nearly impossible with 00:59:08
approval because you just. 00:59:11
Select the ones you are OK with and you leave the ones blank that you're not. 00:59:15
Cost effectiveness. 00:59:19
So again, this is just based on some costs that we gathered from other cities in the state. 00:59:20
Based. I wasn't able to pull vineyard numbers unfortunately, but I'm sure you all probably have a better insight onto this. 00:59:26
You can see here that as more cities participate in these programs, the cost does go down. 00:59:33
But we have been seeing, I mean, there's a little bit of back and forth, right, But even in Utah County, we've seen some cities 00:59:38
have had a little bit of motivation recently to pull out of the program. And so if they are pulling out and new ones don't replace 00:59:42
them, the cost will go up to administer that because. 00:59:47
There are fewer cities participating. 00:59:52
So that's the costs for RCV, but for approval voting the cost is minuscule to nothing because you're basically keeping the ballot 00:59:55
almost exactly the same as it is before, other than that one change where it says select as many as you approve of rather than 00:59:59
just vote for one. 01:00:04
The voter education aspect is also extremely simple because you can tell people, hey, this is a. 01:00:09
Just the same thing, just select all the candidates that you like rather than only one. 01:00:15
But what we get out of this is we get a lot of the same. 01:00:20
Benefits that RCV provides, which is getting rid of the spoiler effect, getting rid of that problem where it's like hey I. 01:00:23
Really want this person but I don't want this person win so I guess I have to do this one like option C you know so. 01:00:29
And no additional cost for administration. This is why the county clerks have also expressed an interest in approval voting 01:00:35
because it is very easy for them to administer on their end and the costs are. 01:00:39
Negligible. 01:00:44
So where is approval building been used? You can see it's been used in a lot of these, like international places, the Greek 01:00:47
legislature. I thought that was funny, the UN secretary general. 01:00:52
And then Fargo, ND, and St. Louis, MO, have used it here in the United States. 01:00:57
And it's received very positive feedback in general. I think that goes to show, you know, like we can do as many computer 01:01:02
simulations as we want, but the real life reality shows that people do tend to like this method. 01:01:07
And then again, I'll just come back to this slide. This kind of is just a. 01:01:15
Covering a brief thing about. 01:01:19
You know all the topics that we've discussed today. 01:01:21
Where you know? 01:01:23
Any of these things could be considered important to a city or a municipality that's. 01:01:25
You know, doing elections. 01:01:31
Right. Cost matters. Voter satisfaction, I think is extremely important. And that's why I would support, you know, moving to an 01:01:33
alternative method than the one that we currently use at the state and federal level. Because in most cases, you know, most people 01:01:38
I've talked to, I've been out on the streets, I go to farmers markets, I talk to people around here and they say, yeah, I've had 01:01:43
that experience where I have to basically vote for the lesser 2 evils and I don't like it. 01:01:48
And so in my mind, I advocate for approval voting simply because it is the simplest. 01:01:54
Alternative that solves most of these issues. 01:02:00
There is a moderate level of voter education, yes, but I think that's a lot easier to overcome than the education that we have had 01:02:04
to do with. 01:02:07
Choice voting. So I think that's basically it. And if you have any questions you can ask me now, I may. 01:02:12
Go to Mark on a few of those, but I don't know if you wanted to wait till the end of all the presentations but. 01:02:20
I just had one clarifying question you had. 01:02:25
Said that Rangers voting had. 01:02:28
Artificial winning percentages. 01:02:30
Yeah. Let me go back. Was that on this slide or? Yes, right here, second one. 01:02:32
Yeah. So to kind of explain that it's a little bit of. 01:02:38
The process is that kind of goes back to what I was saying where it's a little bit random, right? Because like, let's say you had 01:02:42
like. 01:02:45
7:00 or 8:00. 01:02:49
Candidates running, but you're only able to rank five of them, then you're kind of not able to Give your opinion on two of them. 01:02:50
And so first of all, that throws things for a loop a little bit. The second issue that comes up with these artificial winning 01:02:54
percentages is. 01:02:58
You can. 01:03:03
Just the way that the votes transfer, right? So like, let's say that you are. 01:03:04
Really. Uh. 01:03:08
In favor of a certain candidate, but yours gets eliminated right at the beginning. 01:03:09
Then like you may not be able to have like let's say you only put 3, for example, you may not be able to have a say in the final 01:03:14
voting if your candidates, if your ranks just didn't make it to the final round, if that makes sense. So it's still kind of making 01:03:20
you strategically vote. And it's somewhat artificial because those folks don't get to express the same amount of preference as 01:03:27
somebody would for an approval where they literally get to say yes or no to every single one. 01:03:33
So I don't know if Mark, if you want to also give a, you have to come to the microphone. 01:03:40
Thank you. 01:03:47
We just want to get you. 01:03:49
Yeah. So I would, I would add for the perspective on how the majority of. 01:03:50
The voters that are leftover at the end of an RCB election is somewhat of an artificial majority is because. 01:03:58
Often when you're dealing with. 01:04:05
Candidates are getting elected round after round. 01:04:08
That you're going to be having plenty of voters that have their ballots exhausted because all of the candidates that they had. 01:04:11
Ranked on their ballot had all been eliminated and so their ballot becomes technically exhausted and therefore. 01:04:17
Excluded from that calculation of that artificial majority. 01:04:25
And so when you are looking at. 01:04:29
What the overall percentage of the electorate that voted in that election? 01:04:32
Those majorities when you look at. 01:04:36
Let's say they report something like this. Winner won the 51% of the majority. 01:04:40
If you look at the actual percentage of. 01:04:45
All the Bellas that voted it might end up being more like. 01:04:48
48 or maybe in 42% of the original voters that cast a ballot in that election and that's why it's. 01:04:50
Kind of being referenced as an artificial majority, that's not a true majority of the electorate. 01:04:57
Another way to wrap your head around this is kind of like. 01:05:02
If this system, if you were able to rank every single candidate, then this issue would to some extent be mitigated. But. 01:05:06
That would result in these huge long ballots that a lot of people are fed up with, right? From what I understand from ranked 01:05:14
choice voting is that. 01:05:17
Every candidate can be ranked and is ranked. 01:05:21
So if we have 7 candidates, 7 candidates are ranked. If we have 8, all 8 are then ranked so. 01:05:24
Yeah, that does help. 01:05:33
All right, thank you so much. We're going to go ahead and move on to winning hearts important that I forgot so because it's not 01:05:35
actually on the municipal alternative voting methods project right now. Our our main ask to you is if that you're interested in 01:05:40
ever trying out this method as a city. 01:05:46
The primary directive or thing to do would be to write a letter together as a council to the state legislature, legislature 01:05:52
requesting that they add this to the project. And we can give you kind of examples of that Provost done that we can get them, we 01:05:57
can give you their letters. You can take a look at what it looks like. This is not saying we're going to use it. This is just 01:06:02
saying. 01:06:07
We'd like the option and then you would later on vote to opt in to it in the future if it were to be added. 01:06:12
Thank you. Thank you. So to ask your question real quick. 01:06:18
The state hasn't authorized us to be able to use this form. We would need to go and the legislature would need to vote to. 01:06:22
Have this as a form of approval. 01:06:28
So we first to start that process off. 01:06:30
We need to send a letter. 01:06:33
And then run a bill. 01:06:35
And then that bill needs to pass. So. OK, Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So you wouldn't be committing yourselves to it. You would 01:06:37
just be saying we're interested in, we're interested in. You would have a separate vote later to opt in. 01:06:41
Thank you. 01:06:47
All right, Wendy Hart. 01:06:48
Group, come on up. 01:06:49
Thank you so much for coming. 01:06:52
Thank you for inviting me. 01:06:54
Do you want me to try and move this back? 01:07:01
Oh, it's on wheels, OK. 01:07:04
Wendy, did you have anybody else joining you today? No, no, just me. 01:07:12
Let's see. 01:07:17
OK, thank you Mayor, for inviting me and City Council. 01:07:32
I normally have like this really long presentation so I'm going to try and just run through as quickly as I can and feel free to 01:07:37
stop me. 01:07:41
The the main issue that I'm going to focus on is that ranked choice voting a lot of what you'll hear that's presented. 01:07:47
Is the voter experience. What you need to understand is the back end and some of the anomalies that come from the algorithm and 01:07:53
things like that. 01:07:58
The biggest? 01:08:03
Focus that I want to give you is that ranked choice voting, as far as I'm concerned, is not one person, one vote. 01:08:05
And that that's that level of political equality that that we want. 01:08:11
And so I'm going to go through some of the concerns. 01:08:15
Especially things that are on the back end. The first issue is that complexity favors the well connected. So ranked choice voting 01:08:19
is complex, especially the algorithm on the back end. And so money and name recognition will dominate of of necessity. 01:08:27
Voters do like the ability to weigh in on each candidate, but once you get into the math again on the back end, you lose control 01:08:35
of how your vote is actually used. So an analogy that I like to make is that you know, you're, you're sticking your your ballots 01:08:41
into a river and you're hoping that they end up. 01:08:46
Where the way that you intended them to and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but you won't know that till till the end 01:08:52
of the election. 01:08:56
And finally, currently there's a lot of concern with transparency in elections. 01:09:00
And the complexity that we have calls into the results when people start to look into it, You're trusting the algorithm. And so 01:09:06
with election integrity concerns at a high level, people want something simple, transparent and straightforward, and ranked choice 01:09:11
voting does not do that. 01:09:16
I would have added approval voting stuff in here, but I didn't realize we were doing that as well. 01:09:22
I'm going to try and address all of these. 01:09:27
It is unfair and multi seat races like City Council. 01:09:30
Non it is a non condorcet Condor say means that it is. 01:09:34
Who the voters like the best when you compare them head to head. 01:09:39
Non monotonicity is a fun word. This is the paradox of causing your least preferred candidate to win by ranking them higher, or 01:09:45
your most preferred candidate to lose. 01:09:50
By rank or your Yeah. 01:09:56
Your least preferred candidate to win by ranking them higher in. Your most preferred candidate to lose by ranking them. 01:09:59
Higher it's It's backwards. 01:10:04
There is a lot of voter disenfranchisement and ballot confusion, and it does redefine a majority, as the previous gentleman 01:10:07
mentioned. 01:10:10
So it is. It is not one person, one vote. 01:10:15
Umm, what you need to understand is the reason why some of these anomalies occur is because the order in which things are 01:10:18
eliminated, voters are eliminated, can change the outcome with it's like a lever system. It takes very little input over here to 01:10:24
make a huge change. So it's kind of like order of operations with math, you if you add first, you get a different answer than if 01:10:30
you multiply. 01:10:35
So some voters are more equal than others with rank choice voting, if your first choice is never eliminated, you never get a 01:10:42
second choice. So if you have two council seats open in a traditional election, you get to vote for two separate people. Now in a 01:10:50
ranked choice vote scenario, you are going to rank everybody on down. But what the algorithm will actually see? 01:10:57
May not give you more than one person that is tallied at the end of the day. So in Vineyard in 2019 there were 25% of the 01:11:05
electorate who only got one choice. 01:11:12
For their City Council tabulated in 2021, that was 21%. 01:11:19
And in 2023, it was 16%. 01:11:24
And again, this is not the voter making any mistake, this is the algorithm. 01:11:27
And you will only see it. 01:11:32
At the back end. So here's an example from 2019. 01:11:34
If you look, Ty's flight got 277 votes as that the first round. 01:11:38
That's 25%. Those 25% will only ever get that first choice vote for Tice Blake counted for both City Council seats. 01:11:44
So if you look, he comes in, I believe it's a gentleman, comes in second in seat one. 01:11:53
Then Miss Welsh is her her first choice. Voters are redistributed. 01:11:58
Mr. Flake picks up a handful of more votes from his Walsh. 01:12:04
But again, and he does end up winning, but those 277 people that voted for him only voted for him. 01:12:10
They never got anybody else tallied in that scenario. 01:12:17
And some people say that's a feature and not a bug. I suppose it depends on, you know, if you're 1 of that, those 25%. 01:12:22
Here, just briefly, Lehigh City Council, same thing. Michelle Miles. 01:12:31
In this case, it was only 12% of the electorate. She comes in second, but she never makes it on to the City Council. 01:12:35
But her voters only ever voted for her. They didn't get 2 choices. 01:12:43
This leads us to the next thing, which is the Condorcet winner in a head-to-head matchup against all the candidates. 01:12:48
The Condorcet winner is the one that people prefer over all others. 01:12:54
Here's a very simplified example. If you assume that people ranked Mark, 35% ranked Mark, and then John, and then Tom, and then 01:12:58
35, four percent Tom, John and Mark and so forth. In an RCV race, Mark wins. 01:13:05
But if you look at. 01:13:13
John versus Mark. In all of those scenarios, 65% of the people preferred John over Mark, whereas only 35% preferred Mark over 01:13:15
John. 01:13:20
This occurred in Moab in 2021. If you look at the fourth line down, LW Luke W has. It's like a Polish name. Can't pronounce it, 01:13:25
not going to try. 01:13:30
He is the the head-to-head winner against all of the other candidates. 01:13:35
He won a, you know, these are his, the people who ranked him compared to everybody else. 01:13:39
But the first choice City Council winner was A Man by Jason. 01:13:44
I believe. Thomas, JT. 01:13:49
So again, there is a Condor safe failure. Whether or not that's important to you, it's just something to understand. 01:13:51
The next thing is non monotonicity. This is a known flaw with ranked choice voting. 01:13:59
Your first choice ranking can hurt your candidate. 01:14:05
Or your last choice ranking can help them win. This again comes from Moab in 2021. If you notice the people that rank JT, who was 01:14:08
the winner? 01:14:13
He was. All it takes is these three people. 01:14:18
There was a 45 point spread in the final round between JT and I believe it was Josie Kovac. 01:14:22
JK. 01:14:28
These three people that ranked Jason Taylor as their last choice or second to the last choice if they had elevated him to their 01:14:30
first choice. 01:14:35
He loses. 01:14:39
And so. 01:14:41
This is a major problem in my opinion because if my ranking someone higher causes them to lose or am I ranking them lower causes 01:14:42
them to win? 01:14:47
That's not how our brains work, right? 01:14:52
And three voters you know. 01:14:57
That. 01:14:59
That there should be a greater than 45 point. You know, if you change 45 votes, that should be the change, not just three. But 01:15:00
again, that order of operations, that change of three votes can, can totally change things. 01:15:06
The other thing is these three votes. 01:15:13
If these people had just simply not shown up, again, it was a 45 point spread. But if these three voters don't show up? 01:15:15
Then JT loses and the new winner is LW. That Luke. 01:15:22
Wachowski. 01:15:27
There is a great amount of ballot confusion. As was also mentioned, this would be the Weber County 2020 General Election ballot. 01:15:28
And Governor Jerry Brown, with whom I don't share a whole lot other than I came from California as well. 01:15:36
His last he vetoed the expansion of ranked choice voting in California because, he says, I believe it deprives voters of genuinely 01:15:42
informed choice. 01:15:47
And I believe that that's the case with some of these analogy analogies. 01:15:52
Umm Fair Vote, who supports ranked choice voting, said the prevalence of ranking three candidates or more was lowest among African 01:15:57
Americans, Hispanics, voters with less education than those whose first language was not English. 01:16:03
In a 2018 Maine congressional midterm, 26% of people said they stayed home. 01:16:09
Over confusion of the ranking system. 01:16:14
So there are problems there. 01:16:17
This is from the 2021 election. There were 17 ranked choice voting ballots. 01:16:20
Elections and that Utah County conducted seven of those had greater than 10% confusion so that's where the voter makes a mistake 01:16:26
on their ballot. They showed up to vote and. 01:16:32
And they made a mistake. 01:16:38
The most egregious was Janola in seat one. They had a total of 58% ballots that were confused and in seat 2 because you're using 01:16:40
the same set of ballots. 01:16:45
That went up to 74.7%. 01:16:51
Which is a huge, huge number. 01:16:54
Those are. 01:16:56
Elections outlined in red that you see highlighted in red. 01:16:58
That's 10% or more. 01:17:02
Total uh. 01:17:04
Ballots that were confused. 01:17:05
So that that's kind of a problem. The standard ballot confusion rate where there's some, you know, they, they have to be discarded 01:17:08
to some degree is usually 1% or less. 01:17:14
Here are a handful of places that have repealed it. 01:17:20
I would point out the level by which the repeal takes place, 52 percent, 62 percent, 65% and 71% of voters repealed it in these 01:17:24
different areas. 01:17:29
And we're seeing the same thing in Utah. Vineyard and Payson were the first two that implemented ranked choice voting in 2019. In 01:17:35
2021, there were 23 cities who did it, 21 of which were new. 01:17:41
And in 23 only 12. 01:17:47
Up Cities implemented it, so that's almost a 50% decrease. There was one new. 01:17:51
But of those 23 cities, more than half chose not to do it. 01:17:56
In 2023, so it does seem to be waning. 01:18:00
Finally, this was alluded to the. 01:18:06
Mayor race in Sandy in 2021. 01:18:09
The final round of balloting, there were only 21 votes that were different, the difference between the winner and the second 01:18:12
place. 01:18:16
Runner up. 01:18:20
But there were 4000 exhausted ballots, meaning there were 4000 people who chose not to rank. 01:18:21
Either one of the final two candidates. 01:18:27
Which means that the out of the ballots cast, it was only a 40.6% win. 01:18:30
I personally think exhausted ballots are fine because it's transparent, but it does not always guarantee you a majority. 01:18:36
Here's another scenario. 01:18:43
This is kind of the spoiler effect. We hear about the spoiler effect. The spoiler effect is actually good because if you have 01:18:45
somebody who can fund a lot of different people. 01:18:50
Umm, you can overcome a fairly significant win if you look in round one. Mr. Prada, This is Oakland, I believe in 2010 Oakland, 01:18:55
CA. 01:19:00
He's like 21,000 votes ahead of the next. 01:19:05
You know, level competitor and next runner up. 01:19:09
And it takes nine more rounds. 01:19:12
In order to get everybody else to overcome his win by by 2000 votes. So you're allowing people with a second or third or fourth 01:19:15
choice ranking to overcome those first choice ballots. 01:19:21
So, umm. 01:19:27
You know that that's just a feature, but it is a concern. 01:19:28
So again, one of the other things that I don't have that I think I have at the end here. 01:19:32
Again, complexity favors the well connected. Voters like to weigh in, but you don't know how that vote is going to turn out. 01:19:38
Transparency is a concern. 01:19:42
And then I just want to take a moment. Yes, one of the benefits of rank choice voting is that you can save money in not doing a 01:19:46
primary election. 01:19:50
But primary elections kind of like trash collection, I believe that they're worth the cost. You could save a lot of money by not 01:19:55
collecting the trash every week. 01:19:59
You could go to once a month or every two months. Save a lot of money on that. 01:20:04
But there are some things that are worth paying for and with elections, I think some of the benefit in primary elections is for 01:20:08
the electorate to get to know people and also if you're a grassroots candidate that's just getting started out. 01:20:14
You know, sometimes you need, you need that experience to be able to take the time to meet with people and things like that. 01:20:21
So at the end of the day, there are a lot of mathematical problems on the back end of this and it is not one person, one vote. And 01:20:28
so I would recommend that you. 01:20:33
Vote against. 01:20:37
Adopting it. 01:20:38
And if there's time, I'm happy to take questions. 01:20:40
Thank you so much. 01:20:43
We're going to hear, I think the other side of it, so maybe we'll have questions. Are you gonna? 01:20:45
I can I can wait for a little bit. 01:20:51
Well, does anybody have any questions for clarity purposes right now? 01:20:54
No, but I want to add context while I was laughing because you used an example of. 01:20:58
Taking out the trash. 01:21:03
And electing public officials like I thought it was. 01:21:05
Needs to happen more often. 01:21:09
I used to, I used to use, you know, police and fire as well and. 01:21:12
That's become, but yeah, yeah. 01:21:16
Thank you. 01:21:20
All right, we have John Kidd and Alan Perry. Are you guys here? 01:21:21
Hiding behind the pole. 01:21:25
I. 01:21:32
I was worried my laptop was too new for a moment. 01:21:38
They accommodate. 01:21:42
OK. 01:21:45
Yeah. 01:21:57
Yeah. 01:22:10
OK. 01:22:13
OK. 01:22:23
Hi, thank you for letting us address you today. My name is Doctor Alan Perry. I'm an associate professor of mathematics. 01:22:25
At Utah Valley University. 01:22:32
You guys might know him. This is Doctor John Kidd. He's an assistant professor of statistics at Utah Valley University. I only 01:22:33
mentioned our affiliation, just so that you guys know where we're from. 01:22:37
Certainly our opinions are our own. We're not representing anything from Utah Valley University. It's just our own opinion, our 01:22:41
own research. 01:22:44
We want to talk to you today a little bit about ranked choice voting and just voting in general. 01:22:47
One of the things that kind of gets a little lost, I think, when talking about voting is sort of what is the point of why we do 01:22:53
it? What is the goal with voting for a candidate? 01:22:58
And if you were to sum this up, the idea of voting for a candidate. 01:23:04
Is to attempt to accurately determine the collective opinion of the people about which candidate is actually preferred by that 01:23:08
