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OK, Mayor, should be good. | 00:00:03 | |
Yeah, all the rest. | 00:00:30 | |
Yes, it is. | 00:00:37 | |
Yeah. | 00:00:39 | |
OK, thanks. | 00:00:42 | |
All right. I just want to let everybody know that the meeting has started. Today is Wednesday, March 12th. | 00:00:56 | |
2025 the time is 504. | 00:01:03 | |
And right now we are just gathering some food and coming back and then we'll start our meeting. | 00:01:06 | |
We're kind of on a tight timeline, so we're going to start out with probably 10 minutes for each council person to just talk about | 00:01:13 | |
some of the things that. | 00:01:17 | |
We went over a high level in the budget retreat. | 00:01:22 | |
Where they kind of just talked about how they were spending and some requests from council about what the overall ultimate top | 00:01:25 | |
three goals were. And this is where we're going to talk about more of our individual priority priorities. | 00:01:32 | |
Then what we'll see are actual requests that come in from our staff and we'll start to break those down and we'll move through the | 00:01:40 | |
regular budget process that we do each year. | 00:01:45 | |
So that's where we are. | 00:01:51 | |
If you guys want to go ahead and start having discussions if you feel like you've already gotten what you need. | 00:01:54 | |
Actually, Sarah is about to pop in so. | 00:02:00 | |
Sarah, we are just going to. | 00:02:04 | |
There's some food that staff got in the. | 00:02:06 | |
Break room that you can run and grab and then we're just going to go around the table and take about. | 00:02:09 | |
10 minutes each to talk about. | 00:02:14 | |
Our priorities. | 00:02:16 | |
And then we will kind of have a wrap up for the last few minutes and then we'll go into our regular scheduled meeting. | 00:02:18 | |
So I'm going to run in there really quick. | 00:02:28 | |
I'll be very fast. | 00:02:30 | |
And then? | 00:02:31 | |
We can start and if you guys want to go ahead and start, you can do that too. | 00:02:32 | |
Actually, it might be appropriate to wait for Eric just in case he has. | 00:02:37 | |
Any commentary on? | 00:02:41 | |
What happened to the budget routine? | 00:02:44 | |
Good. | 00:03:11 | |
Oh no. | 00:03:22 | |
Yeah. | 00:03:50 | |
Go ahead and get started. Who wants to go? | 00:04:12 | |
First, Eric, do you want to? | 00:04:13 | |
Go ahead and give just a brief rundown of what we talked about with the top priorities that were mentioned, the top 4. | 00:04:16 | |
Or were there 5? | 00:04:21 | |
OK, so. | 00:04:45 | |
Just last week we held a. | 00:04:47 | |
Council budget retreat. | 00:04:49 | |
It was a great activity. We spent the time up at the Mill Creek City Hall. | 00:04:52 | |
And went over. | 00:04:58 | |
Both goals and priorities and also kind of a 10 year vision and so of the. | 00:05:00 | |
What we did as a as an activity was. | 00:05:05 | |
Help the Council. | 00:05:09 | |
Think out 10 years. | 00:05:11 | |
And in that exercise. | 00:05:13 | |
Look for the hurdles that we as a city as we grow to. | 00:05:17 | |
You know, say double the size in 10 years. | 00:05:22 | |
What hurdles might we encounter along the way? | 00:05:25 | |
And how could we? | 00:05:29 | |
Think today of what we could do to avoid those hurdles. | 00:05:31 | |
And so it was a great exercise. And then at the end of the meeting. | 00:05:35 | |
We pulled specific goals and priorities from council members, having had that exercise kind of in the back of their mind. | 00:05:39 | |
And landed on. | 00:05:45 | |
The top priorities being economic development. | 00:05:47 | |
Public safety. | 00:05:50 | |
Community engagement and communication. | 00:05:51 | |
And infrastructure and facility amenities. | 00:05:54 | |
OK, so today. | 00:05:58 | |
We wanted to kind of get any. | 00:06:00 | |
Implementation type strategies. | 00:06:02 | |
Kind of dive in just a little bit deeper to give some ideas to staff as we work towards. | 00:06:05 | |
Pulling together a tentative budget and we had a broad spectrum of infrastructure. | 00:06:10 | |
That meant all sorts of things. It was like water, roads, power, all sorts of. | 00:06:15 | |
Utilities. | 00:06:20 | |
As our overall long term goals so. | 00:06:22 | |
Let's just go around the table. | 00:06:25 | |
Umm, so we can kind of kick this off and get moving. Who's ready? | 00:06:28 | |
I'm just going to go ahead and call on you. | 00:06:35 | |
Because you're here. | 00:06:36 | |
You're not ready. | 00:06:38 | |
So what exactly? | 00:06:39 | |
I mean, I know. | 00:06:43 | |
I'll give you a briefing on. | 00:06:46 | |
Last year you guys had this really good idea to kind of get into the weeds of what you guys cared about. | 00:06:47 | |
And just take time. I know Jake had a request where he wanted to kind of do a presentation and get into the finer details of what | 00:06:52 | |
budgeting really meant and what his priorities were. | 00:06:58 | |
And last year you had this great idea, It was your idea to bring this kind of to this type of forum. | 00:07:03 | |
And so I thought, let's repeat it. | 00:07:08 | |
And let's let's keep it going. | 00:07:11 | |
And if really we come to the same discussion, then we're on the same page and we make all of the same movements and. | 00:07:13 | |
For me, I know that my top priorities remain in those categories. | 00:07:20 | |
And if we want to get into the weeds, I'm happy to negotiate or discuss them. But if you have anything you really want to like | 00:07:24 | |
touch base on right now. | 00:07:27 | |
I think that's the time to do it. | 00:07:31 | |
Is in this. | 00:07:33 | |
Sphere. | 00:07:35 | |
So. | 00:07:36 | |
We've had a lot of discussion about, not a lot of. | 00:07:39 | |
But some. | 00:07:42 | |
Discussion about. | 00:07:43 | |
Restriping third W because we could easily double the parking there with minimal expense. | 00:07:45 | |
And Morgan seemed to think that. | 00:07:51 | |
It could be accomplished in this year's budget and I think that would be really valuable for now and. | 00:07:53 | |
In the long term. | 00:07:58 | |
Oh, we're taking notes. Good. | 00:08:00 | |
So that's great one. | 00:08:03 | |
OK. | 00:08:04 | |
I was just going to say. | 00:08:09 | |
I had the opportunity to attend the skate park meeting. | 00:08:11 | |
And I was shocked at how many people. | 00:08:14 | |
Were there and excited. | 00:08:18 | |
It put our council meetings to shame. There were just so many people in the community that are. | 00:08:20 | |
Just really hoping that we can move forward on this. | 00:08:25 | |
And I think for all the Parks and Recreation programs, I think this is something that definitely has momentum. | 00:08:28 | |
And so as a council. | 00:08:33 | |
With whatever we can put towards Parks and Recreation, I hope that this would. | 00:08:35 | |
Priority in that department. | 00:08:39 | |
OK. | 00:08:40 | |
One of the things that. | 00:08:42 | |
Now that you bring up parks, that I think is really exciting as we've been prioritizing and looking at cemeteries. | 00:08:44 | |
And working with developers on it. | 00:08:50 | |
I think we should keep that in our view. I I consider that to be part of our infrastructure and our facilities that we talked | 00:08:52 | |
about in the retreat. | 00:08:56 | |
But I think that needs to be at the forefront because it's a cost. | 00:09:01 | |
And it's something that we have generations of people that are. | 00:09:05 | |
Are looking at that right now. And So what does that timeline look like for Vineyard? | 00:09:09 | |
I just wanted to set. I'm different. | 00:09:16 | |
Than most I just wanted to set a budget line on and get an appetite for. | 00:09:19 | |
Total spending. | 00:09:24 | |
Across the board of like. | 00:09:26 | |
Where are we and are you guys all? | 00:09:28 | |
Because that's kind of what I do with the. | 00:09:31 | |
Budget with my family is like. | 00:09:33 | |
This is what I meant. | 00:09:36 | |
And see, because if we're not there to cut. | 00:09:38 | |
I'm very small in this conversation, but. | 00:09:43 | |
I see that in the total overall budget we could cut between 10 and 12% of the total city budget. | 00:09:46 | |
I think there's a lot that could, but if there's no appetite for. | 00:09:54 | |
Where and how then? | 00:09:57 | |
You know, you guys can come. | 00:09:59 | |
Conversation on things you'd like to have. | 00:10:01 | |
I think that. | 00:10:04 | |
Umm, these conversations. I want to add to that because I think the conversation we're having now. | 00:10:06 | |
Are not necessarily things we want to add. | 00:10:12 | |
But things that we want to focus on. | 00:10:16 | |
There are currently things that we're discussing. | 00:10:19 | |
And I I don't think you're so different. | 00:10:21 | |
Everybody here wants to be fiscally conservative, so I think we can all get on that page with you and if you have ideas. | 00:10:24 | |
About where to cut, We are always looking for places to cut. | 00:10:30 | |
And save the people of Vineyard. | 00:10:34 | |
Their tax dollars. So if you're finding stuff, shoot us a list if you have them before you go ahead and bring them because that's | 00:10:38 | |
something that we want to hear. | 00:10:42 | |
And I think everybody. | 00:10:46 | |
In the same vein. | 00:10:48 | |
Is either cutting? | 00:10:50 | |
Or honing in on priorities to make sure. | 00:10:52 | |
That we are only spending what we need. | 00:10:56 | |
To to my husband's dismay. | 00:11:00 | |
The hill. The slide hill. | 00:11:03 | |
Was cut like 200,000 last year. | 00:11:04 | |
To go to 30. | 00:11:07 | |
So there were significant cuts. Jake, is there anything on your mind right away that you wanted to share? Like I would love to | 00:11:09 | |
hear it. | 00:11:12 | |
Yeah, and I think it's good to set the table of like. | 00:11:17 | |
When staff like the difference between a staff desire that could be added to a budget. | 00:11:20 | |
That wasn't included. I don't view that as a cut, I view that as a. | 00:11:27 | |
We didn't add something to the budget. So I'm more looking towards when I say cut, I'm looking at we actually spent and we are | 00:11:31 | |
cutting that not like. | 00:11:35 | |
Hey, they gave us all these. | 00:11:40 | |
Imaginary or desired things and we didn't include them. | 00:11:41 | |
I believe that our communications department and also. | 00:11:48 | |
HR Department. | 00:11:53 | |
I think that. | 00:11:56 | |
It's not a necessity. It's kind of an, it's a kind of a nice to have, but not really a necessity. | 00:11:59 | |
I mean, I'm going to be very flexible. I'm not. | 00:12:06 | |
I obviously don't have. | 00:12:08 | |
The votes on certain things, so I think. | 00:12:10 | |
If I'm. | 00:12:12 | |
Understanding the room. | 00:12:13 | |
That I need to be very flexible on what you guys would be willing to do it? | 00:12:14 | |
So I come on bended knee. | 00:12:18 | |
So I'd be more than willing to look at other ways to cut, but I I think their software is, I think I told you those softwares | 00:12:19 | |
before. | 00:12:23 | |
Can I answer to 1 of yours? I think I'm very open to. | 00:12:27 | |
Your creativity for cutting budgets and becoming thoughtful in communications, I would say with our goals on transparency and over | 00:12:32 | |
communication and making sure that people have as much access as possible. | 00:12:39 | |
Our staff are very overworked right now and wearing multiple hats. | 00:12:46 | |
So we would have to decide the type of service we want to provide to the residents #1. | 00:12:50 | |
We'd have to talk about how we're going to get creative, whether it's a software or something that you're talking about with. | 00:12:56 | |
Within these departments and then. | 00:13:02 | |
Really hone in on what you're looking for. | 00:13:05 | |
As far as what that what cutting those areas look like, especially with it being one of our top priorities. | 00:13:07 | |
For me. | 00:13:13 | |
Jake, what do you want me to rundown the whole list? | 00:13:16 | |
I think X Factor. | 00:13:20 | |
I think Qualtrics I think are. | 00:13:22 | |
Lobbyists, I think, are. | 00:13:23 | |
HR department could shrink down or even become. | 00:13:26 | |
A contract situation. | 00:13:30 | |
I know looking in previous past. | 00:13:32 | |
Years that saved a ton of money. | 00:13:34 | |
Outsourcing that to a consultant. | 00:13:37 | |
Especially for the city architect. I've seen a lot of cities do that. | 00:13:39 | |
I think that our department heads can take a larger role in communication and doing social media. | 00:13:44 | |
To do that. So that's kind of somewhere that I see there. | 00:13:51 | |
I I think that. | 00:13:57 | |
That's just let me walk through this. | 00:14:03 | |
I did a yellow line on everything. | 00:14:06 | |
But I also don't want to waste a lot of people's time. | 00:14:09 | |
It's like, hey, I don't find agreement on these. | 00:14:13 | |
I think the capital projects could be delayed or pushed off. Obviously, I disagree on the City Hall and timing of that. | 00:14:30 | |
I thought that we could have done that with the fire department, but the $1,000,000 could also be helped to. | 00:14:38 | |
You know, circumvent that so that we could go back to the regular tax. | 00:14:45 | |
Before which $1,000,000. | 00:14:49 | |
Well, we already spent that, but. | 00:14:51 | |
Yeah, on last year's. Yeah. So that's how you've been spent. On what? | 00:14:53 | |
On the. | 00:14:57 | |
This we already spent it on the building and the city. | 00:14:58 | |
You're talking about the architecture and the engine architecture. The design on City Hall, not on fire station. | 00:15:03 | |
I think so. Oh yeah, good clarity. | 00:15:10 | |
He did say fire station, right? I meant like. | 00:15:13 | |
That was one of my goals for last year, was to redirect that. | 00:15:16 | |
RDA money to the fire stations that we didn't have to do the increase. | 00:15:19 | |
But to clarify, that wasn't for the building the increases for the. | 00:15:24 | |
The actual operations we saved up for the building and that can't come out of capital funds. | 00:15:28 | |
Or RDA? No, the building of the City Hall could have been used by the RDA and then the. | 00:15:33 | |
General Ledger fund, the ones that we did use and save up could have been moved over. | 00:15:39 | |
We as an RDA can choose where those funds go. | 00:15:44 | |
We verified that. | 00:15:47 | |
It's in the past like we already did the tax rate increase, but. | 00:15:50 | |
I'll send out some provisions that clarify that. | 00:15:54 | |
For the Council. | 00:15:57 | |
So, well, I think we verified that already that the RDA can choose what that. | 00:15:59 | |
We verified that in June. I think there's specific provisions that we can read through and and verify it. | 00:16:05 | |
Or understand it. | 00:16:11 | |
I think. | 00:16:12 | |
Whether? | 00:16:13 | |
Jamie, we. | 00:16:15 | |
We verified that right. | 00:16:16 | |
That RDA funds can be used for infrastructure, whether it be the City Hall. | 00:16:19 | |
Or the fire station. We could have used the $1,000,000 for this for the fire station. | 00:16:24 | |
And then that money that was in general fund or capital projects could have been moved for the staffing of the fire. | 00:16:29 | |
The Ras. | 00:16:36 | |
