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  • Start Position
  • Chair Julie Fullmer began the meeting at06 pm. Boardmember Sifuentes gave the invocation and led the Pledge of Allegiance.          CONSENT ITEMS1.   ApprovaloftheMayndRDAMeeting Minutes
  • MOTION: BOARDMEMBER RASMUSSEN MOVED TO APPROVE THE CONSENT ITEM AS PRESENTED. BOARDMEMBER CAMERON SECONDED. CHAIR FULLMER AND BOARDMEMBERS RASMUSSEN, CAMERON, SIFUENTES AND HOLDAWAY VOTED YES. THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.            BUSINESSITEMS1.   PublicHearing-FY25Budget(ItemwascontinuedfromtheMay22nd,24, RDA Meeting) TheRDABoardwillhearpubliccommentconcerningtheadoptedFiscalYear2024-25 Tentative Budget. The RDA Board may review any items that were the proper subject of consideration in the Public Hearing. Approval of the final budget is tentatively scheduled for June,24.
  • Redevelopment Agency Director Josh Daniels gave a brief summary from the last meeting.
  • John Barrick, resident of Orem, expressed his concern with the RDA and asked if the RDA received consent from the Taxing Entity Committee as required under state law for certain projects. He had questions regarding procedures and resolutions passed during previous meetings, as well as how to access minutes and documents from those meetings.
  • John Gadd, a resident of Pleasant Grove, expressed concern that the Alpine School District was supplementing funds they were not receiving, as a result of funding the RDA, with increased property taxes.
  • Resident Daria Evans, living in The Villas subdivision, expressed her gratitude for the previous comments and encouraged the board to answer questions raised during the meetings rather than in emails after the fact.
  • Karsten Walker, resident of Orem, had questions on bonds. He also asked for further information on mitigation payments made to the school district.
  • Resident Karen Cornelius, living in The Villas subdivision, expressed her support for Ms. Evans’ statement and encouraged the board to answer questions during meetings.
  • MOTION: BOARDMEMBER RASMUSSEN MOVED TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING at23 PM. BOARDMEMBER CAMERON SECONDED. CHAIR FULLMER, BOARDMEMBERS CAMERON, SIFUENTES, RASMUSSEN AND HOLDAWAY ALL VOTED YES. THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
  • Mr. Daniels answered questions asked during the public hearing. He gave clarification on what a TEC was as well as provided an explanation on the mitigation payments made to Alpine School District.
  • Mr. Daniels gave a small presentation on one of the RDA’s projects and provided an analysis. This initiated a discussion with Mr. Daniels and the board regarding the specifics of commercial development and the use of bonds.
  • Chair Fullmer addressed the board and stated that she felt there were a lot of good questions being asked. She wanted the board to bring questions about the RDA to Mr. Daniels for future presentations and expressed that she wanted questions and discussions to focus on specifically budget-related items. A discussion ensued.
  • Boardmember Holdaway initiated a discussion regarding the budget and administration costs.
  • Boardmember Holdaway asked that his request for “The million dollars… not a line item but a breakdown of a hundred thousand here and a hundred thousand there.” Be added to the record.            ADJOURNMENTChair Fullmer adjourned the meeting at32 pm   MINUTES APPROVED ON: June24   CERTIFIED CORRECT BY:                      TONY LARA, DEPUTY CITY RECORDER
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Transcript

All right, we're going to go ahead and get rolling. Today is June 12th, the time is 606 and we're going to start our Redevelopment 00:00:01
Agency board meeting. Marty support us, will give us our invocation and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. 00:00:09
Our dear, kind Heavenly Father, we are so very grateful to be here today as a community, as a group of people working towards the 00:00:24
better and benefit of our Vineyard city. Please bless and watch over us, help us work well together, help us understand what's 00:00:30
brought before us and make the best possible decisions. 00:00:36
It would benefit Venue City residents and our future. We are so very grateful for the hard work of the staff, the members of the 00:00:43
community that support and work so hard to bring forth ideas and values. And please bus and watch over our servicemen, our police 00:00:50
and fire, all of our emergency personnel, and watch over our families and protect them. And we say these things in the name of thy 00:00:57
Son, Jesus Christ, Amen. 00:01:04
All right. 00:01:12
Of the United States, of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and 00:01:16
justice for all. 00:01:22
That brings us to our consent agenda. This is the approval of the May 22nd RDA in meeting minutes. I need a motion. 00:01:31
I move to approve item 2.1. Thank you first by Amber. 00:01:41
Second. Second by Sarah. All in favor, aye. 00:01:47
All right, we'll move on. 00:01:52
Would you like to wait? Well, I don't know what do you have for it? I don't know. There is a recording, but we can wait just in 00:01:58
case. 00:02:01
I don't know, Jamie. Do we need to wait for our recorder to return? 00:02:05
Is the meeting being recorded? That's what we understood, OK. 00:02:09
Please. 00:02:20
Yes, OK, good. You're updated. OK. All right. Last meeting, we had a public hearing on our RDA tentative budget. We continued that 00:02:22
and kept the public hearing open in case more people had additional questions. 00:02:31
So since last time, maybe it would be good to go and see if there were any changes. What I'm going to do is I'm going to ask the 00:02:42
board members to open up the public hearing allow. 00:02:47
Oh, because it's already open. We left it open. We don't need to do that. So if you have anything additional that you would want 00:02:55
to say otherwise, this is time for the public to come and. 00:02:59
Comments and then we can discuss at the board, so. 00:03:05
Thank you. I did want to notify the public quickly in case you are here to do a presentation for City Council. The City Council 00:03:42
was submitted according to the Open Public Meetings Act. However, we cannot find the notice for it and because of that, we have to 00:03:50
resubmit it. And so if you're here for City Council, we will re notice and hold that meeting at a different time. And thank you 00:03:57
for coming and taking that opportunity and right now. 00:04:04
I'm gonna hold the RDA meeting, but then we will not be continuing on to City Council if you're here for that. So just in case, I 00:04:11
don't want you to sit through potentially a long meeting if you're waiting for that moment in time. So we're just doing the RDA 00:04:19
tonight. That's right. Thank you. All right, thank you. Josh. Were there any additional comments from the public? 00:04:27
Don't forget to state your name where you're from. 00:04:36
I Vineyard City Council, my name is John Barrack. I am from a resident of Orem and I'm concerned. I'm a concerned parent and 00:04:39
taxpayer in the Alpine School District, which is the largest contributor of tax increment funding to your RDA. After the 2022 00:04:46
Alpine School District bond failed in November 2022, the board, the Alpine School District board had a work meeting in February of 00:04:52
2023. 00:04:59
I don't know if that's me or air conditioning. 00:05:07
And they said they would never build a secondary education, junior high or high school in the city of Vineyard. And the reason was 00:05:10
is because of the Vineyard. RDA takes all the taxes away from Vineyard. And that was concerning to me as a parent because I think 00:05:16
Vineyard is large enough that it should have those things and that your students are important and they shouldn't have to go to 00:05:22
Orem for everything because you've built a beautiful community here. 00:05:28
I do have a few questions about the budget, the proposed budget for the for the public hearing. My first question, and by the way, 00:05:35
I am a certified public accountant. I'm also a PhD in accounting and I like public finance and have taught public finance for 23 00:05:42
years. But I do have a couple of questions with respect to the proposed budget. Did the Vineyard RDA agency receive consent from 00:05:50
the Taxing Entities Committee as required under state law? 00:05:57
And if so, I'd like an affirmative response to that. 00:06:05
Does. 00:06:12
Let's see, did the agency receive consent for phase four? I was looking over some of the documents from the last couple of years 00:06:14
and I didn't see the resolution that authorized phase four. I thought mentioned in meeting notes during COVID when they talked 00:06:20
about potentially phase 4, but I would like to know the resolution number. If you could let me know that, I would appreciate it. 00:06:26
Umm did the agency receive consent of the Taxing Entities Committee for the Resolution 2023, Dash 02 or other extensions of the 00:06:33
RDA that were granted by this body in 2023? 00:06:40
And then a couple of items related, well, one item related to your bond. Why did the agency have an untimely filing of its 00:06:49
2021-2022 and 2023 financial statements that were produced by Gilbert and Stewart for the agency in which you provided notices to 00:06:56
bondholders and through Emma the the. 00:07:03
Consolidator of those eight items and what were the consequences of having non timely filed financial statements? 00:07:12
Like you have to pay higher interest rates as a violation of your covenants. I think that's probably a failure on some portion and 00:07:19
we should know why. 00:07:23
And then the second, the last thing I kind of wanted to know was does the taxing entity committee, which is required under state 00:07:30
law and is referenced in your resolution 2011 or 2011 Dash 03, does that taxing entity committee follow Utah public open meeting 00:07:36
laws? And if so, where can I find all of them? 00:07:43
And documents related to their consent in votes. Thank you so much for your time. 00:07:51