group of people. 01:23:12
That's the goal. 01:23:17
And you could only have a hope of doing this if, for one thing, everybody actually communicated accurately what their own 01:23:18
individual preferences were. 01:23:22
And so one thing you might want to incentivize as part of this is that people actually express their actual preferences to to the 01:23:26
when they vote on their ballots. 01:23:32
It also would be nice if we could incentivize. 01:23:37
Civil elections, that's something that we kind of are missing, I think sometimes these days. 01:23:39
But just as a goal of voting. 01:23:44
And and we also would like to disincentivize what's called strategic voting. 01:23:46
So strategic voting is the idea when a voter. 01:23:50
Strategic vote, it does not communicate that voters honest opinion about who they actually want. It misrepresents that. So that's 01:24:24
that's an example of strategic voting. There's lots of different ways in which this can be done, but that's just as an example. 01:24:31
So let's talk a little bit about plurality. This is the pick one voting method that we typically are familiar with that we use. 01:24:38
To just give a quick description of what it is, you guys are familiar with it, but just to give some context. 01:24:45
Voter tallied. Everybody only gets to pick one person, and the candidate with the largest number of them is declared the winner. 01:24:49
And so let's talk about does that actually satisfy the purpose of voting? 01:24:55
And so, and maybe this could be a question of like, why would you want to change from plurality, which also is something that I 01:25:00
feel like gets lost in this discussion. Everybody's talking about new voting methods, but nobody's talking about why should we 01:25:04
even change from the one we have? 01:25:07
Well, plurality does a couple of problems. First, we've already talked about spoiler candidates a previous person did. Spoiler 01:25:11
candidates are common in in easily influenced and spoiler candidates. 01:25:17
Can dramatically impact how people vote and the likelihood that a particular candidate can win. To be clear on what a spoiler 01:25:23
candidate is. 01:25:27
A spoiler candidate is a candidate that wasn't going to win the election, but by their presence in the election they change who 01:25:31
the winner was going to be. So if they had not been in the election, the winner would have been a different person. 01:25:37
And in either case, would it be them? 01:25:43
That's what a spoiler candidate is too. Also, I use the word consensus here because I didn't want to use the word Condor save, but 01:25:45
since that was already used here, I'm going to I'm going to mention this. So plurality has a problem. Not only is it a non 01:25:50
condorcet method in which it can just like rank choice voting all. 01:25:54
Fail to elect a Condorcet winner. A Condorcet winner is a winner who would win in every pairwise runoff that they're in. So if you 01:25:59
ran 5 candidates and you did, you know, A versus BA versus CA versus D and so on and did that with every possible pair, if there's 01:26:04
somebody who wins in every possible case, that's a Condorcet winner. 01:26:10
Both plurality and ranked choice voting can fail to elect Condor, say, winners. 01:26:16
In fact, quite regularly. 01:26:20
The opposite also exists. A Condorcet loser. Somebody who could, who would lose every pairwise runoff that they're in. 01:26:22
One curious thing about plurality is that it is capable of electing the converse a loser. 01:26:29
So the current voting method that we use right now can elect. 01:26:34
Somebody who would lose in every pairwise runoff to every other candidate. 01:26:37
It also highly incentivizes strategic voting and strategic campaigning. For example, it results in things like voting for the 01:26:42
lesser of two evils, which is a form of strategic voting. You are misrepresenting what your actual preference is. 01:26:48
Because it's not advantageous to do so, so the system incentivizes you to not tell what your actual preference is. 01:26:54
And then finally. 01:27:01
How do I go back, John? 01:27:04
OK, finally, it also has been shown to induce the two party system so that matters to you. This is a natural game theoretic 01:27:07
consequence of using plurality voting. It naturally forms A2 party system over time. 01:27:13
It can take a long time for these kinds of events to occur. For example, the United States didn't devolve into a two party system 01:27:19
for about 80 years after its after its creation, even though it had been using plurality voting for a long time. 01:27:24
This is mainly due to the fact that you don't vote very often. 01:27:29
So it takes a little while for you to figure out what the optimal strategies are. 01:27:32
To give an example, here's a plurality election where you have two candidates, R1 and R2, who have similar political leanings, and 01:27:36
then a third candidate, D, who has maybe opposite political leanings. 01:27:41
And they run in this election, and you can see that if you were to run plurality, everybody gets to vote one. The people in the 01:27:47
party for R1 and R2 are kind of split on who the right one would be. And so they vote that way. You get 30% for 125% for the other 01:27:52
and 45% for the other side. 01:27:57
In a plurality election, D would win, but it kind of begs the question, should D win? 01:28:03
Because if you look at the makeup of the electorate, you have two candidates from roughly the same political, basically the same 01:28:08
political party if you want to put similar political leanings. 01:28:13
Making up 55% of the electorate. 01:28:18
Plurality cannot capture that. It cannot see that because that's not what it calculates. And so a plurality election would think 01:28:20
that the other candidate is the most preferred, even though 55% of the populace is saying I would like a candidate from this 01:28:25
party. 01:28:29
Or from this group. 01:28:34
So in divergent laws, the idea of a two party split, which by the way is kind of where where this comes from. Like you might say, 01:28:35
you might look at this and say, well, the party of R1 and R2 ought to just run one candidate. And that's precisely what causes the 01:28:39
two party candidate A2 party system thing. They're going to try to consolidate and run one candidate so they have a higher 01:28:44
likelihood of winning. 01:28:48
That's what divergent law is about. 01:28:54
On the other hand, instant runoff voting RCV. 01:28:57
What it does is as we've kind of seen it. 01:28:59
It has everybody rank order, all the candidates and then it looks at everybody's first. 01:29:02
Highest ranking. 01:29:06
And sees if any, if any candidate has a majority of highest ranked votes. If there is, they get elected. If not, the person with 01:29:07
the lowest first place votes is eliminated and all of those votes are now distributed to their next the next candidate that they 01:29:12
indicate. 01:29:16
And the process is repeated until a candidate obtains a majority of the remaining votes, Not necessarily, as you pointed out, 01:29:21
majority of everybody. 01:29:25
So to give an example, here's here's back to that same. 01:29:29
Plurality election. If instead of just voting one, everybody was offered a chance to rank order the candidates, let's suppose that 01:29:32
it would look like this and you can see that R1 and R2 are very similar politically and so everybody. 01:29:38
Who listed them? Listed them next to each other. This is a type of candidate that we call a clone. 01:29:45
Basically, they're acting similarly in the election. 01:29:51
In the sense that if either one of them were gone, the same thing would happen. 01:29:55
In this case here, if you look, nobody has a majority of first round votes. 01:29:58
And so the person with the least amount of votes is eliminated, which in this case would be R2. 01:30:03
And So what you do is you eliminate R2 from everybody's, I'm sorry a Star Wars fans, but you eliminate R2 from all of the listings 01:30:08
there and you would get this resulting. 01:30:14
New list of what everybody's preferences are, which you can then recombine. 01:30:19
Because that will do it. 01:30:24
There we go. And you'd see that R1 would win with 55% of the vote, which is more accurate in terms of like what the people wanted, 01:30:26
because that is showing that the people actually wanted a candidate from that side of the political spectrum. 01:30:31
So R1 would win in this case. 01:30:38
In this case here I want to point out a couple of things. First off, R1 actually was the Condorcet winner in this particular 01:30:39
election, and so this is an example of plurality not electing a Condorcet winner. 01:30:44
In fact, D is the Condorcet loser in this election. Both R1 and R2 would have beaten him 55 to 45. So plurality elected the person 01:30:50
that would have lost head to head against every other candidate. 01:30:55
Moreover, as we point out, they are to 1 and R2 were clones, and IRV avoided that kind of spoiler effect. Now there are lots of 01:31:02
different kinds of spoilers, so let's talk about. 01:31:07
Does RCV actually fix the problems that we addressed with plurality? 01:31:12
First off, RCV is immune to a particular type of spoiler called a clone. 01:31:16
There are other types of spoilers, and it is incredibly hard for a voting method to be immune to all types of spoilers. Almost 01:31:21
every voting method out there is susceptible to some kind, but this particular type of spoiler is. Plurality is highly susceptible 01:31:26
to, but RCV is immune to. 01:31:31
Other types of spoilers RCB can fall victim to, as was kind of pointed out. 01:31:36
RCV will not elect a Condorcet loser. It's impossible for that to happen. 01:31:41
Mathematically impossible. 01:31:46
However, it can fail, as was pointed out, to elect a Condorcet winner if there is one. 01:31:48
It also, while strategic voting is still possible in RCV, it provides considerably less benefit than it would in our in plurality. 01:31:52
In plurality, voting for the lesser of two evils is a common strategy, enough so that we almost feel like that's the right way to 01:32:00
do it. 01:32:03
And so that provides a lot of incentive. Strategic voting in RCV is possible, but it's not as useful. And so there's less utility 01:32:06
in doing it. 01:32:10
It also can result in different outcomes than plurality that some people were worried. Does it really make a difference? It does, 01:32:14
especially in cases where plurality presents a problem where it's not representing what the people want. 01:32:19
However, RCV does have some problems too. 01:32:24
It can fail to elect the Condorcet winner, as we pointed out. 01:32:29
It can fail to be monotonic, which was described. This is if you. 01:32:32
This is the idea that if you increase support for your candidate, you can potentially make that can't hurt that candidate's chance 01:32:37
of winning. And it is precisely the point that you pointed out that it can change who was eliminated first, and that dramatically 01:32:41
changes what happens later on in the election. 01:32:46
Also, I take a little issue with the idea that it's kind of confusing. 01:32:51
If it were, you know, 100 years from now people were still confused, then maybe it's an issue. 01:33:25
And of course, like I said, new voting methods take time to change voting behavior for people to find out what the right strategy 01:33:29
is inside there. 01:33:33
I'd like to take just a quick minute though and talk about this because we've talked about several different voting methods here. 01:33:36
So the idea of voting methods, there's two parts to one, there's a. 01:33:40
Voter opinion data collection portion, which is the ballot. 01:33:45
And then afterwards you take that data and you have to interpret it somehow. And the question of whether or not this interprets it 01:33:48
correctly is important. So the different types of ballots that you can talk about are things like single choice ballots or a 01:33:53
ranked choice ballot or as was talked about, an approval ballot. 01:33:58
Or a score ballot are some popular types of voter data opinion data collection. 01:34:03
Methods that you can do. 01:34:08
On top of that though, as soon as you collect that data, that's just information about what the people's preferences are. 01:34:10
Now the purpose is, how do I correctly interpret that data so that I can accurately represent what the people are trying to say 01:34:16
collectively? 01:34:20
And there are lots of different ways in which you can do this. Plurality is one way where you just take the first first choice 01:34:24
vote of everybody and you can actually calculate the polarity winner off of a single choice or a ranked choice ballot. Curiously, 01:34:28
one of the examples that you provided. 01:34:32
Showed when RCV failed to elect the Condorcet winner. 01:34:37
In that election that you described, plurality would have elected the same person. 01:34:40
So really there wouldn't have been much difference in some of those kinds of scenarios. 01:34:44
But anyway, so that's one type. You can also talk about instant runoff voting. That's the actual name of what most people refer to 01:34:48
when they say ranked choice voting. 01:34:52
But there's more modern forms of ranked choice voting. 01:34:55
For example, something called ranked pairs which has only been around since about the 80s. What it does is it actually compares. 01:34:58
If it were to fail either one of those, even if it was good at the other, it would be bad. If it incentivized people to tell the 01:35:35
truth, but it couldn't tell what the what the right thing is from that, that's bad. If you could tell what the right thing is, if 01:35:40
everybody votes honestly but everybody's incentivized to vote dishonestly, it doesn't help either. Both of those would be a 01:35:45
problem. So you need one that does its best at preventing, at making both of these occur. 01:35:50
One way that mathematicians actually try to understand this is by looking at things called fairness criteria. 01:35:55
And what a fairness criteria is, you can see here. I've listed several. These are ideas in an election that should make that we 01:36:00
should argue that a good election method should be able to do so. For example, we talked about Condorcet winners. 01:36:06
If there's a Condorcet winner, an election method ought to pick it. It means that person is going to beat every other person in a 01:36:11
head-to-head matchup. It's hard to argue that that's not the favorite candidate in that pool. 01:36:16
So that's one fairness criteria. If there's a condensing winner, it should pick it. You can see plurality and instant runoff both 01:36:20
fail that, but rank pair satisfies it. Score voting fails it. 01:36:25
Condor say loser. If there is a Condorcet loser you don't want to elect that plurality can elect a Condorcet loser. Instant runoff 01:36:30
won't. Rank pairs won't. 01:36:35
Clone invariants. That's that special type of spoiler that we talked about. Plurality is highly susceptible to. In fact, it's 01:36:40
actually referred to as being strongly cloned negative. If there's a presence of a clone, it significantly impacts one of the 01:36:44
clones ability to win. 01:36:48
Instant Runoff is immune to that type of spoiler. On the other hand, you have monotonicity, which plurality actually does satisfy. 01:36:53
An Instant runoff fails. Rank pair satisfies that one too, and you can see there's a few more. These certainly isn't an exhaustive 01:36:57
list of. 01:37:01
Of fairness criteria. But certainly I think it gives you an idea that there's more to this question than anything else. 01:37:06
I think personally it would be a mistake to just stick with plurality because you can see it's kind of one of the worst ones there 01:37:12
are. 01:37:15
Mathematically, like most mathematicians would agree, plurality is probably one of the worst ways that you can try to actually 01:37:18
really like, figure out what the people want. 01:37:22
It has the worst mathematical properties of almost every voting method. 01:37:27
Instant Runoff is a slight improvement. It's not great, but there are other methods out there that are possible and available that 01:37:30
are far more robust. 01:37:33
And I think it's more important to keep the conversation going and keep talking about this stuff. 01:37:37
And I'll turn time over to John. 01:37:41
And so a couple final. 01:37:43
Couple final last little things. 01:37:45
We also have a little bit of information about how people feel about this. 01:37:46
In a couple last couple of years. 01:37:50
The pilot study has been going on in Utah to determine how RCV is going to work. 01:37:54
We have access and I've been able to analyze data from the survey that was conducted by Y2 Analytics in 2021 and 2023. 01:37:59
Now, there were some guidelines. Most of this data was designed to see how voters felt about, you know, throughout the entire 01:38:08
state. There were mathematical procedures done so we could try to focus on voters that were in ranked choice communities. 01:38:14
And they did a very good job of this. 01:38:51
And from this I have some results from the state of Utah. 01:38:53
So in the state of Utah, various questions were asked. 01:38:56
One of which being, hey, are you more or less likely to vote for your favorite candidate? 01:38:59
And a vast majority of people indicated they vote. They were more likely to vote for their favorite with RCV than they were with 01:39:04
other methods. A fair number said maybe, maybe not. 01:39:09
But definitely much more likely to than not. So we see more of that on. 01:39:14
Accounting for their votes. 01:39:18
Additionally, most people do feel that the instructions are clear. 01:39:20
We see from this that the majority felt that the instructions were very clear. Quite a few felt that they were somewhat clear and 01:39:25
maybe somewhat unclear. 01:39:29
But we do see. 01:39:33
Quite a few people understand and for those that don't, hopefully we can, like seatbelts, continue to learn about this procedure 01:39:34
and help them to better understand. 01:39:38
Most people felt that RCV was easy. 01:39:43
All right, either very easy or somewhat easy. 01:39:46
Additionally, most felt most were satisfied with the election form that they used. 01:39:50
And a couple of final ones. Most felt that they were very confident. This one I actually like just beyond RCV. 01:39:56
Because we know that there is some concern. 01:40:02
Most people in Utah are still indicating that they are confident in the results of their election. 01:40:04
And then as a final one. 01:40:10
The question was asked, and this one was across 2021 and 23. 01:40:12
How do you feel about? 01:40:16
RCV in the future. 01:40:17
They asked would you prefer more elections, maybe you keep it only in municipal or to eliminate it entirely And while there is a 01:40:19
little bit more of a split here. 01:40:23
We do see that a majority, and statistically we could see this a majority preferred more, or at least keeping RCV elections as 01:40:28
they were. 01:40:32
Now the fun part about the fact that I live here in Vineyard is I got to delve into the data and I could look very specifically at 01:40:38
results for those that indicated they lived in Vineyard. 01:40:43
Now, it's not an exhaustive. 01:40:48
Set. These are not a lot of participants, but once again, they were selected randomly. There's not bias in who was selected for 01:40:50
this and of those that participated in this survey. 01:40:56
There were 19 and 2021. 01:41:02
Almost over 90% indicated that. 01:41:04
RCV was easy to use. 01:41:07
Most indicated that instructions were clear. They liked RCV. They liked that a majority needed to be voting for a winner. 01:41:09
And that they were very satisfied with the elections. 01:41:18
And 57 percent, 58% indicated they wanted RCV not only used in municipal elections, but used more and an additional 31 1/2 01:41:21
percent. 01:41:26
Wanted it used at least in municipal elections. 01:41:31
In 2023 we got five more people. 01:41:35
And the numbers stayed roughly the same. 01:41:38
And particularly at the end, we see. 01:41:41
Half of these wanted. 01:41:44
More RCV used in more elections. 01:41:47
Plus an additional almost 17% that wanted it to at least stay in the elections. Now again, we don't know for certain that this is. 01:41:50
Perfectly representative of Vineyard. This is a small sample size. 01:41:57
But I do wish to say that there is some evidence here as these are randomly selected individuals. 01:42:01
That there does appear to be some evidence, not just throughout the state of Utah, but here at home that individuals are not as 01:42:06
opposed to RCB. 01:42:10
As loud voices may indicate. 01:42:15
And that is all for us if we have any questions for. 01:42:20
All of the above. We can step aside or. 01:42:23
Continue to answer Can I ask a question? 01:42:25
Yeah, thank you God. 01:42:27
Can you explain ranked pairs a little bit more? Because. 01:42:29
Sure, I'd be happy to so. 01:42:34
The so the idea, let's go back to the idea of a Condorcet winner, right, which is the notion if I take every possible pairwise 01:42:37
runoff and I try to see if they win. 01:42:40
If there's if there is somebody who wins everything, they win ranked pairs as well. So that's great. It'll elect a Condorcet 01:42:45
winner. The problem is, is that sometimes. 01:42:49
You get a sort of rock, paper, scissors scenario where the electorate indicates that they prefer candidate A to candidate B, they 01:42:53
prefer candidate B to candidate C, but they prefer candidate C to candidate A. 01:42:59
And that's not transitive. So how do you determine who they actually prefer? 01:43:05
And So what ranked pairs tries to do is it says when you run into this thing, it's called a Condorcet paradox, but it's a rock, 01:43:09
paper, scissors problem. 01:43:12
It says when you run into this, how do you break that chain in order to determine a ranking that is most accurate? And So what it 01:43:15
does is it looks at the strength of victory of each of those. Maybe candidate A was preferred to candidate B by like 70 to 30. 01:43:22
Maybe candidate B was preferred to candidate C, you know, 55 to 45 and candidate C was preferred to candidate A only 5151 to 49. 01:43:29
The weakest victory there would be the last one and so it would throw that victory out and and rank it ABC. 01:43:37
So is that something because you said that? 01:43:43
So we know that approval. 01:43:47
Voting is not something that our legislature allows, and we know that ranked choice voting only has instant runoff voting from my 01:43:48
understanding, so ranked choice voting would be paired with. 01:43:54
Sorry, paired. 01:44:00
I lost it. 01:44:02
Thank you. 01:44:04
But that's not something approved by our legislators, right? So, so here, yes, you're right, this is a little tricky. In fact, as 01:44:06
I understand the law that that set up the rank choice voting pilot, it's specifically specified instant runoff voting in its 01:44:11
description of what method was approved for use. 01:44:16
If you wanted to use another form of ranked and This is why I hate the notion the term ranked choice voting because anything that 01:44:21
uses a ranked ballot is a ranked choice voting method, not just instant runoff. 01:44:26
But if you wanted to use a different interpretation method for a ranked ballot. 01:44:31
You would require just like approval voting something from the legislature that would that would say that. But that honestly, I 01:44:36
think that's something that that hasn't even really been brought up with the legislature, that there are other ideas. The 01:44:41
conversation has almost been unilaterally between plurality and instant runoff voting. Most people I don't even think are aware 01:44:45
there are other ones out there. There are. 01:44:49