The RDA body controls those rules. | 00:16:37 | |
I think you'll want to put that question. | 00:16:40 | |
Well, we already sent that through in June, and he'd already got back. | 00:16:44 | |
It sounds as though you're saying that RDA Capital projects funds could have been transferred to cover operations. No cover | 00:16:47 | |
station. | 00:16:51 | |
It could have been switched to for the building of the fire station. | 00:16:56 | |
Got it. | 00:17:00 | |
And then the funds the capital projects into the general fund. | 00:17:03 | |
Correct. Or kept in the general fund. | 00:17:07 | |
To avoid the tax rate increase. | 00:17:12 | |
But but I'm open to you guys. Like obviously I live there 10 to 12% that could be. | 00:17:14 | |
I agree with you on the like. | 00:17:23 | |
I didn't want to raise taxes last year either, that was. | 00:17:25 | |
It was devastating to have to do that. | 00:17:29 | |
I want my neighbors to still like me. | 00:17:31 | |
But what I was seeing is it wasn't just one year, it was. | 00:17:35 | |
We were continually going to have to increase our fire and public safety staffing. | 00:17:39 | |
So I wanted to make sure that. | 00:17:44 | |
If we were going to do it, we do it now before we get into a worse or worser. | 00:17:46 | |
Worse situation. | 00:17:52 | |
Yeah. And so I don't feel that that was us being frivolous. | 00:17:53 | |
And we were adjusting the tax rate. | 00:17:58 | |
To what it's been in the past. | 00:18:00 | |
And obviously we don't have to dive into all of this as a debate because I think we'd be wasting our time with other conversation | 00:18:02 | |
topics. You know what I don't. I don't think this is a waste because I think the real thing that you are discussing is the city | 00:18:06 | |
centre. | 00:18:10 | |
You're talking about a facility that we are positioning ourselves into and. | 00:18:15 | |
I believe Jake is saying we could have spent this money elsewhere and your conversation is relevant because you're saying. | 00:18:21 | |
You can't live off one time monies. | 00:18:27 | |
To pay for something that we could inject into operations for one year in hopes that we would have one time monies for operations | 00:18:31 | |
the next year. | 00:18:35 | |
Because inflation had risen so much and even with the small tax increase that we only took back down to 2000. | 00:18:40 | |
19 numbers. It didn't actually get us all the way there to cover our fire operations. | 00:18:47 | |
And so even if we were able to cut everything that you're saying. | 00:18:53 | |
I don't believe that would bring us to those numbers either, but. | 00:18:57 | |
When we talk about timing, and I guess this is where I'll put out my. | 00:19:01 | |
My two cents on your cutting of the city center. | 00:19:05 | |
And facilitating. | 00:19:09 | |
Motion and what we do and don't need. | 00:19:12 | |
We are. | 00:19:15 | |
In a place where we have people working in the hallway. | 00:19:17 | |
And we have people. | 00:19:22 | |
Sharing rooms. | 00:19:24 | |
And we are losing our conference room because we have to grow. We're in multiple facilities. | 00:19:26 | |
That do not have space inside of them. | 00:19:33 | |
We have had to buy. | 00:19:36 | |
Little what are those things called trailers where we were having office space that we had to use for? | 00:19:38 | |
Storage. | 00:19:45 | |
We are actually so fiscally conservative that we've been splitting ourselves apart to do this, and even now. | 00:19:47 | |
We are not building a City Hall. We're building a center that's jointly shared with other groups so that we can insert ourselves | 00:19:55 | |
into a floor. | 00:19:59 | |
And reduce the costs on the people of. | 00:20:03 | |
Still. | 00:20:07 | |
Not truly providing the needs of the city, but. | 00:20:07 | |
Still making us all fit into weird hallway spaces and things like that. And our staff have been delightful in being accepting of | 00:20:12 | |
working in hallways, which is. | 00:20:17 | |
Phenomenal. | 00:20:22 | |
But when we say, are we ready for this or do is it the time? | 00:20:23 | |
I disagree I'm I've watched our city where multiple hats and when we say we. | 00:20:29 | |
We need less employees. | 00:20:35 | |
Our ratios for. | 00:20:37 | |
Our employees to our citizens and the services that the people of Vineyard demand. | 00:20:39 | |
Are so. | 00:20:45 | |
There's an expanse between those two things. | 00:20:48 | |
And so if we want to talk about. | 00:20:51 | |
Cutting we have to talk about services and we have to talk about reducing services and that's really important. It has to be part | 00:20:54 | |
of our discussion as a council. | 00:20:59 | |
And we have to be open about that with the people of Vineyard. | 00:21:04 | |
And uh. | 00:21:07 | |
Part of that is. | 00:21:07 | |
That's our police. That's our fire. Because Vineyard has no amenities. We are not providing any exciting things. We. | 00:21:10 | |
Pay for most of our events out of sponsors and we we mostly just pay for your water, your trash, your sewer, your police, your | 00:21:19 | |
fire. | 00:21:24 | |
That's what we're paying for basic government. | 00:21:30 | |
And so. | 00:21:33 | |
Cost right now. | 00:21:34 | |
As we consider it. | 00:21:36 | |
I We have to be thoughtful and we have to be creative and. | 00:21:38 | |
Putting things off and prioritizing I'm always for, but making sure that we have the right revenue sources and not subsidizing the | 00:21:42 | |
wrong things. | 00:21:46 | |
I think that that's where I can get behind us. But saying we're not ready. | 00:21:50 | |
When we are in the state that we're in, I don't. | 00:21:54 | |
Think I can agree on that. | 00:21:57 | |
I mean, I cannot agree on that. | 00:21:59 | |
I would just. | 00:22:04 | |
Oh. | 00:22:06 | |
I would just say on a point of order, I agree that the. | 00:22:07 | |
Fund would would not have made-up for the fire department. | 00:22:11 | |
Staffing in last year's budget. | 00:22:15 | |
However, the same logic you guys or the council is currently using on we're banking on future growth of the grocery store and | 00:22:18 | |
McDonald's to be able to fund that. | 00:22:23 | |
It we could have banked that future growth on the staffing of the fire department. And so that's why I think it's troublesome is | 00:22:28 | |
because. | 00:22:32 | |
We're now going to bank on future growth for. | 00:22:37 | |
The possibilities of being able to fund that and I also so I agree with you, you'd still have a shortfall, but. | 00:22:41 | |
Now we're. | 00:22:47 | |
Going to do the staffing and the fire station. | 00:22:48 | |
To your point though, the other thing about. | 00:22:52 | |
The uh, uh. | 00:22:55 | |
City Hall, I think the debate isn't. | 00:22:57 | |
If we agree on a City Hall. | 00:22:59 | |
I think it's the size and scope. | 00:23:01 | |
Of it. | 00:23:04 | |
And I think A2 or $3,000,000 building or even taking the $1,000,000 building and buying a home. | 00:23:05 | |
Or there's actually somebody write down in the. | 00:23:11 | |
In the by the. | 00:23:14 | |
Theater. I forget the. | 00:23:17 | |
What's it called? | 00:23:19 | |
The the yard. | 00:23:20 | |
There's an open office space in the art I just right, right next to Chubby's. That could be a temporary thing. | 00:23:23 | |
I like the idea of buying a home. | 00:23:28 | |
But we're debating last year and you guys have already moved forward and I really want to talk more about. | 00:23:31 | |
This year and the appetite for. | 00:23:36 | |
Any cuts or if it is of this body to. | 00:23:39 | |
Either maintain the current growth or maintain. | 00:23:44 | |
Or is this body going to be? | 00:23:47 | |
Increasing the spend and his staff going to be adding. | 00:23:49 | |
Desired increases. I just wanted to understand kind of the lay of the land. | 00:23:53 | |
Politically, where things stand. | 00:23:59 | |
I don't think we are debating last year. I think we're debating current priorities and the city center is on the table for us. | 00:24:02 | |
As we've discussed it and we voted on it and. | 00:24:08 | |
Prioritizing that will come up in the future and so it is currently on our budget, so. | 00:24:11 | |
I think the Council has to be aware of it and if you have ideas for how to save the city costs, you bringing them forward is very | 00:24:16 | |
important. | 00:24:20 | |
A lot of the things that were submitted after and should have been submitted before I think would have been more helpful to us. | 00:24:24 | |
But I think any opportunity for those discussions just so we can understand it better. | 00:24:31 | |
Personally, for me to understand you better or to understand where you're coming from, it would always be helpful so that I can | 00:24:37 | |
make sure that I'm assessing it properly. | 00:24:41 | |
Anybody else have any other things to add? | 00:24:46 | |
Yeah, on the on the. | 00:24:50 | |
City Hall. | 00:24:52 | |
And as that as that comes up. | 00:24:54 | |
I one of the questions I have, Jake, you were saying? | 00:24:56 | |
That you thought we could get away with a temporary 2 to $3,000,000 building, is that correct? | 00:25:01 | |
Correct, if we were. I mean not a temporary. | 00:25:05 | |
You think that would be permanent? | 00:25:09 | |
I mean, if you look at the history of city halls like Provo building theirs and what the late 1970s or 80s and and then now they | 00:25:10 | |
had to tear it down 40 or 50 years later for us to plan and build something for build out. Now you've started the clock on the | 00:25:16 | |
lifespan of that building and. | 00:25:22 | |
40 or 50 years later, you're tearing it down South. I hate to build like. | 00:25:28 | |
Like an infant buying an adult pair of shoes. It's like. | 00:25:31 | |
You know, like, hey, we're not, we're not there yet to build an adult. My question is if you know how much this building cost that | 00:25:35 | |
we've already outgrown? | 00:25:38 | |
This one of when we built it originally, I went and met with Dawn Overson. | 00:25:42 | |
A little while back to understand it, I think at the time. | 00:25:47 | |
What were we, one or 2 million? | 00:25:50 | |
At the time, I mean, I don't know the answer I'm at. I'm, I'm asking just under 2 million. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm saying like the | 00:25:52 | |
cost of the dollar to build now probably 2:00 to 3:00. | 00:25:57 | |
Right. I mean, Anderson provided the property. | 00:26:04 | |
For this building. So I mean we didn't need to include that. | 00:26:08 | |
Right. And we have land from. | 00:26:11 | |
Flagship to for right? | 00:26:13 | |
For a new building. | 00:26:16 | |
My question is if this building costs just under $2,000,000? | 00:26:18 | |
20 what, eight years ago? | 00:26:23 | |
I don't think it's realistic to think we could get an adequately sized building for $3,000,000. | 00:26:27 | |
That's, I mean, unless we're talking about a steel warehouse with cubicles in it. | 00:26:33 | |
I just don't think that that's. | 00:26:38 | |
Per square foot, I don't think that's going to get us where we need to be. | 00:26:40 | |
Mean worried about? | 00:26:44 | |
11,000 square feet for staff right now across. | 00:26:45 | |
Multiple buildings. | 00:26:49 | |
And the plan that we have right now puts us at 20,000 square feet. | 00:26:50 | |
And we wouldn't even be. | 00:26:55 | |
Attempting to. | 00:26:57 | |
Use all of that 20,000 square feet. | 00:26:59 | |
So I mean, I think. | 00:27:02 | |
Could we get away with a building that is? | 00:27:05 | |
You know, 1617 thousand square feet maybe. | 00:27:09 | |
Are you saying 17,000 square foot building? I'm not sure you can get that for $3,000,000. | 00:27:13 | |
I definitely had three or four different models sent to me. | 00:27:21 | |
Shawn Herring sent one. | 00:27:24 | |
There are quite a few other people. | 00:27:26 | |
Hey. And I was just putting the round 40 employees keeping this building. | 00:27:28 | |
30 to 40 so you would still. | 00:27:33 | |
No, I'm saying we have this building. | 00:27:37 | |
Already still right? | 00:27:40 | |
So. | 00:27:42 | |
Well, I think this building as it was originally. | 00:27:47 | |
Intended would be a public safety building and you'd have police here. Which is what 1015 no 15 ish people. | 00:27:49 | |
1520 people. | 00:27:58 | |
Yeah, so. | 00:28:00 | |
And we're saving for we're building cheaply today. | 00:28:04 | |
To take the tax burden off the people today, but also for future generations, so that. | 00:28:09 | |
We're making sure that we're building. | 00:28:14 | |
In a very wise way that doesn't cost us like right now. | 00:28:16 | |
Consolidating and moving back out of all of the little spaces that were tucked away into. | 00:28:21 | |
And providing the space that we can grow into is an essential part of this, whether people feel it or not, we. | 00:28:28 | |
We will grow as a city. | 00:28:34 | |
The downtown is growing, the grocery store is coming in. Public Works will have to move into those areas. | 00:28:36 | |
Police will have to have coverage, they will have to grow into this building. | 00:28:41 | |
The facilities. | 00:28:45 | |
You have people coming and asking for facilities and recreation and things like that in the park. | 00:28:46 | |
One of the places that Sean Herring put the housing development in the. | 00:28:52 | |
City Hall and is already planned for another facility. | 00:28:57 | |
And so I whether or not you build it in the future or not, I have no idea. | 00:29:01 | |
But umm. | 00:29:06 | |
Trying to do it in a way that is fiscally conservative and. | 00:29:07 | |
Is saving us on land and growth and making sure we can grow into it appropriately are things I think we need to consider. But if | 00:29:11 | |
you have. | 00:29:15 | |
If you have those concepts that you could send over, because I don't think I saw all of the ones that you're talking about, I'd | 00:29:19 | |
love to see them. | 00:29:23 | |
Sean was welcome to come and do a presentation and part. You're right. | 00:29:27 | |
Part of his presentation was like, if you're looking for finances, he could put housing into the. | 00:29:31 | |
Robbins property the the the field, you know the park. | 00:29:38 | |
But it didn't need to be that way. It was just more of how do you financially make that happen? | 00:29:42 | |
I believe his dollar mark was 2 1/2 or 3 million. | 00:29:46 | |
And it was a good. | 00:29:50 | |
It was a good faced effort. Is is that the one that you sent in? That was the 30,000 square foot building. | 00:29:51 | |
Yeah. So there's no way we could build a 30,000 square foot building for two to three million. It's a nice thought, but. | 00:29:57 | |
That's not what the going rate is for. | 00:30:04 | |
Building in any way, shape or form, so I wonder. | 00:30:06 | |
Is there? | 00:30:09 | |
I'm just just to organize this a little bit more. I love that we're having this discussion and I think we can keep going. Did you | 00:30:10 | |
have more that we want to touch on tonight that we could come back to this or should we keep having this discussion? | 00:30:16 | |
I just want to throw available options and just clear up like. | 00:30:23 | |
The housing in the park wasn't a requirement then, the last thing was. | 00:30:26 | |