Good evening. 00:08:04
In your redevelopment Agency board. My name is John Gad. I'm a resident of Pleasant Grove. I've lived, I bought my home with my 00:08:06
wife there in 2000. So we've lived there for 23 years. And just like residents of Vineyard, every year when I get my property tax 00:08:14
notice, the bulk of that goes to Alpine School District. My understanding is that last year. 00:08:22
About 65% of people's property tax in Vineyard went to Alpine School District. 00:08:31
And so the other thing that I've noticed every year when I get my property tax notice in the mail is that every year it seems to 00:08:37
go up and I tracked it and I've charted it and it's going up faster than inflation. So I understand that things get more 00:08:42
expensive, but. 00:08:48
The tax that I pay to Alpine School District over the last 20-3 years that I've owned my home in Pleasant Grove has gone up faster 00:08:54
than inflation, so recently I've started to look into why that might be. 00:09:01
And there's a lot of reasons. 00:09:08
You know, I think there's some wasteful spending and whatnot going on in Alpine School District, but one of the reasons that I've 00:09:11
recently become aware of is. 00:09:15
This Vineyard Redevelopment Agency, so my understanding is that back in the 2006, 2009, 2011 time frame, you guys fired this thing 00:09:20
up with an initial idea that you would give some tax incentives to businesses for 25 years. 00:09:28
And up to $300 million. Now, if you're giving property tax rebates up to $300 million and 65% of property tax Ghost Out Point 00:09:37
School district, that means that around 200 million of that 300 million is money that Alpine School District is rebating. In other 00:09:46
words, that's $200 million that's not flowing into Alpine School District. Now, I'm no fan of taxes. 00:09:55
And I would love for taxes to be lower than they are. 00:10:06
But if we're going to have a tax, I think it should be fairly distributed across everyone who pays the tax. And here's the problem 00:10:08
what I see happening here with the Vineyard Redevelopment Agency. 00:10:15
Is you're taking $200 million of tax revenue that businesses would otherwise be paying, you're giving it back to them. 00:10:23
That's $200 million that would have gone into Alpine School Districts General Fund. 00:10:33
And they don't just say, well, we'll just do without that $200 million. 00:10:39
They make it up elsewhere. And where do they make it up from? My property tax and your property tax and senior citizens on fixed 00:10:45
incomes property tax and young mothers and fathers who can barely afford housing. And when they finally get that little starter 00:10:52
home and they get their property tax bill, that property tax is higher. 00:10:58
Because of this Vineyard Redevelopment Agency, because businesses that I understand you want to grow your community. I get that. 00:11:06
And you want to incentivize businesses to come in. 00:11:11
But you're rebating 75% of their property tax back to them as an incentive to come in and build in vineyards. 00:11:16
But you're doing that on the backs of homeowners, taxpaying taxpayers and other businesses. So you're picking winners and losers. 00:11:23
The winners are the people who get 75% of their tax, property tax back. The losers are all the poor citizens, including Vineyard 00:11:28
citizens, but Pleasant Grove citizens and Lehigh citizens and Fairfield citizens and everybody who lives in Alpine School 00:11:34
District. 00:11:40
Because when that $200 million is given back to the businesses in Vineyard, and that's only in Vineyard, that $200 million doesn't 00:11:46
go into helping school district and they make up that $200 million on the backs of all the rest of us. So that doesn't seem right. 00:11:55
The other thing that I'm concerned about is what started out. 00:12:05
With the idea of it's going to go 25 years and we're going to do up to $300 million, seems to keep growing from that. I'm holding 00:12:09
in my hand Resolution U2023O2. This is for Phase 5A of the Vineyard Redevelopment Agency and I'm reading right here that. 00:12:18
This can be collected from the property for 50 years. So what happened to the 25 years? Now we're going to 50 years. So anyway, I 00:12:28
think there's some problems. I think that we need to, you need to rethink whether it's fair to benefit Vineyard at the expense of 00:12:36
the taxpayers in the entire rest of Alpine School District. Thank you. Thanks, John. 00:12:44
Quick reminder for the public, I didn't state it at the beginning of this as to allow the most people to speak, we're going to put 00:12:53
a clock up on the board so that you know how long your public comments are. 00:12:59
Allowed for and we'll do that each one. So keep an eye on the clock. It should be right up here actually. And then if you're 00:13:06
speaking and you're hoping to hear back, please leave your name and your e-mail or your number on the seat as you comment if you 00:13:12
didn't or as you come in. Thank you. 00:13:18
My name is Doria Evans. I am a Vineyard resident, and I would just like to thank these two gentlemen for what they have brought 00:13:31
up. I it's very interesting to me and it makes me concerned. And I, I would hope that you would answer these questions tonight 00:13:38
instead of emailing them separately on their own because I think the rest of the audience would like to hear your responses to 00:13:45
their questions. Thank you. 00:13:52
I'm starting. 00:14:00
Carson Walker, retired Alpine School District teacher, and I just want to echo the same concern. 00:14:07
I'm just up the hill, so I read through the bond documents for the Vineyard City RDA and it has on page, I think 30 through 35. It 00:14:15
has all the risk that it mentions that things that go wrong in the RDA like 'cause if I'm a bond investor, I want to know in the 00:14:23
prospectus like the risk reward ratio and the potential for this investment to go bad. 00:14:31
And I think what could go bad is going bad. The district could split, the economy has changed, the interest rates are up. So 00:14:40
commercial real estate is down, leasing, you know, mixed developments down. And so and this I think we're seeing that in evidence 00:14:47
that all these risks are perfect storm is happening and that and that's why we're extending, you know, to make it pencil out for 00:14:54
these developers. And I just wonder. 00:15:02
One, are you covered as an RDA board with like directors and board insurance? Are you personally liable? Like if you add your 00:15:10
attorney and city manager like look at the risk and then to what what happens if he fell, if these bonds fell like like the 00:15:17
development doesn't go as promised or as thought because of the economy, like we had a recession or. 00:15:23
And then what happens is are you insured? Like is your bonds insured? So just some of those things that I just, I just think 00:15:31
maybe. 00:15:35
It was a good idea that has gone maybe like too big and too far. And then I I noticed there's a mitigation part where you're 00:15:40
supposed to pay the school district if you collect too much or it goes too well. And when does that kick in? If you could go over 00:15:45
that, that would be really awesome. Thank you. 00:15:50
So if you agree with people, feel free to raise your hand. 00:16:05
Thank you. 00:16:09
Hope everyone's enjoying the summer. That's great out there. Karen Cornelius, Vineyard Residence I just want to be on record as 00:16:18
saying, not raising my hand, but saying that I agree with Daria. We need answers on the record, not emails. I have waited months 00:16:25
for answers to questions that I have asked at this program, so I would. 00:16:33
Those answers here in this meeting so that they are public record. Thank you. 00:16:41
Without clapping, please raise your hand just so we can keep the quorum in the meeting. Thank you. 00:16:50
OK, are there any other comments? 00:16:57
If not, I would need a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Thank you Amber, can I get a second? 00:17:00
Second. Second by Sarah. All in favor, aye. 00:17:08
And opposed. All right. 00:17:13
All right, Board, this is a time to discuss some of the things that you have questions on that you heard. From the conversation 00:17:16
that I'm looking at right now, it looks like some of these things will have to go and pull these documents to understand them. 00:17:22
There's a lot of complex things. Of course, you can always reiterate or ask and we can talk to Josh about it. Josh, do you have 00:17:29
any comments on some of the questions that were asked just barely? 00:17:36
Yep. 00:17:45
I do, and I'd be happy to share. 00:17:46
Let me, I'll start with. So there are three things that stuck out to me. There's a comment and question about the tax and the 00:17:49
taxing entity committee, which is the. 00:17:55
It's actually called a special purpose local government entity. The taxing entity committee is the committee of taxing entities 00:18:02
that potentially could participate in an RDA. So in in the in the case of the Geneva urban renewal area. 00:18:12
Those taxing entities are the Alpine School District 2 Water District, Central Utah Water and and Northern Utah County Water. 00:18:24
The city of Vineyard and Utah County. So in order for. So it might be helpful if I just kind of go back a little bit to the 00:18:34
beginning. There's been a lot of discussion, comments, questions about RDA, what is an RDA? How did it start, all these sorts of 00:18:39
things. 00:18:45
So let me just give a quick kind of overview of the history. So in 2005, Geneva Steel goes out of business and is sold. 00:18:51
And and then it's it's decided that it's going to be, you know, dismantled, demolished pieces are going to be sold off. You know, 00:19:03
investors and owners of of the steel mill sell off components of it. And, you know, there's an environmental mitigation component 00:19:09
of this, which US Steel has a significant amount of responsibility. 00:19:16
Towards and, and then so as the demolishing of the steel plant happens, then the question arises, what will happen to this area? 00:19:24