Dozens of election methods, all with varying levels of robustness. Ranked pairs. In fact, if you want, you can check out a 01:44:54
Wikipedia page, you can Google rank pairs. Go to the Wikipedia page, Scroll down. There's a whole list of like. 01:44:59
Two dozen different voting methods and two dozen fairness criteria, and it shows you which ones satisfy which. It's all very well 01:45:05
understood mathematically. 01:45:09
But anyway, so. 01:45:13
Yeah, there's a lot of out there. Ranked pairs is my favorite because of all the methods that are out there. It seems to satisfy 01:45:15
the really most important. 01:45:18
Fairness criteria. 01:45:22
While still being relatively easy to explain that it's an important balance there. 01:45:24
The other issue is that there's some mathematical theorems that show that you can't really find one that satisfies everything. And 01:45:30
so it's kind of an unfortunate mathematical problem too. And so this kind of optimizes. How can you address the purpose of voting? 01:45:36
Thank you. 01:45:42
All right, I'm going to invite up our next speakers. 01:45:43
Mark Roberts, Brad DAW and Nancy Lord, come on up. 01:45:46
Thank you so much for being here. 01:45:55
Thank you for having us. 01:45:58
So I was just. 01:46:01
Guess I'll start off by saying. 01:46:02
If you're tired of hearing about ranked choice voting, talking about this stuff. 01:46:05
I'm to blame. 01:46:09
It's my fault. 01:46:11
I served in the Utah Legislature from 2012 to 2020. 01:46:13
And in 20. 01:46:17
Actually 2013 was my first session. 01:46:19
2014 the Legislature changed how we do primary elections. 01:46:22
So that you could have multiple people on a primary ballot that we've seen the last several years. 01:46:26
And when that happened? 01:46:31
Umm, they promised us when this whole deal went down that hey, we're going to fix this plurality issue now that's going to exist 01:46:32
on the primary ballot. 01:46:36
And I looked around and nobody was offering anything up. And I've always been a big fan of instant runoff voting or ranked choice 01:46:41
voting. 01:46:45
I have a real hard time with the current plurality method. 01:46:49
For many reasons that were just stated by both the approval and the ranked choice voting people here. 01:46:52
It's mathematically it's worth worth worse method. 01:46:58
I hated getting in the situation where I'm stuck trying to pick between the worst of two evils, right and like playing this game 01:47:02
well if I well, if I vote for this person. 01:47:06
That I really like. It's going to pull votes away from this person. I'm going to end up with this person that I really don't want. 01:47:10
So for me, rank choice voting always solved that in a perfect world. 01:47:17
We would all show up. 01:47:21
And we would all vote. 01:47:22
Right. Umm. 01:47:24
And. 01:47:25
And if nobody gets 50% or more, we drop off the last vote getter. 01:47:26
And we all stick around in a perfect world and we vote again. Everybody votes, right? And we repeat this process until somebody 01:47:31
gets 50% or more. 01:47:35
In a perfect world. 01:47:40
Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, right? So how do you best approximate this right? 01:47:42
And there's no, you know, you did your little finger things. I don't know if you're talking about money, but there's no time or 01:47:46
money to do this. 01:47:49
So what best approximates this? In my opinion, it's been ranked choice voting. 01:47:53
And that's how you can best approximate this perfect world of. 01:47:58
Multiple rounds where we get together, we cast our vote, nobody gets 50% or more, we're going to do it again. 01:48:02
There's a lot of talk about the algorithm on the back end. Essentially, that's how the algorithm works. 01:48:08
You rank your choices and so you say hey in the first round with this. 01:48:14
Field of candidates. 01:48:19
This is who I would vote for. This is my preference. OK, now if my candidate doesn't get through the first round. 01:48:20
And we moved to the second round and nobody's made it 50% or more. Who would I vote for out of who's left? 01:48:26
To represent me right on the legislature or the City Council or whatever it is. 01:48:33
That would be my second preference. 01:48:38
And then if there's more people on the ballot, I would say, all right, if these two people aren't in and I have to choose between 01:48:41
these three people, in a perfect world, that would be the situation, right? Three people left. 01:48:46
And I'd have to choose between these three people. Who's my preference in that scenario. 01:48:52
So that's exactly how the algorithm works on the back end, it just does it. 01:48:56
With the algorithm instead of in real time with people dropping people off. 01:49:01
So I propose this to the legislature. Ran the bill and the county clerks. 01:49:05
Don't like this? 01:49:10
They don't like a lot of change. 01:49:12
They put a big fiscal note on it. It was going to cost millions of dollars and and so. 01:49:15
I worked with them for several years. 01:49:20
And went back and forth. At one point we had it passed all through, all the way through the House and Senate, and we were going to 01:49:24
have rank choice voting in the primaries and the general election. 01:49:28
And it fell by one vote in a Senate committee. 01:49:32
So at that point started work with the county clerks and came to a compromise in which we said, all right, let's try this thing 01:49:35
out. 01:49:40
Because you guys keep saying that it doesn't work. People don't understand. It's going to be hard for people to do, It's going to 01:49:45
be hard for clerks to administer. This was the argument always going on. 01:49:49
And so I said, all right, fine, let's try it out. Let's make it optional at the city level. Let's not force anybody to do it. 01:49:54
And let's see what happens. So they agreed. 01:50:00
We passed the bill. 01:50:03
Made it optional for cities to do it And thank you Vineyard City. You guys were one of the first cities to do it the first year 01:50:05
along with Payson City. 01:50:08
Unfortunately. 01:50:12
Even though the county clerks said, OK, let's do this, let's compromise, let's see what really happens. 01:50:14
They then went out and refused to administer this for any of the cities. So any of the cities. 01:50:18
Only Vineyard and Payson did it that year. There was more that wanted to, but the county clerk's refused to administer it for him. 01:50:24
Fortunately at this time. 01:50:30
Million Powers was the county clerk for Utah County, and she agreed to administer and do it. And so Pace and Vineyard. 01:50:31
We're able to do it and then. 01:50:37
From there, more cities did it in the future. So that's how we ended up with this. 01:50:39
That's why it ended up as a pilot project. 01:50:43
And the reality is when I first ran this. 01:50:46
It actually did include approval voting, so approval voting was part of the original bill. 01:50:48
And was amended out on the Senate floor. 01:50:54
On the last day of the session. 01:50:56
Because I wanted to have kind of a. 01:50:59
Sandbox environment of hey, let's try these things out. The cities, you know, are good place where you can test these things out. 01:51:01
Not at like a general election where we're electing the governor and stuff. The cities is a good environment to try these things 01:51:05
out. 01:51:10
If they want to. 01:51:14
I would love to see actually the option for approval. 01:51:16
You know some of these others on there? 01:51:19
And see what that looks like. But we ended up with ranked choice voting and. 01:51:21
That is my personal bias. 01:51:25
Just sorta on the same page so. 01:51:29
We ran it. It works. It's not complicated. People understand it. We did education campaigns, but. 01:51:31
Even without the education campaigns, we went to some senior living centers. 01:51:38
And said hey, rank the five national parks. 01:51:42
And we're going to see which one everybody prefers. We didn't explain to them how ranked choice voting works or anything. They're 01:51:44
all able to do this. 01:51:48
So. 01:51:51
Anyway, one person, one vote. We've talked about this. 01:51:53
Maine was one of the first states to do ranked choice voting. This was challenged. A federal judge already ruled that it's 01:51:56
constitutional. And if you just think about how this works. 01:52:01
Multiple rounds of voting. 01:52:06
It's what you get one vote each round. There isn't more than one vote. You're not casting more than one vote. 01:52:08
I had a list of a bunch of advantages, but before you move on from that. 01:52:16
Could you explain why that's important? 01:52:21
The one person, one vote. And why if we're getting one vote on each candidate, why they so it is constitutional, right? You, you 01:52:23
get one person, one vote. 01:52:28
And people like to say rank choice voting is not one person, one vote. 01:52:33
And like I said, this was challenged by some people in Maine, went to a federal court and. 01:52:38
They ruled on the constitutionality of it that. 01:52:43
That it is one person, one vote and. 01:52:45
And if you just think about how it works, in a perfect world we'd show up first round of voting. Everybody votes once you get one 01:52:47
vote. 01:52:51
And if nobody gets 50% or more? 01:52:55
We gather everybody back again, we vote again, Everybody gets one vote. 01:52:58
And it's the same way you know ranked choice voting works. You just do it all at once. 01:53:02
And they? 01:53:06
You count everybody's first choices, and if nobody gets 50% or more, you drop off the ballot. 01:53:08
Does that answer your question? Yeah. So is the and just for clarity purposes, so was the ruling that? 01:53:14
The one person, one vote constitutionally is one person. 01:53:20
Has to get the same fairness and vote as the next person. So if you're voting for each candidate. 01:53:24
Then everybody gets to vote, has the opportunity to vote for each candidate, and that's why it's one person. 01:53:31
I believe voting method. 01:53:37
I believe the challenge was people are claiming that. 01:53:39
People are able to vote for more than one person. 01:53:42
Right, So if you want to get into the weeds of this too, right, like you look at approval voting and other things and, and even 01:53:45
the current plurality method, we say, hey, vote for three, right there's. 01:53:50
I don't know how it is here and maybe there's two seats open and so it says. 01:53:55
Five people are running. Vote for two, right? So everybody's voting for. 01:53:59
More than one, especially in a plurality city situation. 01:54:04
But the argument was. 01:54:08
For like the main. 01:54:09
Primary. 01:54:12
That people were able to vote for more than one person instead of one person, like my vote was counting more than once. 01:54:13
And. 01:54:22
That was ruled. 01:54:23
No, in fact it doesn't. And RCV fits the constitutional requirement for one person, one vote. 01:54:24
Thank you. 01:54:31
But this is another problem with the current method that I've always felt like at the City Council level. 01:54:33
I've had people tell me, hey. 01:54:39
You know, a bunch of us were running for City Council, several of us, and. 01:54:41
We all had this opinion about this zoning thing. You know you. 01:54:46
Issues that people run on in cities, right? 01:54:50
And a bunch of people had this issue about this zoning thing. If five people are running or four people running, and then they 01:54:52
have to get in a room and get together and be like, all right. 01:54:56
One or two or three of us has got to drop out because we're all going to cancel each other out if we all win. And then this person 01:55:01
who wants the other type of zoning thing. 01:55:05
Is going to win. 01:55:10
In pace in one year. 01:55:12
A guy was disqualified, so we have Melon. 01:55:15
Ballots, right? That ballot goes out early. People cast their vote. Well, a guy was disqualified after the ballot had already gone 01:55:19
out. So now you have all these people that have cast the ballot. 01:55:24
Their votes. You can't go back and change this. 01:55:29
Rank choice voting solves this. 01:55:31
Because now you just go to their next choices after that. 01:55:33
So there's a number of ways it solves. 01:55:36
You know, issues that happen at this city level. 01:55:39
And then you get scenarios where. 01:55:42
It's hey, vote for three. 01:55:44
Or vote for two right? And there's five people on the ballot. 01:55:47
And I've had City Council members in other cities tell me that their friends and neighbors and. 01:55:50
And people who really support them will tell them. 01:55:55
Hey, I'm only voting for you. 01:55:58
Because they're worried about diluting their vote if they cast all three of their votes. 01:56:00
And so they're really disenfranchising themselves because they can't participate fully in the election. 01:56:05
With ranked choice voting at this level. 01:56:10
It's a majority winner for each seat and so everybody gets to participate each time and maybe you only. 01:56:12
Vote for one person each time as was brought up. 01:56:19
That's a real possibility, but in a real life scenario? 01:56:22
If we all sat here and did it. 01:56:25
And we're filling these seats. 01:56:27
Well, I may be voting for Jacob every single time and he's just struggling getting through each, you know, each round and then 01:56:30
finally on the last round he gets in. 01:56:33
Or maybe he doesn't. 01:56:37
But every single round we do that. He's my choice and I'm going to be voting for him every time. 01:56:38
So that's what rank choice voting does for us here. 01:56:43
So umm. Uh. 01:56:46
We've got this. Umm. 01:56:47
This survey that was done. 01:56:49
After the first year that Vineyard did the used rank choice voting. 01:56:52
And it was done by the elections division of Utah County. 01:56:58
So turn out. 01:57:01
1100 voters. 01:57:03
Umm, 31 percent is good. So this is a little bit on turn out. 01:57:06
And so there's been questions about, hey, people are confused, they don't know how to do this. 01:57:10
300 Office calls to the office. 01:57:15
From Vineyard, only two were about RCV. 01:57:18
Poll response is 618 emails sent out, 111 responses came back. 01:57:21
86%. 01:57:27
Of the respondents favored using RCV, this is just vineyard. 01:57:29
Data next slide. 01:57:33
And so this is the results. 01:57:36
From that election. 01:57:39
Most of the voters. 01:57:40
Citizens in Vineyard. 01:57:43
That participate in the survey. 01:57:45
Said they are confident in how it worked and how their vote was counted and how it was intended. 01:57:47
110. 01:57:53
Respondents here. 01:57:54
Could you clarify what year was this? 01:57:57
What was the first year you guys did this? It was. 01:58:00
19 Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is 19. 01:58:03
Yeah, because. 01:58:08
That's when we did. 01:58:09
The data on how many calls would come in because everyone say you're gonna have all kinds of calls of people confuse people. Well, 01:58:11
there's. 01:58:14
What was there 2/3? 01:58:18
So did you find ranked choice voting easy to use? 109 respondents. 01:58:21
And overwhelmingly people said, yeah, it works, wasn't hard. 01:58:25
Next slide. 01:58:30
And how much did you like using ranked choice voting? Great response here as well. 01:58:31
And I think that's it. 01:58:36
Oh, how satisfied was your voting experience so overwhelmingly? This is a survey with Vineyard citizens after doing the election. 01:58:38
In 2019. 01:58:46
And how they felt about the experience in using ranked choice voting. Is there another one? 01:58:48
I think that might be it. 01:58:52
Yeah. And do you think it should be used in future city elections? 01:58:54
And this was. 01:58:57
You know, 86% said yes, it should be. 01:58:59
Umm, and. 01:59:02
Yes, now that's Leslie. 01:59:04
So. 01:59:07
Bottom line is, you know, we can get into all these numbers and crazy things and theoretical scenarios that might happen a very 01:59:08
small percentage of the time, if ever. 01:59:12
Right but the but the bottom line is. 01:59:17
Do we prefer using this method? 01:59:20
Versus the current method. 01:59:23
Right. Or do we want to just stick with the existing method on ranked choice voting? 01:59:25
So that's all I have. 01:59:31
Got questions? We can do questions later. Thanks, Tony for the slides. 01:59:34
Awesome. Until Jeremy. Hi. 01:59:38
I haven't seen him for years. 01:59:40
Thanks, Mark. 01:59:46
Hi, my name is Nancy Lord. Just a little background on me. 01:59:47
I'm a lifelong Republican activist. 01:59:52
And I'm actually one of the people who originally one of the original conservatives within the Utah Republican Party. 01:59:55
That brought ranked choice voting into Utah. 02:00:01
And I can tell you I've never received any money from any outside group. 02:00:05
Or Liberal group, except for the $50 we got one year. 02:00:09
To have a booth at the state convention because we called them and asked for it. 02:00:13
So. 02:00:18
I have been. 02:00:19
A supporter of ranked choice voting for over 20 years. 02:00:22
And I I'm really disheartened at a lot of the arguments that are currently being used to oppose it. 02:00:25
Because I think. 02:00:32
To some degree, they're specious. 02:00:34
And their. 02:00:37
Kind of straw man arguments honestly. 02:00:38
So I'm going to address some of those and then I'm going to. 02:00:42
Pretty much the reasons why I support it you've already heard. 02:00:44
But I'm going to specifically address some of the. 02:00:48
Arguments against it. 02:00:51
First off. 02:00:54
There's an argument that. 02:00:56
Somehow ranked choice voting. 02:00:58
In rank choice voting money. 02:01:00
Dominates. 02:01:02
And it favors the well connected. 02:01:03
I can tell you. 02:01:06
That if that were true, if. 02:01:08
Then the state Republican Party would be pushing it big time. 02:01:11
Because that's where the well connected people are. 02:01:16
But I can tell you that once we got it in place in the rules, in the state party constitution, it was the well connected. 02:01:20
Who began fighting us? 02:01:26
And bringing out these arguments against it, even though the delegates loved it. 02:01:28
And wanted to use it more and that's why we did not continue to use it in the state party convention. 02:01:36
Until COVID when it kind of had to be used. 02:01:42
Because. 02:01:45
There were some very well connected. 02:01:47
Incumbents who did not want ranked choice voting to be used. 02:01:50
Another argument that was. 02:01:56
Used is that. 02:01:57
Some voters are more equal than others. 02:02:00
And that the voters who ranked. 02:02:03
The second choice winner in your City Council. 02:02:05
Race in 2019. 02:02:08
Did not get a chance to weigh in on. 02:02:11
The first choice. 02:02:14
I mean on a second winner. 02:02:15
I'd like to speak directly to that because if on 1st blush. 02:02:18
That sounds like a reasonable argument. 02:02:22
Oh, and by the way, I have a degree in accounting and I worked as an auditor. 02:02:25
In recent years until. 02:02:31
Retired so I do have a little bit of knowledge about numbers. 02:02:32
OK, so. 02:02:38
The 277 voters that voted for what was his name? 02:02:40
Tithe, yeah. 02:02:44
OK, so that was their first choice on their ballot. 02:02:45
So the claim is that they never got to weigh in on a second candidate because by the time they got down to those first choices on 02:02:50
on those ballots. 02:02:54
Now you had the two winners. 02:02:58
OK, think about it. There were four candidates, OK. 02:03:00
If those voters who voted for ties. 02:03:03
Had ranked all the other candidates. 02:03:07
Let's assume they did. 02:03:10
OK, then their second. 02:03:12
Or third or fourth choice would have been. 02:03:15
The guy that won first, right? 02:03:19
There was actually 7 or 8 candidates that year. OK, but. 02:03:21
Yeah, OK. 02:03:26
So the point is if they had ranked that person second. 02:03:27
They already got one of the people they wanted. 02:03:32
Because. 02:03:35
He was already elected. 02:03:36
OK. And then if they would have if they ranked lower ones? 02:03:38
Those candidates were eliminated. 02:03:43
And so they did get to weigh in. 02:03:46
It's just that it doesn't show itself on the surface. 02:03:49
Does that make sense? 02:03:53
It actually doesn't to me. I'm really I, I. 02:03:55
Yeah, I know. It's I'm sorry. It's embarrassing. No, it's OK, because this is. 02:03:58
It is a little complex and I think it's important well and I want to make sure I understand because. 02:04:02
OK, umm. 02:04:08
This is I actually really like ranked choice voting. If you hand me a piece of paper, I like to tell you the order. I like things. 02:04:09
But runoff counting is where I get. 02:04:17
A little bit. 02:04:20
A little bit disappointed in some of the scenarios that can happen and I like your argument of the straw man. 02:04:24
Where these aren't always going to happen, but I still I. 02:04:29
If I vote. 02:04:34
If there's two seats. 02:04:35
And I vote my ranks and my if. Let's say I voted for Tice. 02:04:37
That surprises me that. 02:04:42
My second vote. 02:04:45
Never got counted right? It did, in a way. 02:04:47
Like it was definitely registered in the county, but. 02:04:50
Essentially, I only got to vote for one seat, right? 02:04:53
That's how I understand it. 02:04:57
No, I would suggest that you did get to vote for the whole range. 02:05:00
The the only difference is that if you chose that candidate, who. 02:05:05
Acquired The Who acquired the majority first? 02:05:11
In the 1st. 02:05:14
Round of counting. 02:05:15
You got that person. You voted for them down farther, but you got the person you voted for. 02:05:18
But it wasn't by any action I made that got them that win right. 02:05:24
Like, I just want to clarify, well, it wasn't technically counted in because you didn't choose that candidate first place, OK? 02:05:29
OK, but you chose the second winner? 02:05:37
First place. 02:05:40
And there were no other candidates that could have won. 02:05:42
Because and and even if you had chosen them, you chose them lower as well as. 02:05:46
All the other voters. 02:05:51
In the city. 02:05:53
So it's not like your vote was ignored. 02:05:54
And it's not like it was unfair because you all got the same ballot and you all had the same opportunity. 02:05:58
To rank all of the candidates or less than all of the candidates. 02:06:05
And it's very important. 02:06:11
And, and I believe you do this in your, you have done this in your city. 02:06:13
With our. 02:06:17
To let the voters know that they do not need to rank every candidate. 02:06:18
Because you would not want your vote to count. 02:06:24
For someone. 02:06:28
Who you can't stomach. 02:06:29
Right. 02:06:31
You know my husband won City Council in Bluffdale. 02:06:33
Two years ago. 02:06:36
And he actually went on a non ranked choice voting ballot. 02:06:38
But the reason is because the opposite side. 02:06:41
Of the issues we were dealing with in the city at the time. 02:06:44
Had four candidates for three seats. 02:06:48
And we only had two good candidates for the three seats. 02:06:51
So I said, when I heard about that, I said. 02:06:55
They chose not to do ranked choice voting. 02:06:59
They could have won had they chosen ranked choice voting. 02:07:02
But now they're going to split each other's votes. 02:07:05
And so we don't want to support somebody we can't support. 02:07:08
These critical issues of taxes in a referendum, etc. 02:07:13
So it's important that our people know they are not required to vote for. 02:07:17
3 candidates and so that is an issue that applied. My point is that's an issue that applies in. 02:07:23
Both uh. 02:07:30
Single choice elections. Plurality elections. 02:07:31
And ranked choice voting elections you should never. 02:07:35
Feel like you have to vote for a candidate that. 02:07:39
You don't support. 02:07:41
And so they're they're similar in that way. 02:07:43
And anything that makes them do that is wrong in my opinion. 02:07:46