We own that property over there where the old City Hall is. There's two parking lots that are already there. They could maintain | 00:30:30 | |
the same. | 00:30:34 | |
So this the I love the Utah City wants to give us land, but we already have free land that was donated by the Robbins family. | 00:30:37 | |
For the old City Hall, and it's sitting there as well, we can keep that donation and have that park be like. | 00:30:44 | |
More green space for Utah City and maybe use that for in the future. | 00:30:51 | |
But yeah, and I'm more than happy if the Council's obliged to. | 00:30:56 | |
Have Sean or the other two people? | 00:31:01 | |
Construction wise that we're just like and and I'm with you. | 00:31:03 | |
I'm not saying that you can take all of those buildings and throw it and have all 50 people in one. | 00:31:08 | |
But I don't, I don't think in our current. | 00:31:13 | |
Growth trajectory with the amount of people that. | 00:31:17 | |
I don't want to. Like I said, I don't want to buy. | 00:31:21 | |
Buy adult shoes. | 00:31:24 | |
For when I think we're in grade school right now we're at 15,000 and we're going to be at 60. So we're about 1/4 through our | 00:31:25 | |
lifespan, so I'd say. | 00:31:29 | |
You know of total growth. | 00:31:33 | |
And I don't, I don't really think our goal should be to. | 00:31:35 | |
Build a building of total growth. I think it should be to. | 00:31:39 | |
But also I think there's two separate ideas I think you could do. | 00:31:43 | |
A good sized building of town hall at the park or I think as a temporary thing like we did at the fire station. | 00:31:46 | |
If we are. | 00:31:52 | |
10 cubicles or 20 cubicles short. | 00:31:54 | |
You know, like we did at the fire station, purchasing a particular building for $1,000,000. | 00:31:57 | |
Paying cash for it. | 00:32:03 | |
Giving us five to six years. That land will go up in three to four years. Give us some time to be able to build out into our | 00:32:04 | |
shoes. Maybe we're at. | 00:32:08 | |
2025 thousand population. | 00:32:11 | |
That house, then. | 00:32:13 | |
Appreciates to 1.5. We have a little bit of cash between. | 00:32:15 | |
You're not speaking into a microphone. | 00:32:22 | |
The city is not building any buildings for $1,000,000 right now. The city or the Vineyard Fire Station was approved for $1.7 | 00:32:25 | |
million. | 00:32:30 | |
Our estimate is a $1.5 million build and we put in. | 00:32:35 | |
An extra 200,000 for. | 00:32:39 | |
Incidental costs that we expect to come up so today. | 00:32:41 | |
The cost is not 1,000,000 and so. | 00:32:45 | |
It's just the wrong number. | 00:32:50 | |
Want to be clear on that. What I would say about hold on one second, what I would say about what you were saying Jake is that. | 00:32:51 | |
Go ahead and have them e-mail those proposals in the council. We asked that those proposals be sent to us and some people actually | 00:32:59 | |
said that they would meet outside with those groups. | 00:33:04 | |
That would be really helpful. | 00:33:09 | |
I think we could put something together. | 00:33:11 | |
Because we have somebody working on those costs, we'll see what actual costs look like and so the council will be able to be in | 00:33:14 | |
tune with that. | 00:33:18 | |
As we throw out numbers for population. | 00:33:23 | |
Recently MAG on a conservative level put out 18,000 for our residents and with our. | 00:33:26 | |
What is it called? | 00:33:33 | |
What is it called when we give people their right to own the house? | 00:33:35 | |
Certificate of occupancy numbers are putting us at 22,000. | 00:33:41 | |
The difficulty with just throwing out numbers like 15,000 or 14,000 or 18,000 is when our own numbers internally for certificate | 00:33:46 | |
of occupancy are putting us closer to the 18/20/2000 range. | 00:33:52 | |
I think we need to be aware of that growth and then we additionally because it. | 00:34:00 | |
It really does affect service levels. | 00:34:04 | |
And all of this comes back to service levels. | 00:34:07 | |
Additionally, when we talk about the parks. | 00:34:10 | |
You mentioned that we have some parking lots over there. | 00:34:14 | |
One of the issues that we've been facing council is that. | 00:34:17 | |
We don't have places for people to park in our parks. | 00:34:21 | |
And if there's anything that I know about Vineyard, they really want better parking. | 00:34:24 | |
It's a discussion that we're always talking about. | 00:34:29 | |
But we are growing and we're a very young population and that comes from our children who are in sports, who are in waiting lists | 00:34:32 | |
to get into our rec programs. | 00:34:36 | |
And we will need that parking lot. | 00:34:40 | |
And we have a facility that's pegged for over there that. | 00:34:43 | |
It looks like it has our recreation facilities and other things that the community has voted on. | 00:34:47 | |
And discussed in our general plan and in our central corridor plan of. | 00:34:53 | |
Of wanting something in that park that is local. | 00:34:58 | |
And more tucked in and quiet that they can participate in. And like I said, whether or not we build it. | 00:35:01 | |
You have to pay attention to where those facilities are. | 00:35:07 | |
But when you're talking about 15,000 residents and we're not counting necessarily for all of the people that are here that. | 00:35:10 | |
Has to do with fire response. That has to do with police response. | 00:35:16 | |
And so we really need to be. | 00:35:21 | |
Making sure that we're thoughtful about those things. This is what I'm going to do for this discussion. | 00:35:23 | |
I'm just going to remind everybody that we are. | 00:35:28 | |
Getting close. | 00:35:31 | |
To the end of this discussion, and so if there's anything else we want to talk about. | 00:35:32 | |
Let me know. Otherwise we can continue having this discussion back and forth. It's not a big deal. | 00:35:37 | |
But I don't want us to lose. | 00:35:42 | |
The opportunity to talk about additional things because I think we know there's more to be brought to the table. Jake has some | 00:35:45 | |
concepts he wants to bring in that he can e-mail and have people come and schedule meetings with us. | 00:35:51 | |
And I think we're having our study done that is moving forward that we can present those numbers for clarity for the public. | 00:35:57 | |
And so I feel like we, we understand each other. | 00:36:05 | |
But do you guys want to talk about other things or do you want to? | 00:36:08 | |
OK, the one comment I would I would make just to be clear about where where I am, if you actually have a plan of OK, we could do | 00:36:11 | |
this in this space and this here's how it would grow so that we can. | 00:36:17 | |
You know, if we know that our projections are out to a certain size and that. | 00:36:23 | |
A city of that size has a staffing level that's commensurate with its size. | 00:36:27 | |
If there is a path for that growth and you have alternate plans for that, I would love to see those, yeah. | 00:36:31 | |
Awesome. I can provide that. The $1,000,000 number was the million for the RDA planning, so it should putting 1,000,000 towards. | 00:36:37 | |
The home, let's say we buy a home as a temp like those are the two options where I said hey. | 00:36:46 | |
There's a way to not see a tax rate increase. We could just. | 00:36:51 | |
Buy a home. | 00:36:54 | |
Like we did the fire department, it probably fit 15 to 20 people. | 00:36:56 | |
Give us two to three years or you could do. | 00:36:59 | |
More medium sized City Hall. | 00:37:02 | |
Like I said, like the Sean Herring thing, I just, there's a path to not have to go as big as what I'm saying. But the final thing | 00:37:04 | |
is, is I don't, I don't really want to rehash the past and I think the voters will. | 00:37:10 | |
Determine if it gets on the ballot on the referendum or not, or if they move forward but. | 00:37:16 | |
I think The thing is. | 00:37:21 | |
Is there a propensity for you guys to cut? | 00:37:22 | |
If there is, I'd love to spend time on that like. | 00:37:26 | |
I think as as us over the budget. | 00:37:30 | |
Is that we're aiming to be 5% / 10% over and then that's what we're hitting or are we? | 00:37:33 | |
Because I would like to be in the 10 to 12%. | 00:37:39 | |
Decrease, I think looking over what there is, I think there's cuts to be able to made. | 00:37:41 | |
I know they're hard, I know it's not fun cutting staff. | 00:37:47 | |
I know there's a lot of nice things, but that's kind of where I'm at, so that's why I want to hear from you guys. | 00:37:50 | |
I just want to clarify because you you keep saying that. | 00:37:56 | |
To avoid another tax rate increase. | 00:37:59 | |
So this is. | 00:38:02 | |
This is sales tax. | 00:38:03 | |
There won't be another. | 00:38:04 | |
Tax rate increase. | 00:38:06 | |
The whole the whole purpose of this building is coming from. | 00:38:07 | |
Sales tax. | 00:38:11 | |
Not to tax the citizens. | 00:38:12 | |
So we need to be clear, it's not a general obligation bond, It's not a lease revenue bond, it's a sales tax bond. | 00:38:14 | |
Do you know the difference? | 00:38:20 | |
Yeah, I do. | 00:38:23 | |
And that's the citizens money. OK. No, no, let me, let me interject. | 00:38:24 | |
We explained this last night at our meeting. | 00:38:29 | |
My small business. | 00:38:32 | |
Collected over $12,000 in sales tax. | 00:38:34 | |
Was maybe 5% of that that came from Vineyard citizens. | 00:38:37 | |
The rest of it came from. | 00:38:40 | |
Clients all over the state. | 00:38:42 | |
So, So when you say that the citizens are going to be paying for this new building, it's not true. | 00:38:44 | |
So we need to understand that that's. | 00:38:49 | |
Right. And the language that I'm using is, is whether that be an Orem resident, a PG resident or a visitor residence. | 00:38:51 | |
The second that money comes in. | 00:38:58 | |
It is our money. | 00:39:00 | |
The citizens money, right? | 00:39:02 | |
So it doesn't matter. | 00:39:04 | |
We are then. | 00:39:05 | |
No, no, no. What I'm saying is, is that. | 00:39:07 | |
Sarah said. But it's not a tax rate increase, correct? So what I'm saying is, is that to avoid? | 00:39:10 | |
A tax rate because. | 00:39:15 | |
Where we spent all of that money that we spent all of our sales tax money last year. | 00:39:17 | |
Right. So in order to. | 00:39:21 | |
Keep all of that sales tax rate increase. | 00:39:24 | |
We are going to bond on a sales tax. | 00:39:27 | |
And we're going to set aside and put them in first place, right? | 00:39:30 | |
To say, hey, the first thing we're going to pay is the sales tax bond. | 00:39:33 | |
Which means that. | 00:39:36 | |
And when I know we're baiting on. | 00:39:38 | |
Growth like hey, we are planning on the grocery store and these other things that haven't materialized, but they could. | 00:39:39 | |
And we like the. | 00:39:47 | |
Estimates and we're going low ball dollar, right? | 00:39:49 | |
At the end of the day, that is still citizens money. | 00:39:51 | |
And we're committing towards it. | 00:39:54 | |
And so because that then. | 00:39:56 | |
We could be using that for fire, police, all these other things like. | 00:39:58 | |
Cars or whatever, we, you know, all the things we do. | 00:40:02 | |
That then is pigeonholed that and set aside. | 00:40:06 | |
And they're in the 1st place for the 20 year, however. | 00:40:09 | |
Level that is. | 00:40:12 | |
And so. | 00:40:14 | |
Because of that, that puts us more of our financial home. | 00:40:16 | |
And at risk of. | 00:40:19 | |
Another tax, a property tax for others to make up because that is then. | 00:40:21 | |
Set aside that's that's how I'm saying that so a clarification that I in. | 00:40:26 | |
I want to make sure that I'm. | 00:40:31 | |
Accurate. | 00:40:32 | |
So I'm looking around the room. | 00:40:33 | |
My understanding is that we're required to have a balanced budget. | 00:40:36 | |
Which means that all that sales tax revenue that you say we spent last year. Yeah, we did. | 00:40:39 | |
But it's because we. | 00:40:43 | |
Had to. | 00:40:45 | |
Right. And so part of what we're talking about tonight is? | 00:40:46 | |
We have to spend that. So how do we want to spend it? Well, and let's be really clear. | 00:40:50 | |
We have to spend it. | 00:40:55 | |
We keep a rainy day fund that's allowed to be at a certain level. | 00:40:57 | |
And we had to. | 00:41:02 | |
Because of the level of service needed. | 00:41:05 | |
And what is level of service? | 00:41:08 | |
Which is so important to this discussion. | 00:41:10 | |
Is level of service. | 00:41:13 | |
A Recreation Center. | 00:41:17 | |
It is not in Vineyard. | 00:41:18 | |
A Recreation Center is not what's burdening our cost. | 00:41:20 | |
It is. | 00:41:24 | |
Response times. | 00:41:25 | |
It is making sure. | 00:41:27 | |
That when people call. | 00:41:29 | |
For fire and safety, there are response times. | 00:41:31 | |
It is not just that. | 00:41:35 | |
It is planning. | 00:41:36 | |
Amenities in our community. | 00:41:38 | |
That is the longevity and the quality of life of the residents of Vineyard. | 00:41:40 | |
Those are the recreation programs, the parks. | 00:41:44 | |
The soccer. The baseball teams. | 00:41:48 | |
The people that want to be here and be a part of that, that will come. | 00:41:50 | |
In the city and be a part of it. | 00:41:55 | |
It is water. | 00:41:57 | |
It is the people that take care of the water. | 00:41:58 | |
The people that take care of the snow removal. | 00:42:01 | |
The people that take care of the code enforcement. | 00:42:03 | |
The people that take care of the inspections. | 00:42:06 | |
The people that take care of the finances of the city. | 00:42:08 | |
And when the city calls out for transparency? | 00:42:11 | |
And wants us to post. | 00:42:15 | |
A lot. | 00:42:17 | |
About a lot of things. | 00:42:18 | |
No matter how much we try. | 00:42:19 | |
With our. | 00:42:22 | |
Newsletters and our social media. | 00:42:24 | |
And. | 00:42:27 | |
Press releases in our apps and everything. | 00:42:30 | |
The people of Vineyard want more communication our website. | 00:42:33 | |
Nobody can just have those things, we have to pay for them. | 00:42:39 | |
And so the people of Vineyard, if we were going to do these things and cut. | 00:42:43 | |
We all love cutting meaningfully. | 00:42:48 | |
I haven't met a single person on the City Council that doesn't want to be more conservative with their spending. | 00:42:50 | |
And this Council or the councils before? | 00:42:58 | |
If we want to do this. | 00:43:00 | |
There is no attack greater that we could do it with. | 00:43:03 | |
More efficiently than to say no, we will not be taking care of the trash on Center St. | 00:43:07 | |
On Christmas. | 00:43:14 | |
Anymore. | 00:43:16 | |
We cannot pick up the trash along the trails. | 00:43:17 | |
Of the. | 00:43:21 | |
Of the Park of the Lakeshore. | 00:43:23 | |
Because we have to pay somebody. | 00:43:26 | |
To pick up that trash. | 00:43:28 | |
Those costs the wearing the multiple hats. | 00:43:31 | |
The exchanging. | 00:43:34 | |
Picking up trash for social media, those are the conversations that we're having across the table right now. | 00:43:36 | |
And if you guys want to have them? | 00:43:42 | |
We have to have those conversations with the public. | 00:43:44 | |