What will happen to this industrial site? It's what you might call a brownfield former industrial site where there's, you know, 00:19:30
environmental issues and, and so it's not ready for something new. It's not, you know, you demolish the steel mill and then, then 00:19:37
what? 00:19:43
What could be, what could be on the steel mill side. So this is the conversations that begins in Vineyard Town and. 00:19:51
This is exactly 1 of the prime candidates of the type of site that would necessitate or or trigger the idea of community 00:19:57
reinvestment or redevelopment. It was called community reinvestment previously in RDA or redevelopment more more recently. So then 00:20:05
what happens is the first has to be the creation of an RDA, which is a separate legal entity, which you all are the board of the 00:20:12
RDA, You are board members of the RDA, which is today's meeting. You're not. 00:20:19
Council members, that's a separate meeting, right? So Vineyard Town creates a redevelopment agency which consists of the board, 00:20:27
which are the council members. Doesn't have to be the council members, but it is. So first the RDA is created, but then once the 00:20:35
RDA is created, there needs to be a finding made by the RDA board of Bright. And so you know that that was the nature of Utah's 00:20:42
Community Reinvestment Act, that there has to be a finding of blight and then the designation of. 00:20:50
And so the Vineyard RDA has a finding of blight in 2009 and then in 2009, they undertake a survey of the area to kind of determine 00:20:58
what the project area should be. And then later in 2009, they designate the project area. They adopt A project area plan and they 00:21:04
adopt A project budget. 00:21:10
But part of that, so once you have the RDA unit, the legal board, that doesn't mean that redevelopment's going to happen. You have 00:21:18
to designate an area that is a project area. 00:21:24
And then what a lot of people are talking about with the the tax incentives, that's a tool that an RDA can use. So first you 00:21:30
create a legal entity, an RDA. An RDA designates an area to be a project area. Within that project area, the RDA decides to. 00:21:39
Leverage the utilization of a legal tool called tax increment financing. Tax increment financing is where a portion of property 00:21:48
tax revenues that are collected in that area can be directed back towards the cost of redevelopment activities, and so the RDA 00:21:56
proposes to utilize tax increment financing well. Tax increment financing necessitates sign off or approval by the other taxing 00:22:03
entities. 00:22:10
Who would be giving up property tax revenue for a period of time? And so the legal mechanism at the time to do that is that you 00:22:18
create or or call together a committee of people that represent those taxing entities. That's the taxing entity committee, the 00:22:26
TEC. So the TEC then meets and it it is a public body and there are public notices for their meetings and the TEC has to approve. 00:22:35
The utilization of tax increment financing and in this scenario. 00:22:44
What you have is a vote of the members of this taxing entity committee, which include representatives from Alpine School District, 00:22:48
then your town, Utah County and the water districts. And they have to agree to the terms, which in this case was a 25% retained 00:22:56
revenue for the taxing entities, but a 75% portion that could go to the RDA. 00:23:04
So that process was followed throughout 2910 and 11. By 2011, they actually have the final adoption. 00:23:13
Of the plan for the project area. And then sort of Fast forward to today, there's been a lot of those activities that have 00:23:21
happened within the scope of that plan up to the to the current day. So that's kind of the idea of the TEC. So the TEC adopts that 00:23:28
master budget back in 2009 and, and, and then in 2011. And that master budget is where that the 300 million figure comes from, 00:23:36
which is kind of that upper bound of the total amount of tax revenue that can be redirected. 00:23:43
To the redevelopment activities with within the project area. 00:23:51
The mitigation fund so one of the. 00:23:57
Insurance policies, if you will, that Alpine School District wanted was to ensure that the existence of the RDA did not drive 00:24:02
their tax revenues below a certain assumption, a certain floor, if you will, of revenue per household. With the theory being that, 00:24:08
you know, students that enroll in schools largely come from households. They, as I understand, very few school children live in 00:24:15
grocery stores. 00:24:21
It's a joke. You can laugh, but they live under household roofs, right? And so there's a formula that says, well, based on the 00:24:29
number of households in the city, the school district wants to ensure almost like an insurance policy, that they're going to 00:24:35
receive a certain minimum amount of revenue per household. And so there was a mitigation fund created. Well, a mitigation formula 00:24:41
that basically said the tax revenue that comes from the increment to the RDA can be used for, you know, obviously the 00:24:46
redevelopment. 00:24:52
A portion has to actually be given back to the school district above and beyond what they would have otherwise gotten if the total 00:24:58
revenue to the school district falls below that threshold where there's an assumption of how much per household they might need as 00:25:06
a minimum to educate students. And for the last two years, the revenue from the 25% that is retained by Alpine School District has 00:25:13
been high enough that it is not triggered the utilization of that mitigation fund. So for the. 00:25:21
Number of years of the RDA, the revenues were not high enough naturally to the school district to meet the threshold. And so there 00:25:29
was an additional subsidy if you will or an additional give back if you will to the school district as part of that mitigation 00:25:37
fund. So that's kind of explaining the mitigation fund. And So what we're seeing right now is that the theory of how the economic. 00:25:45
Development that is happening, which then creates economic activity, which then increases the value of this real estate. 00:25:54
Alpine School District revenues and you know, is the school district kind of being shorted and what is the economic impact of the 00:26:29
school district in terms of giving up this 75% of the revenue? And fortunately actually prepared a little bit of data. I'm doing 00:26:35
some additional analysis for the whole RDA, but Councilmember Cifuentes. 00:26:42
Wanted to actually look at some of this data so I ran the model that you asked for, which was just to look at an example within 00:26:49
the RDA, which in this case is the Megaplex parcel. Let me make sure I'm connected to the presentation. I can show the slide up 00:26:54
here. 00:26:59
The megaplex parcel would be the only good example though. 00:27:09
Of all of the projects, right? 00:27:13
Because we looked at all the other projects and it's the only successful one. 00:27:16
I mean, like I said, I can look at all the parcels I just have. I haven't looked at the whole. I just want to make sure everyone 00:27:22
understands what we're looking at. One of many. Oh, 'cause you're saying it's that commercial. Yeah, it's the only successful one 00:27:26
in the RDA. 00:27:30
He's saying the only successful commercial person. Are you saying that the residential isn't successful? I mean, I think the 00:27:35
residential is is successful in bringing it a little bit back, but it's not as a whole, right. I'd look at I didn't look at this 00:27:41
fairpoint to say that commercial property. 00:27:47
I mean, you'd say Mega player Top Golf will be, Yeah, it's probably the only two, I mean, I think. 00:27:54
I mean, wouldn't you say that you couldn't really run those models on the mitigation of environmental until? 00:28:01
And allowed for the commercial, Yeah, Yeah. And that's a good .1 of the things I kind of missed in my history retelling is that a 00:28:06
big portion of the expenditures of tax increment financing revenues is to defray the cost of environmental remediation on the 00:28:14
former Geneva site to then prepare it for development activities so that you can put residential and commercial development on 00:28:21
another big component. 00:28:29
The expenses that were part of the project plan were sort of the infrastructure of the city and and there's a variety of other 00:28:36
things. 00:28:40
But in terms of your question and council member hold away or a board member hold away, right because we're meeting as a board is. 00:28:46
The commercial developments probably generate more property tax than residential, generally speaking. That's true. And then you 00:28:56
don't have the residential exemption. Obviously commercial properties tax at the full taxable value, whereas residences there's a 00:29:01
deduction of that value. 00:29:07
But it is interesting to note that recently what has happened economically on the Wasatch Front is that the value of residential 00:29:14
real estate appreciating year over year that appreciation has outpaced commercial real estate, which means residential real estate 00:29:21
is actually in higher demand than commercial real estate. And so the relative impact or burden of paying property taxes to local 00:29:28
taxing entities has shifted towards residential properties and. 00:29:36
Commercial properties. Now that's not to say that commercial properties are less valuable than residential ones. They're still 00:29:44
more valuable, right? They still generate more dollars. But relatively speaking, historically commercial properties have borne a 00:29:50
greater share of property tax than residential properties. But because of the demand for residential units and the lack of supply 00:29:57
and, and just population growth, there's been this tax shift. 00:30:04
Which a lot of county assessors have discussed. 00:30:11
Significantly over the last two or three years, because what you're seeing is the average homeowner might feel like they're 00:30:15