I think that was my first frustration with ranked choices. It wasn't really clear, you know, And so I, I thought I had to. 02:07:51
Place everyone. 02:07:59
And there were people that I. 02:08:00
Didn't want to support at all, right? So. 02:08:02
So it's important that that be on the website on the ballot talked about. 02:08:04
Absolutely. 02:08:10
Very important. 02:08:11
Yeah, and, and most people don't understand that issue though as I said, even in a. 02:08:12
First past the post plurality. 02:08:18
When they don't, they do not understand that. 02:08:20
So, umm. 02:08:23
This idea that the ballot is going to be longer if you have ranked choice voting. 02:08:28
No, it's not going to be longer. It's going to have the same number of candidates, which determines the length. 02:08:32
Of the ballot. 02:08:37
It might be wider. 02:08:39
Because you're going to need more columns. 02:08:41
For the number of candidates you have. 02:08:43
But it's not going to make it longer. 02:08:47
Ballots are already crazy long, but you know that doesn't even really apply so much when it comes to your city. 02:08:50
Because you only have. 02:08:56
The mayor seat. 02:08:57
And the City Council seats at any given and or the City Council seats, there are no down ballot issues. 02:08:59
That it will affect. 02:09:06
That it will. 02:09:08
You know, sometimes people claim that it tires people as they go down the ballot. Quick question. I want some clarity for Marty's 02:09:09
question. OK, Marty, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you were saying is. 02:09:15
You want to understand. 02:09:21
How it counts? 02:09:23
If there's two people or they say there's five people you want to understand and there's two seats open. 02:09:25
You want to understand how you got to vote for the two seats? 02:09:32
And right now? 02:09:36
If I heard your question is that you understand that you only voted for Tice. 02:09:37
Because he was your first choice. 02:09:43
But that you're counting never went back into play. 02:09:45
For the second seat. 02:09:48
That's your question. 02:09:50
Yes. Can you come up and explain it? 02:09:53
Yes, come up and explain it, because we actually did a counting. 02:09:55
We actually did like a little. 02:10:01
What is it called? I'm losing my words tonight. Simulation. 02:10:03
Thank you. A simulation where we got to watch the counting, but I think it would be good to have that. So the way the law works 02:10:06
is. 02:10:09
If there's. 02:10:13
Let's just say two seats available. Is this the scenario? 02:10:14
In Vineyard 2. 02:10:17
OK. Let's say three seats available, OK. 02:10:19
Think of go back to my scenario where we all show up and we vote and it's multiple rounds. 02:10:22
So we're going to fill the first seat. 02:10:27
First. OK, so we all vote. We fill the first seat first. 02:10:30
That seat is full. 02:10:34
That seats been filled. 02:10:35
And let's say Brett won that seat. 02:10:38
Now we're going to. 02:10:41
Job right, We start over again. OK. 02:10:43
Now Brett's not up here, the rest of your up here. 02:10:46
And so we all vote again and repeat this process again, the way the law works for the second seat. 02:10:50
And so you do vote for the second C. 02:10:57
OK, so you. 02:11:00
And you're. 02:11:02
If you had voted for Brett. 02:11:04
He was your first choice, like you want him no matter what. 02:11:06
Then the second round, he's not an option, so we're going to look at, OK, who's left up here. That's your choice and that's what 02:11:10
your preference was. 02:11:15
So you do that, then you fill the second. 02:11:20
Then we start over again. We say OK. 02:11:22
Brett and Jacob filled the first two seats. 02:11:24
And now we're going to fill the third seat, OK? And everybody participates in the third round just like we would do in person. 02:11:27
But uh. 02:11:35
The ballot does this for us by your preferences. What happens if my number one pick was the third person that got the seat? 02:11:35
So. 02:11:44
So I guess it still takes me back to the Tice situation. 02:11:45
If I voted for Tice as number one, that was the only technique, yes, Yeah. 02:11:49
Weighted vote that I had. 02:11:55
For that first round so so it was for the 1st. 02:11:57
Yeah, so. 02:12:02
This is correct and they are correct in this scenario. Like I acknowledge they're correct in this scenario where. 02:12:03
If time says your first. 02:12:10
Let's just say. 02:12:12
The mayor is your first option. Can we'll go back to the three of these guys run the mayor is your first option and so on your 02:12:13
ballot. 02:12:17
You've got. 02:12:21
Julie Brett, Jacob. Right, That's your order. Well, she doesn't. 02:12:22
Win the first seat, Brett does OK, so we go to the next round. 02:12:28
You still have. 02:12:31
Julie, Brett, Jacob. Well, Brett's not an option now. So now you have. 02:12:33
Julie Jacob. 02:12:38
But think about it in a real life scenario. 02:12:41
You're gonna stand there. 02:12:44
The second round. 02:12:45
You're probably gonna vote for Julie in a real life scenario anyway. 02:12:47
Right. Like you only get one vote, one person. 02:12:52
So in a real life scenario, you're going to vote for Julie? 02:12:55
On the ballot, you did vote for Julie. 02:12:57
Twice. And that's the only person you voted for for each seat. 02:13:00
But. 02:13:05
Julie wasn't very popular. 02:13:06
So she didn't make it through, right, even though you may have had her? 02:13:08
You know, first choice, there was only two seats available and they filled those seats. 02:13:13
So they are correct from the perspective that. 02:13:18
You may look at that and say, well, I only ever voted for one person. 02:13:22
Well, if. 02:13:26
We go to the real world scenario like we all come up here and vote and we fill the seats. 02:13:27
In multiple rounds. 02:13:33
That same scenario would probably play out. 02:13:35
And that's what this approximates. Does that help? Yeah. I just wanted to make sure you had your hand raised. Did you have 02:13:38
something you wanted to add to that, or did you feel like you got to come to the mic? I'm not a mathematician. He's much more 02:13:42
intelligent than I am. 02:13:47
If you wanted to. 02:13:52
Yeah, feel free. 02:13:54
So I, I think that the point was the points well made that if you were to, if you're just trying to simulate sort of what would 02:13:56
happen if you just ran multiple plurality elections, like, you know, or multiple instant runoff voting, that that's kind of what 02:14:01
it would do. And because your person doesn't keep winning, you'd keep. 02:14:06
You know, keep voting for that person because you want that person there. But I think your concern is, well, like, you know, two 02:14:11
other people, one beforehand. What if I had a preference between them or maybe there was another close vote or whatever because 02:14:16
I've locked in my position on this other person. I'm not getting to register a preference on those. 02:14:22
Now that is a valid concern with this. It's also a valid concern with using a plurality method too, right? I think that the issue 02:14:28
here is. 02:14:32
When we run into these problems. 02:14:37
We sometimes have this. 02:14:39
Either my way, my idea is all right and if I identify something wrong with this, then the other one must have been right. In this 02:14:41
case, they both kind of suck like the you know, the the issue is like if you were to do like a vote for two or vote for three. If 02:14:47
you have like a three City Council race, you only get to register those three people. What if the only person that. 02:14:53
That had a chance of getting sort of top round votes was was your tice person and then the other two. 02:15:00
The ones that you really wanted aren't likely to be up there. So you're still kind of making that sort of juggling strategic 02:15:06
choice of how do I pick those things? It's still going to miss some of your other preferences as well. So you're going to run into 02:15:11
problems like this. 02:15:15
Regardless of whether you use a vote for three method or you use an instant runoff method. 02:15:19
Uh, ranked pairs helps a little bit with this, you know, in that it would actually. 02:15:25
Because what it would do is it looked like at each possible pairwise thing, and so your preference between any two of them would 02:15:29
be looked at every single time and it would look at everything that's down the ballot. And there are other methods that kind of do 02:15:34
that. But I think that's kind of the issue here is that we're running into a discussion about, hey, this method sucks this way, 02:15:39
but we're not realizing that it's also meaning the other method sucks that way too. Presentations. I'm like, whoa, whoa, we're 02:15:43
screwed. 02:15:48
Marty, Marty, quick question for clarity. 02:15:54
Were you concerned about the preference in the ranking or were you concerned about the? 02:15:57
Rounds of counting and how they attributed your ranking. 02:16:03
To the seats available. 02:16:07
Both. I have several concerns about instant runoff. I really don't. I have concerns with what we just talked about, right. And I 02:16:10
felt like you did a great job explaining that and I agree that there are issues. 02:16:16
Across the board. 02:16:23
And I actually am really sad because I mean, I I would write a letter maybe about the ringed pairs because that sounds like it 02:16:24
might be all over supporting that. 02:16:27
But another issue I have is. 02:16:31
I don't know if this is a great argument after hearing all of yours, but. 02:16:37
In the past I have. 02:16:41
I feel like it's very easy. 02:16:44
For people to understand how to vote. Like it makes sense to me that the elderly community had no problem voting that way, but I 02:16:46
feel that they don't always understand how their vote is weighted. 02:16:52
And it's taken, it took me a long time and I've spent, it's embarrassing how much time I've spent on these different voting right 02:16:58
options. And I still was talking to Sarah the other day and I was like. 02:17:03
OK. And if you didn't vote for someone and your ballots exhausted, you're taken out of the statistics, I'm pretty sure. But let's 02:17:09
make sure to ask John next time we see him, right? 02:17:13
And so that one's one of my concerns is I feel like it. 02:17:18
You start to go through and your your votes taken out but. 02:17:22
I like the arguments that in plurality it's the same problem. You vote for one person and you're done. 02:17:26
But my concern just specifically for our City Council election that's coming up. 02:17:31
Is we will have three seats we're going to have. 02:17:36
Two candidate or two seats that are a four year term and then we'll have a two year term because of our change of government. 02:17:39
We'll also have a mayor up for election and so for me, I have. 02:17:44
Deep concern for my own ballot when I'm voting. If I'm picking maybe the third most popular person, then yeah, that does bring me 02:17:49
concern that maybe my voice won't be heard to the top 2 candidates. 02:17:56
Right. And so that's just my personal concern. Yeah, No, I, I. 02:18:03
If it's OK if I address that, I think your concerns. 02:18:08
Present the results in a better way so we could actually so the voter could go if they wanted to and recreate the election and see 02:18:40
how it went. That is a significant transparency issue which I think is resolvable. 02:18:46
By presenting it better. Rcviz tries to do this, but it still has some issues. I think that's a problem that we could talk about. 02:18:51
One thing I worry about too, is the idea of abandoning something that might be good simply because we're running into logistical 02:19:00
problems initially. 02:19:04
You know, because we haven't figured it out or or I don't know what the right strategy is yet. The thing is, it takes a long time 02:19:08
for a random walk through a strategic game to figure out what is the best option for me to do or what is the best way I should 02:19:13
vote. 02:19:18
The problem with plurality? We've been playing that game for 250 years. 02:19:23
All the strategies are well worn out. We know what they are. They've become ingrained in our soul. We're taught that's how you 02:19:28
vote. You vote for the lesser of two evils. That's a strategic voting strategy. You vote for one of the two parties. But it's 02:19:32
ingrained in our hearts because that's where it led. But it's been doing that for over 100 and 200 years or whatever. So we just 02:19:37
accepted. 02:19:41
But that took 80 years for us to figure out. Right from the inception of the country until we got to a two party system. It took 02:19:46
80 years to optimize the plurality game. 02:19:50
We've been doing ranked choice voting, you know, in Utah for like 6, like 3 or 4 election cycles. You're not going to optimize the 02:19:55
game within that. 02:19:59
And it's really complicated if you try to analyze it mathematically what the right strategy is. 02:20:02
So honestly, a better way to do it is John Will like this statistics or a stochastic way of just walking through and trying to 02:20:07
figure things out. You'll try something and maybe it doesn't work this time, so then you try a different strategy next time. 02:20:13
That's kind of how it works. And eventually you find a strategy that does produce the results you want. 02:20:18
If you've constantly tied their hands. 02:20:54
And so I guess the question is, do you spend some time trying to? 02:20:56
To fix that, maybe muddying through that. 02:20:59
But yeah, I agree there are issues with Instant Runoff and that's why I presented other ideas is I just want to kind of open that 02:21:02
discussion up a little bit more. 02:21:05
I would hate what what I'm most worried about. 02:21:10
When I see these kinds of. 02:21:13
Attacks on RCB? I agree. I think there are legitimate concerns with RC with instant runoff voting too. 02:21:15
What I worry about is people who who attack it, who are then saying that plurality is better and we should just stay with what we 02:21:21
had. 02:21:25
That is also bad. 02:21:29
And it's worse to do that, to just stick with the status quo, something that's already a problem. 02:21:31
Than it is to try to solve the problem that we see. 02:21:38
And that's the danger with just accepting sort of the the the criticism without actually trying to go in and solve that problem 02:21:42
that you have with it. And see if there's maybe a better method or something like that that can improve on the thing that you're 02:21:46
seeing. Because remember. 02:21:50
We're starting with a problem. 02:21:55
We're not starting with something that was working and we're trying to change it because somebody didn't like that. 02:21:57
Like it didn't work. It doesn't represent the people. That's the thing that I kind of think it's lost in the conversation. And 02:22:02
this might be more of a question. Tell me your name again, Nancy or Mark, because this is a politically driven question. 02:22:07
But umm. 02:22:13
Vineyard is a very. 02:22:14
We'll call it exciting political atmosphere and we just had a seat open up and we had 20 applicants. 02:22:16
And. 02:22:24
I-17 Originally I had 20 resumes or application we did and then they and then it kind of filtered out. 02:22:25
But. 02:22:34
There were a lot of people interested. I know Lehigh last election I believe had several candidates. I don't want to exaggerate 02:22:35
their number, but they had a surprising amount of candidates and luckily they foresaw maybe and they put in a primary election. 02:22:43
Which typically the ranked choice voting part of the lure. 02:22:52
Or I can't? 02:22:55
Thank you. Is that it's more affordable so you don't? 02:22:58
There's sorry you're all standing we all want to talk about. 02:23:02
But umm. 02:23:07
I worry that Vineyard is getting worn out. We're like. 02:23:08
I feel like we are a very progressive city. We love to try new things and we're. 02:23:14
We're really cool in so many ways. I'm very proud of Vineyard and how progressive we can be. 02:23:19
But I feel like we are getting a little bit worn out from being somewhat of the Guinea pigs. 02:23:25
And we get a lot of attention politically and I think ranked choice voting. 02:23:31
Is really. 02:23:36
Great. Like I love it, but then my concerns. 02:23:37
Draw to voter fatigue. There's a lot of candidates, there's a lot to search through and then. 02:23:41
You kind of throw your hands up in the air at one point and then it's just hard on our community. Go ahead, Nancy, I said your 02:23:47
name first. Kind of. 02:23:51
So just tell me a little bit about this. So you already had this election where 17 candidates? No, no, we had. It was an 02:23:54
appointment for the City Council. Oh, OK, so let's say it was an election. 02:24:00
I mean if it would have been done under. 02:24:05
Plurality. 02:24:08
Vote for one. 02:24:10
It would have still been long. We would have had a primary. 02:24:12
Yes. 02:24:15
You would have had a primary and look at the incredible vote splitting. 02:24:17
That would have occurred because you would have only had two people. 02:24:21
End up at the end. Well, now it'll be 3, but yes. OK, yeah. 02:24:24
So so. 02:24:29
We would have had so we would have. Let's let's pretend we had 7. Let's say this November we have 17 people running for our three 02:24:30
council seats. 02:24:34
During the primary, which would last over the summer, we would go through this political chaos of 17 people knocking on my door. 02:24:39
Let's be realistic, maybe only six or seven that are that interested, but there would be so much chaos in how many people are 02:24:48
trying to get their message out there. It sounds exhausting to me. And so then we will weed it out. It's one summer, we can get 02:24:56
through it and then we go and have our final or after our primary we're down to only 6 candidates. And to me I'm like OK. 02:25:03
Now I can really look at those six candidates and I can feel more confident that I know each one of their missions, I know their 02:25:11
statements, I know what their priorities are. 02:25:15
And then come November, I'll be able to confidently vote right. That's that's just. 02:25:19
How I saw Lehigh situation I do believe we can vote in a primary if we wanted to and I guess that's one of my questions I and I 02:25:26
know that's a possibility that's what I'm I'm wanting this to be a part of the conversation. Well, I don't I don't know that you 02:25:31
have a need for a primary if you use ranked choice voting because. 02:25:37
A ranked choice vote is like a primary and a general election in one. It's like multiple balloting at a. 02:25:43
State party convention or county party convention. 02:25:50
In one ballot. 02:25:54
So it. 02:25:58
You can't. Originally the law didn't allow you to do in the primaries. 02:25:59
Lehigh wanted to do in the primaries. The Lieutenant governor's office was like, well, this doesn't make sense to have it in the 02:26:03
primaries if you're doing rank choice voting because of what Nancy just said. 02:26:08
Lehigh want to do the primaries. We changed the law. 02:26:12
You know, I think it's personally perfectly reasonable if the city says, hey, we still don't have a primary, but we want to have 02:26:16
our primaries ranked choice voting and just narrow it down a little bit more and then we'll do it again, so. 02:26:20
The law allows for it now. 02:26:25
OK, well, I didn't realize that, so that's fantastic. 02:26:27
That that does happen, yeah, because then you eliminate the vote splitting factor, which I'm not OK with. 02:26:30
Some people here tonight have suggested that they think it's great. The spoiler effect is great. 02:26:36
I think anyone who believes. 02:26:42
That the will of the people should be able to be heard in an election. 02:26:45
Implies that that should. 02:26:50
At least strive to get as close to a majority as possible. 02:26:53
Not a minority, and certainly not a tiny minority when you have a huge field like that and. 02:26:57
And, you know, consider also that. 02:27:03
And. 02:27:06
Mark Roberts touched on this. 02:27:08
There is a tremendous pressure and incentive to. 02:27:10
To force candidates out of the race. 02:27:15
I mean, you hear about that all the time on a national level. 02:27:18
This person S got to get out of the race because they're going to mess it up for. 02:27:21
You know, Ross Perot S got to get out of the race because he's going to mess it up for Bush. 02:27:24
And maybe he actually did. 02:27:29
You know, and enabled Clinton to get in. 02:27:31
I can tell you that Mia Love probably lost her first run for Congress. 02:27:33
By 768 votes. 02:27:38
Because. 02:27:40
The Libertarian got around 10,000. 02:27:41
Votes. 02:27:44
But because. 02:27:45
A plurality vote does not allow the. 02:27:46
The voters to to give us more data. 02:27:49
Like these gentlemen mentioned, it doesn't allow us to have more information about voter preferences. 02:27:54
We had no way of knowing. 02:27:59
But we can guess that libertarians probably would have shifted towards Mia Love. 02:28:01
As their second choice more than the Democrat candidate. That's just one example no and I I've heard the political games that are 02:28:06
being played like. 02:28:10
I don't. There are so many. Yeah, I. 02:28:15
I've talked to experts that are like, Oh well, these are the candidates, let's make sure we get a third candidate to exactly. 02:28:19
Sometimes they are recruited to create the spoiler effect. I do see a lot of issues with Polar. 02:28:25
Morality I I sincerely do. 02:28:31
It's just. 02:28:34
Oh, I lost my other question. It actually was keep thinking. 02:28:36
Well, remember you have two choices. You can either have a plurality. Well I guess now you have 1/3. 02:28:40
You could have a plurality election for and that would by nature require a primary if you have more than. 02:28:46
6 candidates. 02:28:52
For three. 02:28:54
And then you or more than you know 2 for the mayors race. 02:28:56
Or you can have ranked choice voting and just one. 02:29:01
At the general election, or you can have ranked choice voting for your primary. 02:29:04
And then you you're down to your. 02:29:08
6 for the general election, but you've avoided the spoiler effect in that primary. 02:29:11
So, uh. 02:29:16
I don't know. I think that's a great option. All of these other ideas about ranked pairs and approval voting, I think it's great 02:29:16
that we're thinking outside of the box more. 02:29:21
But those aren't options under the current state law. 02:29:26
So you have these three choices, so which one is? 02:29:29
Best among those 3. 02:29:33
And I think he probably hit on it with the ranked choice voting in the primary, so you get it done sooner. 02:29:35
So that it minimizes the time that you have voter fatigue. 02:29:42
And candidate fatigue. 02:29:45
I I really do see interject for a second talk all night, John right, I'm sorry. That's OK. I was thinking are you also going to 02:29:48
present branch? 02:29:54
Couple minutes, all right. 02:30:00
I'm going to have us wrap up this conversation, then we can ask any clarifying conversation. 02:30:01
Questions right after. 02:30:06
To help everybody get to their house. OK, that's great. I'm trying to think if there's any. 02:30:08
I just think that ranked choice voting, you know, maybe it's not perfect. 02:30:12
But it's so much more fair. 02:30:16
Than plurality voting. 02:30:19
It minimizes the spoiler effect. 02:30:22
It's kind of an elegant way to deal with it, even though it may not be perfect. 02:30:25
And. 02:30:30
I just, I've loved it for a long, long time and I really. 02:30:31
Think that we need to continue the pilot. 02:30:35
Program to. 02:30:39
To play it out and to learn more about how we carried out. But your city has carried it out. 02:30:41
Quite well in it. 02:30:46
You know, you're, I think your city recorder has been really good about. 02:30:48
Helping people understand how it's supposed to be done. And you can continue that by educating your voters. Thank you. Thank you, 02:30:52