One of the things that we did with the tax increase was saying after 20 years of not having taxes. | 00:43:47 | |
After inflation had increased over seven years and our spending had gone down despite. | 00:43:53 | |
Despite all of the things that we've grown into and luckily because of the growth. | 00:44:00 | |
That we were able to capture. | 00:44:05 | |
We've only had to do 1 increase and we didn't even do it to 100% of what we could have done, which would have still been small for | 00:44:07 | |
not doing a tax increase in 20 years just to recoup inflation. | 00:44:13 | |
We weren't actually able to cover. | 00:44:20 | |
What we need to as far as service goes, and because we're not able to cover it entirely, we're still using those one time monies. | 00:44:23 | |
And the people of Vineyard need to know that. | 00:44:30 | |
Because, uh. | 00:44:32 | |
We had this conversation in City Council. | 00:44:33 | |
While we love and support our fire department and we want them operationally to succeed, additionally, we want our police | 00:44:36 | |
operationally to succeed. That's what creates safety in our community. | 00:44:41 | |
And we want our water and our trash and our roads and all of the base services of of why we even exist here to continue. | 00:44:47 | |
And so those are the questions that we have as we cut if you've got a list. | 00:44:56 | |
Of everything that we could cut, I would love to see that. I know you read through them briefly. | 00:45:01 | |
But if you send them over to me. | 00:45:06 | |
I will get as creative as possible to say, is there an opportunity for us to split hat, you know, to wear more hats and split | 00:45:08 | |
hairs. | 00:45:11 | |
Or I will say, I just don't think we can do that because. | 00:45:15 | |
This person is already wearing multiple hats from my perspective and I'd be happy to share those with you guys. | 00:45:20 | |
I just want to make sure that. | 00:45:29 | |
You've made this abundantly clear, but just to put a point on it. | 00:45:31 | |
Comparing last year's budget to this year's budget and deciding that last year's budget. | 00:45:36 | |
Could use another haircut. | 00:45:40 | |
This year. | 00:45:43 | |
Needs to take into consideration the fact that our city has not stopped growing. | 00:45:44 | |
And that every year. | 00:45:49 | |
We have that incremental growth and it's not small we we issue. | 00:45:51 | |
On average 500 certificates of occupancy per per year right now. | 00:45:56 | |
And with every group of new individuals. | 00:46:02 | |
Comes an extra demand on police, an extra demand on fire and extra demand on new roads and providing that service and so. | 00:46:05 | |
Cutting from last year to this year. | 00:46:12 | |
As opposed to. | 00:46:14 | |
Growing. | 00:46:16 | |
To the needed degree. | 00:46:17 | |
And we're not asking. | 00:46:19 | |
Explode our budget. We need. We just need to be able to grow. | 00:46:21 | |
You know, one employee here for this and one new sheriff's deputy here or two new sheriff's deputy there. | 00:46:25 | |
We need to be able to make that. | 00:46:32 | |
Incremental growth as our city is growing. | 00:46:34 | |
In that same fashion, yeah. And Sarah, sorry to cut you off. I just wanted to add what you were saying because. | 00:46:37 | |
The grocery store has materialized. | 00:46:43 | |
It is going into construction right now and more businesses have come into operation. | 00:46:46 | |
And so not only are we growing, but our needs are actually changing. | 00:46:52 | |
And so we're going to diversify. | 00:46:57 | |
In what is needed for basic government operations, which I think is a. | 00:47:00 | |
A critical factor when we think about building the foundation. | 00:47:05 | |
Of where we're headed. | 00:47:09 | |
We are the. | 00:47:11 | |
Intermodal hub for transportation. | 00:47:12 | |
For northern Utah County. | 00:47:14 | |
We have a lot of state facilities that run through our community. | 00:47:17 | |
And being aware of that as we continue to grow and understanding the diverse needs and changes that come with grocery stores or | 00:47:21 | |
public safety. | 00:47:27 | |
Our fire or how you do power and water, it's very different in those intersections. | 00:47:33 | |
I just want to say as as you bring up your suggested cuts. | 00:47:41 | |
I think it would be wise to compare. | 00:47:45 | |
Maybe what other cities pay for the same services? | 00:47:48 | |
Because my understanding is that vineyards actually pretty low. | 00:47:51 | |
On on what we pay. | 00:47:54 | |
What our percentages are. So I think it would be really wise to compare. | 00:47:57 | |
Population size. | 00:48:02 | |
Yeah, all of the expenditures you mentioned, Mayor. | 00:48:03 | |
Garbage and all of that. I didn't bring up any of those in my cuts. I brought very specific tailored communications HR. | 00:48:08 | |
Umm, you know. | 00:48:17 | |
A city our size doesn't have a lobbyist or city our size. You know, I don't need to hit all of those things. I think you guys know | 00:48:19 | |
that and I don't. I don't want to go on the campaign trail. Before you do that, I want to respond to what you're saying because | 00:48:24 | |
you did actually mention that our department heads could take on social media. | 00:48:29 | |
My comment was if we are going to exchange their current duties for social media duties, we lose service opportunities. That was | 00:48:35 | |
the clarity. | 00:48:39 | |
Inside of that. | 00:48:44 | |
So even though you didn't mention it, you also mentioned a lot of, I've watched a lot of cities where obviously they're providing | 00:48:45 | |
the information over to the social media person. And then I mean, I'm seeing a lot of Tiktok videos and a lot of different things | 00:48:50 | |
that I just don't think are. | 00:48:54 | |
I think they're nice to have, I think they're fun to have. | 00:48:59 | |
But I don't think a city our size needs to be. Can I just add that I would never want to? | 00:49:01 | |
Pay our city engineer. | 00:49:08 | |
To work on social media. | 00:49:10 | |
I would never want to pay our finance director to work on social media. It's actually cost savings to pay. | 00:49:11 | |
What a social media person gets paid to do their job? | 00:49:17 | |
I you asked you want to hear what the appetite I I don't have an appetite for for firing. | 00:49:21 | |
Anyone in our HR department? | 00:49:29 | |
I also don't have an appetite for firing our social media or communications director tearing them down. | 00:49:31 | |
What do you mean the amount of time I actually have been pushing when they when our social media person left? | 00:49:37 | |
I pushed and pushed and pushed to want to get that person replaced because I've seen what it's like without a social media | 00:49:44 | |
manager. | 00:49:48 | |
Where we weren't having comments. | 00:49:52 | |
We were, we weren't. We didn't have someone to moderate all of that. | 00:49:54 | |
And now we do. We have better communication, better interaction and one of our priorities is community engagement. And so for me | 00:49:58 | |
that is a minimal cost. | 00:50:03 | |
I don't. I feel like if you look at a communications budget. | 00:50:09 | |
I think we're pretty lucky at how affordable our employees are compared to some other. | 00:50:13 | |
Cities or organizations? | 00:50:19 | |
And so specifically I wouldn't have an appetite for that. I don't know about the rest of the council. | 00:50:21 | |
The lobbyist conversation. | 00:50:26 | |
I see so many benefits into. | 00:50:29 | |
Like last year's appropriations that we were able to get and I credit that. | 00:50:33 | |
To our mayor and our lobbyists, hard work. | 00:50:38 | |
And our city manager, Sorry, I don't want to leave you out. | 00:50:40 | |
But. | 00:50:43 | |
I I see a return in investment is what I'm trying to say. I see that when we have. | 00:50:44 | |
A good HR department, then we're going to have better employee satisfaction that they're more likely to do a better job, they're | 00:50:50 | |
more likely to be happy, and we're not going to have a. | 00:50:54 | |
Employee turnover is very expensive. | 00:51:00 | |
When we have to retrain and reinvest in these employees because they're not satisfied or happy or content with the environment | 00:51:02 | |
they're in. | 00:51:06 | |
Having a good HR director helps improve that and so for me when I look at. | 00:51:11 | |
The city. | 00:51:15 | |
As a as a government business where I want to be fiscally responsible, I also want to be smart in making sure that we're | 00:51:16 | |
functioning. | 00:51:21 | |
In a positive manner where we're creating that good environment. | 00:51:26 | |
So I will say. | 00:51:31 | |
That there are other contracts that. | 00:51:34 | |
We are already in. | 00:51:37 | |
That we've discussed over and over until our faces are blue. | 00:51:39 | |
And. | 00:51:42 | |
As much as I would love to cut that spending. | 00:51:44 | |
We're already in a contract. | 00:51:46 | |
And so that. | 00:51:48 | |
Is something I definitely agree with you on, it's just. | 00:51:50 | |
Umm, not, not an option. Excuse me? | 00:51:55 | |
Appetite for cutting? | 00:52:02 | |
Because if there isn't, it's not, it's a waste of time, right? | 00:52:04 | |
I'm going to say again. | 00:52:07 | |
Everybody has an appetite for meaningful creative cutting. I'm speaking for all of you, but tell me if I'm wrong. | 00:52:10 | |
Anybody who? | 00:52:16 | |
If you brought something meaningful to the table. | 00:52:18 | |
That didn't. | 00:52:21 | |
Didn't take away from the quality of life of the people. | 00:52:22 | |
The service. | 00:52:25 | |
Demanded by the community. | 00:52:27 | |
And it was. | 00:52:30 | |
Well thought out. | 00:52:32 | |
Everybody here at this table is open to that discussion. | 00:52:34 | |
I have not heard tonight. | 00:52:37 | |
One person that said they're against cutting. | 00:52:39 | |
It's how do you want to cut and is it meaningful? | 00:52:42 | |
I would really love for Brett to have time. | 00:52:46 | |
I feel like he's. | 00:52:50 | |
Yeah, my feeling about it is. | 00:52:56 | |
I think it is very worthwhile for us to evaluate how we're spending our money. | 00:53:00 | |
I'm I actually believe that our city is understaffed. | 00:53:06 | |
Based on our size. | 00:53:11 | |
Now is our staff. | 00:53:13 | |
Appropriately allocated. | 00:53:16 | |
That I don't know. | 00:53:18 | |
So are we efficient in how we're staffing our city? That, I think, is a very worthwhile conversation. | 00:53:19 | |
But in terms of staff to provide the services. | 00:53:27 | |
That we want and to accomplish the goals that we have as a city, as council. | 00:53:31 | |
I actually believe we're understaffed. | 00:53:37 | |
Yeah, I do think it'll be it'll be good to. | 00:53:39 | |
Really dive into these as staff puts forward. | 00:53:46 | |
Their needs and requests and goals. | 00:53:49 | |
To take in these conversations into consideration. | 00:53:53 | |
So please, if you have additional things. | 00:53:57 | |
Send them to the Council. | 00:54:00 | |
Council review them. We can always come back to a situation like this, otherwise what we'll do. | 00:54:02 | |
Is we will start going into our regular budgeting process. | 00:54:07 | |
Which you will be meeting with. | 00:54:12 | |
Our staff and sitting down and going through things and you'll be able to. | 00:54:14 | |
Have conversations with our finance team and start working with. | 00:54:20 | |
Brett and. | 00:54:25 | |
Myself and Eric and. | 00:54:27 | |
Christie and probably. | 00:54:29 | |
LRB and a whole crew of people to answer any questions that you might have. So we'll start that process, but if anybody wants to | 00:54:31 | |
do this again. | 00:54:35 | |
I'm more than happy. | 00:54:39 | |
To facilitate this. | 00:54:41 | |
I just want to add it is really. | 00:54:44 | |
Delegate to talk about staffing and everything and not recognize the great people that do work for our city. | 00:54:48 | |
It's hard to kind of come in and be like. | 00:54:53 | |
Hey I I don't know about this or moving things because it's not a reflection of the individual. | 00:54:55 | |
Because they're great people and they probably work hard. It's, it's a reflection of like what? | 00:55:02 | |
What service are they and is that adequate And so I hope staff or don't take away like. | 00:55:06 | |
Oh, it's this specific person because it's not right they. | 00:55:12 | |
We have so many great individuals. | 00:55:15 | |
I also think it's tough to take that back. It's hard. | 00:55:18 | |
You know, I've been a government auctioneer for 17 years. I still do government contracts for that. | 00:55:23 | |
And. | 00:55:29 | |
It is hard to, and I mean this in the nicest way, but. | 00:55:31 | |
Department staff obviously don't ever want to cut budget because it's their budget and it's their people and it's they like and so | 00:55:36 | |
like I always. | 00:55:39 | |
I want department heads to feel like the door is open to be able to listen to him. | 00:55:43 | |
But at the same time, I'm more interested in talking with this group of like is that or is that not? | 00:55:48 | |
Because it's us making that decision of if that is, you know, a service that we need or not. | 00:55:55 | |
I mean, I know there's a difference of opinion of. | 00:56:02 | |
I believe we could run and administer this. | 00:56:05 | |
Government about 10% of the size. Like with a cut. | 00:56:07 | |
But obviously, you know, but I'm not going to get offended and I appreciate the time. | 00:56:12 | |
Exploring options. | 00:56:17 | |
All right, that brings us to the close of the meeting. I will say just on a last note, I think that. | 00:56:20 | |
That's why this forum is here, that's why we're having this discussion and that's why we go into discussions with the council and | 00:56:26 | |
the council ultimately has to make those hard decisions and the staff has always been good at respecting that side of the table. | 00:56:32 | |
Where we have to come to? | 00:56:38 | |
I love the comments here about how we have. | 00:56:41 | |
We have really been streamlined and we can always look for ways to be more efficient and find out if we are being efficient and | 00:56:45 | |
when we find that assessment. | 00:56:50 | |
I hope that we respect that assessment. | 00:56:55 | |
As we move forward and really. | 00:56:58 | |
Taking and holding two things at the same time, which I'm just going to say it again because everybody needs to understand it. | 00:57:01 | |
We. | 00:57:09 | |
Always want to cut because we all. | 00:57:10 | |
Pay property tax and taxes. | 00:57:13 | |
We also recognize the demands of the base level services that we provide. | 00:57:17 | |
And we have to be aware of them so that when the people are requesting or requiring certain things of us for their dollars to be | 00:57:22 | |
spent efficiently and transparently, that we are managing that with care. | 00:57:29 | |
And so with that. | 00:57:36 | |
We will move into the regular budget process unless I get any further requests and. | 00:57:38 | |
Will go and I'm going to give us just a small break. We'll be a little bit. | 00:57:43 | |
Late for the next meeting as we transfer. | 00:57:47 | |
Our minutes over. Thank you. | 00:57:50 |