bearing a higher property tax burden. And in fact they are. And it's because of this sort of economic shift of the value of real 00:30:21
estate generally towards residential and away from commercial. And, and what's not in this chart, and I'll explain the chart in a 00:30:27
minute, is the additional revenues that are generated on commercial sites beyond property tax and that would be things like sales 00:30:33
tax. 00:30:39
Economic activity generally, right? Commercial sites are places where you have employers. Commercial sites are places where, you 00:30:45
know, people are spending dollars and there are jobs, but then there's also taxable sales that are occurring and the sales tax 00:30:52
revenues are also collected by local government entities. And so you know that that's all part of the theory of why, why would you 00:30:58
invest property tax dollars? 00:31:05
Through this through this tax increment financing plan. 00:31:11
You know, essentially redirecting a portion of property tax to the RDA for a period of time. Why would you do that? Right? And the 00:31:16
reason is, well, maybe it's the only way to fund redevelopment or to accelerate redevelopment that would take a long time. In the 00:31:22
case of the Geneva site, it's it helps to fund the environmental remediation that is required before the site's ready for other 00:31:28
development. One of the other reasons that happens around the state and in other states is job creation. So for example, one of 00:31:34
the other. 00:31:40
Large tax increment finance recipients in Utah County was the Intel Micron Flash Technologies Manufacturing Center up in Highland. 00:31:46
Alpine area. And the theory behind that one was that it was predicated on the idea that that particular company was going to hire 00:31:57
a certain number of employees at a certain average salary, which was above the median salary for the area. And so that qualified 00:32:04
them to receive this subsidy of a rebate of their property tax dollars. 00:32:10
There was another kind of comment about. 00:32:17
Kind of giving money to private entities or it's like like an incentive or rebate to businesses. To be clear, the vast majority of 00:32:21
the agreement that the RDA has made with developers to reimburse them for certain costs using tax increment financing revenues is 00:32:30
geared towards paying for environmental remediation and city infrastructure. 00:32:39
And not a whole lot of dollars for just pure sort of. 00:32:49
Economic incentives for business activity, so, but that's because the 150 million of cleanup is first, the second-half phases four 00:32:53
and five are at the end. So we would be facing all the spend in the future, right? Well, no, because all along every phase a 00:33:00
portion of the revenues have gone to reimburse the cost of infrastructure which is not related to environmental mitigation, right, 00:33:08
but when we started 150 million is for clean up and 100 and. 00:33:15
Minus for businesses or whatnot and the 100 and it's infrastructure, infrastructure and it's weighted heavily on clean up at the 00:33:23
beginning. We're now just gonna be starting the big infrastructure and helping businesses section of the RDA, right. Yeah. I don't 00:33:29
know if I get you're saying for the vast majority's been this way, but that's 'cause it four and five haven't hit Yeah, I I'd have 00:33:35
to look. 00:33:42
You know, I plan on looking at the the balance between those types of reimbursements, but I know that a significant sum has been 00:33:48
infrastructure all along and and as has also environmental remediation. I don't see environmental remediation. 00:33:54
I guess. 00:34:01
There will come a moment where environmental remediation is largely finished, but it's not now. And so I think environmental 00:34:02
remediation is ongoing and will likely be ongoing to the end because there's some significant things that start to occur. There's 00:34:08
significant pieces of concrete that be removed. I think one of the challenges in the early days of the RDA was that the first 00:34:14
developers kind of developed the easiest to develop areas first, which is fine. That makes sense, right? That's pretty efficient 00:34:20
use of their resources. 00:34:25
But then that reserves some of the most difficult environmental remediation for the end. And So what you're seeing right now is 00:34:32
ongoing environmental remediation of some of the most difficult sites, specifically the giant piece of concrete just north of here 00:34:38
and some of the other materials that are being kind of sifted and sold off because there's different types of minerals that have 00:34:44
some value, but. 00:34:50
You know, if you go up into that area you can just see there's, there's still a lot going on. So I don't, I don't know about the 00:34:57
balance. That's a good question. I'd be happy to look at it. 00:35:00
OK, so here's here's a little bit about this chart. 00:35:04
So using the Megaplex parcel, which is 18 acres, that's phase two. So the phase two that was triggered in 2015. 00:35:07
What I did was I looked at the 25% share that is retained specifically by Alpine School District. This chart would look a little 00:35:19
bit different for other taxing entities than the Water District, Utah County, largely because their tax rates are different and 00:35:26
different entities might raise their tax rates in different years and in this case over the course of this particular period of 00:35:33
time from 2006 until 2023. 00:35:40
Alpine School District, I think, adopted an increased property tax rate nine of those years. 00:35:47
So this is this chart is just the 25% of all the property taxes that Alpine School District always retains and not the 75% that 00:35:56
goes to the RDA. Cause the question that member Sifuentes had was, well, how much is the school district losing? And how does that 00:36:04
compare as you look at the the share that they get to keep? And if you just look at maybe Megaplex as the example? 00:36:13
What does that look like? And so that's what this chart is, so. 00:36:22
2006 is the base value year, and So what they would have collected or what they did collect would have been just under $2000 in 00:36:25
property taxes from those 18 acres. Now it's kind of flat for the next few years because what happened was you're talking about 00:36:33
one giant parcel of land, not 18 acres. You're actually talking about a parcel of land that was like 100 acres and within that 100 00:36:40
acres you eventually have a section that's 18 acres. 00:36:48
Upon which megaplex was was placed right. So what we don't necessarily know and it wasn't granularly assessed. What we know is we 00:36:56
know the whole parcel, we know the average per acre value over time and and what you see is that until we trigger it, you know 00:37:03
that's when the commercial development is complete. And so that was triggered in 2015. So I imagine there's a little bit of 00:37:10
assumption in this flat line that you could think of this flat line as kind of. 00:37:18
Sending up to the 2015, you could think of it as you know it might have been a little bit above the 2015 and then it comes down to 00:37:25
the 2015 because what those first few years are from 2006 to 2014. 00:37:33
Though those numbers is a 100%, so that's what Alpine School District would have actually received. That's the 100% that they got 00:37:41
because none of their revenues were being siphoned off, so to speak, until the triggering of tax increment financing on those 00:37:49
parcels in 2015. Once you trigger the beginning of the tax increment financing period, then you begin the 7525 split. So what 00:37:56
you're seeing is how much money. 00:38:04
Did Alpine School District receive in property tax revenue for 100% of their share of the revenue for those first few years from 00:38:11
the base value year until the year in which these parcels were triggered as tax increment financing beginning? And so that's what 00:38:19
that first section of the chart is now in 2015. Once the parcels are triggered, then Alpine School District only receives 25% of 00:38:26
the property tax revenue well in that first year. 00:38:34
Their 25% share is significantly higher, almost double what the first year was, when the reason for that is because you went from 00:38:41
a brownfield site that needed remediation. That was basically it was given AG exemption to a fully taxed commercial development. 00:38:49
And that fully taxed commercial development is worth significantly more than a brownfield in AG, right. And so this begins to 00:38:56
answer the question of why would Alpine School District give up 75% of its tax revenue? 00:39:04
Well, because they're looking at it in 2006 saying how much tax revenue are we going to get on this industrial site? Not very 00:39:12
much. But if we could accelerate the redevelopment of this industrial site, the industrial site would be worth far more. And when 00:39:18
it's worth far more, we'll get a ton of revenue. And what's great is we don't have to wait 30 years to get that revenue. We'll 00:39:24
start to get 25% of the revenue beginning. 00:39:30
In year 1, in this case, 2015 and in this particular case. 00:39:37
That first year was almost double what they received in the base year. So that's good. And then you see what begins to happen as 00:39:41
the development continues, other shops begin to open, other utilization happens, the economy begins to grow in the area. And then 00:39:49
what you're seeing the last few points, this is the 25%. So if you look at last year, Alpine School District received for the 00:39:56
Megaplex site $46,000 in property tax. 00:40:04
Which represents 25%, you know, their share and then 75% not on this chart went to the RDA. And so in that case you're looking at 00:40:12
a 24 time increase over the base year. And so the question becomes, well, the Alpine School District did a good deal. 00:40:20
I mean, I think that the models working out the way that they anticipated and this is precisely why school districts all around 00:40:30
the state when they participate in tax entity committees, taxing entity committees, they oftentimes approve giving tax increment 00:40:37