Nancy. 02:30:55
Brad. 02:30:59
Thank you. My name is Brad Dodd. I'm. 02:31:03
Here on behalf of ranked choice voting. 02:31:04
My goal is to keep eye contact and not see your eyes drifting over to the clock. 02:31:07
Which at this stage of the game is very understandable. 02:31:12
I could talk about this all night and you know what? Maybe we should. Maybe we should grab lunch somewhere and do that. Bring 02:31:17
whoever you want. But. 02:31:21
When you're approached by one of the more conservative members of the legislature in Mark Roberts. 02:31:27
And one of the more liberal members of legislature and Rebecca Chavez hawk. 02:31:33
And they're both united on an issue. You need to be one of two things. Terrified or excited? 02:31:37
And possibly both. 02:31:43
Anyway, they they proposed this pilot and I thought about and I thought, you know what, this seems like a good idea. 02:31:45
Ranked choice voting for me personally. 02:31:52
I like it for the simple reason that it's how I think. 02:31:55
In other words, when I look at a ballot of candidates, there's not one that's like, OK, he's great and everybody else sucks. Or 02:31:58
she. 02:32:01
They're great and everybody else sucks. That's not how I think. Usually unless, well, sometimes it is, but usually not very often. 02:32:05
But it's how I think is OK, this ones the best, this, then this one then, and then there's a couple. It's like, OK, they do suck. 02:32:12
I'm not going to rank them at all, right? 02:32:16
In other words, it fits my thinking and it's a more natural way to vote now. 02:32:20
If you want to get into the. 02:32:25
Another couple things that kind of go along with that was the first time I was elected legislature. 02:32:27
Right after elections and before they're certified, we have what's called leadership elections. 02:32:32
And obviously the Republican caucus gets together and they elect their the speaker and so forth. 02:32:37
And in that room, there was a person who had. 02:32:43
Quote UN Quote Won a seat in Salt Lake Valley. 02:32:46
Well, it turns out they actually hadn't won. 02:32:50
Because when the votes were all tallied. 02:32:52
The Libertarian had taken more votes than the gap, and the Democrat had won that seat. 02:32:55
And so the fact is that in that case, plurality I think really failed to reflect. 02:33:02
The will of the people. 02:33:08
Now, there's been a lot of talk up here about the Condorcet method, and they call it Condorcet because when I looked in Wikipedia, 02:33:09
that was the pronunciation. 02:33:13
It's a French word, who really knows, right? 02:33:17
Yeah, anyway, like I say, Wikipedia says Condorcet, but. 02:33:20
If you want to really dig into the nitty gritty, there's a website called Equal Vote. 02:33:26
Equal dot vote. You go there and they'll they'll go down the list. 02:33:32
And what that tell you is they don't like, they don't. They don't particularly like instant runoff for rank choice voting either. 02:33:36
They like their own Condor set or condorcet method Condor set. 02:33:42
Which there's a couple different methods that fit that criteria, but they're all pretty uniform on one thing. Plurality is the 02:33:47
worst. 02:33:50
Ferrari is the absolute worst method for voting because it most consistently fails to reflect. 02:33:53
The will of the people. 02:33:59
So if you're interested in trying your best to actively reflect the will of the people, which in all but. 02:34:01
Some edge cases where the will of people. 02:34:06
Fuzzy. It's going to work very well. 02:34:10
So, and I will say this, I am aware. 02:34:12
Of in my home city of Orem, at least one. 02:34:16
City Council member who no longer serving. This is years ago, but this City Council member encouraged. 02:34:20
Her followers to only vote for her. 02:34:28
And she won consistently, so for her it worked really well. 02:34:31
But does that really reflect the will of people? Or is that again gaming the system so. 02:34:35
If you want to talk about gaming the system, there's lots of different ways to game the system, but I do believe that. 02:34:39
Rank choice is less susceptible to gaming than others, and again, plurality is the worst so. 02:34:45
I would say you know what, you've tried it. 02:34:51
Your your electorate, by and large, from the polls that we've seen like it. 02:34:54
I think it is understandable. I don't think it's that difficult. 02:34:58
To mark a ballot that way, they're already used to it. 02:35:01
And I would say, you know what, stick with it. I think it works really well. Thank you. 02:35:04
Thank you. 02:35:09
So listen. 02:35:11
To my thoughts on this, unless there's any clarifying questions where we don't know something. 02:35:13
I'm going to give a 5 minute break to just go and speak to these people and say hi really quick and thank you. And then. 02:35:19
We will come back to the meeting because we all need to stand up. I have one question that we didn't talk about the to for 02:35:26
clarification sake, Mark, you might be able to answer this. 02:35:31
The Legislature. Legislature. 02:35:37
Voted to end this or they didn't renew it and so it'll go up for vote. 02:35:41
Right, next session next year. Yeah, there was a sunset closet I didn't negotiate with with. 02:35:46
Senator Bramble. 02:35:54
On the floor of the Senate, when this thing passed, it put a send sunset date on the legislation. So it did. 02:35:56
The sunset was not renewed, so this is the last year unless we. 02:36:03
Pass, you know, Yeah, we passed another law next. 02:36:08
Next cycle. OK, Thank you. 02:36:12
OK. All right. We're going to take a 5 minute break. 02:36:15
Thank you so much everybody that presented. 02:36:18
Yeah. 02:36:21
We're rolling. We're going to go ahead and get started. Please take your seats or your conversations to the hallway. 02:36:22
All right, we're going to go back to our consent item 3.3 that we pulled off Naseem is here. So Jake, you, you said you had some 02:36:29
questions on the striping services. 02:36:34
Yeah, I actually was able to go through everything on the document. I'm good. 02:36:40
Sorry I went through OK perfect because we have been here for a long time and but we love your presentation. 02:36:45
No, I. 02:36:53
Just for the record, I emailed my presentation to Pam, so if you would like to read it, this only 23 slides. It's only 23 slides. 02:36:56
Go ahead and even. 02:36:59
To all of us. 02:37:03
We all want to, I mean really incredibly stock stacked as well, so. 02:37:05
All right, let's go ahead and get a motion then. Jake, do you want to go ahead and make that motion? 02:37:10
Yeah, I make a motion to. 02:37:13
Yeah, I don't have the language. 02:37:20
To I make a motion to approve 3.3 on the consent. 02:37:23
Agenda. 02:37:27
As presented. 02:37:28
OK, we have a first by Jake. Can I get a second? 02:37:31
Second, second by Brett. I'm gonna do this by roll call, Jake. 02:37:34
Aye, Brett. Hi, Marty. Hi, Sarah. Hi. 02:37:38
All right, great. We're going to go ahead to our business items. 02:37:42
This is a public hearing for the Parks and Recreation Master Plan and Impact Fee Analysis. 02:37:45
What we're going to do is we're going to go into a public hearing and then we're going to hear the presentation and then we will 02:37:51
close the public hearing have. 02:37:55
The deliberation by the Council and then make a determination. 02:38:00
So I need a motion to go into a public hearing. 02:38:04
Marty, did you want to do that? Sobu, Marty. 02:38:10
All right, can I get a second? 02:38:13
Second Second by Sarah. 02:38:16
All in favor. 02:38:18
Aye. All right. We're now in a public hearing and I'm going to turn the time over to Parks and Recreation Director Brian Battery. 02:38:19
OK. Good evening. 02:38:43
OK. 02:38:56
So yes, we're here to present the Vineyard City Parks and Rec Master Plan. 02:38:57
Partnered with. 02:39:03
Impact fee analysis. 02:39:05
And I want to recognize Laura Smith here with CRSA. 02:39:06
Has done a lot of work on the consultant side to help get the necessary data. 02:39:11
To make this what it is. So I also want to recognize Lee Johnson, who's here with Zions Bank Public Finance, who will present. 02:39:17
After this. 02:39:27
A quick kind of rendition on. 02:39:29
The impact of your study. 02:39:31
What that looks like. 02:39:33
So, umm. 02:39:35
Let's just jump right in. 02:39:38
Laura and I will kind of tag team this but. 02:39:41
To give you a brief overview on the executive summary of what all. 02:39:44
Went into play with this Parks and Rec Master plan. 02:39:49
We really established it into five steps, so. 02:39:52
We established the goals of the project. 02:39:56
We collected. 02:40:00
Inventory of the existing amenities across the city. 02:40:03
Who owns it, whether it's Vineyard, city, HOA or state land? 02:40:07
ETC. 02:40:11
We also did an evaluation. 02:40:13
Lara and and her team did a lot on this of investigating into the National Recreation and Parks Association. 02:40:16
Metrics where they provide. 02:40:24
Recommendations based off of population and cities. 02:40:26
Based off of what population will populate. 02:40:31
Or necessitates a specific amenity. 02:40:34
From there we did a lot of needs assessment from. 02:40:39
Public outreach so. 02:40:42
We had a. 02:40:44
Survey. 02:40:46
Went out, we fired the city. 02:40:48
We had a booth at Vineyard Days last year. 02:40:50
We had, I think a couple. 02:40:53
Town halls, uh. 02:40:55
And in that we got a lot of public feedback. We had like over 1000. 02:40:56
Surveys submitted for. 02:41:00
That survey. So that was exciting. We felt like we got a lot of good feedback. 02:41:03
After addressing that, we also had staff. 02:41:08
Provide their recommendations. 02:41:13
And then we evaluated the cost of how much everything is going to cost with the recommendations and how that's going to be funded. 02:41:16
Yeah, thank you for having me tonight. 02:41:28
So one of the. 02:41:31
First things that we did with your your group was. 02:41:33
Was do some. 02:41:37
You know, some soul searching to see, you know what we're kind of the guiding principles. 02:41:39
That should should lead this effort so that we can always go back and make sure that the decisions we are making were really 02:41:43
reflecting the values of your community. 02:41:48
And what we were finding was that, you know. 02:41:52
Umm, the the sense of community and the sense of family and like creating. 02:41:56
Spaces for your growing community. 02:42:00
To grow in a healthy way and to prevent Wellness was was really key. 02:42:04
So conserving the open space that you have and the beautiful. 02:42:09
Access to the mountains and the and the lake. 02:42:14
Is something that that was very important too. So it's sort of this. 02:42:18
This umm. 02:42:21
Triad of you know, community, Wellness and and conserving your natural space as you grow. 02:42:22
And so we we all weren't together to land on. 02:42:29
You're in Parks and Rec mission statement, which is vineyards. 02:42:33
Parks and Rec mission is to foster a sense of community, promote health and Wellness. 02:42:37
Conserve the natural beauty of the nearby, creating inclusive, safe and enjoyable spaces. 02:42:42
And inspire an active lifestyle and lifelong memories. 02:42:47
OK. Getting into the inventory portion of the project. 02:42:54
We sent master plans over to our consultants to. 02:42:59
Really dive in to understand them and what open space is available. 02:43:03
So this is a list of various master plans existing in the city. 02:43:08
Just posted there on a map. 02:43:14
Yeah. And so the intent of that is we know that you guys are, you know. 02:43:18
Currently you have a lot of plans that are actually implementing. You have plans that are in place. 02:43:22
And so it's kind of an art because you have a lot. 02:43:27
Private development, then you have public open space. And so we are just really trying to inventory what are those connections 02:43:30
that are already existing with your trails in transit. Where are those opportunities for open space? 02:43:35
And how can we kind of just pair, you know, the entire picture? 02:43:41
With, you know, the feedback that we get from the community. 02:43:46
To create. 02:43:50
You know, a connected network of trails and open space that everyone can use. So that's why we went through this exercise of 02:43:51
gathering an inventory of what you have. 02:43:56
Under the lens of your. 02:44:02
Your plans? 02:44:05
So so then we went through and worked with Brian on. 02:44:08
And team to see. 02:44:12
You know where your existing city parks are, where your existing amenities are. 02:44:15
Where you have open space. 02:44:19
And where you have. 02:44:21
Potential space for future parks. 02:44:23
And this data rolls into. 02:44:26
The recommendations that we make. 02:44:29
From the NRPA. 02:44:31
By looking at the amenities that you have and looking at what you'll need. And so one of the things that we. 02:44:34
Struggled with but we we landed on a solution that we that everyone feels comfortable with was. 02:44:41
You already have some amenities that are HOA. 02:44:47
That our HOA amenities so. 02:44:51
For example, if you had a pool. 02:44:54
Umm, that is not a public poll, but building another public pool would be redundant. 02:44:58
If it's already being supplemented by this HOA, So what we chose to do is if it's an HOA amenity like a playground or a dog park. 02:45:02
We chose to give that half a point. 02:45:10
Because we know that. 02:45:13
Some of that. 02:45:15
Use will be will be used there. But again, it's not a public amenity. So wait, wait, that's how we kind of balance that. 02:45:16
Situation. I didn't, so we make our own scoring. 02:45:23
On that, I didn't know that. 02:45:27
When like when you say we gave our like. 02:45:29
So this is not the NRP 8, this is how we counted. 02:45:33
The existing amenities. So if it's a public amenity, we gave it a whole point, right? But if it's a HOA amenity, we gave it. 02:45:37
Half of a point because we know that some of your population will use that, so you might not have a need for a whole nother. 02:45:46
Tennis court, for example. But yeah, but like, isn't there a national, there's no national standard for how that is counted. 02:45:52
So it's not a law, it's not a national standard, it's just kind of a recommendation and there is no recommendation for private. 02:45:59
Facilities. 02:46:07
So it's all for public facilities is what the NRP A is. 02:46:08
So that's kind of how we took that into account because we didn't want you to have to build. 02:46:13
So what would the scoring be if we didn't count all the HOA's? We would be really bad. 02:46:18
If you don't count. 02:46:23
Not necessarily because of some of the future. 02:46:24
Future amenities that are and. 02:46:28
That are planned. 02:46:30
But you can dig through this and look at it. 02:46:32
I think both arguments have. 02:46:36
A little bit of standing ground, but I do think that a lot of the amenities within the HOA was part of a negotiation, also part of 02:46:39
some of our city's codes and requirements, so. 02:46:44
Like open space specifically? 02:46:49
So I do like that we are recognizing them. 02:46:51
But I mean, we can keep talking about it. 02:46:54
Great. 02:46:59
Just make sure. 02:47:01
Oh yeah, yeah, OK. 02:47:02
So this is just in a table format all of the parks and open spaces within the city. 02:47:04
It's organized by acreage and then we also have labeled who owns that specific area and if it qualifies for the impact fee. 02:47:10
That's what the IFU stands for, Impact Fee eligibility. 02:47:19
And then on the right hand side page it just goes through various parks and also on to the next couple pages. 02:47:23
That are used within vineyard city and what amenities are. 02:47:30
Currently existing at those specific parks. 02:47:34
The next section was in regards to land acquisition. So there's 8 areas of focus. 02:47:40
Of where Parks and Recreation can be potentially expanded. 02:47:47
Within the city. 02:47:51
So just to quickly highlight these #1 is. 02:47:52
Vineyard City owns about 1/3 of the park at Lakeside Park. 02:47:57
But due to an agreement. 02:48:02
Entered into years ago. 02:48:04
We're unable to. 02:48:06
Program at the park. 02:48:08
And, umm. 02:48:09
Orem pays for the maintenance of that park. So essentially. 02:48:11
Vineyard is not paying any costs for that park, but we have about 10 acres of land there that. 02:48:15
Would be worthwhile to revisit. 02:48:22
With Orem and the contract there to figure out an agreement of how we can utilize that space? 02:48:26
Or, uh. 02:48:31
Acquire. 02:48:33
Similar amounts of space elsewhere nearby. 02:48:35
#2. 02:48:39
This is Vineyard City owned land. It's well known as the Pumpkin Patch and Vineyard. 02:48:41
Located adjacent to Gammon Park. 02:48:47
So this is about 11 acres and is a great opportunity to easily start building. 02:48:50
Umm, parks and recommendities there. 02:48:55
#3 is privately owned land, about 10 acres. 02:48:58
An idea from Orem was that we potentially. 02:49:03
Purchase that land. 02:49:07
We sell the Lakeside property. 02:49:10
By that #3 property. 02:49:12
We put soccer fields or baseball and we then partner with Orem to recruit tournaments. 02:49:14
And due to that we could qualify for T tab grants. 02:49:21
Which actually could allow us to finance those fields with those grants. So it essentially. 02:49:25
Be costing the city any money, but we're getting those amenities that. 02:49:32
That we're looking for. 02:49:36
So not only does service the Vineyard City recreation programs, but it's also a revenue source for for renting out was. 02:49:38
Amenable to buying Lakeside. 02:49:46
Yes, in that contract. 02:49:48
Sorry, just to clarify meaning. 02:49:51
Is Oram interested in buying that land? Yeah. 02:49:54
I don't know if it states in the contract, but in our previous conversations, yes, they're very interested in that. 02:49:58
And then we could potentially buy the three acres. 02:50:05
The 10 acres or sorry, the 10? 02:50:08
Probably the most important thing. That's huge. 02:50:12
Yeah, Yep. 02:50:15
OK #4 This is also privately owned land. 02:50:19
There's about 20 acres. 02:50:22
There's potential. 02:50:25
Get that land if that's of interest. 02:50:27
#5 is the wetlands area. So just kind of having a focus on how we can. 02:50:30
You know, help enhance the beautification of that area. 02:50:36
Number six is Vineyard Beach with the Lakeshore. 02:50:40
Projects coming in that could potentially be a good opportunity to recruit that land. 02:50:44
Just so that we have more freedom to offer programs and events. 02:50:49
Kind of how we want to do them. 02:50:54
#7 is Geneva Park. 02:50:56
Established within Utah City. 02:50:59
So that would likely not be built out for, you know, 15 to 20 years, but it's good to plan ahead and. 02:51:03
You know, ensure that we can have some land on that northern side of. 02:51:09
The Vineyard connector to ensure we have. 02:51:13
As much balance across the city and park space as possible. 02:51:16
And then the eighth option is. 02:51:20
Currently the Linden Marina. 02:51:22
Which is within Linden city limits. I believe it's privately owned. 02:51:24
And run. 02:51:29
But potentially, if that's of interest, to Vineyard City. 02:51:31
That could allow us to host water sport activities and also be. 02:51:34
And added revenue source to the city. 02:51:39
OK, so we had a booth with. 02:51:45
Parks and Rec at. 02:51:48
Vineyard Days. 02:51:50
And we also, we paired that with a survey that that Brian sent out. 02:51:52
That was digital, but we asked people these questions. 02:51:58
What gets you outside? What's most valuable to you? What's your favorite natural feature? 02:52:02
All your favorite park your. 02:52:07
Favorite amenity? Why? 02:52:10
And what's missing in Vineyard? 02:52:12
And what we found was that these were the top three choices of each group. There are other. 02:52:15
Other options to you, but these were the ones that came in. 02:52:20
1st and so again, people really love your walking trails. They love the access to nature. 02:52:23
They like to go to the parks because they like to spend time with their family. 02:52:30
The splash pad is very. 02:52:35
Um, popular because. 02:52:38
You know people. 02:52:41
People like to. 02:52:42
To keep their kids entertained. 02:52:43
And then there is a lot of input on. 02:52:45
On that desire for. 02:52:49
For more amenities with the wreck and the. 02:52:51
Rec Center and Jim, I'm really impressed with the results. How many people participated? I think that alone shows how much 02:52:55
interest there is in these open spaces. 02:53:00
Yeah, and we got a lot of just. 02:53:05
Really specific feedback where people said oh, they like this and the playgrounds, but. 02:53:07
You know they don't like this in the playgrounds like they have. 02:53:11
Sufficient. 02:53:14
You know, they want to see more pickleball courts. They are excited about seeing baseball fields because those are kids. 02:53:16
Grow older, they're gonna want that kind of thing. So we got like very, you know, specific on the ground kind of feedback about 02:53:24
what people are interested in. But yeah, everyone was really excited to, to get their, their voice out there. 02:53:30
I'm saying then this again is your plan trails and say what we are doing is prioritizing where those missing links would be and so 02:53:40
where. 02:53:45
Connecting. 02:53:50
That network would be a top priority. 02:53:52
And say you can dig into this a little more, but really completing that network so that people can. 02:53:55
Access all of your open space without having to drive if they want to, you know, go for a run or, you know, ride their bike or use 02:54:02
public transportation. 02:54:06
We were trying to complete that that network of trails. 02:54:09
And then I will let you. 02:54:16
I'm going to talk about these plans. 02:54:18
This one is. 02:54:20
A little bit more added to the last one. This just includes transit as well across the city and various projects that. 02:54:22
Are in the works. 02:54:28
Now getting into the NRPA. 02:54:33
Standards. Umm. 02:54:35
So this is where Laura and her team really did a lot of research and work to identify the metrics and. 02:54:37
The standards that NRPA has, do you want to expand on that at all? Yeah, yeah. So again, this is not codified anywhere. It's just. 02:54:43
It's just a recommendation. 02:54:51
By the NRPA. 02:54:53
About you know what? 02:54:55
You know what population in your city would qualify? 02:54:56
You know, to recommend different amenities, you know, just to kind of keep up with with the national standards. 02:55:01
And so. 02:55:07
We then measured you know your current amenities to. 02:55:09
What we would recommend based on population growth, we gave it a buy of the next. In the next year, you would want to do this. In 02:55:13
the next 5 years, you would want to do this. In the next 10 years, you would want to do that. 02:55:18
And so that's kind of how we we use this national standard to to make those recommendations paired with. 02:55:24
Plans that you already have in place and paired with input that we got from the community. 02:55:31
OK. 02:55:39
So this is based off of the NRPA data that they got. 02:55:41
The table on the right page just shows with the inventory that we currently have. 02:55:46
That is the number of additional. 02:55:53
Amenities needed by the specified year according to NRPA recommendations. 02:55:56
It has the population threshold on the right column. That just explains, you know, when there's that many. 02:56:03
Residents. 02:56:09
There should be another one of those amenities built. 02:56:11
Because Vineyard is a unique. 02:56:14
Community and. 02:56:17
You know our community doesn't. 02:56:19
Has their wants and desires aren't. 02:56:21
Exactly matching this. 02:56:25
We have our own recommendations that we're providing based off of. 02:56:27
This information, their feedback, staff input and our master plans. 02:56:31