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OK, Mayor, should be good. | 00:00:03 | |
Yeah, all the rest. | 00:00:30 | |
Yes, it is. | 00:00:37 | |
Yeah. | 00:00:39 | |
OK, thanks. | 00:00:42 | |
All right. I just want to let everybody know that the meeting has started. Today is Wednesday, March 12th. | 00:00:56 | |
2025 the time is 504. | 00:01:03 | |
And right now we are just gathering some food and coming back and then we'll start our meeting. | 00:01:06 | |
We're kind of on a tight timeline, so we're going to start out with probably 10 minutes for each council person to just talk about | 00:01:13 | |
some of the things that. | 00:01:17 | |
We went over a high level in the budget retreat. | 00:01:22 | |
Where they kind of just talked about how they were spending and some requests from council about what the overall ultimate top | 00:01:25 | |
three goals were. And this is where we're going to talk about more of our individual priority priorities. | 00:01:32 | |
Then what we'll see are actual requests that come in from our staff and we'll start to break those down and we'll move through the | 00:01:40 | |
regular budget process that we do each year. | 00:01:45 | |
So that's where we are. | 00:01:51 | |
If you guys want to go ahead and start having discussions if you feel like you've already gotten what you need. | 00:01:54 | |
Actually, Sarah is about to pop in so. | 00:02:00 | |
Sarah, we are just going to. | 00:02:04 | |
There's some food that staff got in the. | 00:02:06 | |
Break room that you can run and grab and then we're just going to go around the table and take about. | 00:02:09 | |
10 minutes each to talk about. | 00:02:14 | |
Our priorities. | 00:02:16 | |
And then we will kind of have a wrap up for the last few minutes and then we'll go into our regular scheduled meeting. | 00:02:18 | |
So I'm going to run in there really quick. | 00:02:28 | |
I'll be very fast. | 00:02:30 | |
And then? | 00:02:31 | |
We can start and if you guys want to go ahead and start, you can do that too. | 00:02:32 | |
Actually, it might be appropriate to wait for Eric just in case he has. | 00:02:37 | |
Any commentary on? | 00:02:41 | |
What happened to the budget routine? | 00:02:44 | |
Good. | 00:03:11 | |
Oh no. | 00:03:22 | |
Yeah. | 00:03:50 | |
Go ahead and get started. Who wants to go? | 00:04:12 | |
First, Eric, do you want to? | 00:04:13 | |
Go ahead and give just a brief rundown of what we talked about with the top priorities that were mentioned, the top 4. | 00:04:16 | |
Or were there 5? | 00:04:21 | |
OK, so. | 00:04:45 | |
Just last week we held a. | 00:04:47 | |
Council budget retreat. | 00:04:49 | |
It was a great activity. We spent the time up at the Mill Creek City Hall. | 00:04:52 | |
And went over. | 00:04:58 | |
Both goals and priorities and also kind of a 10 year vision and so of the. | 00:05:00 | |
What we did as a as an activity was. | 00:05:05 | |
Help the Council. | 00:05:09 | |
Think out 10 years. | 00:05:11 | |
And in that exercise. | 00:05:13 | |
Look for the hurdles that we as a city as we grow to. | 00:05:17 | |
You know, say double the size in 10 years. | 00:05:22 | |
What hurdles might we encounter along the way? | 00:05:25 | |
And how could we? | 00:05:29 | |
Think today of what we could do to avoid those hurdles. | 00:05:31 | |
And so it was a great exercise. And then at the end of the meeting. | 00:05:35 | |
We pulled specific goals and priorities from council members, having had that exercise kind of in the back of their mind. | 00:05:39 | |
And landed on. | 00:05:45 | |
The top priorities being economic development. | 00:05:47 | |
Public safety. | 00:05:50 | |
Community engagement and communication. | 00:05:51 | |
And infrastructure and facility amenities. | 00:05:54 | |
OK, so today. | 00:05:58 | |
We wanted to kind of get any. | 00:06:00 | |
Implementation type strategies. | 00:06:02 | |
Kind of dive in just a little bit deeper to give some ideas to staff as we work towards. | 00:06:05 | |
Pulling together a tentative budget and we had a broad spectrum of infrastructure. | 00:06:10 | |
That meant all sorts of things. It was like water, roads, power, all sorts of. | 00:06:15 | |
Utilities. | 00:06:20 | |
As our overall long term goals so. | 00:06:22 | |
Let's just go around the table. | 00:06:25 | |
Umm, so we can kind of kick this off and get moving. Who's ready? | 00:06:28 | |
I'm just going to go ahead and call on you. | 00:06:35 | |
Because you're here. | 00:06:36 | |
You're not ready. | 00:06:38 | |
So what exactly? | 00:06:39 | |
I mean, I know. | 00:06:43 | |
I'll give you a briefing on. | 00:06:46 | |
Last year you guys had this really good idea to kind of get into the weeds of what you guys cared about. | 00:06:47 | |
And just take time. I know Jake had a request where he wanted to kind of do a presentation and get into the finer details of what | 00:06:52 | |
budgeting really meant and what his priorities were. | 00:06:58 | |
And last year you had this great idea, It was your idea to bring this kind of to this type of forum. | 00:07:03 | |
And so I thought, let's repeat it. | 00:07:08 | |
And let's let's keep it going. | 00:07:11 | |
And if really we come to the same discussion, then we're on the same page and we make all of the same movements and. | 00:07:13 | |
For me, I know that my top priorities remain in those categories. | 00:07:20 | |
And if we want to get into the weeds, I'm happy to negotiate or discuss them. But if you have anything you really want to like | 00:07:24 | |
touch base on right now. | 00:07:27 | |
I think that's the time to do it. | 00:07:31 | |
Is in this. | 00:07:33 | |
Sphere. | 00:07:35 | |
So. | 00:07:36 | |
We've had a lot of discussion about, not a lot of. | 00:07:39 | |
But some. | 00:07:42 | |
Discussion about. | 00:07:43 | |
Restriping third W because we could easily double the parking there with minimal expense. | 00:07:45 | |
And Morgan seemed to think that. | 00:07:51 | |
It could be accomplished in this year's budget and I think that would be really valuable for now and. | 00:07:53 | |
In the long term. | 00:07:58 | |
Oh, we're taking notes. Good. | 00:08:00 | |
So that's great one. | 00:08:03 | |
OK. | 00:08:04 | |
I was just going to say. | 00:08:09 | |
I had the opportunity to attend the skate park meeting. | 00:08:11 | |
And I was shocked at how many people. | 00:08:14 | |
Were there and excited. | 00:08:18 | |
It put our council meetings to shame. There were just so many people in the community that are. | 00:08:20 | |
Just really hoping that we can move forward on this. | 00:08:25 | |
And I think for all the Parks and Recreation programs, I think this is something that definitely has momentum. | 00:08:28 | |
And so as a council. | 00:08:33 | |
With whatever we can put towards Parks and Recreation, I hope that this would. | 00:08:35 | |
Priority in that department. | 00:08:39 | |
OK. | 00:08:40 | |
One of the things that. | 00:08:42 | |
Now that you bring up parks, that I think is really exciting as we've been prioritizing and looking at cemeteries. | 00:08:44 | |
And working with developers on it. | 00:08:50 | |
I think we should keep that in our view. I I consider that to be part of our infrastructure and our facilities that we talked | 00:08:52 | |
about in the retreat. | 00:08:56 | |
But I think that needs to be at the forefront because it's a cost. | 00:09:01 | |
And it's something that we have generations of people that are. | 00:09:05 | |
Are looking at that right now. And So what does that timeline look like for Vineyard? | 00:09:09 | |
I just wanted to set. I'm different. | 00:09:16 | |
Than most I just wanted to set a budget line on and get an appetite for. | 00:09:19 | |
Total spending. | 00:09:24 | |
Across the board of like. | 00:09:26 | |
Where are we and are you guys all? | 00:09:28 | |
Because that's kind of what I do with the. | 00:09:31 | |
Budget with my family is like. | 00:09:33 | |
This is what I meant. | 00:09:36 | |
And see, because if we're not there to cut. | 00:09:38 | |
I'm very small in this conversation, but. | 00:09:43 | |
I see that in the total overall budget we could cut between 10 and 12% of the total city budget. | 00:09:46 | |
I think there's a lot that could, but if there's no appetite for. | 00:09:54 | |
Where and how then? | 00:09:57 | |
You know, you guys can come. | 00:09:59 | |
Conversation on things you'd like to have. | 00:10:01 | |
I think that. | 00:10:04 | |
Umm, these conversations. I want to add to that because I think the conversation we're having now. | 00:10:06 | |
Are not necessarily things we want to add. | 00:10:12 | |
But things that we want to focus on. | 00:10:16 | |
There are currently things that we're discussing. | 00:10:19 | |
And I I don't think you're so different. | 00:10:21 | |
Everybody here wants to be fiscally conservative, so I think we can all get on that page with you and if you have ideas. | 00:10:24 | |
About where to cut, We are always looking for places to cut. | 00:10:30 | |
And save the people of Vineyard. | 00:10:34 | |
Their tax dollars. So if you're finding stuff, shoot us a list if you have them before you go ahead and bring them because that's | 00:10:38 | |
something that we want to hear. | 00:10:42 | |
And I think everybody. | 00:10:46 | |
In the same vein. | 00:10:48 | |
Is either cutting? | 00:10:50 | |
Or honing in on priorities to make sure. | 00:10:52 | |
That we are only spending what we need. | 00:10:56 | |
To to my husband's dismay. | 00:11:00 | |
The hill. The slide hill. | 00:11:03 | |
Was cut like 200,000 last year. | 00:11:04 | |
To go to 30. | 00:11:07 | |
So there were significant cuts. Jake, is there anything on your mind right away that you wanted to share? Like I would love to | 00:11:09 | |
hear it. | 00:11:12 | |
Yeah, and I think it's good to set the table of like. | 00:11:17 | |
When staff like the difference between a staff desire that could be added to a budget. | 00:11:20 | |
That wasn't included. I don't view that as a cut, I view that as a. | 00:11:27 | |
We didn't add something to the budget. So I'm more looking towards when I say cut, I'm looking at we actually spent and we are | 00:11:31 | |
cutting that not like. | 00:11:35 | |
Hey, they gave us all these. | 00:11:40 | |
Imaginary or desired things and we didn't include them. | 00:11:41 | |
I believe that our communications department and also. | 00:11:48 | |
HR Department. | 00:11:53 | |
I think that. | 00:11:56 | |
It's not a necessity. It's kind of an, it's a kind of a nice to have, but not really a necessity. | 00:11:59 | |
I mean, I'm going to be very flexible. I'm not. | 00:12:06 | |
I obviously don't have. | 00:12:08 | |
The votes on certain things, so I think. | 00:12:10 | |
If I'm. | 00:12:12 | |
Understanding the room. | 00:12:13 | |
That I need to be very flexible on what you guys would be willing to do it? | 00:12:14 | |
So I come on bended knee. | 00:12:18 | |
So I'd be more than willing to look at other ways to cut, but I I think their software is, I think I told you those softwares | 00:12:19 | |
before. | 00:12:23 | |
Can I answer to 1 of yours? I think I'm very open to. | 00:12:27 | |
Your creativity for cutting budgets and becoming thoughtful in communications, I would say with our goals on transparency and over | 00:12:32 | |
communication and making sure that people have as much access as possible. | 00:12:39 | |
Our staff are very overworked right now and wearing multiple hats. | 00:12:46 | |
So we would have to decide the type of service we want to provide to the residents #1. | 00:12:50 | |
We'd have to talk about how we're going to get creative, whether it's a software or something that you're talking about with. | 00:12:56 | |
Within these departments and then. | 00:13:02 | |
Really hone in on what you're looking for. | 00:13:05 | |
As far as what that what cutting those areas look like, especially with it being one of our top priorities. | 00:13:07 | |
For me. | 00:13:13 | |
Jake, what do you want me to rundown the whole list? | 00:13:16 | |
I think X Factor. | 00:13:20 | |
I think Qualtrics I think are. | 00:13:22 | |
Lobbyists, I think, are. | 00:13:23 | |
HR department could shrink down or even become. | 00:13:26 | |
A contract situation. | 00:13:30 | |
I know looking in previous past. | 00:13:32 | |
Years that saved a ton of money. | 00:13:34 | |
Outsourcing that to a consultant. | 00:13:37 | |
Especially for the city architect. I've seen a lot of cities do that. | 00:13:39 | |
I think that our department heads can take a larger role in communication and doing social media. | 00:13:44 | |
To do that. So that's kind of somewhere that I see there. | 00:13:51 | |
I I think that. | 00:13:57 | |
That's just let me walk through this. | 00:14:03 | |
I did a yellow line on everything. | 00:14:06 | |
But I also don't want to waste a lot of people's time. | 00:14:09 | |
It's like, hey, I don't find agreement on these. | 00:14:13 | |
I think the capital projects could be delayed or pushed off. Obviously, I disagree on the City Hall and timing of that. | 00:14:30 | |
I thought that we could have done that with the fire department, but the $1,000,000 could also be helped to. | 00:14:38 | |
You know, circumvent that so that we could go back to the regular tax. | 00:14:45 | |
Before which $1,000,000. | 00:14:49 | |
Well, we already spent that, but. | 00:14:51 | |
Yeah, on last year's. Yeah. So that's how you've been spent. On what? | 00:14:53 | |
On the. | 00:14:57 | |
This we already spent it on the building and the city. | 00:14:58 | |
You're talking about the architecture and the engine architecture. The design on City Hall, not on fire station. | 00:15:03 | |
I think so. Oh yeah, good clarity. | 00:15:10 | |
He did say fire station, right? I meant like. | 00:15:13 | |
That was one of my goals for last year, was to redirect that. | 00:15:16 | |
RDA money to the fire stations that we didn't have to do the increase. | 00:15:19 | |
But to clarify, that wasn't for the building the increases for the. | 00:15:24 | |
The actual operations we saved up for the building and that can't come out of capital funds. | 00:15:28 | |
Or RDA? No, the building of the City Hall could have been used by the RDA and then the. | 00:15:33 | |
General Ledger fund, the ones that we did use and save up could have been moved over. | 00:15:39 | |
We as an RDA can choose where those funds go. | 00:15:44 | |
We verified that. | 00:15:47 | |
It's in the past like we already did the tax rate increase, but. | 00:15:50 | |
I'll send out some provisions that clarify that. | 00:15:54 | |
For the Council. | 00:15:57 | |
So, well, I think we verified that already that the RDA can choose what that. | 00:15:59 | |
We verified that in June. I think there's specific provisions that we can read through and and verify it. | 00:16:05 | |
Or understand it. | 00:16:11 | |
I think. | 00:16:12 | |
Whether? | 00:16:13 | |
Jamie, we. | 00:16:15 | |
We verified that right. | 00:16:16 | |
That RDA funds can be used for infrastructure, whether it be the City Hall. | 00:16:19 | |
Or the fire station. We could have used the $1,000,000 for this for the fire station. | 00:16:24 | |
And then that money that was in general fund or capital projects could have been moved for the staffing of the fire. | 00:16:29 | |
The Ras. | 00:16:36 | |