financing to various projects because I think. 00:40:43
Their, their analysis and their assumption and their modeling and their forecasting is that it'll work out for them in the end. 00:40:51
And so in the case of of, you know, using this as one example within the larger thing. 00:40:56
It has worked out for them. So, so that helps answer the question. You wanted members to put this and thanks for the opportunity 00:41:02
to kind of go through it. Any questions, comments about that? 00:41:07
So some people make the argument. I just want to reiterate and maybe hear it from you again that I've heard. Well, businesses 00:41:14
would have come anyway. But in order for a business to build on that land, it would have required extensive investment in the 00:41:20
cleanup, correct? 00:41:26
Could that land have been developed without investment from an RDA? No one knows. It's a hypothetical. I agree. Yeah, well, it's a 00:41:33
hypothetical as well. Yeah. So it's all hypothetical. We're doing it. So you're talking about no chemicals where that was. There's 00:41:39
no settling ponds there. 00:41:45
So the argument could be made that a company could have come in, they could have broken up all that concrete minimal remediation, 00:42:21
according to Jacob's opinion, and built without an RDA. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the fundamental argument of the necessity of 00:42:26
the RDA was that. 00:42:32
The significant investment in just preparing the site for different types of development would have been a bar prohibition to 00:42:39
investors and I mean, you know, if you're familiar just with investing generally. 00:42:45
You know, if you want to criticize the investor Class 1 critique is that they like to pluck the low hanging fruit, right? If you 00:42:53
talk to any startup, especially technical and difficult startups that are speculative in nature, investors don't want to touch 00:42:59
them because there's too much risk. So investors want the least amount of risk possible. And so the incentive program, the tax 00:43:05
increment financing creates takes off some of the pain to attract certain kinds of investment, in this case development that would 00:43:11
come in and and. 00:43:17
Front load environmental remediation to prepare the site for the highest and best use of those acres of real estate, right. 00:43:23
I have several more questions that might take us off of this specific topic. So does it, does the Council want to ask Mark, You 00:43:32
can keep going. I'll go. I'll hold on to you. 00:43:37
God, Marty, Marty, can Ioffer an observation that that relates to the question you just asked? I, I have kind of a unique vantage 00:43:42
where contract city attorney in that I do work for a lot of different cities up and down the Wasatch Front. And my observation on 00:43:49
RDA work is that we're talking here about a site that was contaminated. And so some of the resources went toward contamination 00:43:56
more often than not in the state. 00:44:03
RDA resources don't go to brownfield sites. We just don't have a lot of brownfield sites in the state. They go towards sites that 00:44:12
either need renewal or there needs to be some kind of investment to jumpstart development in an area. It's always hard to know. 00:44:21
And the example Josh uses when we talk, is it, is it going to develop as a Dollar Tree and a Taco Bell or is it going to develop 00:44:33
as a regional destination? 00:44:37
And when I analyze legal problems, two of the things I usually look to besides what does the law say and what are the parameters 00:44:43
for what's legal and illegal is what is the structure of the transaction, who has the control, and where is the risk? 00:44:51
I think Artie is dealing a lot with that risk question. But the other thing that they help cities with is the control question. 00:45:01
Because when you as an RDA board decide where do you want to put the RDA funds into, What kind of reimbursables do you want to put 00:45:09
them toward? And how do you want to use them to develop the city in the way that you plan and the way that you want it to be? 00:45:18
RDA resources are one of the really big tools that you can use to do that. 00:45:27
And so I see some advantage on the part of cities of being able to say we have this revenue that we can use to jumpstart 00:45:33
development. What kind of development do we want to jumpstart? 00:45:38
The other thing that should be that is part of the city's analysis when it looks at the use of RDA revenues is not just the 00:45:44
property tax equation. And Josh has done a really artful job of showing what the tax base was at the lower assessed value of 00:45:52
property that is undeveloped in this ground field and how even when you provide 75% of that. 00:46:00
To jumpstart and create the development. 00:46:09
That you end up with a larger tax revenue than what you did. So I think it's a false argument to say, well, the school district 00:46:13
got 100% which would be X and now they only get 25% which you would think is X -, 75. It doesn't end up being that your amount at 00:46:22
the beginning. 00:46:30
Doesn't end up being the same as the amount at the end because of the appreciation on the property. And then the other part of the 00:46:39
equation from the city perspective is the sales tax revenue, which for commercial sites. 00:46:44
Far exceeds. 00:46:50
What the property tax revenue and then my my final observation statewide is that even in the more affluent areas and I an example 00:46:53
would be the Cottonwood Mall development in holiday. 00:46:59
One of the more affluent cities in the state, a site that has been followed since the late 90s, early 2000s. And without RDA 00:47:06
money, that development doesn't occur because of the public infrastructure and other things that need to go into it. And so it's 00:47:12
not just a meeting with steel site that needs this. You're competing with other locations up and down the state and within your 00:47:19
county. 00:47:25
And having things that are regional destinations matter. 00:47:32
For your community. 00:47:36
In ways that don't show up necessarily in tax revenue, but do show up in the quality of life for your city. 00:47:38
Thank you. No, I couldn't agree with you more. 00:47:45
I think one of my other questions, I mean, these gentlemen brought up great questions. I'd love to know the answers to you. And I 00:47:49
know that like the mayor said, it will take some research because if we have neglected or if there's errors that have been made in 00:47:55
the different hands, I know you're new to this board, Josh, as a director, but I know that it's changed hands a few times over the 00:48:01
past several years. And so if there are mistakes that have been made, I would like that to come forward. 00:48:07
And I would like us to make sure that we're rectifying that. And then also my other question is. 00:48:14
So often it's been pretty constant that this question has been brought up where we've had criticism or concern or things with the 00:48:19
RDA where people are like, we're doing this wrong or it's not what we intended it to be or all of these different things. And my 00:48:26
thought is, OK, well, hundreds of millions of dollars of bonds have been, what do you call it? 00:48:33
Issued, issued and taken on by different people to end and close this, we would have to pay those off, right? Like we can't just 00:48:40
say oh, we don't like. 00:48:47
Yeah, so. 00:48:56
There are existing bond obligations that the RDA has committed to. And so you have to make the payments on those bots. And you 00:48:58
know, with the tax increment financing, those those dollars, those revenue dollars come to the RDA. You use those dollars to pay 00:49:06
those monthly or annual bond obligations. So, So yeah, it's interesting that you think about the idea of bonding. 00:49:15
The reason that the RDA was able. 00:49:24
To get the bonds is because they have a predictable revenue source in the form of the increment revenues from tax increment 00:49:29
financing. If you don't have the tax increment financing revenue, then you're not going to qualify for the loan. You know the 00:49:37
underwriters of the bond are not going to abbreviation bonds to the city. So typically when a city is building infrastructure. 00:49:46
They bond, you know, they take out a loan, they take out a mortgage of sorts to build a road, and then they pay off that road over 00:49:57
time. Just similar to getting a mortgage on a house, right? 00:50:02
The reason that you do that is twofold #1 you need the road today, not 20 years from now. So you don't really have time to sort of 00:50:09
save money for 20 years and be like, hey guys, just use your bicycle. 20 years from now, we're going to have a road, right? That 00:50:15
doesn't work. But the other important thing is that in government, you don't tax other people for the thing that you're using, 00:50:20
right? 00:50:26
If I'm using a Vineyard Rd. and I'm in Vineyard, I should pay for the Vineyard Rd. whatever my share of the Vineyard Rd. is. 00:50:33
Should we have people in? 00:50:37
Payson pay for the Vineyard Rd. Probably not. Well, OK, should we have people today pay for a road that people will use tomorrow? 00:50:41
And there's a similar equity and fairness and sort of taxation without representation and taxes without services kind of argument 00:50:49
that says actually bonding for public infrastructure is very wise as a policy. But I want to separate that. You're talking about 00:50:56
city bonds. We all agree with that. We need to be talking about. 00:51:04
Sure, but there's the reason I bring up city bonds, though, is because I want to analogize, right? I mean, I think we all agree on 00:51:12
that, but I think it would be okay for him to finish what he's saying so that they can understand. Yeah, go ahead. The purpose of 00:51:18
the bond is to pay for the thing you need today, today that you need today and you need in the future. But it's going to take time 00:51:24
to to pay it off. So that's the traditional way a city develops. But here's the problem. For a city like Vineyard, that doesn't 00:51:29