So we'll get into that here shortly. 02:56:35
But this is also something important on the left. 02:56:37
Page includes the population estimate for the next 10 years. So that's how. 02:56:41
Also, these numbers were based. Can I ask a clarifying question on the table? Yeah, when you've got population threshold on there. 02:56:48
That means I'm going to. 02:56:56
I'm going to pick the multi use basketball, volleyball, courts, indoor. 02:56:59
And it has 14,577 population and it says. 02:57:04
You need one at each of those. 02:57:09
Does that mean that? 02:57:12
Every time we get another 14,000. 02:57:15
577 people. We need another one. 02:57:18
Correct. That's it. That's what that means. 02:57:21
It doesn't mean that OK, we got to 14,577. 02:57:25
We got what's on the list now. We're done. 02:57:28
Right, exactly. 02:57:31
Yeah, good question. 02:57:33
OK, So maybe I'll expand on this one as well. So after getting that information and like I said, the public input staff input 02:57:38
master plans, this is what? 02:57:43
Recommended that Vineyard City implement. 02:57:49
So it's categorized by time frame. So in 2025 you can see what. 02:57:53
The recommended priorities are for this current year. 02:57:58
You can see it for the next 5 years, 10 years and then also 20 years. 02:58:02
All right, so then we went in to look at, you know, again, places on the map and look at where the locations are and where we 02:58:13
might. 02:58:16
You know, locate these suggested amenities and so this is a comprehensive. 02:58:21
List of what's existing. 02:58:26
The places where you will have. 02:58:29
Recommended. 02:58:32
Additional amenities. 02:58:33
And at what? 02:58:35
At what? 02:58:37
What stage? So whether it's this year, the next five years, 10 years. 02:58:39
Or 20 years and it's all color-coded so you can dive into that. 02:58:43
A little more and then we took that information. 02:58:47
And looked at these open spaces that we know are currently being looked at and planned. 02:58:50
And made recommendations. 02:58:57
Based on, you know, what would fit in these spaces and where we would locate them. So for example, in the near Grove Park. 02:59:00
We have suggested you know your pickleball courts and your mountain bike. 02:59:07
Park down on the southern side. 02:59:12
And then this on the right is the Utah City Master Plan. 02:59:17
And it shows all the amenities that are planned out for that master plan. 02:59:21
Then we have the current, you know, this land here and so we looked at the master plan that you guys have already put into the 02:59:27
works and that will cover your Ninja Warrior course in the next 5 years. 02:59:33
For pickleball courts in the next 5 years and the skate park also in the next 5 years. 02:59:41
Holdaway fields. 02:59:45
Can accommodate additional. 02:59:47
Taught lot playgrounds and pickleball courts. 02:59:50
And then Gammon Park will accommodate a rectangular field, an overlay field in the next 5 years. 02:59:53
And all abilities park by 2035. 02:59:59
Community Center. 03:00:03
On that site and then. 03:00:05
Tennis courts. 03:00:07
And then Ryan can talk about the cost analysis. 03:00:10
OK, so on this table a little bit hard to see from back here but. 03:00:15
It itemizes each amenity and what the unit cost would be, and then again it just has in each column how many of that amenity is 03:00:20
recommended for the specific time frame. 03:00:26
And then it also specifies in the furthest right column. 03:00:32
If it's needing to. 03:00:37
Be paid for by Vineyard City. 03:00:39
Or if that is a developer funded amenity. 03:00:41
Or if it is already funded. 03:00:45
And in the works to. 03:00:49
To build and then again it puts a map to. 03:00:51
To each of those. 03:00:55
Location across the city. 03:00:57
OK, so then. 03:01:02
Just to lay it out even more clear. 03:01:04
Umm, this just lists the amenities that are recommended. 03:01:08
To be built in each time frame. 03:01:12
As well as what the focus is. 03:01:15
So maybe just as an example, so the one to five year plan. 03:01:18
The focus would be get. 03:01:23
Grant acquisition and build amenities. 03:01:25
And so the recommended amenities to be built during or by the end of 20-30 would be those bolded items. 03:01:28
The source of financing. 03:01:36
For those as an example, dog park, Aquatic Center, basketball court, volleyball court. 03:01:39
And performance amphitheater are planned to be provided within Utah City at no cost of Vineyard. 03:01:45
The Tot Lot playground for ages three to five and four pickleball courts are to be provided within the Holdaway Fields development 03:01:50
at no cost of Vineyard. 03:01:55
And all the other amenities. 03:01:59
Listed aside from that would likely need funding through Vineyard City. 03:02:02
Of those that would need funding through Vineyard City. 03:02:06
The estimate is just under 5 million. 03:02:10
And then underneath that is explained how that would be paid for. 03:02:14
So it's recommended that Vineyard City obtain. 03:02:17
$500,000 through grants. 03:02:21
We actually just applied for a $500,000 grant. So if we were to get that, that already fulfills that requirement. 03:02:24
Getting $2,000,000 in T tab grants, which is going back to the potential agreement with Orem. 03:02:31
Of selling the lakeside portion and buying a 10 acre parcel nearby. 03:02:38
Using $1,000,000 from the Wrap Tax Fund. 03:02:44
$500,000 from the Parks impact fee that Lee will explain in just a little bit. 03:02:47
And then the remaining almost million from the Vineyard City Capital Projects Fund. 03:02:53
Now that's not. 03:02:58
Final I mean that can be moved around if we. 03:03:00
Make more in parks impact fees. That's less of a burden needing to come from the capital projects fund. 03:03:02
And then just total in the bottom right. 03:03:09
Corner. This goes over more of the. 03:03:12
The bigger numbers, right, So. 03:03:16
Of over the 20 years of the recommended amenities, it totals to just over 7 million. 03:03:18
And it's important to note that. 03:03:26
That does not account for the trail connection costs needing to. 03:03:29
Be had. 03:03:35
It also doesn't include unforeseen projects or repairs that are that are needed. 03:03:36
And so. 03:03:42
It's really nice to have this impact fee study done because. 03:03:43
It identifies that we need about $9 million. 03:03:47
For parks. 03:03:52
And just under. 03:03:53
I guess just over 6,000,000 for. 03:03:55
For trails. 03:03:57
In order to meet the recommended needs over. 03:03:59
The next 10 years. So in total it's about 15,000,000. 03:04:03
And I apologize, I actually have the wrong number I have in there for trails, 5.9 million, it's actually 6.1. So I'll ensure that 03:04:06
we get that fixed. 03:04:11
Before this is final, but. 03:04:17
Anyway, so the goal is to have that 15,000,000. 03:04:19
And then this next last. 03:04:23
Slide. 03:04:26
Includes our specific funding. 03:04:27
Opportunities. 03:04:31
So it's projected that by June 30th of this year. 03:04:32
We'll have about $500,000 remaining in the wrap tax fund. 03:04:36
And then our current wrap tax goes through 2029, so it's recommended that. 03:04:43
We put the wrap tax on the ballot again in 2029 for residents to vote on. 03:04:49
So that we have the potential to renew that revenue source for an additional 10 years. 03:04:56
The wrap tax revenue of 2.15 million. 03:05:03
That is considering between July 1st of this year. 03:05:08
Through uh. 03:05:12
December 31st. 03:05:13
Of 2029. 03:05:15
Sorry I lied. July 1st, 2025 through. 03:05:18
December 31st of 2035. So that's. 03:05:22
10 year period. 03:05:27
Grant money earnings projection 3 million, I've kind of already explained that a little bit about. 03:05:29
The 2 million from T tab, that would really make that more feasible. 03:05:35
But I feel like that is realistic, specifically if we get those T tab funds. 03:05:39
And then knowing all of that. 03:05:45
That essentially puts us needing about 9 point. 03:05:48
$5,000,000 in impact fee revenue. 03:05:52
In order to cover the rest of our projected cost. 03:05:56
Our recommendations. 03:06:01
With the impact fee that is about to be presented on. 03:06:03
Vineyard City can charge $3422.88 per household on new incoming development. 03:06:08
To help fund these different amenities and parks. 03:06:17
And so if we take. 03:06:21
The needed nine point. 03:06:23
5 million. 03:06:25
And divide that by the cost per household. It ends up being about 2800 new households. 03:06:26
Is all that would be needed. 03:06:33
Paying that full fee. 03:06:35
To reach that amount. 03:06:37
Correct. So Lee will explain that a little bit. Currently we just have one fee for all house types. 03:06:46
So maybe we'll just turn the time over to. 03:06:53
Right. That's for ownership of that, correct? 03:06:57
Yeah. 03:06:59
Yeah, so like. 03:07:02
Right. 03:07:05
Yeah. 03:07:13
What are the rent? Yeah, what are the rentals? 03:07:15
So maybe can we turn the time over to? 03:07:18
Yeah. I mean with this specific question, it would be a class fee. 03:07:21
Here I'll pull up your presentation as well if you want to. 03:07:27
Sounds good. 03:07:31
But with this particular issue, we see that we have the calculated impact fee of around $3400 that would be. 03:07:33
Blanket fee for all new new households. 03:07:39
Not, uh. 03:07:41
Not distinguishing between certain household types or for rental versus. 03:07:42
Home like, oh, OK. 03:07:47
Sorry, if a developer built 500 units type of a situation they would be paying 500. 03:07:49
House will even if they continue to own it. 03:07:55
Correct that. 03:07:58
Yes. 03:07:59
Thank you. 03:08:00
Yeah, you're good to go. Just hit the. 03:08:07
OK, Sounds great. Thank you. 03:08:10
I don't think you got your question. 03:08:12
All right, So thanks Brian and Laura for presenting the master plan this. 03:08:19
The impact fees and impact fee facility plans are. 03:08:23
More or less legal documents that I'm gonna be presenting to you today. 03:08:25
Are taken to account that master plan. 03:08:28
So that's how those work together. For those who don't know me, my name is Lee Johnson. I'm a science, public finance. If you're 03:08:31
familiar with who Susie Becker is, I worked with her on these impact fees. 03:08:34
And I'm excited to present the information to you today. 03:08:38
This presentation is by number means absolutely comprehensive, doesn't have every detail that will be found in the legal documents 03:08:41
that were provided the IFFP and IFA. 03:08:45
I'm more so here to. 03:08:49
Answer questions and to give you a. 03:08:51
More or less overview of what we accomplished and why we did it. 03:08:53
So one thing that I think is always good to do real quick before we get into the nitty gritty. 03:08:58
Is to talk about. 03:09:03
To define what we're talking about. 03:09:05
So I always like to ask what is an impact fee? Luckily, this slide answers that question. 03:09:07
It's a one time fee charged to new development to offset the capital costs associated with new development. 03:09:12
So when all this new development comes in, they bring people. Those people are going to use roads, they're going to call the 03:09:17
police, they're going to use water, sewer, all of that. 03:09:20
And that comes with the cost that puts more stress on the system. Impact fees are a way for new development to pay their. 03:09:24
Fair share to maintain the current levels that the city is experienced that the city is providing right now. 03:09:30
So in terms of the Parks and Recreation fee. 03:09:37
This can only cover the cost of system improvements, not project improvements. 03:09:40
So it was. 03:09:44
Touched on a little bit between, you know, HOA parks and. 03:09:45
System parks. 03:09:49
And how it's defined in the legal documents is a system park or improvement is something that benefits the whole city, not just 03:09:50
one or two developments. 03:09:54
So a little pocket park that. 03:09:58
Is in between one big one little development. There's no parking, there's just little top lot that that can't be used. 03:10:00
In the calculation of these impact fees. 03:10:06
And finally, all of this is governed by Utah Code Title 11, Chapter 36. 03:10:09
I will be using the acronym very regularly, IFFP and IFA. These are the legal documents that will. 03:10:13
Tell you step by step how we came to the these fees and these amounts. 03:10:19
So for the IFFP, the impact fee facilities plan, if it's your first time going through these documents, really what you want to 03:10:24
look for is the service levels. 03:10:27
This is how we define how the city is being serviced right now with their current inventory and how that's going to be maintained 03:10:31
throughout the future. 03:10:36
So that serves as the basis for calculating these fees. That's what you'll find in the IFFP. 03:10:40
Among it, you also find demand created by new development, impact on existing facilities by new development, new facilities needed 03:10:45
and cost. 03:10:48
And there is some overlap between the IFFP and the IFA. 03:10:51
But when you're looking at the IFA, what you want to be looking for is something that's titled the Proportionate Share Analysis. 03:10:55
This is specifically mentioned in the Utah State Code. 03:10:59
And this is more or less just saying. 03:11:03
We're taking the qualifying expenses that we can apply to new development and dividing it proportionally and equally. 03:11:06
And there's some other elements here that can be found in the impact fee analysis as well. 03:11:13
So going over all of that, a quick little crash course on impact fees. 03:11:18
This is the population projections that we have over the next 10 years taken from Mountain Land Association of Governments. The 03:11:22
study period for the impact fee analysis was from 2024 to 2034. 03:11:27
These same numbers were found in the master plan. 03:11:33
Now using these numbers, what we're going to be getting the levels of service both existing and proposed. 03:11:36
And this you can find in the IFFP. 03:11:43
So how do we identify these service levels and in this case for Parks and Recreation? 03:11:47
This is going to be identified as acres per 1000 residents. 03:11:52
For improved parks. 03:11:56
And for trails that will be miles per 1000 persons. 03:11:58
So we have a blue section and yellow section of some columns on this table. So what you'll see on the left on the blue? 03:12:02
Is when the first column. 03:12:07
In 2024 the these are the current service levels. 03:12:09
So there's 2.56. 03:12:13
Improved acres of Parkland for every thousand residents. 03:12:15
.0112. 03:12:18
Concrete trails, so on and so forth. 03:12:20
And if nothing is done, more people move into the city, no new assets are acquired. What we're going to see is that service level 03:12:22
dropping, which makes sense. More people are using the same number of facilities. 03:12:28
In the yellow columns on the right, we more or less just took those service levels and. 03:12:34
Converted them to a dollar amount. 03:12:39
And this was done by taking the entire current existing inventory in 2024. 03:12:41
Calculating how much it would cost to replace in today's dollars and dividing it by the population in Vineyard. 03:12:46
So we can see the same effect, right? More people move in if nothing is done that. 03:12:52
Cost that has been spent per person will go down. 03:12:56
So this has already been touched on by Brian. 03:13:00
The park improvements projected at around 9,000,006 million for trail improvements for total costs around 15. 03:13:04
We take all of these improvements. 03:13:10
And divide them per the number of people coming into the area. 03:13:13
And we get these numbers per capita. So for park improvements, 707, for trail improvements, 475, and for consultant costs for 03:13:16
people like me and Laura, we divide that by the anticipated growth over the next 10 years. 03:13:22
To get a total cost per capita of nearly $1200. 03:13:28
So the final step is what we were discussing a little bit earlier was how do we determine the impact fee to charge each additional 03:13:32
household coming in? 03:13:36
And what we did is we took the average household size from the 2023 ACS, American community say. 03:13:41
Survey from the US Census Bureau. 03:13:46
And multiplied that cost per capita by the average household size in vineyard. 03:13:49
Now there was a lot of discussion and. 03:13:53
I guess questions on why we're just doing 1U fee rather than discerning between different household type or? 03:13:57
Other variables. 03:14:03
And the reasoning behind that is because this is the most. 03:14:05
Transparent and verifiable source that we could find. 03:14:08
We had a meeting where we included different stakeholders and some members from the city. 03:14:12
Some representatives from the city to go over this and. 03:14:17
Make sure we were on the same page. 03:14:20
So that's why we only have one fee. 03:14:22
Now naturally when you see fees like this, you ask yourself where you are relative to peers. So. 03:14:24
Looking at this next slide. 03:14:30
This is for Parks and Recreation impact fees. 03:14:32
And all of those red bars represent a city in Utah Valley and the fees that they charge. 03:14:35
So Vineyard currently does not have a Parks and Recreation impact fee, but with implementing this impact fee, they would be right 03:14:40
under the average that is being charged in Utah Valley. 03:14:44
And all this information can be found from these individual cities, but in this case, it was collected from the Utah Valley Home 03:14:49
Builders Association, which collects that disinformation regularly. 03:14:54
So going to the next slide, when you Add all of the. 03:14:59
The fees up. 03:15:02
This might be a little. 03:15:03
Bit of a noisy graph, but the Gray bar represents just impact fees and the red bar is what developers are going to be looking at 03:15:05
when they're developing in an area. 03:15:09
Because that includes everything that they're going to be anticipated to pay. So that includes hookup fees. 03:15:13
Impact fees from special districts and other entities like that. 03:15:18
The yellow bar represents the average for the total. 03:15:22
Fees that a developer would be expected to pay. 03:15:25
So this can give you an idea of where Vineyard would stand relative to its peers. On the left you have the green bar that 03:15:28
represents where Vineyard is at right now. 03:15:31
And on the right is where it would go. 03:15:35
With this new impact fee. 03:15:38
So. 03:15:40
I know that was a lot of information that was a very quick little crash course through the IFFP and IFA, but I'm here to answer 03:15:41
any questions or just any concerns if. 03:15:45
You have any? So I just wanted to clarify my question. 03:15:50
That I had earlier specifically, and I think you already said this, but I just want to restate it so it's clear. 03:15:55
Each household would be charged. 03:16:03
For $3400 roughly, yeah. But then if a developer or if the developer is building a significant amount, a significant amenity. 03:16:06
That could go towards that amount. 03:16:16
Per household that they're building. 03:16:18
Yeah. My understanding is that they can pay in lieu of impact fees through assets or other capital improvements. Thank you. I 03:16:20
wanted that clarify. 03:16:24
Thank you. 03:16:28
Before we take questions from the Council, I'm going to ask the public. 03:16:34
Are there any questions from the public? 03:16:38
It's a lot. 03:16:45
All right, I'll let the Council deliberate a little bit and maybe that'll spur some thoughts. So I'll leave the public hearing 03:16:47
open. Go ahead. 03:16:50
Jay. 03:16:55
I get up a little bit leery when people create their own scoring. 03:16:57
But if there's no standard, I guess we have to create our own, right? 03:17:01
Why isn't there a scoring standard? 03:17:05
In the state I can't answer that question. I don't know. 03:17:07
So I do know that when we've done these fees throughout different states, we do work with the city to kind of determine what that 03:17:11
should be. 03:17:14
If everyone creates their own scoring method for doing it. 03:17:19
But it has to be defensible, legal. 03:17:22
Who's the one that's going to find out if it is defensible or not? 03:17:25
Typically it's the developers and they'll challenge it and that can the process of challenging an impact fee can be found in the 03:17:29
Utah State Code and then it'll go to court and say is this constitutional or not? 03:17:34
At that point, I actually don't know. 03:17:39
But. 03:17:42
I would imagine some sort of process that means we have a lot of leeway then if there's no. 03:17:42
Standard. Umm. 03:17:46
There's leeway, but it can be policed by people. They're paying the impact fees and right, yeah, I mean, they could come and take 03:17:47
you to court and say, yeah, this is too high or whatever. And there and there have been, you know, challenges that have been 03:17:52
successful and unsuccessful, right, from my experience sitting on these. 03:17:57
Plans across the state. 03:18:03
Typically there is. 03:18:05
A group that comes together and makes scoring. Maybe we could talk about the purpose for the scoring. 03:18:08
Just for the public. 03:18:13
So that they could understand. 03:18:15
Why we score or why that makes sense? 03:18:17
Well, I do know that when Susie and I worked on these impact fees. 03:18:21
I think that our scoring was a little bit different than what's in the master plan. 03:18:24
I don't, I don't believe we use those metrics. Those were. 03:18:29
They're kind of in different lanes, if that makes sense. OK. 03:18:33
Is that scoring different that you use primarily because of what you were saying earlier that? 03:18:38
If we have private amenities or smaller amenities that always serve a subset of the community, yeah, the argument is because they 03:18:43
only serve, you know, one or two developments, there's no parking. 03:18:48
Right the. 03:18:53
My concern is the complaint that I get a lot from residents is the heavy burden that we have on HOA's and. 03:18:55
How a TOAS do kick out? 03:19:03
The public, you know, don't allow them to use their amenities, even though they're like, hey, we're elect. 03:19:05
You can be here but. 03:19:09
Don't use any of this. 03:19:10
And they'll say, hey, do you actually live here? 03:19:12
And I worry about scoring it as half because it's like, it's really not public. 03:19:14
I mean, I get that. 03:19:19
People. 03:19:20
And visit, that's the only thing that I see that kind of jump I can see like. 03:19:21
It's there's value to it. 03:19:26
But if there's no national or state standard that says score it that way, it's like. 03:19:28
I see the complaint a lot. 03:19:33
Around the county, where Vineyard is just so heavy heavily, we're just all HOA for, you know, for the most part. 03:19:36
So I worry about that. 03:19:42
Does anyone, does anyone have any comments in the gallery? I'd love to hear Marty go ahead. Pro or against. What do you what do 03:19:44
you mean like around the county? 03:19:47
We're so heavy. HOA. Yeah, I was just curious what that means. 03:19:52
Well. 03:19:56
If you have an HOA park or whatnot, no. I mean like who's complaining about us having a lot of HOA's? Like what do you? 03:19:58
Oh, the conversations that I have. 03:20:04
Like I'm just what? Because I think that's a big statement. 03:20:07
I just was wondering what it like the context of it? When you have HOA parks it limits the ability to do public recreation in them 03:20:10
and so. 03:20:13
If you're counting them towards tax dollars or whatever they're, I mean, they're great for dog parks and different things like 03:20:18
that, but. 03:20:21
At the end of the day, they don't put on recreation. 03:20:25
Like organized recreation and so. 03:20:28
A lot of the. 03:20:31
Complaints that. 03:20:32
Are in the sporting world like soccer softball, baseball all that that type of world that makes more sense of like hey let's get 03:20:34