The RDA body controls those rules. | 00:16:37 | |
I think you'll want to put that question. | 00:16:40 | |
Well, we already sent that through in June, and he'd already got back. | 00:16:44 | |
It sounds as though you're saying that RDA Capital projects funds could have been transferred to cover operations. No cover | 00:16:47 | |
station. | 00:16:51 | |
It could have been switched to for the building of the fire station. | 00:16:56 | |
Got it. | 00:17:00 | |
And then the funds the capital projects into the general fund. | 00:17:03 | |
Correct. Or kept in the general fund. | 00:17:07 | |
To avoid the tax rate increase. | 00:17:12 | |
But but I'm open to you guys. Like obviously I live there 10 to 12% that could be. | 00:17:14 | |
I agree with you on the like. | 00:17:23 | |
I didn't want to raise taxes last year either, that was. | 00:17:25 | |
It was devastating to have to do that. | 00:17:29 | |
I want my neighbors to still like me. | 00:17:31 | |
But what I was seeing is it wasn't just one year, it was. | 00:17:35 | |
We were continually going to have to increase our fire and public safety staffing. | 00:17:39 | |
So I wanted to make sure that. | 00:17:44 | |
If we were going to do it, we do it now before we get into a worse or worser. | 00:17:46 | |
Worse situation. | 00:17:52 | |
Yeah. And so I don't feel that that was us being frivolous. | 00:17:53 | |
And we were adjusting the tax rate. | 00:17:58 | |
To what it's been in the past. | 00:18:00 | |
And obviously we don't have to dive into all of this as a debate because I think we'd be wasting our time with other conversation | 00:18:02 | |
topics. You know what I don't. I don't think this is a waste because I think the real thing that you are discussing is the city | 00:18:06 | |
centre. | 00:18:10 | |
You're talking about a facility that we are positioning ourselves into and. | 00:18:15 | |
I believe Jake is saying we could have spent this money elsewhere and your conversation is relevant because you're saying. | 00:18:21 | |
You can't live off one time monies. | 00:18:27 | |
To pay for something that we could inject into operations for one year in hopes that we would have one time monies for operations | 00:18:31 | |
the next year. | 00:18:35 | |
Because inflation had risen so much and even with the small tax increase that we only took back down to 2000. | 00:18:40 | |
19 numbers. It didn't actually get us all the way there to cover our fire operations. | 00:18:47 | |
And so even if we were able to cut everything that you're saying. | 00:18:53 | |
I don't believe that would bring us to those numbers either, but. | 00:18:57 | |
When we talk about timing, and I guess this is where I'll put out my. | 00:19:01 | |
My two cents on your cutting of the city center. | 00:19:05 | |
And facilitating. | 00:19:09 | |
Motion and what we do and don't need. | 00:19:12 | |
We are. | 00:19:15 | |
In a place where we have people working in the hallway. | 00:19:17 | |
And we have people. | 00:19:22 | |
Sharing rooms. | 00:19:24 | |
And we are losing our conference room because we have to grow. We're in multiple facilities. | 00:19:26 | |
That do not have space inside of them. | 00:19:33 | |
We have had to buy. | 00:19:36 | |
Little what are those things called trailers where we were having office space that we had to use for? | 00:19:38 | |
Storage. | 00:19:45 | |
We are actually so fiscally conservative that we've been splitting ourselves apart to do this, and even now. | 00:19:47 | |
We are not building a City Hall. We're building a center that's jointly shared with other groups so that we can insert ourselves | 00:19:55 | |
into a floor. | 00:19:59 | |
And reduce the costs on the people of. | 00:20:03 | |
Still. | 00:20:07 | |
Not truly providing the needs of the city, but. | 00:20:07 | |
Still making us all fit into weird hallway spaces and things like that. And our staff have been delightful in being accepting of | 00:20:12 | |
working in hallways, which is. | 00:20:17 | |
Phenomenal. | 00:20:22 | |
But when we say, are we ready for this or do is it the time? | 00:20:23 | |
I disagree I'm I've watched our city where multiple hats and when we say we. | 00:20:29 | |
We need less employees. | 00:20:35 | |
Our ratios for. | 00:20:37 | |
Our employees to our citizens and the services that the people of Vineyard demand. | 00:20:39 | |
Are so. | 00:20:45 | |
There's an expanse between those two things. | 00:20:48 | |
And so if we want to talk about. | 00:20:51 | |
Cutting we have to talk about services and we have to talk about reducing services and that's really important. It has to be part | 00:20:54 | |
of our discussion as a council. | 00:20:59 | |
And we have to be open about that with the people of Vineyard. | 00:21:04 | |
And uh. | 00:21:07 | |
Part of that is. | 00:21:07 | |
That's our police. That's our fire. Because Vineyard has no amenities. We are not providing any exciting things. We. | 00:21:10 | |
Pay for most of our events out of sponsors and we we mostly just pay for your water, your trash, your sewer, your police, your | 00:21:19 | |
fire. | 00:21:24 | |
That's what we're paying for basic government. | 00:21:30 | |
And so. | 00:21:33 | |
Cost right now. | 00:21:34 | |
As we consider it. | 00:21:36 | |
I We have to be thoughtful and we have to be creative and. | 00:21:38 | |
Putting things off and prioritizing I'm always for, but making sure that we have the right revenue sources and not subsidizing the | 00:21:42 | |
wrong things. | 00:21:46 | |
I think that that's where I can get behind us. But saying we're not ready. | 00:21:50 | |
When we are in the state that we're in, I don't. | 00:21:54 | |
Think I can agree on that. | 00:21:57 | |
I mean, I cannot agree on that. | 00:21:59 | |
I would just. | 00:22:04 | |
Oh. | 00:22:06 | |
I would just say on a point of order, I agree that the. | 00:22:07 | |
Fund would would not have made-up for the fire department. | 00:22:11 | |
Staffing in last year's budget. | 00:22:15 | |
However, the same logic you guys or the council is currently using on we're banking on future growth of the grocery store and | 00:22:18 | |
McDonald's to be able to fund that. | 00:22:23 | |
It we could have banked that future growth on the staffing of the fire department. And so that's why I think it's troublesome is | 00:22:28 | |
because. | 00:22:32 | |
We're now going to bank on future growth for. | 00:22:37 | |
The possibilities of being able to fund that and I also so I agree with you, you'd still have a shortfall, but. | 00:22:41 | |
Now we're. | 00:22:47 | |
Going to do the staffing and the fire station. | 00:22:48 | |
To your point though, the other thing about. | 00:22:52 | |
The uh, uh. | 00:22:55 | |
City Hall, I think the debate isn't. | 00:22:57 | |
If we agree on a City Hall. | 00:22:59 | |
I think it's the size and scope. | 00:23:01 | |
Of it. | 00:23:04 | |
And I think A2 or $3,000,000 building or even taking the $1,000,000 building and buying a home. | 00:23:05 | |
Or there's actually somebody write down in the. | 00:23:11 | |
In the by the. | 00:23:14 | |
Theater. I forget the. | 00:23:17 | |
What's it called? | 00:23:19 | |
The the yard. | 00:23:20 | |
There's an open office space in the art I just right, right next to Chubby's. That could be a temporary thing. | 00:23:23 | |
I like the idea of buying a home. | 00:23:28 | |
But we're debating last year and you guys have already moved forward and I really want to talk more about. | 00:23:31 | |
This year and the appetite for. | 00:23:36 | |
Any cuts or if it is of this body to. | 00:23:39 | |
Either maintain the current growth or maintain. | 00:23:44 | |
Or is this body going to be? | 00:23:47 | |
Increasing the spend and his staff going to be adding. | 00:23:49 | |
Desired increases. I just wanted to understand kind of the lay of the land. | 00:23:53 | |
Politically, where things stand. | 00:23:59 | |
I don't think we are debating last year. I think we're debating current priorities and the city center is on the table for us. | 00:24:02 | |
As we've discussed it and we voted on it and. | 00:24:08 | |
Prioritizing that will come up in the future and so it is currently on our budget, so. | 00:24:11 | |
I think the Council has to be aware of it and if you have ideas for how to save the city costs, you bringing them forward is very | 00:24:16 | |
important. | 00:24:20 | |
A lot of the things that were submitted after and should have been submitted before I think would have been more helpful to us. | 00:24:24 | |
But I think any opportunity for those discussions just so we can understand it better. | 00:24:31 | |
Personally, for me to understand you better or to understand where you're coming from, it would always be helpful so that I can | 00:24:37 | |
make sure that I'm assessing it properly. | 00:24:41 | |
Anybody else have any other things to add? | 00:24:46 | |
Yeah, on the on the. | 00:24:50 | |
City Hall. | 00:24:52 | |
And as that as that comes up. | 00:24:54 | |
I one of the questions I have, Jake, you were saying? | 00:24:56 | |
That you thought we could get away with a temporary 2 to $3,000,000 building, is that correct? | 00:25:01 | |
Correct, if we were. I mean not a temporary. | 00:25:05 | |
You think that would be permanent? | 00:25:09 | |
I mean, if you look at the history of city halls like Provo building theirs and what the late 1970s or 80s and and then now they | 00:25:10 | |
had to tear it down 40 or 50 years later for us to plan and build something for build out. Now you've started the clock on the | 00:25:16 | |
lifespan of that building and. | 00:25:22 | |
40 or 50 years later, you're tearing it down South. I hate to build like. | 00:25:28 | |
Like an infant buying an adult pair of shoes. It's like. | 00:25:31 | |
You know, like, hey, we're not, we're not there yet to build an adult. My question is if you know how much this building cost that | 00:25:35 | |
we've already outgrown? | 00:25:38 | |
This one of when we built it originally, I went and met with Dawn Overson. | 00:25:42 | |
A little while back to understand it, I think at the time. | 00:25:47 | |
What were we, one or 2 million? | 00:25:50 | |
At the time, I mean, I don't know the answer I'm at. I'm, I'm asking just under 2 million. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm saying like the | 00:25:52 | |
cost of the dollar to build now probably 2:00 to 3:00. | 00:25:57 | |
Right. I mean, Anderson provided the property. | 00:26:04 | |
For this building. So I mean we didn't need to include that. | 00:26:08 | |
Right. And we have land from. | 00:26:11 | |
Flagship to for right? | 00:26:13 | |
For a new building. | 00:26:16 | |
My question is if this building costs just under $2,000,000? | 00:26:18 | |
20 what, eight years ago? | 00:26:23 | |
I don't think it's realistic to think we could get an adequately sized building for $3,000,000. | 00:26:27 | |
That's, I mean, unless we're talking about a steel warehouse with cubicles in it. | 00:26:33 | |
I just don't think that that's. | 00:26:38 | |
Per square foot, I don't think that's going to get us where we need to be. | 00:26:40 | |
Mean worried about? | 00:26:44 | |
11,000 square feet for staff right now across. | 00:26:45 | |
Multiple buildings. | 00:26:49 | |
And the plan that we have right now puts us at 20,000 square feet. | 00:26:50 | |
And we wouldn't even be. | 00:26:55 | |
Attempting to. | 00:26:57 | |
Use all of that 20,000 square feet. | 00:26:59 | |
So I mean, I think. | 00:27:02 | |
Could we get away with a building that is? | 00:27:05 | |
You know, 1617 thousand square feet maybe. | 00:27:09 | |
Are you saying 17,000 square foot building? I'm not sure you can get that for $3,000,000. | 00:27:13 | |
I definitely had three or four different models sent to me. | 00:27:21 | |
Shawn Herring sent one. | 00:27:24 | |
There are quite a few other people. | 00:27:26 | |
Hey. And I was just putting the round 40 employees keeping this building. | 00:27:28 | |
30 to 40 so you would still. | 00:27:33 | |
No, I'm saying we have this building. | 00:27:37 | |
Already still right? | 00:27:40 | |
So. | 00:27:42 | |
Well, I think this building as it was originally. | 00:27:47 | |
Intended would be a public safety building and you'd have police here. Which is what 1015 no 15 ish people. | 00:27:49 | |
1520 people. | 00:27:58 | |
Yeah, so. | 00:28:00 | |
And we're saving for we're building cheaply today. | 00:28:04 | |
To take the tax burden off the people today, but also for future generations, so that. | 00:28:09 | |
We're making sure that we're building. | 00:28:14 | |
In a very wise way that doesn't cost us like right now. | 00:28:16 | |
Consolidating and moving back out of all of the little spaces that were tucked away into. | 00:28:21 | |
And providing the space that we can grow into is an essential part of this, whether people feel it or not, we. | 00:28:28 | |
We will grow as a city. | 00:28:34 | |
The downtown is growing, the grocery store is coming in. Public Works will have to move into those areas. | 00:28:36 | |
Police will have to have coverage, they will have to grow into this building. | 00:28:41 | |
The facilities. | 00:28:45 | |
You have people coming and asking for facilities and recreation and things like that in the park. | 00:28:46 | |
One of the places that Sean Herring put the housing development in the. | 00:28:52 | |
City Hall and is already planned for another facility. | 00:28:57 | |
And so I whether or not you build it in the future or not, I have no idea. | 00:29:01 | |
But umm. | 00:29:06 | |
Trying to do it in a way that is fiscally conservative and. | 00:29:07 | |
Is saving us on land and growth and making sure we can grow into it appropriately are things I think we need to consider. But if | 00:29:11 | |
you have. | 00:29:15 | |
If you have those concepts that you could send over, because I don't think I saw all of the ones that you're talking about, I'd | 00:29:19 | |
love to see them. | 00:29:23 | |
Sean was welcome to come and do a presentation and part. You're right. | 00:29:27 | |
Part of his presentation was like, if you're looking for finances, he could put housing into the. | 00:29:31 | |
Robbins property the the the field, you know the park. | 00:29:38 | |
But it didn't need to be that way. It was just more of how do you financially make that happen? | 00:29:42 | |
I believe his dollar mark was 2 1/2 or 3 million. | 00:29:46 | |
And it was a good. | 00:29:50 | |
It was a good faced effort. Is is that the one that you sent in? That was the 30,000 square foot building. | 00:29:51 | |
Yeah. So there's no way we could build a 30,000 square foot building for two to three million. It's a nice thought, but. | 00:29:57 | |
That's not what the going rate is for. | 00:30:04 | |
Building in any way, shape or form, so I wonder. | 00:30:06 | |
Is there? | 00:30:09 | |
I'm just just to organize this a little bit more. I love that we're having this discussion and I think we can keep going. Did you | 00:30:10 | |
have more that we want to touch on tonight that we could come back to this or should we keep having this discussion? | 00:30:16 | |
I just want to throw available options and just clear up like. | 00:30:23 | |
The housing in the park wasn't a requirement then, the last thing was. | 00:30:26 | |