really. 00:51:35
Exist in 2009 with, you know, a few 100 people that live here. There is no revenue source that would enable you to finance the 00:51:41
building of a road. So you wouldn't have been able to bond to build any roads. And if you didn't build any roads, you couldn't 00:51:50
have any houses. And so how could you get the revenue necessary to actually build a city from scratch quickly? 00:51:58
You wouldn't be able to, and so this is where the RDA is almost like bonding. 00:52:07
But uh. 00:52:14
Differently because instead of the city taking on the risk of a loan. 00:52:14
Where bond purchasers have to buy those bonds, you have to go out and get a loan from investors, right? You instead are allowing 00:52:20
developers to be your investors and you're telling the developer if you come in and build it and you take the risk of building it, 00:52:27
we promise that we're going to pay you a share of the revenues we're going to get in the future. So rather than going on to the 00:52:33
municipal bond market and getting. 00:52:40
You know, institutional retirement funds and Wall Street. 00:52:47
To invest in Vineyard city streets, which isn't gonna happen if you don't have dedicated revenues, you're not gonna get the 00:52:50
underwriting for those types of bonds. You're not gonna qualify, if you will for that mortgage. You instead get investor backed 00:52:56
developers to take on the risk of building your city, building your roads because they will get reimbursed for a portion of those 00:53:02
infrastructure investments from a dedicated revenue source in the form of the tax increment financing. So the reason I bring up 00:53:08
municipal. 00:53:14
Isn't to distinguish it from the RDA bonds, it's to compare it to the idea of financing the building of infrastructure for the 00:53:21
purpose of building and creating and developing a city. And so I think 1 theory is that Vineyard would have grown very, very, very 00:53:28
slowly if had it not been for tax increment financing. What tax increment financing enabled Vineyard to do is to grow very quickly 00:53:36
and especially in light of this giant brownfield site that requires all of this deconstruction and environmental remedi. 00:53:43
And so, so that's where I, I think the discussion about municipal bonding comes in. Now to the point about the RDA bond 00:53:51
obligations. Yes, you have existing RDA bond obligations. You will continue to pay those until they're paid off and you have 00:53:57
dedicated revenue sources in the form of your tax incurred financing that you get every year. OK. I just want to clear out the 00:54:04
record because we were able to build a city without the RDA the entire. 00:54:10
Holdaway parcel, The entire Clag, the entire Gamma, the entire church. 00:54:17
Right. And it was operating right. But you said we couldn't build it. I'm like, we built it without. You just told me that. You 00:54:52
told everyone here that we didn't build anything. I'm like, we built an entire city without. And I've heard that Holdaways took 00:54:58
RDA money or something. Like the whole city was built without RDA money. It's only the Andersen Geneva parcel that has been RDA 00:55:04
money. And most cities build and they build fine without an RDA. We're the only city that's doing this, right. Water's Edge is 00:55:10
included. 00:55:16
RDA, right? 00:55:22
Yeah, so a great, there's Rdas all over the state. Why would you say we're the only city at our percentage? We're like 49%. I 00:55:25
think the closest is yeah, Yeah, that's great. 12%, right, 7075% of your city is RDA, lots of tiny, but we're also 20 acres, 10 00:55:32
acres, 5 acres here and there, right. Is it fair to say we're also the biggest brownfield in the state or the only brownfield? 00:55:38
Yeah, the biggest for sure. I think you're the only 400 acre decommissioned steel mill. 00:55:45
I mean, I'm not aware of another. I'm sorry you had a comment. Go ahead. 00:55:52
I was just remarking that all of water's edges included in the RDA and that's, you know, there's a significant part of the 00:55:57
potential in there. I think it's a fairpoint that I shouldn't, what I said shouldn't be taken globally, that there's no 00:56:03
development without the RDA. It's just, yeah, when Vineyard was very, very new, you had the operating steel mill who's paying a 00:56:08
lot of property taxes, which then is helping to build infrastructure in the city. But then, of course, once that goes out of 00:56:13
business, then it's sort of then what? Right. 00:56:19
I'm gonna just. 00:56:24
All us back to this discussion for a second. I am going to recognize a few things. I understand that many of you who are coming 00:56:26
and looking at the budget on the board are deciding how to spend money on the board and I respect that. I think that there's some 00:56:34
good questions that were asked tonight and there's educational. 00:56:41
Kind of packet that Josh is putting together that address a lot of these things and that will continue to be brought forward. 00:56:50
I would say that concerning this budget, if you have questions in general about how you want to spend. 00:56:57
Budget or not spend? 00:57:05
For that, and I think before you ask your questions, Josh, what I'm, I mean, not Josh Jake, what I'm asking you is if it pertains 00:57:39
to what you do or don't want to spend on the budget, let's discuss that cuz that's what we're here to discuss. And if it pertains 00:57:45
to questions that you have to understand the RDA better, let's do that 100% wrong. Like you just allowed Marty an entire section 00:57:52
and I allowed my. 00:57:58
I. 00:58:07
I haven't even gone yet. 00:58:08
It's not that I am trying to silence you from getting your questions asked. It's that I felt like we were trying to get somewhere 00:58:11
with questions for the budget. And what I'm understanding from the questions that are coming here, it's about understanding the 00:58:19
RDA, but it's it's a point on an agenda that we can bring. Yeah, it's very important. If you even want to fund the RDA, it's a 00:58:26
good question on it. And so that's why before you get to the budget, you need to say, is it, is it? Absolutely. And I feel like. 00:58:33
I feel like one of the things that is important is that you need to come to meetings and learn about this so that you understand 00:58:41
these questions and then we can talk about them here in a meaningful way. And one of the things that we're doing is we're going 00:58:47
outside of the business that's on the agenda. I, I will allow you to have some comments, but what I'm, what I'm asking you is if 00:58:53
it's not pertaining to the business on the agenda, let's set up something where you guys can get deeply rooted and ask these 00:58:59
questions. 00:59:05
And have it be really meaningful and answer your questions and go through the books and the information so that you understand it 00:59:11
so that when we come to the business on the agenda, it is meaningful for this agenda item. And if as a city and our neighbors who 00:59:17
are here have questions that they want to learn about, Josh is gathering that as we talk to them about that for, you know, a 00:59:23
little bit ago and the last meeting to say, hey, here's some more stuff we want to learn about, let's do that and let's bring it 00:59:29
to the table so. 00:59:35
Asking to make sure that we're focusing our questions on the business of tonight. 00:59:41
In a democracy, you don't get to control what you feel is important or not important there, right? The chair is responsible for, 00:59:49
we get different opinion, right? And we get to share that. Well, and I would say I don't think this has anything to do with. Yeah, 00:59:55
it has everything to do with the RDA. I'm just, I'm, I we can talk about it, but I'd love some time to talk. Yes. And I will give 01:00:02
it to you. I what I'm saying is what we are supposed to do is notice what is on the agenda. 01:00:09
We can go into this. So the things that I wanted to bring up today was having been here from the beginning of the RDA. 01:00:46
It's a completely different thing to live through it. At the beginning of the RDA, it was challenged to take this property out of 01:00:57
Vineyard into Orem. If you didn't sign this, we will try to get out, right. You can go back to Randy Farnsworth, Nate Riley and 01:01:04
all of them are saying, look, we will get a better tax rate to get into Orem. So understanding the the difficulty of what deal or 01:01:11
or Geneva sell property could get is really, really important. 01:01:19
When the RDA was created. 01:01:27
They put out a #150 million per cleanup. Everybody knows that number was just taken out of a best guess off of 2006, 2011 numbers. 01:01:30
Changes in cleanup costs of cleanup trucks change dramatically from 2011 to 2024. The modeling of that. 01:01:40
Right. So it's just hey, so understanding are we going to be able to clean up the entire project and parcel with that original 150 01:01:51
million or not is an easy question. Second, when they did it, almost every one of them with a gun to their head were like, we 01:01:59
don't agree in giving the other second-half 150 million on giving it to businesses to allow them to do that above and beyond 01:02:06
cleanup. Everyone was pretty clear on let's clean this thing up. 01:02:13
But the other side was, wow, we're giving up all of our ability to like that gentleman said. Build a junior high in high school 01:02:21
here, right? 01:02:25
Well, can I interrupt on that point specifically, they said that we don't need a junior high nor high school because we don't have 01:02:29
enough elementary schools that would feed it. So I felt like that may have also been said that the RDA might mess with the 01:02:35
funding, but it's also not necessary, according to President Farnsworth. I'm sorry, if you want to speak, you have to be invited 01:02:41
by the mayor. But if you're if you're taking the money out and the total is 52,292,000 from the beginning, you wouldn't have the 01:02:47
money to build a school. 01:02:53