down to Vineyard and it's like. 03:20:38
We don't have any enough to complain. Well, I don't I don't think we have big enough HOA spaces that would actually even be able 03:20:43
to be a baseball. That's what I'm saying, like to raise funds. 03:20:48
Like this is our opportunity to set that and go, man, I wish if it wasn't scored that way, I'd really like to take that out of the 03:20:54
scoring so we could up the impact fee to get some more baseball fields is what our base soccer open fields, you know? 03:21:00
Can I offer a little legal perspective? I'm happy to go after Maria. 03:21:07
Oh, please go legal and then I'll go. 03:21:11
So I think Councilmember Holloway makes a really important point. 03:21:14
And your impact fee facility plan is you're walking a tightrope and you have to make sure that your data has some support. 03:21:18
So I believe the facilities plan. 03:21:27
And our consultants can speak up if I'm wrong, but it's written in a conservative way. 03:21:29
So that we can fully support the impact fees that we're assessing. 03:21:35
But your point about HOA amenities not being available to the public is absolutely true. Yeah. So if you're doing. 03:21:39
The math on what is our community demand? 03:21:46
For pickleball courts, Basketball courts. 03:21:49
And if you're counting the HOA amenities, they're truly not available to everybody. 03:21:52
And so. 03:21:56
I get where you're coming from. I think the reason why it is included in your impact feed facilities plan is so that you can 03:21:58
support. 03:22:02
That figure if you're challenged. 03:22:06
Because you're requiring as a threshold. 03:22:08
To development that a developer pay. 03:22:11
Into our systems. 03:22:14
And so you have to have the support for that if you were to. 03:22:17
Strip out all the HOA amenities, then I think you might have a little bit more. 03:22:20
Difficulty supporting that figure. 03:22:24
At the end of the day. 03:22:27
So what I wanted to say is I like where we're landing on the graph. So you want everyone's opinions and I'd love to hear from the 03:22:28
public. 03:22:32
But I like where we're landing on the graph when you compare us other cities. 03:22:37
In part of. 03:22:41
Why I want to be conservative in this number is I want to make sure that we're asking for enough from our developers, but I also 03:22:43
want to make sure this does add it. It's per household, right? Like these? 03:22:49
These developers pass that cost on to. 03:22:55
Our new residents. 03:22:58
And so I don't want to go too heavy. 03:23:00
I really like kind of picking that middle ground. 03:23:03
And just to help with. 03:23:06
Being able to afford to buy here, right? It's just one more. 03:23:09
Fee and we have we'll have a lot of fees as we try to grow and it makes sense and I. 03:23:12
Completely supportive of that. I just want to make sure that we're. 03:23:16
I like the idea. 03:23:19
Landing in the middle. 03:23:20
Jamie, going back to your legal explanation. 03:23:21
So. 03:23:26
Would one of their opportunities to challenge it be that they are putting in these parks that are serving the public in the HOA 03:23:27
realms even though they're not serving the greater public and so if they're paying too much? 03:23:33
And we're not conservative on it. And then we're not if we weren't accounting for those things then. 03:23:39
That would be them being able to come back and say look at what we've done for your entire community that you negotiated. Yes, 03:23:44
yes. And to put a little finer point on it, you. 03:23:49
When you're doing the legal analysis on a new development and what they provide the constitutional analysis is whether. 03:23:53
What you're demanding of a developer is roughly proportionate to the impact that they. 03:24:01
Create. 03:24:07
And it also has to have a direct relationship to their development. So those are for the development specific amenities. 03:24:08
And then when you look at impact fees, you also have to look at. 03:24:16
Proportionality, but that's really the math of the underlying study. 03:24:20
And the documents that you're considering today? 03:24:25
And then what they're paying into for that are not the amenities that they bring forward, but this the systems. 03:24:28
Systems is a word that lends itself better when you're talking about. 03:24:37
Sewer and water. 03:24:41
And transportation. 03:24:42
It's a little bit harder sometimes to understand with parks, but. 03:24:44
We still consider any of the park amenities that would serve the broader. 03:24:48
Community, not just a specific development to be your park system. 03:24:52
Thank you. 03:24:57
All right. Any, any other thoughts from the public as we keep going? 03:24:58
Just raise your hand when you I have one clarifying question. So this pot of money. 03:25:03
That we raise even though we score half a point for HOA. 03:25:08
The money can't then be used to build an HOA. It would only be for public parks right? Just to be clear. 03:25:12
Correct. It has to be spent on things in your. 03:25:19
In your plan document. 03:25:22
And so we write the plan document to. 03:25:24
Right to have expansive language right So that if you decide. 03:25:27
In three years that you need more tennis courts than pickleball courts. But they listed the HOA's in the document. That's why I 03:25:31
was scared. It's like they're the HOA's are used to. 03:25:35
To determine what your needs are in your community. 03:25:40
And they factored that in but. 03:25:44
You cannot use impact fees for. 03:25:45
Non public. 03:25:48
Amenities. 03:25:50
And HOA amenities are by definition non public. 03:25:51
You also have a limitation on the amount of time. 03:25:56
You can hold the impact fees, you have to spend them within six years. 03:25:59
On systems that are included in your documents. 03:26:03
That's meaningful, OK. 03:26:09
Any other questions from the Council? 03:26:10
Any questions from the public? 03:26:13
Karen, come on up. 03:26:17
You've got to come to the microphone. 03:26:19
Thank you. 03:26:24
I'm just trying to get my name and everything. 03:26:30
Yeah. 03:26:33
We're in Cornelius Vineyard. 03:26:34
I'm just curious about Marty's question, being concerned that that's a high amount for each. 03:26:36
New residence. 03:26:42
No, I'm not concerned that it's a high amount. I just want a balance. I want a reasonable number. I'm curious then, could we cut? 03:26:43
Then what we're offering so that the. 03:26:50
So that the balance is there because it seems like monetarily. 03:26:53
We can't have everything and cut 2. 03:26:57
So. 03:27:01
Well, I mean, I've. 03:27:02
I want to understand your question better, but from my understanding. 03:27:04
We have a list of everything we need and then we made a number. So if we want to increase that number, then we would add things 03:27:08
that we want to add to the list. But if we cut it, if we cut the list down, then we could cut the impact fee down. 03:27:14
So what is your goal here? Well, I just would hate to see us. 03:27:21
Keep everything that's on the list and cut the impact fee. Yeah, OK. That. I was just curious if that's what you were suggesting. 03:27:25
No, no. 03:27:29
I, I guess I'm, I guess what I'm trying to say is I like the plan as a whole so far. I feel like we're balanced. OK, that wasn't 03:27:34
my question. Thanks. Thank you. 03:27:38
I do have a question as we take a vote on this, if we vote on it today. 03:27:45
For the little corrections here and there like some of the. 03:27:51
Things Brian noted. 03:27:54
Do we need to? Would we need to? 03:27:56
Yeah, we'll put in a stipulation for it. OK. I had one question, Brian. Did we figure out my my neighborhood's green space? 03:27:58
Thing it's listed as an HOA, but I think it's actually public property. Just to know, yes. Yep, and that is included in the. 03:28:06
Oh, in the new one, I think I have this is the newer one. OK, cool. Yeah, thanks. 03:28:14
So and one note that I would. 03:28:18
Want to propose to before this is voted on is. 03:28:20
In the IFA and IFFP documents. 03:28:24
It lists a number of amenities. 03:28:27
That the. 03:28:32
Impact fee revenues can go towards. 03:28:34
And the list that's in there actually doesn't fully match what's in the. 03:28:37
Recommendations for the Parson McMaster plan? So I would just. 03:28:42
Recommend that we. 03:28:45
Have that updated in the IFA and IFFP documents so that we are covering our bases to. 03:28:48
To build those amenities with. 03:28:55
That revenue as well. 03:28:57
So in short, we would need to update the list of amenities that the impact fees could pay for. 03:28:59
Correct. 03:29:07
IFA and IFFP. 03:29:10
FA and IF. 03:29:12
FP update The list of is that. 03:29:14
Yeah, and a simpler way to phrase it could be to take the list of amenities from the park plan. 03:29:18
And include it in the Impact V documents. 03:29:24
No. 03:29:29
I might need help on that one again. 03:29:31
OK. 03:29:34
OK, any questions from the Council? 03:29:46
Any feelings, thoughts on this plan from the public? 03:29:50
As you've watched it and heard about it. 03:29:53
This is your time and your moment. 03:29:56
All right, I'm gonna. 03:30:00
David is are you coming? Come on up. 03:30:01
I wouldn't want you to miss out on this opportunity. 03:30:04
Sorry I will slow tonight. 03:30:17
Thanks again. Let me. 03:30:20
So my question about this is we pointed out that it would. 03:30:22
You know, that's a very large fee to tack on each new household. 03:30:25
And it would be a burden. 03:30:29
Is there? 03:30:32
How much of this would any of this be retroactive to the people who are already here? 03:30:34
Are we going to increase this at all anywhere else? No, you're not allowed to apply retroactively. I was pretty sure if I want to 03:30:38
confirm that. 03:30:41
So this is all just new growth. 03:30:44
And we have new growth coming in. 03:30:46
All the way fields and a few other places were almost. 03:30:49
Built out in the housing areas. 03:30:51
Houses apply to apartments. 03:30:53
And in Utah City, for example. 03:30:55
It's a great question. 03:30:57
Who wants to answer it? 03:30:59
Yeah, as far as I'm aware it would be the same so. 03:31:04
We have this set impact fee with the analysis, it allows for credits to take place right. So if Utah City is providing an excess 03:31:07
number of amenities for the public to utilize. 03:31:13
We can reduce this fee. 03:31:20
Some of that new growth that comes in. 03:31:23
So I think that's important to note. 03:31:26
But there are explain that part a little bit more to me, they can reduce their fee. 03:31:28
Yes, let's answer David's question then jump there. 03:31:33
Answer your question. All housing units are counted. 03:31:36
It doesn't discriminate. 03:31:42
Against rental or owner occupied. 03:31:43
The impact on the city's facilities is the same for a housing unit. 03:31:46
The the individual that pays for it is not the person that buys the home, it's the. 03:31:51
Developer that constructs them. 03:31:57
Right. Who then passes it on to the person who sells it to if you can. 03:32:00
That's usually what happens, right? 03:32:04
So will this be assessed by per apartment? 03:32:05
Or just for the larger building. 03:32:10
How would you make that differential door? 03:32:12
Per door. 03:32:14
Per household. 03:32:15
OK, so everyone's apartments would pay that. 03:32:17
You know that they would. The developer would pay that 3 grand or so for each apartment. 03:32:19
They don't get a building permit until they pay them. 03:32:23
Essentially, Thank you. 03:32:26
Brian, can you come back and explain how they can lower it? 03:32:28
Yes, so. 03:32:33
Just to go off of that. So let's say there's an apartment building that comes in. 03:32:35
That has 100. 03:32:40
Households within that apartment complex. 03:32:42
Take that 342288 times that by 100. That's the cost that the developer would have to pay. 03:32:45
Before they can build those units. 03:32:51
If that developer is providing green space for that specific complex or has recreation type amenities being offered. 03:32:53
Then that developer has the opportunity to get a credit, meaning they get some of this. 03:33:03
Impact fee amount reduced how much? 03:33:10
Or where is it? Can you show me? The city would have to approve it. It's a slightly different, Brian has the idea right. It's just 03:33:13
slightly different in application. 03:33:18
If they're providing green space, that's required by the zone. 03:33:23
For the benefit of that particular development. 03:33:27
That would not be eligible for an impact fee, credit or offset. 03:33:30
Can you show me where that word? 03:33:35
Oh, it's in your, it's not going to be in the plan. It's in your overall ordinance. 03:33:38
Oh, it's in the overall ordinance and in the Impact Fees Act. 03:33:41
That would allow you to do it. 03:33:45
If they with the development are contributing. 03:33:47
Park to your park system. So if they're. 03:33:50
A large scale park that would. 03:33:56
Benefit the entire community. 03:33:58
Then you could take the value of that. 03:34:00
And that construction? 03:34:03
Approve an impact fee. 03:34:06
Essentially a credit, OK, can I, can I do something really quick? Were there any other questions from the public? 03:34:08
Not at this time can we go out of a public hearing. 03:34:17
So moved. 03:34:19
1st from Marty, can I get a second, second, second from Brett? All in favor, aye aye. 03:34:22
All right, continue. 03:34:27
So I just want to restate what I think I heard. 03:34:29
And use a real example that's happening right now even though. 03:34:33
This hasn't passed and so you know whatever may not apply immediately. 03:34:37
The apartment buildings that are that are going up. 03:34:42
They have courtyards in them that could be considered. 03:34:45
Park or green or what you know, they're amenities. 03:34:50
But they are only available to the residents of those buildings. 03:34:54
That would not count towards reducing their fee. 03:34:58
But if flagship is building, say the promenade. 03:35:02
That has massive amounts of green space in it. 03:35:06
That would count. 03:35:09
That's correct. 03:35:10
I have a request from the council I many of you may be ready to vote on this. Something just came into my mind that I think I need 03:35:12
to work through. 03:35:16
And I would love to continue this to the next regularly scheduled meeting. 03:35:20
If that works. 03:35:25
You can continue to deliberate and go through it, but. 03:35:26
Well, one thought, one question I had, and I actually agree with you, Mayor. I think it would be better for us to push it. 03:35:29
If yeah, yeah. 03:35:36
But. 03:35:38
One thought I had is. 03:35:39
I don't want to get too specific but like if someone's already. 03:35:42
Got their building permits. 03:35:46
They and they're building some of these parks already. They're already in agreement. 03:35:49
Would that be retroactive? 03:35:54
You know what I mean, Jamie. 03:35:57
Like. 03:35:59
I'm building. 03:36:00
I'm building units right now, and I'm building all of this space for those units. 03:36:02
I'm not paying impact fees. 03:36:06
Now I have another group of buildings. 03:36:08
I almost feel like we could. 03:36:10
Yeah, I almost feel like we could negotiate that to an extent. 03:36:13
Per but they already got the permits so. 03:36:18
I'm saying yeah, they already have the permits and they already have. 03:36:21
The the green space plan. So it's almost like I wouldn't want to retroactively count all of that green space necessarily, like, 03:36:24
right. Yeah, I mean. 03:36:28
Consideration. 03:36:32
Yeah, like that green space was negotiated with the density and all the different the entire plan that it was. He did say that if 03:36:33
it's a part of our codes and zoning that that would be that wouldn't count anyway. 03:36:39
That like, yeah, I think it's something to take into account for sure as we're going through it all. 03:36:45
Yeah. 03:36:50
All right. Do you guys have any more discussion for tonight? Otherwise can can I get a motion to continue to the next regularly 03:36:53
scheduled meeting? 03:36:57
OK. OK. Just to the next meeting. I moved to push this to the next schedule, just say to the next meeting, to the next meeting. 03:37:03
Actually to the next regularly scheduled meeting. 03:37:12
Yeah. Do you mind her face? I don't. I don't know if I like. 03:37:16
I think what Pam's saying is you, there's no public hearing involved, so you can just continue it. Let's just continue. And then 03:37:20
when you create the agenda, you put it where you want. 03:37:24
I just want to know timing wise, I will clarify. I am just continuing this. All right, first by Marty, can I get a second? 03:37:28
2nd thank you for doing that, I appreciate. 03:37:36
That any other discussion before we take a vote. 03:37:39
All in favor, aye? 03:37:42
All right. Does that mean that we need to continue the public hearing? 03:37:44
There's still stuff on there if you want to do those or. 03:37:50
So when we make that motion, we would take that stuff off. 03:37:53
And then we would have to re. 03:37:57
Notice. OK, that's what I was wondering if we had to do that. 03:38:01
For the you're talking about the consolidated. It depends what edits you want to make. You've already held the public hearing, so 03:38:05
you're. 03:38:09
You can now make changes to it still. 03:38:13
Oh no, I mean for 9.2. 03:38:15
Because I think they're slightly attached, you would need to continue that. 03:38:19
Fully or or have Pam re notice the hearing either one OK or we'll read notice. OK, Maria, did you want to come up and we'll go 03:38:23
through that. 03:38:27
Council, I need a motion to go into a public hearing for the consolidated fee schedule amendment, Resolution 25. 03:38:31
2025 Dash 11. 03:38:37
So moved. Thank you, Sarah. Can I get a second? 03:38:41
Second, second by Brett, all in favor. All right, Maria, you're on. 03:38:44
OK, so. 03:38:49
Starting off, we're going to be on Page 3. 03:38:51
This kind of going to continue to page 4. 03:38:53
A lot of the things that we're just changing is just to clarify on whether the fees for. 03:38:56
Recreation are individuals or teams. 03:39:01
So you kind of go through those. 03:39:04
For the public, can you? 03:39:07
State them, yeah. 03:39:09
So for adult pickleball, it was $50. That's for teams. 03:39:11
We have adult tennis clinic that's for individuals. 03:39:16
The CUDA tennis is individual. 03:39:20
Esports is individual. 03:39:23
The race T-shirts. That's individual. 03:39:26
Senior program is individual. 03:39:28
Sports trivia and fantasy classes individual. Peewee sports clinic is individual. 03:39:33
Youth Arts Individual. 03:39:38
Youth baseball clinic individual. Youth basketball clinic individual. 03:39:40
Youth coach Pitch individual Youth Street Hockey League individual. 03:39:44
Use Pickleball League individual. 03:39:49
Youth flag football individual Youth Junior jazz basketball individual Youth kickball individual. 03:39:52
Use machine pitch individual. 03:39:58
Youth soccer programs individual. 03:40:01
Use t-ball individual. 03:40:03
Youth tennis clinic individual. 03:40:05
Youth. Ultimate frisbee individual. 03:40:08
Youth volleyball individual and youth wrestling is individual. 03:40:10
All right, for the public do. 03:40:15
Any of you have the agenda before you? Can you pass that to the audience? It's just the numbers that you just stated for 03:40:17
individual and pass it out so that they can see what the individual numbers are. 03:40:21
Thank you. 03:40:27
All right. 03:40:30
And then on page 6. 03:40:32
We are just removing the replacement can at no fault fee. 03:40:35
That is just because usually if there isn't a fault it's if it's normal wear and tear. 03:40:38
We just get that replaced. 03:40:44
So there wouldn't be a cost to that. 03:40:46
And then the next one will be on. 03:40:53
Page 12. 03:40:57
We are adding an address change request as well as an Adu secondary address request that will be 150. 03:41:00
But that will not include the additional physical mailbox charge. 03:41:07
That will be charged to the property owners by USPS. 03:41:11
And then that should be it just because the last one was the parks impact fee that will be moved to the next one. 03:41:16
All right. So we would just are there any questions from the public? 03:41:22
Not at this time. 03:41:27
OK, so just for the public, what we're talking about right now is taking the. 03:41:29
Parks and Recreation facilities be off, and then everything else would remain. 03:41:34
You don't have any questions? 03:41:38
All right. Can I get a motion to close the public hearing? 03:41:39
So moved. Great. Thank you. Marty. Can I get a second? 03:41:43
2nd, thank you, Brett. All right, all in favor, aye. 03:41:46
All right. We need a motion unless there's any questions. 03:41:50
I move to approve the consolidated fee schedule amendment, Resolution 20 to 2025, Dash 11. 03:41:54
With the exception of the Parks and Recreation facilities. 03:42:02
On page 15 can I get a second? 03:42:08
Second, any discussion? 03:42:10
All right, we'll do it by resolution, I mean by roll call, Sarah. 03:42:13
Hi, Marty. Hi, I, Brett. Aye. 03:42:16
Jake. All right. 03:42:19
Thank you. 03:42:21
I believe that means this meeting is adjourned. 03:42:22
Did I miss anything? 03:42:25
All right. Thank you. Have a good night. I thought we had reports. 03:42:26
Oh, yes, we do. I'm sorry, Jake. This meeting is not adjourned. 03:42:29
I moved that on the agenda. 03:42:32
Anybody. 03:42:34
Yes, we're back. We're back in business. Jake, let's start with you. 03:42:36
OK, I want to be as nice as I can, but I want to have a public conversation about these two items. 03:42:41
Which two items? 03:42:47
Just my issue in getting the general Ledger and having a CPA. 03:42:49
Umm, I. 03:42:55
Yes you can. 03:42:56
Take care of my son. Yes, please. 03:42:59
All right, go ahead, Jake. 03:43:02
You know, last year having a CPA helped me was wonderful. 03:43:03
It put the whole world together. 03:43:08
In terms of financial, I have a guy named Keith. 03:43:11
I know I found a lot of things that I disagreed with last year. 03:43:15
And I made my voice very. 03:43:19
Public about him. 03:43:22
And you know, in working with the state auditor to be able to get the Ledger last year, I thought the standard was pretty clear. 03:43:24
About that ability to do it. 03:43:31
To have a CPA. 03:43:34
Thank you. I know the Council last year was very clear about. 03:43:36
From the state auditor was to make sure. 03:43:40
In coming years, there wouldn't be. 03:43:43
Minor private information in the Ledger because they even said that. Why would there be names? 03:43:45
They should put it in a way that it would be easier to share. 03:43:52
Coming back this year. 03:43:56
You know, I was really. 03:43:58
I was really disappointed. 03:43:59
That and I there was number public. 03:44:01
Vote from this Council about. 03:44:04
Why I wouldn't be given a? 03:44:06
CPA or the ability to go through and do that. 03:44:09
And so when I got the e-mail. 03:44:13
You know, I did e-mail back Christy and I just said. 03:44:15
You know, hey, I feel this is needed. 03:44:20
It gives me some depth. 03:44:23
Also, to give context, I always am sent rumors or different things about happenings in the city that I have oversight over. 03:44:24
Some of them are true. 03:44:31
Some of them. 03:44:33
But sometimes when they're financial, you have to go and. 03:44:34
Look at the Ledger and grab somebody that it is. 03:44:37
So when? 03:44:40
When I got the e-mail from Christy and she said that they had spoken with Seth. 03:44:42
At the state auditor's office, Seth is the same one that sent me the letter. I didn't choose Seth. 03:44:47
I just said, who told you that? 03:44:52
So I wanted to add context to that. 03:44:55
And. 03:44:58
When I. 03:45:00
Emailed set back. 03:45:01
All I did is provide. 03:45:02
Christie's letter directly to Seth and to Nora. 03:45:04