We own that property over there where the old City Hall is. There's two parking lots that are already there. They could maintain | 00:30:30 | |
the same. | 00:30:34 | |
So this the I love the Utah City wants to give us land, but we already have free land that was donated by the Robbins family. | 00:30:37 | |
For the old City Hall, and it's sitting there as well, we can keep that donation and have that park be like. | 00:30:44 | |
More green space for Utah City and maybe use that for in the future. | 00:30:51 | |
But yeah, and I'm more than happy if the Council's obliged to. | 00:30:56 | |
Have Sean or the other two people? | 00:31:01 | |
Construction wise that we're just like and and I'm with you. | 00:31:03 | |
I'm not saying that you can take all of those buildings and throw it and have all 50 people in one. | 00:31:08 | |
But I don't, I don't think in our current. | 00:31:13 | |
Growth trajectory with the amount of people that. | 00:31:17 | |
I don't want to. Like I said, I don't want to buy. | 00:31:21 | |
Buy adult shoes. | 00:31:24 | |
For when I think we're in grade school right now we're at 15,000 and we're going to be at 60. So we're about 1/4 through our | 00:31:25 | |
lifespan, so I'd say. | 00:31:29 | |
You know of total growth. | 00:31:33 | |
And I don't, I don't really think our goal should be to. | 00:31:35 | |
Build a building of total growth. I think it should be to. | 00:31:39 | |
But also I think there's two separate ideas I think you could do. | 00:31:43 | |
A good sized building of town hall at the park or I think as a temporary thing like we did at the fire station. | 00:31:46 | |
If we are. | 00:31:52 | |
10 cubicles or 20 cubicles short. | 00:31:54 | |
You know, like we did at the fire station, purchasing a particular building for $1,000,000. | 00:31:57 | |
Paying cash for it. | 00:32:03 | |
Giving us five to six years. That land will go up in three to four years. Give us some time to be able to build out into our | 00:32:04 | |
shoes. Maybe we're at. | 00:32:08 | |
2025 thousand population. | 00:32:11 | |
That house, then. | 00:32:13 | |
Appreciates to 1.5. We have a little bit of cash between. | 00:32:15 | |
You're not speaking into a microphone. | 00:32:22 | |
The city is not building any buildings for $1,000,000 right now. The city or the Vineyard Fire Station was approved for $1.7 | 00:32:25 | |
million. | 00:32:30 | |
Our estimate is a $1.5 million build and we put in. | 00:32:35 | |
An extra 200,000 for. | 00:32:39 | |
Incidental costs that we expect to come up so today. | 00:32:41 | |
The cost is not 1,000,000 and so. | 00:32:45 | |
It's just the wrong number. | 00:32:50 | |
Want to be clear on that. What I would say about hold on one second, what I would say about what you were saying Jake is that. | 00:32:51 | |
Go ahead and have them e-mail those proposals in the council. We asked that those proposals be sent to us and some people actually | 00:32:59 | |
said that they would meet outside with those groups. | 00:33:04 | |
That would be really helpful. | 00:33:09 | |
I think we could put something together. | 00:33:11 | |
Because we have somebody working on those costs, we'll see what actual costs look like and so the council will be able to be in | 00:33:14 | |
tune with that. | 00:33:18 | |
As we throw out numbers for population. | 00:33:23 | |
Recently MAG on a conservative level put out 18,000 for our residents and with our. | 00:33:26 | |
What is it called? | 00:33:33 | |
What is it called when we give people their right to own the house? | 00:33:35 | |
Certificate of occupancy numbers are putting us at 22,000. | 00:33:41 | |
The difficulty with just throwing out numbers like 15,000 or 14,000 or 18,000 is when our own numbers internally for certificate | 00:33:46 | |
of occupancy are putting us closer to the 18/20/2000 range. | 00:33:52 | |
I think we need to be aware of that growth and then we additionally because it. | 00:34:00 | |
It really does affect service levels. | 00:34:04 | |
And all of this comes back to service levels. | 00:34:07 | |
Additionally, when we talk about the parks. | 00:34:10 | |
You mentioned that we have some parking lots over there. | 00:34:14 | |
One of the issues that we've been facing council is that. | 00:34:17 | |
We don't have places for people to park in our parks. | 00:34:21 | |
And if there's anything that I know about Vineyard, they really want better parking. | 00:34:24 | |
It's a discussion that we're always talking about. | 00:34:29 | |
But we are growing and we're a very young population and that comes from our children who are in sports, who are in waiting lists | 00:34:32 | |
to get into our rec programs. | 00:34:36 | |
And we will need that parking lot. | 00:34:40 | |
And we have a facility that's pegged for over there that. | 00:34:43 | |
It looks like it has our recreation facilities and other things that the community has voted on. | 00:34:47 | |
And discussed in our general plan and in our central corridor plan of. | 00:34:53 | |
Of wanting something in that park that is local. | 00:34:58 | |
And more tucked in and quiet that they can participate in. And like I said, whether or not we build it. | 00:35:01 | |
You have to pay attention to where those facilities are. | 00:35:07 | |
But when you're talking about 15,000 residents and we're not counting necessarily for all of the people that are here that. | 00:35:10 | |
Has to do with fire response. That has to do with police response. | 00:35:16 | |
And so we really need to be. | 00:35:21 | |
Making sure that we're thoughtful about those things. This is what I'm going to do for this discussion. | 00:35:23 | |
I'm just going to remind everybody that we are. | 00:35:28 | |
Getting close. | 00:35:31 | |
To the end of this discussion, and so if there's anything else we want to talk about. | 00:35:32 | |
Let me know. Otherwise we can continue having this discussion back and forth. It's not a big deal. | 00:35:37 | |
But I don't want us to lose. | 00:35:42 | |
The opportunity to talk about additional things because I think we know there's more to be brought to the table. Jake has some | 00:35:45 | |
concepts he wants to bring in that he can e-mail and have people come and schedule meetings with us. | 00:35:51 | |
And I think we're having our study done that is moving forward that we can present those numbers for clarity for the public. | 00:35:57 | |
And so I feel like we, we understand each other. | 00:36:05 | |
But do you guys want to talk about other things or do you want to? | 00:36:08 | |
OK, the one comment I would I would make just to be clear about where where I am, if you actually have a plan of OK, we could do | 00:36:11 | |
this in this space and this here's how it would grow so that we can. | 00:36:17 | |
You know, if we know that our projections are out to a certain size and that. | 00:36:23 | |
A city of that size has a staffing level that's commensurate with its size. | 00:36:27 | |
If there is a path for that growth and you have alternate plans for that, I would love to see those, yeah. | 00:36:31 | |
Awesome. I can provide that. The $1,000,000 number was the million for the RDA planning, so it should putting 1,000,000 towards. | 00:36:37 | |
The home, let's say we buy a home as a temp like those are the two options where I said hey. | 00:36:46 | |
There's a way to not see a tax rate increase. We could just. | 00:36:51 | |
Buy a home. | 00:36:54 | |
Like we did the fire department, it probably fit 15 to 20 people. | 00:36:56 | |
Give us two to three years or you could do. | 00:36:59 | |
More medium sized City Hall. | 00:37:02 | |
Like I said, like the Sean Herring thing, I just, there's a path to not have to go as big as what I'm saying. But the final thing | 00:37:04 | |
is, is I don't, I don't really want to rehash the past and I think the voters will. | 00:37:10 | |
Determine if it gets on the ballot on the referendum or not, or if they move forward but. | 00:37:16 | |
I think The thing is. | 00:37:21 | |
Is there a propensity for you guys to cut? | 00:37:22 | |
If there is, I'd love to spend time on that like. | 00:37:26 | |
I think as as us over the budget. | 00:37:30 | |
Is that we're aiming to be 5% / 10% over and then that's what we're hitting or are we? | 00:37:33 | |
Because I would like to be in the 10 to 12%. | 00:37:39 | |
Decrease, I think looking over what there is, I think there's cuts to be able to made. | 00:37:41 | |
I know they're hard, I know it's not fun cutting staff. | 00:37:47 | |
I know there's a lot of nice things, but that's kind of where I'm at, so that's why I want to hear from you guys. | 00:37:50 | |
I just want to clarify because you you keep saying that. | 00:37:56 | |
To avoid another tax rate increase. | 00:37:59 | |
So this is. | 00:38:02 | |
This is sales tax. | 00:38:03 | |
There won't be another. | 00:38:04 | |
Tax rate increase. | 00:38:06 | |
The whole the whole purpose of this building is coming from. | 00:38:07 | |
Sales tax. | 00:38:11 | |
Not to tax the citizens. | 00:38:12 | |
So we need to be clear, it's not a general obligation bond, It's not a lease revenue bond, it's a sales tax bond. | 00:38:14 | |
Do you know the difference? | 00:38:20 | |
Yeah, I do. | 00:38:23 | |
And that's the citizens money. OK. No, no, let me, let me interject. | 00:38:24 | |
We explained this last night at our meeting. | 00:38:29 | |
My small business. | 00:38:32 | |
Collected over $12,000 in sales tax. | 00:38:34 | |
Was maybe 5% of that that came from Vineyard citizens. | 00:38:37 | |
The rest of it came from. | 00:38:40 | |
Clients all over the state. | 00:38:42 | |
So, So when you say that the citizens are going to be paying for this new building, it's not true. | 00:38:44 | |
So we need to understand that that's. | 00:38:49 | |
Right. And the language that I'm using is, is whether that be an Orem resident, a PG resident or a visitor residence. | 00:38:51 | |
The second that money comes in. | 00:38:58 | |
It is our money. | 00:39:00 | |
The citizens money, right? | 00:39:02 | |
So it doesn't matter. | 00:39:04 | |
We are then. | 00:39:05 | |
No, no, no. What I'm saying is, is that. | 00:39:07 | |
Sarah said. But it's not a tax rate increase, correct? So what I'm saying is, is that to avoid? | 00:39:10 | |
A tax rate because. | 00:39:15 | |
Where we spent all of that money that we spent all of our sales tax money last year. | 00:39:17 | |
Right. So in order to. | 00:39:21 | |
Keep all of that sales tax rate increase. | 00:39:24 | |
We are going to bond on a sales tax. | 00:39:27 | |
And we're going to set aside and put them in first place, right? | 00:39:30 | |
To say, hey, the first thing we're going to pay is the sales tax bond. | 00:39:33 | |
Which means that. | 00:39:36 | |
And when I know we're baiting on. | 00:39:38 | |
Growth like hey, we are planning on the grocery store and these other things that haven't materialized, but they could. | 00:39:39 | |
And we like the. | 00:39:47 | |
Estimates and we're going low ball dollar, right? | 00:39:49 | |
At the end of the day, that is still citizens money. | 00:39:51 | |
And we're committing towards it. | 00:39:54 | |
And so because that then. | 00:39:56 | |
We could be using that for fire, police, all these other things like. | 00:39:58 | |
Cars or whatever, we, you know, all the things we do. | 00:40:02 | |
That then is pigeonholed that and set aside. | 00:40:06 | |
And they're in the 1st place for the 20 year, however. | 00:40:09 | |
Level that is. | 00:40:12 | |
And so. | 00:40:14 | |
Because of that, that puts us more of our financial home. | 00:40:16 | |
And at risk of. | 00:40:19 | |
Another tax, a property tax for others to make up because that is then. | 00:40:21 | |
Set aside that's that's how I'm saying that so a clarification that I in. | 00:40:26 | |
I want to make sure that I'm. | 00:40:31 | |
Accurate. | 00:40:32 | |
So I'm looking around the room. | 00:40:33 | |
My understanding is that we're required to have a balanced budget. | 00:40:36 | |
Which means that all that sales tax revenue that you say we spent last year. Yeah, we did. | 00:40:39 | |
But it's because we. | 00:40:43 | |
Had to. | 00:40:45 | |
Right. And so part of what we're talking about tonight is? | 00:40:46 | |
We have to spend that. So how do we want to spend it? Well, and let's be really clear. | 00:40:50 | |
We have to spend it. | 00:40:55 | |
We keep a rainy day fund that's allowed to be at a certain level. | 00:40:57 | |
And we had to. | 00:41:02 | |
Because of the level of service needed. | 00:41:05 | |
And what is level of service? | 00:41:08 | |
Which is so important to this discussion. | 00:41:10 | |
Is level of service. | 00:41:13 | |
A Recreation Center. | 00:41:17 | |
It is not in Vineyard. | 00:41:18 | |
A Recreation Center is not what's burdening our cost. | 00:41:20 | |
It is. | 00:41:24 | |
Response times. | 00:41:25 | |
It is making sure. | 00:41:27 | |
That when people call. | 00:41:29 | |
For fire and safety, there are response times. | 00:41:31 | |
It is not just that. | 00:41:35 | |
It is planning. | 00:41:36 | |
Amenities in our community. | 00:41:38 | |
That is the longevity and the quality of life of the residents of Vineyard. | 00:41:40 | |
Those are the recreation programs, the parks. | 00:41:44 | |
The soccer. The baseball teams. | 00:41:48 | |
The people that want to be here and be a part of that, that will come. | 00:41:50 | |
In the city and be a part of it. | 00:41:55 | |
It is water. | 00:41:57 | |
It is the people that take care of the water. | 00:41:58 | |
The people that take care of the snow removal. | 00:42:01 | |
The people that take care of the code enforcement. | 00:42:03 | |
The people that take care of the inspections. | 00:42:06 | |
The people that take care of the finances of the city. | 00:42:08 | |
And when the city calls out for transparency? | 00:42:11 | |
And wants us to post. | 00:42:15 | |
A lot. | 00:42:17 | |
About a lot of things. | 00:42:18 | |
No matter how much we try. | 00:42:19 | |
With our. | 00:42:22 | |
Newsletters and our social media. | 00:42:24 | |
And. | 00:42:27 | |
Press releases in our apps and everything. | 00:42:30 | |
The people of Vineyard want more communication our website. | 00:42:33 | |
Nobody can just have those things, we have to pay for them. | 00:42:39 | |
And so the people of Vineyard, if we were going to do these things and cut. | 00:42:43 | |
We all love cutting meaningfully. | 00:42:48 | |
I haven't met a single person on the City Council that doesn't want to be more conservative with their spending. | 00:42:50 | |
And this Council or the councils before? | 00:42:58 | |
If we want to do this. | 00:43:00 | |
There is no attack greater that we could do it with. | 00:43:03 | |
More efficiently than to say no, we will not be taking care of the trash on Center St. | 00:43:07 | |
On Christmas. | 00:43:14 | |
Anymore. | 00:43:16 | |
We cannot pick up the trash along the trails. | 00:43:17 | |
Of the. | 00:43:21 | |
Of the Park of the Lakeshore. | 00:43:23 | |
Because we have to pay somebody. | 00:43:26 | |
To pick up that trash. | 00:43:28 | |
Those costs the wearing the multiple hats. | 00:43:31 | |
The exchanging. | 00:43:34 | |
Picking up trash for social media, those are the conversations that we're having across the table right now. | 00:43:36 | |
And if you guys want to have them? | 00:43:42 | |
We have to have those conversations with the public. | 00:43:44 | |