I agree with you. Maybe you don't have a demand but 52,000,000 removed from education is a really large amount. 01:02:59
And it's grown and we don't talk about that, right, in terms of in terms of what's going on. And so coming in as a, as a brand new 01:03:08
City Council member and an RDA and reassessing it and coming through an election of going, hey, we've got Utah City and we've got 01:03:14
all these other things to go in. And I agree with you, Josh, probably the only good example in the Rd. of all the RDA projects is 01:03:20
the one that you shared. The second one would be Top Golf, but all the others in revenue would be dramatically like there's some 01:03:26
really bad ones. 01:03:32
And there's also others where we've put out a lot of money, like the forge with no conditions, where we build all this 01:03:38
infrastructure and then it just sits for 10 years, right? And so we've made mistakes on various things to go through and do that. 01:03:45
And as a body going out and studying all of these things, these are education dollars that I care about. And I want to be so 01:03:52
educated on it to be like, am I going to fund a teacher? 01:03:59
Or am I going to be funding and you guys already know I don't agree with lobbying so. 01:04:07
Is it in the budget? Because I'd rather fund a teacher than a lobbyist or vice versa? Or I at least would like it on the record 01:04:12
that I'm voting for a teacher against the lobbyists and that it's in the paper so people know that at least I was trying to fight 01:04:17
for it, right? And then the other thing on the RDA is? 01:04:23
Getting into the governing or interlocal agreement, I know we've gone back and forth on the emails of how this was created or 01:04:30
whatnot and and Jamie, we can't find the interlocal contract that set up this organization and even tells our body how to operate, 01:04:37
right? It doesn't exist. No, I think what you've asked for is a document that's the wrong label. So Josh is working to find for 01:04:45
you all the formative documents of the RDA and I saw. 01:04:52
That he sent, I forwarded you an e-mail with links to all of those formative documents. I think the label you asked for on that 01:05:00
document isn't a document that exists, but the formative documents for the RDA do when I think he's begun sending those to you. So 01:05:07
look at it and if it's not what you think you're looking for, let Josh know. And I would say that you clarified that earlier and 01:05:15
said it's called by something different. And what they did was they sent out letters to the. 01:05:22
Taxing entities where they brought them together and then they formed it through a resolution. 01:05:29
So we're going to have a big school district split, maybe, maybe not. And understanding, you know, in reaching out to, I mean, 01:05:35
Orem and Pleasant, Orem and Lehigh and Saratoga Springs were the ones that were like. 01:05:41
Who would want you in a split because your education dollars are horrible? And I, I was like, whoa, okay, why are they bad? And 01:05:49
that's when it kind of hit me. Granted that they have to take us, which is good. They, they, they, they can't kick us out. But the 01:05:57
other thing, though, that I think people need to understand is that we have more leverage against this property because we are 01:06:04
kind of an investor in the cleanup and we've ever had on any other property because we can choose if we want to. 01:06:11
And we can choose if we want to build their infrastructure with them where they can go. 01:06:19
Their own way, right? And I think in going through and studying all of this, we do own our own destiny on if we want things and we 01:06:26
get to vote that way and it's not our hands are tied. Hey, they get the density or they get the water. It's we get to build the 01:06:31
infrastructure that we want. 01:06:37
And, and so, yeah, those are my comments for today. The other thing though, and I'll send you an e-mail over some things. 01:06:44
Getting to the budget. 01:06:52
I still don't feel comfortable signing or agreeing on a budget of 470,000 of of admin. I know last year those if I'm not mistaken 01:06:53
the lobbying was in the admin fee of the RDA. 01:07:01
Right. Can we be given a breakdown of what that $437,000 in administration fees is? Has that been provided at all? No, it's just 01:07:10
the high level. That's the revenue. So that's a revenue source. So in other words, So what are you looking at, Jake, If that's 01:07:16
revenue, that's the revenue that we get to spend. And I would like that broken down into a budget as to what we're spending it on. 01:07:22
Well, so, yeah, the revenues are the top section. 01:07:28
And then the expenditures are the bottom section. 01:07:35
So but the admin RDA admin. 01:07:40
For the RDA admin fee is 437,000, right? So that's what we get to administer the admin to pay you and to pay all the costs of 01:07:44
running the RDA. Yeah, if you look at the very bottom of the second section, which is the expenses, the second to last entry, the 01:07:52
transfer to general fund admin. So what that means is that you are. 01:08:00
The RDA is spending its admin revenues. 01:08:10
By giving those revenues in the form of an expenditure to the city, right, because the RDA is a separate legal entity from the 01:08:16
city and the way the admin fee works, and this is common in public finance throughout the country. 01:08:23
The really common example, and in fact it's an important example because it's the one that drives the way in which financial 01:08:33
compliance is imposed upon local government. 01:08:38
Is federal rules about how you can build federal grant monies. 01:08:44
For your internal overhead and service sort of administrative service costs. So for example, if the City of Salt Lake is big and 01:08:51
they get federal funds in various ways. If Salt Lake City receives a half $1,000,000 a year in federal funding, there's a federal 01:08:59
law that says you're only allowed to use no more than 10% of those half, $1,000,000 that we give you to defray the cost of 01:09:06
administering the programs that we are funding through this grant. And so this concept of administrative overhead. 01:09:13
And that there's always a share of any revenues that a local government might get that has to go towards administering. That 01:09:21
program is limited. And so in in Utah's case, there's a limitation on how much the city can bill against its increment revenues 01:09:28
for the purpose of admin. And so that's where the admin revenues are at the top. And then how you're spending those revenues is 01:09:34
you're giving them to the city. 01:09:41
In in in the idea that the city has to actually. 01:09:49
Do work to administer the entity that is the RDA. So for example, community development, economic development, public works, you 01:09:53
know, there's elements of the city's administrative team that is using its time and effort and the resources of the general fund 01:10:00
of the city to administer the RDA well. So it wouldn't make sense to make the property taxpayers who pay into the general fund in 01:10:08
the city of Vineyard defray the cost of this. 01:10:15
Activity of the RDA. So that's why the RDA has an assigned revenue source and then that revenue source is used to defray the cost 01:10:23
of administrative costs. I don't need to argue that we have to pay for it. I need you to. I'm arguing that even and I don't care 01:10:29
if it's the RDA, OK, now you give it to the city. 01:10:35
The two things on here that need to be broken down are the 437,000 that you're going to transfer. 01:10:42
Great. Then the city needs to breakdown what that's going to and that's not broken. And why wouldn't that be broken down in your 01:10:48
general fund for the city? So when you look at your city budget and you look at the general fund, your general fund budget is 01:10:56
going to say 437,000 dollars, $500 as revenue to the general fund and then that general fund revenues. But why are you just not 01:11:03
breaking that down since you know what the city services are rendering for you like? 01:11:11
They're not broken down because it's the idea is that we know that there are elements of all the cities. So for example, right 01:11:18
now, just for a second, they are broken down. They were shared and they're broken down by percentages. So you can look at the 01:11:24
numbers that are itemized and see how their percentages are there. So the City Council can actually see it where it goes out, look 01:11:30
at the percentage and see how it falls into those departments. So the game last week of asking for it broken down, it is that you 01:11:36
just didn't want to give it. 01:11:42
No, it's that, it's that it's not, it's not really broken down in expenses. It's to your point about a percent like you're having 01:11:48
an RDA meeting right now, but you're borrowing the Vineyard City Hall. And some people might think that's nonsensical because it's 01:11:54
like, well, but this is a Vineyard thing. No, no, no, no. This meeting right now is a completely separate legal entity from the 01:12:00
City of Vineyard. And this legal entity, the Rea is utilizing the facility that's paid for by the City of Vineyard. So in a way, 01:12:06
some portion of this 400. 01:12:12
$37,000 is the rent you're paying to the city to use the facility, right? And you're using the lights and you're using city staff 01:12:19
recording staff and the city attorney is being utilized. And so rather than be like, well, this was 25 minutes of the city 01:12:25
recording staff and 25 minutes of the economic development staff. 01:12:31
There's just a percentage assumption about how you account for the utilization of those funds, but I don't know that there's 01:12:38
really line item expenditures per SE. So for last year 50,000 was for world trades in Utah and 100,000 for Sage. So what you're 01:12:47
saying is, is that though they are vineyard your were the RDA is reimbursing for? 01:12:56
So what does the RDA have to do with World Trade through Utah and Sage? 01:13:06
Where you pay incremental revenues, you got your capital expenses, debt, interest. I mean, I suppose if you're looking for like 01:13:41