And within 30 minutes, they both said that's not true, that's not what we said. 03:45:08
And so I said, well. 03:45:13
And I just said I'm just getting a CPA. 03:45:16
The CPA's. 03:45:19
We can talk about the data publicly. We didn't say we would. 03:45:20
Make miners names. 03:45:24
Or. 03:45:26
Citizens names public, but we would make the spend, we could talk about it the the spending publicly. 03:45:27
To be able to have that. 03:45:34
And then? 03:45:37
From that there there came a lot of questions, obviously because they read the e-mail and I know the city staff were. 03:45:38
Contacted by them and said hey, this was mischaracterized, we didn't say that. 03:45:45
You know, and so that was. 03:45:49
A struggle for me. 03:45:52
And then? 03:45:54
You know I'm going to stop you just for a second. 03:45:56
I appreciate. 03:46:00
The outline of the journey that you're going through. 03:46:01
Since this. 03:46:05
Discussion really ended in. 03:46:06
You hearing one thing and staff hearing one thing and the meeting being called that everybody needed to be in the same room. I 03:46:10
don't think it's appropriate at this time for anybody to be saying what was and what wasn't said when we have all agreed, Jake, 03:46:16
hold on one second, when we have all agreed to go to a meeting. 03:46:22
To clarify the outcomes of those phone calls and those emails, I was actually going to say the same thing. I think that the 03:46:29
meeting is the best thing possible because Jake, if you're allowed certain things and there's a misunderstanding and the auditor 03:46:36
and staff and you are all in the same room, I just do that then and then report back after because what's happening right now is 03:46:43
that I believe people are being mischaracterized and I think there's a misunderstanding and that is really clear. 03:46:50
In the e-mail that said let's all get on the same page. 03:46:56
And so right now I don't feel. 03:47:00
Like this representation is clear, there's not an outcome that we can state. And so when we go to that meeting. 03:47:03
And we have that meeting, then we can bring it to the public. Then there's something that can be brought forward. It's digestible, 03:47:12
it can be presented to the public, It'll be transparent. 03:47:16
But right now? 03:47:20
It is your interpretation on something versus another person's interpretation on something, and that is why we have to set this 03:47:21
meeting for clarity. 03:47:25
Well, yeah, and that's why I wanted to clear the air tonight, was that. 03:47:29
In the last meeting it was. 03:47:33
Who is this Seth? Is he a real person? And I thought. 03:47:35
OK. For point of clarity. For point of clarity, nobody said who is this person? Well, we don't know. Nobody said who, nobody said 03:47:38
who is this person for point of clarity. And This is why this is not ready for public consumption because. 03:47:45
Well, and let's clarify. 03:47:52
What happened was. 03:47:54
The city received a draft, an e-mail that was water stamped draft. 03:47:56
Nobody said is this a real person. Not once was that stated in fact, you were given the contact. 03:48:01
By the city. 03:48:08
And when we presented it, we said. 03:48:09
It's an unofficial document because it has a water stamp of draft on it and that is why we went and asked for clarity because we 03:48:12
need to understand it. 03:48:16
And that is why we also agreed to also in a meeting and make sure that we were on the same page for clarity. But So what you're 03:48:21
doing. 03:48:24
Is you are making. 03:48:28
You are stating things and making accusations against something that there is no clarity on. 03:48:30
And you're telling not Yeah, there is, because there is no clarity. You just said that. We said we didn't know who Seth was, and 03:48:36
we were pretending he wasn't. There was an insinuation. There was no insinuation this Seth is. There was no insinuation of that. 03:48:41
That is your interpretation of words. 03:48:46
And This is why we need to sit down in a room and have this discussed. OK, now moving on though. 03:48:51
There was number city vote from last year getting a CPA. 03:48:56
Let me let me tell you what did happen though to change in a policy actually for no public vote to change. I'm going to talk 03:49:01
about, I'm going to turn the time over to Jamie. Jamie, I think at this point it would be good maybe to. 03:49:08
To talk about right but if Brett's not voting to allow it and there's no vote, who is making the decision OK actually hold on no, 03:49:14
not not for a second I the reason why I want this stated for your. 03:49:21
For what? 03:49:27
Happened. 03:49:29
As a background is because, and. I don't even know if this discussion outlines it, but. 03:49:30
The reason why is because we had multiple discussions. 03:49:36
On. 03:49:40
Creating a financial committee. 03:49:41
That allowed you to work with people and allowed the city to work with people. 03:49:44
On review. 03:49:49
We talked about as a council. 03:49:50
About how one individual council person cannot deputize or train somebody. 03:49:53
As a deputy, as deputizing. 03:49:59
And give them documentation that is not public. 03:50:01
And we talked about how what we could do is formalize the committee, at which point you had mentioned. 03:50:05
This has no bearing on what it actually does have bearing, because it doesn't. Because there was number vote taken on that. You 03:50:10
guys didn't vote. It's not about a vote. 03:50:15
I just a point of clarification. 03:50:21
We don't have to vote on everything. Not everything is a legislative order. So you guys just vote just hey, so how do how do we 03:50:23
get this letter to 100% sure what we're talking about? I do know what we're talking about. So let me finish. Let me finish. Help 03:50:29
me with the no, it's not a it's not about, it's not about that. What you're not understanding is this. You can have as much 03:50:34
advice. 03:50:39
As possible. 03:50:45
For things that are. 03:50:46
To the public and then you can work in with. 03:50:49
Your hired experts. 03:50:51
And the people that have been put on that committee. 03:50:55
And the reason why this is important is because. 03:50:58
You had wanted to create a committee where you could get this advice. 03:51:01
We as a Council. 03:51:06
Had uh. 03:51:08
An agenda item. 03:51:09
Where we welcomed that conversation to formalize. 03:51:10
A committee and bring people to the table that people felt comfortable with. 03:51:15
It was clarified to you that every felt, everybody felt, really. 03:51:20
Good about supporting that opportunity. 03:51:23
In that meeting you said you weren't interested in that, and yeah, I wanted a citizen committee, not a committee of the staff. 03:51:26
And I understand that it's not that you you had, it is not. 03:51:33
It is not a changing of the subject because the point is. 03:51:37
What you want to do? 03:51:42
Is hand documents over to people? 03:51:44
In a way that. 03:51:46
Does not. 03:51:47
That that is. 03:51:50
Has protected information on completely not true a point of order? 03:51:51
That's not a point of order, Jake. I'm in the middle of discussing the actual order on the table. 03:51:55
There, that's not a point of order. The the idea of what we're saying is whether or not whether or not you agree with grammar law. 03:52:01
The grammar law, It does exist. 03:52:10
And the reason why we're having this discussion and why we wanted to get on the same page before this all came together is to say 03:52:13
if there is something. 03:52:17
The auditor feels we should be doing. 03:52:21
That we are a letter that we are not doing. 03:52:24
Let's go ahead and meet on it. Clarify your interpretation of that letter. 03:52:27
And the interpretation that's being read, We're all going to sit in the same room, get on the same page so that there aren't these 03:52:32
back and forth of accusations, but that there's actual reality. 03:52:37
That we can publish for the people and the council to make the decisions because if you need, Jake. 03:52:43
If the auditor says we need to be giving them something, you something that the city is not doing. 03:52:50
We need to make that right. 03:52:56
And if the auditor explains something and you're not understanding it? 03:52:59
Then we need you to understand it, and so we're all going to sit in the same room and make sure that you get exactly what you need 03:53:04
and the city is in compliance with the law. 03:53:08
That is our only goal. 03:53:12
Mayor, there was number public vote to change the policy to have a CPA and yet somehow the policy is shifted and I can't use this. 03:53:15
There is no policy that shifted. 03:53:21
You can. OK, You can keep talking over that, but we need to address it. Jamie, can you please address what he's talking about with 03:53:28
the deputization of a CPA in order to get protected documents? 03:53:33
When he says the law has shifted, can you clarify for us what what that means? It was last year. There's no change. You just said 03:53:38
the law has shifted, that you guys have changed the policy. 03:53:44
Internally saying, Jake, you can't share it with the CPU. We didn't change that policy. 03:53:49
So you have no problem with me? We have the same standard that we had last year and. 03:53:55
And Jamies gonna clarify it, so wait. 03:54:01
I can frame the issues as I understand them and then. 03:54:04
I think the. 03:54:07
The everybody weighing in on it really ought to happen together with this representative from the auditor's office. 03:54:10
On a portion of it. 03:54:16
There there have been multiple requests for. 03:54:18
The general Ledger. 03:54:23
Overtime. 03:54:25
I know that copies of the Ledger have been provided to you. I've been in meetings when it's been handed to you. 03:54:26
The instructions when you've received the document are that. 03:54:33
As a council member and as a city officer and an elected official, you have every right to review the the Ledger, the full Ledger, 03:54:38
everything that's in it. 03:54:41
We have to balance. 03:54:46
Your ability to provide that kind of oversight and to. 03:54:49
View the Ledger with. 03:54:52
Our obligations under records laws not to disclose publicly. 03:54:54
Information that would be classified as private and protected. 03:54:59
Without getting into why they're there or whether they should be there, I think that's maybe something we can talk about with the 03:55:03
auditor. 03:55:06
Our Ledger does have information that our records officer believes to be private or protected, correct the. 03:55:10
The few cat there I wouldn't call them really. 03:55:17
Important. Or really, no, They're tiny. 03:55:20
They're small expenditures, right? There are things like youth council and library books. 03:55:23
Right. Well, I don't think their library funds, I think their utility, utility fines. 03:55:29
And there's a lot of line items that fall into that, but it screws out the number, yeah. 03:55:33
They have names associated with them and so. 03:55:37
The instruction when you've got the Ledger is. 03:55:40
You're entitled to review it. You're entitled to have the whole thing. 03:55:44
You just can't. 03:55:48
You can't put it on Facebook, you can't share it with the citizen that's not an employee or an officer of the city. 03:55:49
So. 03:55:55
There are. 03:55:57
And Christy will correct me if I misstate this, but there are two reports that the city routinely files with the state you're 03:55:58
required to. 03:56:02
The Polaris system that the city uses to. 03:56:06
To keep its Ledger is the same system cities across the state use, correct, and it has a built-in feature. 03:56:09
Where in the system Christie keeps the Ledger? 03:56:16
And then the state required public reports that contain every line item expense but they. 03:56:19
Don't have some of this private or protected information in it. 03:56:26
Correct. Is a feature of the system where she. 03:56:30
Basically hits publish. 03:56:33
And then quarterly, it sends a revenue and expense report to the state transparency website. 03:56:35
And then there's an employee compensation report that's submitted annually that has that information. 03:56:40
What I understand from Christie is that with the exception of some of this. 03:56:46
Private or protected information, that is. 03:56:51
I would say small dollar amounts and individual names. 03:56:54
The revenue and expense report provides the full snapshot of the city's. 03:56:58
Revenue and expenses. 03:57:04
And is available to anybody that wants to see it. 03:57:06
You, I know, have asked not just for a paper copy of the Ledger, but also like an Excel file export from the system. And again, 03:57:09
I'm not accusing anyone of any. Hold on, let's let Jamie keep going. Unless you're clarifying. 03:57:16
And you're entitled to that individually. 03:57:24
The instruction is just you. You can't. 03:57:26
Right. Publicly or share it with somebody who's not an employer officer of the city, because then we lose control of that data. 03:57:29
And we have that risk. 03:57:36
So as far as next steps, I know you reached out to the auditor's office and Christy has had some conversation with the auditor's 03:57:40
office. 03:57:44
They have a. 03:57:48
The local government portion of the auditor's office, I think this is where it's Seth Elvis and works. Yeah. And one of his roles 03:57:49
is to provide guidance on. 03:57:54
Financial Bookkeeping. 03:58:00
Things like that and what the auditor's office would look at if they were to perform an audit. 03:58:02
To help give us some instruction on what information can be shared in what context. 03:58:08
And in the back and forth with Seth, I know that a draft. 03:58:13
Document was shared, it's watermark draft. We weren't sure exactly what the status of that was. 03:58:18
I sent a letter to him asking to have a meeting and to. 03:58:24
Understand what that document is. Make sure he gets whatever information he needs. 03:58:29
He sent an e-mail I know to you saying. 03:58:33
I don't want to provide you more guidance or information until we meet with the full group. 03:58:37
And we're in the process of scheduling that. 03:58:42
I sent to you. It's not a doodle poll, but it's the same thing. 03:58:45
And I think we've heard back from just about everybody. If you can mark your availability, we can get that meeting scheduled. 03:58:48
You had wanted to hold it before. 03:58:55
The meeting today and in fairness to you. 03:58:57
I have a litigation schedule, the next little bit that's making that difficult to hold the meeting this week, but I think next 03:58:59
week. 03:59:03
We have a few days where people are available, so we need to hold the meeting with the auditor. 03:59:07
As far as we know right now. 03:59:11
The city still has that obligation under grandma. 03:59:14
I would love to get cess input on. 03:59:17
What we do with that information, with those names? 03:59:19
But right now, I'm not comfortable having that information public. I think people who. 03:59:23
Are inadvertently laid on the utility bill. Wouldn't want their names floating out there. 03:59:28
So. 03:59:32
And then we just want to clarify and then a quick clarification on authority. 03:59:33
Is anyone council member can't. 03:59:38
You know, tap somebody on the shoulder with a sword and say I deputize you too. 03:59:41
So that's where I got clarification. 03:59:47
The liability of the individual that you select. We called Nora's office and went through that training and David was on the call 03:59:50
and we figured out how to do it. 03:59:54
They have the same professional licensing requirements. 03:59:58
Had Chris Brown, well, even walk us through as to why? 04:00:01
And that's where the difference is. And I don't mind going, well, I want to discuss that with the auditor's office, right. And I 04:00:04
don't mind you. But The thing is, is that. 04:00:08
It's this song and dance and and and. 04:00:12
It's not a song and dance. We have a very collaborative meeting. 04:00:16
Jointly scheduled. 04:00:20
To make sure that you get what you need. And we, we are. 04:00:22
As a city and I would say as a full council. 04:00:26
Committed to that. 04:00:29
So there is no there is no back and forth. 04:00:31
There, there. This conversation does not need to be had. We are on your side with getting you the information. Devil's advocate 04:00:34
here, Jake. 04:00:38
You call it a song and dance, but this right here feels like a show. Can we just let you have the meeting where you guys all 04:00:41
figure it out so that we're not keeping here? I know, but you're having this meeting you're going to. 04:00:46
It hasn't. It has not. It has not been a month in the way that you're stating it. It has been very collaborative. 04:00:53
You had an initial request on the 19th. 04:00:59
That you were immediately sent information on the 22nd and the 24th. It was then you asked once it was told that this could not be 04:01:02
shared with the public. You asked for a redaction on the 24th of February. 04:01:08
Then there was a question about that with the auditor. You disagreed with the e-mail and requested for the auditors contact on the 04:01:15
26th. 04:01:18
There was a letter that there was saying it's been a month. No, but what you're saying is it's been a month as if people have been 04:01:22
ignoring you. 04:01:25
Immediately you received your initial request, then you asked for the redaction, then they made sure that they did it right. Then 04:01:29
you disagreed with it and said you wanted to share it publicly. Then they felt like they couldn't and they gave you what you 04:01:33
needed and you didn't like. It's not a block. 04:01:38
Then you changed your request from a current year and two year prior to an 8 year on the 13th right? Then you rejected the 04:01:42
transparency Gov because you wanted it different but you want to share it with the public who? 04:01:48
What you're saying is that you feel like you went and got somebody trained. 04:01:54
And that you feel like your authority extended to making it so people could see private protected documents. And we're saying if 04:01:58
that's the case, that's twisted. You just said you met with the auditor who trained your CPA. And if that is the case, that allows 04:02:03
them. 04:02:07
The editor walked through the steps for them to be able to professionally. 04:02:12
Deal with the documents and treat them in a private protected way and what could be shared publicly and what could not be shared 04:02:17
publicly, which is wonderful. CPA's already know how to do this. We still have to we Jamie just clarified with you that we have an 04:02:23
obligation to share those things with the elected officials and the officers and that we have to protect private protected 04:02:29
information. So if you feel. 04:02:34
That your conversation with the auditor. 04:02:40
Allows for anybody that goes through that training. 04:02:42
We must clarify it. 04:02:45
All along the way, almost every other day, collaboratively working together to say we've got to get this to you. 04:02:48
Immediately set the request. Then you asked for in a specific way that you wanted to see it so you could share it with who you 04:02:56
wanted to. Now you're having an interpretation of it that's not true. I mean, do I do I need to do a point of order on everything? 04:03:01
I have it. We can read through the emails that explain it Point of order. 04:03:06
Is to return to the business item. 04:03:11
We are on the business item correct of. 04:03:13
Point of clarity, go ahead, clarity. But I'm telling you the emails that you have this you, you had an initial request. 04:03:18
On the 19th you received the documentation. 04:03:25
On the 22nd and the 24th, you asked for a redaction on the 24th Point of clarity, Sure. 04:03:29
Asked for a CPA and said no you can't get it on the 26th. 04:03:36
On the 26th let's see e-mail we were advised against sharing the general Ledger for various. No, we can't This is very important 04:03:40
Marty and I think this is important because I mean I've read all the emails so we just we really want the public to know about 04:03:45
this argument you guys are having. We just yeah no, no Jake, I guess this is This is why I feel like it's important Marty and if 04:03:51
you want to call this to. 04:03:56
If you want to close the meeting because it's past 10:00, I totally get that on all respective, but This is why I feel like it's 04:04:02
important. 04:04:05
You guys are always telling me that we need to be able to explain this transparently for the people. Right now this is. 04:04:08
Out in the public and people feel like we are not working in good faith and hiding and not being transparent with our legal 04:04:15
document. I just feel like as soon as you guys have that meeting with the auditor, we're going to have all the answers. No, I 04:04:21
agree with you. Right now it's like we want to argue about how we haven't had the answers. Why can't we just move forward? 04:04:27
Move on, get this meeting with the auditor and then we can come together and say, hey, Julie was wrong here and Jake was wrong 04:04:33
here and staff was wrong here and the auditor miscommunicated and then we're done. But it's like this song and dance for both 04:04:38
like. 04:04:42
It's like we're doing a song and dance right here, is what I'm saying. 04:04:47
And let me tell you why I don't think so. I am reading a timeline. 04:04:51
Hold on, timeline is helpful. I need you to listen. 04:04:56
I'm reading a timeline of where he says he's waited for a month for our staff. 04:04:58
Who have not worked well with him. 04:05:04
This is a big problem. 04:05:06
Next, I've already said that we have a collaborative meeting where we want to work together. Point of clarity, he's I'm in the 04:05:08
middle of talking. You need to wait, then you need to stop. You need to stop. 04:05:14
Then. 04:05:22
We are in the middle of saying something where he is say stating that we are violating the law. And to your point. 04:05:23
I'm returning back those things to this conversation. So in in this conversation where you say. 04:05:31
I guess what I'm trying to say is there's no back and forth where there's not an interpretation being handed from you, me or 04:05:38
anybody else. My whole point in stating this for the public is so that they understand we are doing what you are hoping will 04:05:44
happen. 04:05:49
And collaboratively. 04:05:55
It protects our staff, it protects the transparency of the community, it protects the council. 04:05:57
And these conversations come up. 04:06:02
Frequently. 04:06:04
And so if. 04:06:05
If we want to be clear, we need to state it. 04:06:07
And we have an opportunity where we just. 04:06:10
We just kind of talked about it and Jamie gave the background. So if you. 04:06:13
If you guys don't want to. 04:06:16
And I don't know, I guess if we don't feel like we need any more clarity, we can call it, but I feel like it was important because 04:06:18
that is the only way that we can stop these conversations. 04:06:24
And work together and come together as a community. 04:06:30
From my perspective, I don't, I don't think we're going to get to any kind of resolutions. Yeah, I won't belabor the point. Do you 04:06:34
guys have any council reports, Marty or Brett? 04:06:39
Sorry, Jake, I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting because it's late. Please submit your report and then we can do it in that 04:06:47
council meeting. I literally can I get a second vote? Jake would like me to call for a vote. 04:06:52
Honestly, I. 04:06:58
I just want to know the topic of what you want to say and then I'm going to and actually I don't need a second vote. 04:07:00
Are you guys all gonna vote against me to keep the meeting open? That's what the vote is. Just for the clarity of it. I'm Jake. I 04:07:08
would rather talk about this later when I actually can process. I don't do well after 10:00. Awesome. We're adjourned. 04:07:14
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