One of the things that we did with the tax increase was saying after 20 years of not having taxes. | 00:43:47 | |
After inflation had increased over seven years and our spending had gone down despite. | 00:43:53 | |
Despite all of the things that we've grown into and luckily because of the growth. | 00:44:00 | |
That we were able to capture. | 00:44:05 | |
We've only had to do 1 increase and we didn't even do it to 100% of what we could have done, which would have still been small for | 00:44:07 | |
not doing a tax increase in 20 years just to recoup inflation. | 00:44:13 | |
We weren't actually able to cover. | 00:44:20 | |
What we need to as far as service goes, and because we're not able to cover it entirely, we're still using those one time monies. | 00:44:23 | |
And the people of Vineyard need to know that. | 00:44:30 | |
Because, uh. | 00:44:32 | |
We had this conversation in City Council. | 00:44:33 | |
While we love and support our fire department and we want them operationally to succeed, additionally, we want our police | 00:44:36 | |
operationally to succeed. That's what creates safety in our community. | 00:44:41 | |
And we want our water and our trash and our roads and all of the base services of of why we even exist here to continue. | 00:44:47 | |
And so those are the questions that we have as we cut if you've got a list. | 00:44:56 | |
Of everything that we could cut, I would love to see that. I know you read through them briefly. | 00:45:01 | |
But if you send them over to me. | 00:45:06 | |
I will get as creative as possible to say, is there an opportunity for us to split hat, you know, to wear more hats and split | 00:45:08 | |
hairs. | 00:45:11 | |
Or I will say, I just don't think we can do that because. | 00:45:15 | |
This person is already wearing multiple hats from my perspective and I'd be happy to share those with you guys. | 00:45:20 | |
I just want to make sure that. | 00:45:29 | |
You've made this abundantly clear, but just to put a point on it. | 00:45:31 | |
Comparing last year's budget to this year's budget and deciding that last year's budget. | 00:45:36 | |
Could use another haircut. | 00:45:40 | |
This year. | 00:45:43 | |
Needs to take into consideration the fact that our city has not stopped growing. | 00:45:44 | |
And that every year. | 00:45:49 | |
We have that incremental growth and it's not small we we issue. | 00:45:51 | |
On average 500 certificates of occupancy per per year right now. | 00:45:56 | |
And with every group of new individuals. | 00:46:02 | |
Comes an extra demand on police, an extra demand on fire and extra demand on new roads and providing that service and so. | 00:46:05 | |
Cutting from last year to this year. | 00:46:12 | |
As opposed to. | 00:46:14 | |
Growing. | 00:46:16 | |
To the needed degree. | 00:46:17 | |
And we're not asking. | 00:46:19 | |
Explode our budget. We need. We just need to be able to grow. | 00:46:21 | |
You know, one employee here for this and one new sheriff's deputy here or two new sheriff's deputy there. | 00:46:25 | |
We need to be able to make that. | 00:46:32 | |
Incremental growth as our city is growing. | 00:46:34 | |
In that same fashion, yeah. And Sarah, sorry to cut you off. I just wanted to add what you were saying because. | 00:46:37 | |
The grocery store has materialized. | 00:46:43 | |
It is going into construction right now and more businesses have come into operation. | 00:46:46 | |
And so not only are we growing, but our needs are actually changing. | 00:46:52 | |
And so we're going to diversify. | 00:46:57 | |
In what is needed for basic government operations, which I think is a. | 00:47:00 | |
A critical factor when we think about building the foundation. | 00:47:05 | |
Of where we're headed. | 00:47:09 | |
We are the. | 00:47:11 | |
Intermodal hub for transportation. | 00:47:12 | |
For northern Utah County. | 00:47:14 | |
We have a lot of state facilities that run through our community. | 00:47:17 | |
And being aware of that as we continue to grow and understanding the diverse needs and changes that come with grocery stores or | 00:47:21 | |
public safety. | 00:47:27 | |
Our fire or how you do power and water, it's very different in those intersections. | 00:47:33 | |
I just want to say as as you bring up your suggested cuts. | 00:47:41 | |
I think it would be wise to compare. | 00:47:45 | |
Maybe what other cities pay for the same services? | 00:47:48 | |
Because my understanding is that vineyards actually pretty low. | 00:47:51 | |
On on what we pay. | 00:47:54 | |
What our percentages are. So I think it would be really wise to compare. | 00:47:57 | |
Population size. | 00:48:02 | |
Yeah, all of the expenditures you mentioned, Mayor. | 00:48:03 | |
Garbage and all of that. I didn't bring up any of those in my cuts. I brought very specific tailored communications HR. | 00:48:08 | |
Umm, you know. | 00:48:17 | |
A city our size doesn't have a lobbyist or city our size. You know, I don't need to hit all of those things. I think you guys know | 00:48:19 | |
that and I don't. I don't want to go on the campaign trail. Before you do that, I want to respond to what you're saying because | 00:48:24 | |
you did actually mention that our department heads could take on social media. | 00:48:29 | |
My comment was if we are going to exchange their current duties for social media duties, we lose service opportunities. That was | 00:48:35 | |
the clarity. | 00:48:39 | |
Inside of that. | 00:48:44 | |
So even though you didn't mention it, you also mentioned a lot of, I've watched a lot of cities where obviously they're providing | 00:48:45 | |
the information over to the social media person. And then I mean, I'm seeing a lot of Tiktok videos and a lot of different things | 00:48:50 | |
that I just don't think are. | 00:48:54 | |
I think they're nice to have, I think they're fun to have. | 00:48:59 | |
But I don't think a city our size needs to be. Can I just add that I would never want to? | 00:49:01 | |
Pay our city engineer. | 00:49:08 | |
To work on social media. | 00:49:10 | |
I would never want to pay our finance director to work on social media. It's actually cost savings to pay. | 00:49:11 | |
What a social media person gets paid to do their job? | 00:49:17 | |
I you asked you want to hear what the appetite I I don't have an appetite for for firing. | 00:49:21 | |
Anyone in our HR department? | 00:49:29 | |
I also don't have an appetite for firing our social media or communications director tearing them down. | 00:49:31 | |
What do you mean the amount of time I actually have been pushing when they when our social media person left? | 00:49:37 | |
I pushed and pushed and pushed to want to get that person replaced because I've seen what it's like without a social media | 00:49:44 | |
manager. | 00:49:48 | |
Where we weren't having comments. | 00:49:52 | |
We were, we weren't. We didn't have someone to moderate all of that. | 00:49:54 | |
And now we do. We have better communication, better interaction and one of our priorities is community engagement. And so for me | 00:49:58 | |
that is a minimal cost. | 00:50:03 | |
I don't. I feel like if you look at a communications budget. | 00:50:09 | |
I think we're pretty lucky at how affordable our employees are compared to some other. | 00:50:13 | |
Cities or organizations? | 00:50:19 | |
And so specifically I wouldn't have an appetite for that. I don't know about the rest of the council. | 00:50:21 | |
The lobbyist conversation. | 00:50:26 | |
I see so many benefits into. | 00:50:29 | |
Like last year's appropriations that we were able to get and I credit that. | 00:50:33 | |
To our mayor and our lobbyists, hard work. | 00:50:38 | |
And our city manager, Sorry, I don't want to leave you out. | 00:50:40 | |
But. | 00:50:43 | |
I I see a return in investment is what I'm trying to say. I see that when we have. | 00:50:44 | |
A good HR department, then we're going to have better employee satisfaction that they're more likely to do a better job, they're | 00:50:50 | |
more likely to be happy, and we're not going to have a. | 00:50:54 | |
Employee turnover is very expensive. | 00:51:00 | |
When we have to retrain and reinvest in these employees because they're not satisfied or happy or content with the environment | 00:51:02 | |
they're in. | 00:51:06 | |
Having a good HR director helps improve that and so for me when I look at. | 00:51:11 | |
The city. | 00:51:15 | |
As a as a government business where I want to be fiscally responsible, I also want to be smart in making sure that we're | 00:51:16 | |
functioning. | 00:51:21 | |
In a positive manner where we're creating that good environment. | 00:51:26 | |
So I will say. | 00:51:31 | |
That there are other contracts that. | 00:51:34 | |
We are already in. | 00:51:37 | |
That we've discussed over and over until our faces are blue. | 00:51:39 | |
And. | 00:51:42 | |
As much as I would love to cut that spending. | 00:51:44 | |
We're already in a contract. | 00:51:46 | |
And so that. | 00:51:48 | |
Is something I definitely agree with you on, it's just. | 00:51:50 | |
Umm, not, not an option. Excuse me? | 00:51:55 | |
Appetite for cutting? | 00:52:02 | |
Because if there isn't, it's not, it's a waste of time, right? | 00:52:04 | |
I'm going to say again. | 00:52:07 | |
Everybody has an appetite for meaningful creative cutting. I'm speaking for all of you, but tell me if I'm wrong. | 00:52:10 | |
Anybody who? | 00:52:16 | |
If you brought something meaningful to the table. | 00:52:18 | |
That didn't. | 00:52:21 | |
Didn't take away from the quality of life of the people. | 00:52:22 | |
The service. | 00:52:25 | |
Demanded by the community. | 00:52:27 | |
And it was. | 00:52:30 | |
Well thought out. | 00:52:32 | |
Everybody here at this table is open to that discussion. | 00:52:34 | |
I have not heard tonight. | 00:52:37 | |
One person that said they're against cutting. | 00:52:39 | |
It's how do you want to cut and is it meaningful? | 00:52:42 | |
I would really love for Brett to have time. | 00:52:46 | |
I feel like he's. | 00:52:50 | |
Yeah, my feeling about it is. | 00:52:56 | |
I think it is very worthwhile for us to evaluate how we're spending our money. | 00:53:00 | |
I'm I actually believe that our city is understaffed. | 00:53:06 | |
Based on our size. | 00:53:11 | |
Now is our staff. | 00:53:13 | |
Appropriately allocated. | 00:53:16 | |
That I don't know. | 00:53:18 | |
So are we efficient in how we're staffing our city? That, I think, is a very worthwhile conversation. | 00:53:19 | |
But in terms of staff to provide the services. | 00:53:27 | |
That we want and to accomplish the goals that we have as a city, as council. | 00:53:31 | |
I actually believe we're understaffed. | 00:53:37 | |
Yeah, I do think it'll be it'll be good to. | 00:53:39 | |
Really dive into these as staff puts forward. | 00:53:46 | |
Their needs and requests and goals. | 00:53:49 | |
To take in these conversations into consideration. | 00:53:53 | |
So please, if you have additional things. | 00:53:57 | |
Send them to the Council. | 00:54:00 | |
Council review them. We can always come back to a situation like this, otherwise what we'll do. | 00:54:02 | |
Is we will start going into our regular budgeting process. | 00:54:07 | |
Which you will be meeting with. | 00:54:12 | |
Our staff and sitting down and going through things and you'll be able to. | 00:54:14 | |
Have conversations with our finance team and start working with. | 00:54:20 | |
Brett and. | 00:54:25 | |
Myself and Eric and. | 00:54:27 | |
Christie and probably. | 00:54:29 | |
LRB and a whole crew of people to answer any questions that you might have. So we'll start that process, but if anybody wants to | 00:54:31 | |
do this again. | 00:54:35 | |
I'm more than happy. | 00:54:39 | |
To facilitate this. | 00:54:41 | |
I just want to add it is really. | 00:54:44 | |
Delegate to talk about staffing and everything and not recognize the great people that do work for our city. | 00:54:48 | |
It's hard to kind of come in and be like. | 00:54:53 | |
Hey I I don't know about this or moving things because it's not a reflection of the individual. | 00:54:55 | |
Because they're great people and they probably work hard. It's, it's a reflection of like what? | 00:55:02 | |
What service are they and is that adequate And so I hope staff or don't take away like. | 00:55:06 | |
Oh, it's this specific person because it's not right they. | 00:55:12 | |
We have so many great individuals. | 00:55:15 | |
I also think it's tough to take that back. It's hard. | 00:55:18 | |
You know, I've been a government auctioneer for 17 years. I still do government contracts for that. | 00:55:23 | |
And. | 00:55:29 | |
It is hard to, and I mean this in the nicest way, but. | 00:55:31 | |
Department staff obviously don't ever want to cut budget because it's their budget and it's their people and it's they like and so | 00:55:36 | |
like I always. | 00:55:39 | |
I want department heads to feel like the door is open to be able to listen to him. | 00:55:43 | |
But at the same time, I'm more interested in talking with this group of like is that or is that not? | 00:55:48 | |
Because it's us making that decision of if that is, you know, a service that we need or not. | 00:55:55 | |
I mean, I know there's a difference of opinion of. | 00:56:02 | |
I believe we could run and administer this. | 00:56:05 | |
Government about 10% of the size. Like with a cut. | 00:56:07 | |
But obviously, you know, but I'm not going to get offended and I appreciate the time. | 00:56:12 | |
Exploring options. | 00:56:17 | |
All right, that brings us to the close of the meeting. I will say just on a last note, I think that. | 00:56:20 | |
That's why this forum is here, that's why we're having this discussion and that's why we go into discussions with the council and | 00:56:26 | |
the council ultimately has to make those hard decisions and the staff has always been good at respecting that side of the table. | 00:56:32 | |
Where we have to come to? | 00:56:38 | |
I love the comments here about how we have. | 00:56:41 | |
We have really been streamlined and we can always look for ways to be more efficient and find out if we are being efficient and | 00:56:45 | |
when we find that assessment. | 00:56:50 | |
I hope that we respect that assessment. | 00:56:55 | |
As we move forward and really. | 00:56:58 | |
Taking and holding two things at the same time, which I'm just going to say it again because everybody needs to understand it. | 00:57:01 | |
We. | 00:57:09 | |
Always want to cut because we all. | 00:57:10 | |
Pay property tax and taxes. | 00:57:13 | |
We also recognize the demands of the base level services that we provide. | 00:57:17 | |
And we have to be aware of them so that when the people are requesting or requiring certain things of us for their dollars to be | 00:57:22 | |
spent efficiently and transparently, that we are managing that with care. | 00:57:29 | |
And so with that. | 00:57:36 | |
We will move into the regular budget process unless I get any further requests and. | 00:57:38 | |
Will go and I'm going to give us just a small break. We'll be a little bit. | 00:57:43 | |
Late for the next meeting as we transfer. | 00:57:47 | |
Our minutes over. Thank you. | 00:57:50 |