what money is the RDA spending on specific things that are somehow not listed here, I think you really just would want to look 01:13:48
more at the city's general fund expenditures because what the RDA is doing is it's taking, it's taking the admin revenue, it's 01:13:55
turning it into an expense, it's giving it to the city's general fund. 01:14:03
The city's general fund is then listing that as a revenue on its budget. And then you'd have to look at the city's general fund 01:14:10
expenses to have an idea of how is the city spending its general fund. And of course, there's a lot of things in the general fund 01:14:18
and, and, and the reason for that is, well, there's a lot of general fund activities that are in a sense subsidizing the 01:14:25
activities of the RDA and the Rdas, just paying for that. Yeah. And as, as the board goes through the budget. 01:14:33
If you have any questions about something that's item or on the on the budget at all, you can ask those types of questions about 01:14:41
isn't within the scope. Is it within the plan that we've approved? How are we investing in it? If you're not seeing it on here, 01:14:49
then it's probably not on here. And if you're looking for percentages, you can look in your detailed packet for the City Council. 01:14:56
OK. Well, I was told last meeting I wouldn't get it, so that's a different story, but I look forward to getting it. I think all 01:15:05
City Council did receive it. And I think the difference that I remember in the meeting was the difference between transactional 01:15:13
items versus itemized, just what's being spent. And I think that was clarified. 01:15:20
I think it was pretty clear that I wanted the 437,000 broken down for the admin. And then the second thing and I'll I'll end is. 01:15:29
For contract services, the 525, if you can promise me that you'll get with Christy and you'll break those down and say we have 01:15:37
this look, I'm probably going to get outvoted on it, but I would like it to be very clear that. 01:15:45
We knew about what these things were with the RDA and it's not this some lump sum of half, you know, half a million or a total of 01:15:53
1,000,000 for contract services and, and the admin fee and just send me an e-mail just those two things and I'll be grateful. Feel 01:15:59
like it would be really helpful. And I've said this at a few meetings, if there could be an in person meeting, even if you had to 01:16:05
do it by Zoom, where you guys could talk about these things together. 01:16:11
I I think that doing the work in the public is probably the best thing we can do. 01:16:18
Ask for and I read the e-mail and I say I need them so don't tell me I'm not asking I think the difficulty might be and This is 01:16:53
why I said maybe you should come together in a meeting is the discussion I heard tonight was that you asked for an ILA and there 01:16:59
are no Ilas in the way that the structure works so when people go and they're looking for an ILA and you're calling it something 01:17:05
that it isn't then it becomes difficult but if you were it's an interlocal agreement but if you guys were sitting in the same room 01:17:11
and you were explaining what you. 01:17:17
Wants the same thing for you and for them as well. And so having this meeting and taking that meeting is, is very important, 01:17:53
especially as you move forward and you have good questions that need to be answered. We want to make sure that you are getting the 01:18:01
answers. So can I ask you a clarification, Jake? You were saying that you want meetings with department heads, which would be like 01:18:08
the RDA director. Then you just said you didn't want meetings with. I'd love to meet with you guys more. 01:18:15
But being able to meet with the department heads, you're getting integral information because. 01:18:24
Like I got the documents that I need. I looked through them. I'm I'm assured that I don't agree with this or I do agree with this. 01:19:26
This is why I don't agree with this. And then the rest of us can say thank you and maybe we can get those documents from you 01:19:34
beforehand. Or maybe we're all taking our meetings. So we're seeing it beforehand. And then when we come here, it's not a long 01:19:41
discussion about something that's not here. It's I have the documents. And so when our residents or our neighbours come and say. 01:19:49
You understand the sincerity, but I think I agree. All of us want you to have what you need. I even want what you want. Like when 01:20:26
when they say, oh, don't send an e-mail, let's talk about it. Now what I did is I talked to Josh and I said, hey, give me an 01:20:34
example of how the RDA is working. Maybe I should have also asked, give me an example how the RDA isn't working. And I learned 01:20:41
that from you today. And I appreciate that. But what I did is I asked for something he had time to. 01:20:49
I have something, but you guys gotta realize. 01:21:26
Our culture in our City Council and RDA is broken. OK, so the vast majority when you set up a city, let's take it like a family. A 01:21:31
family will say, hey, we make 100,000 and some families will say I want to budget and go 120,000 and get some credit cards. Other 01:21:40
families will say hey, I want to spend 100,000 and others will say. 01:21:48
I want to spend 80 and self 20 and they'll get in the same room as a council because we're the body and we'll and our our 01:21:57
departments are like children. I want to go to dance. I want this. I want a fire truck. I want this. I want that. 01:22:04
And we have not sat down as a City Council to say what is the total line item and how much are we saving and how much are we going 01:22:11
to spend. 01:22:15
And also what are the priorities that we have? We've never met once for six months and gone. We, we, we met for an hour up in, up 01:22:19
in here on a, what is it? A 12? Well, and, and you've got to do that. You have to come in and say, well, and I might get outvoted 01:22:26
and I might get outvoted instead. 01:22:32
Well, you're not getting out voted. You have. You've been outvoted on very few things and when you're outvoted, it's typically 01:22:41
just you. 01:22:45
It's not the whole council. It's like it's not a split. It's not the three-way where I'm the swing vote like we all thought it 01:22:49
might be. It's we're having discussions, things come up and every now and then you vote no and it honestly hasn't been on these 01:22:55
big ticket items that you've been. So yeah, I know. But typically we come to a compromise. 01:23:01
We figure it out and a lot of times it's because we've all done our homework. So I met with the fire and the police this week 01:23:07
because I want to understand their needs for budget better. So then I can come to this room and if that comes up, I'm going, oh, I 01:23:13
did my homework. So I can tell you I've already met with fire. I've already met with police. Fantastic. What about planning 01:23:19
engineering? Public works? Don't have any questions on the budget they submitted. 01:23:24
So when that comes up, you're good. If I had something, I would reach out. So your questions right now are on the RDA. So would 01:23:30
you please meet with Josh to do your homework so that when we come in here, you can explain, you can even educate me better from 01:23:35
what you've learned from your homework, right? What we've been fighting over is before I get a line item, I have no questions, 01:23:40
right? 01:23:45
Gone back and forth and OK, so I'm I'm going to stop the conversation. Thank you. It's I don't understand the point, the point of 01:23:53
it. 01:23:56
Is this, and I think we've exhausted it and thank you, Marty, for sharing it. It's the difficulty with bringing anything is that 01:24:00
your experts need time to put something together to bring to the public in a timely fashion. And if you don't take the opportunity 01:24:06
to meet with the people that are offering the meetings and then you don't get what you want. It's sad not only for you, but for 01:24:13
all of us because you are a representative. 01:24:19
That's fine if you disagree like I think this is the point is you're saying I'm not getting what I need. 01:24:27
And we're saying this is how we can get it to you, an RDA if you're sitting there, Mayor, and you're saying we're traveling around 01:24:33
the world last year and nobody knows about it. 01:24:38
That's what it was in the last year. No, it wasn't. It wasn't. And you just put things on the record without. And what I'm saying 01:24:45
is that I want a granular understanding and we're giving $1,000,000. 01:24:50
I'm not going to get this, no. Even in the last meeting when you said you weren't going to get it and they said it was a 01:24:58
transactional thing, I said we have to get together. 01:25:02
Did that happen? It didn't. And you were invited and you did not take the meeting, the five of us. Did you send out an invite for 01:25:07
the five of us? 01:25:11
I don't have to give for our attorney, for the RDA director, for the city manager to sit down and get you the documents that you 01:25:17
need so that we could clarify for this board and for the public. If you can't take the meetings, we can't help you. And that's the 01:25:23
point of this discussion. But I have to move on from it. I need an emotion. 01:25:29
To close the public hearing? No. Did we close it? No, we didn't close it. We did close it. Everybody's sure. OK then do we need to 01:25:36
adopt anything? No. So your adoption for the approval of the final budget is? 01:25:43
Okay, then I'm going to and I just want to say for the record, the $1,000,000 you're going to get me and not a line item, but just 01:25:52
a breakdown of. 01:25:56
100,000 here, 100,000 there. 01:26:02
The meeting is adjourned, so you guys go ahead and talk about it. 01:26:06
Let's just check with Jamie if we could for tentative budget because we continued the hearing. Do we need to have an action item 01:26:10
on the tentative budget? No, because we already adopted it, right? And so we don't need to adopt it for you. We just needed to 01:26:15
hold the public hearing. All right, we are adjourned. 01:26:21