27 Feb Meeting Minutes Feb 1, 2017
Sugar House Community Council Trustee Meeting Minutes
Trustees Present: Mike Bagley, Sally Barraclough, Amy Barry, Landon Clark, Mary Clark, Tina Escobar-Taft, Deborah Henry, Topher Horman, Michael G. Kavanagh, Benny Keele, Steve Kirkegaard, Will Kocher, Susan Koelliker, Eric McGill, Larry Migliaccio, Dave Mulder, Benjamin Sessions, Judi Short, Jason Smurthwaite, George Sumner, Bryce Williams
Trustees Excused: Teddy Anderson
Trustees Unexcused: Laurie Bray, Lucy Hawes, Sue Ann Jones, Rawlins Young
The meeting was called to order at 7:01pm by Landon Clark, Chair SHCC
Motion to approve last month’s minutes was made by Judi Short, seconded by Bryce Williams. The motion passed unanimously with no corrections to the minutes.
Chair Announcements: Landon Clark
Tomorrow night at Hillside Middle School from 5-7:00pm there will be an open-house for the East Bench Master Plan.
Salt Lake City has asked for the SHCC to comment on the zoning regulations for the homeless resource centers. This topic will be on the SHCC Land Use and Zoning agenda for the Feb 13th meeting to be held at 6:00pm in the Sprague Library. The homeless resource centers will be a conditional use for the current zoning regulations.
Secretary Report: Sally Barraclough
Dave Mulder’s petition is expiring this month. He submitted a new petition to continue representing the Grandview area. A new trustee petition was submitted by Cameron Anderson from the Dilworth area. This petition fills the trustee positions for Dilworth. A motion to approve Dave’s petition was made by Bryce Williams and seconded by Amy Barry. A motion to approve Cameron’s petition was made by Sally Barraclough and seconded by Bryce Williams. Both petitions were approved by the board.
Treasurer Report: Larry Migliaccio
Current bank balance is $5462.16 In January there was $680.47 in expenses which was mostly our donation to the holiday lights in Sugar House. We collected $148 in donations and 25 cents interest on the account.
Amy announced that she has registered SHCC for the “Love Utah, Give Utah” campaign that will be happening in March.
Library Announcements: Cherie Kofoed
The Chapman, Day Riverside, and Sprague Libraries have all been targeted for space utilization studies that will be conducted by Margaret Sullivan Studies, and Blaylock & Partners Architecture. They will be making recommendations on how to better utilize the spaces in these branch libraries. Those recommendations may or may not include an addition to the Sprague Library. There are no plans to tear down the building and the consultants are well aware of the historical nature of the building.
The first community outreach session was held yesterday in the Sprague Library. There will be a second meeting on Wednesday Feb 15th at 5:30pm in the Sprague Library. This is the information gathering phase of the process. There is a wall display that allows members of the public to provide input. There are also written questions to provide input. This display will be up for the next two weeks.
Fire Department: Greg Murray, Paramedic Station #3
The Fire Department newsletter will be out tomorrow. Go to http://www.slcfire.com for current updates from the department.
There will be a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Station #3 in April. The new station will be located just south of the Forest Dale Golf Course clubhouse. The decision to build south of I-80 was made because in the event of an earthquake and a freeway collapse, this will be the only city station south of the freeway.
Stats for year end 2016 for Station #3 included 2351 calls, 80% of which were medical calls.
The department wants to remind people to install and maintain smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. They have responded to several carbon monoxide calls this month.
The department lost a colleague this week in a motor vehicle accident. Tyson Mason was driving home from a second job. It was noted that many fire fighters work second jobs to supplement their household incomes. There is a “go-fund me” account set up called “Hearts for Lukas” where you can make a donation. Lukas is Tyson’s newborn son. Zion’s Bank also has an account for donations.
Police Department: Detective Josh Ashdown
Crime numbers for District 7 were down this month. The department arrested two individuals who were breaking into and stealing cars. They are currently in jail. They had stolen a lot of cars so there should be improvement in the stats next month.
Detective Ashdown clarified the police department’s roll in regards to public drug use. If officers witness someone injecting drugs they are arrested on a Class A misdemeanor charge as it is no longer a felony charge. The police seize the drugs and issue a case against them and eventually they receive a warrant to report to court at a later date. They are no longer booked into jail. The change from a felony charge to a misdemeanor charge was a change that was made in the state legislature. If the individual is caught dealing drugs, that is a felony and they will be booked into jail. Individuals who are visibly intoxicated or drug impaired are also booked into jail. Some may be referred to Drug Court which is a district court process.
The laws for panhandling have changed and officers can no longer arrest individuals for simply holding a sign. It is unclear what the laws are regarding people stepping into the lanes of traffic to accept a handout.
The police department works with UTA to keep individuals from camping out along the S-Line including the warehouse areas in South Salt Lake.
Spotlight on Business: Micheal G. Kavanaugh
American Rust – Matt Binyon 825 E, 2100 S
American Rust is a new business in Sugar House that sells antiques, re-purposed art, and vintage items. They are going to start a vintage flee market hopefully by the end of March. They are open 7days a week.
Presentations:
ShopKo Block Redevelopment – Mark Isaac, Westport Capital Partners and Lindsey Ferrari, Wilkinson Ferrari Consulting
This project is the 9.5 acre parcel located where the current ShopKo building is located at 13th East and Stringham Ave.
Wilkinson Ferrari has been soliciting public comment on the redevelopment of this parcel. They did that through business contacts and interviews, meetings with the SH Chamber of Commerce, SH Community Council, SH Rotary, and through an online survey. The online survey had over 2,500 respondents in four weeks, which was very large for this type of survey.
The results of the interviews, meetings, and survey were consolidated into a Public and Stakeholder Engagement Report which can be read on line at http://www.sugarhousehello.com.
They also conducted an “Idea Exploration” session with some of the stakeholders in which people expressed their ideas through use of large maps of the area. There were representatives from the architectural firm that will be working on the project also in attendance. Some of the primary themes that came out of the session included:
- Need for more daytime users
- Reference Sugar House history
- Community gathering spaces, including public space in the lobby of a building
- Building massing and height, smaller buildings
- Esthetics
Mark Isaac hired Hales Engineering to conduct a traffic study investigating opening Stringham Ave through the block which would connect Highland Dr. to 13th East. He feels this would greatly improve traffic flow and connectivity through the area. He foresees using landscaping, parking, and wide sidewalks to slow traffic on the street.
Current zoning would allow office buildings but they must be matched floor for floor with multi-family dwelling units. He is not sure that Sugar House needs more apartment units at this time. He has been approached by many retailers who are interested in the area, but he does not want to take retailers from one area of Sugar House and move them to this parcel.
Mark and Lindsey will be coming back to the SHCC when they have some plans to show the council.
Road Home – Mike Minkevitch, Executive Director
The Road Home is located at 210 South Rio Grande St.
Mike shared information regarding shelter use and the ways the Road Home Agency is addressing overall homelessness in our community.
On any given night as many as 3,000 individuals are receiving some sort of service through this agency. That includes approximately 1,300 men, women, children, and families that are in a shelter setting and another 1,700 which includes 700-800 children that are in rental housing owned by private individuals with rents subsidized by the Road Home in partnership with multiple entities and organizations. This assistance is temporary until the individuals or families can get established and on their own, at which point the Road Home assists others to get them out of the shelter setting.
They have had a steady increase in demand for over the past decade. The Road Home has tried to address this issue in two ways. They provide urgent emergency help first, and second get the individual moved to more permanent housing. Of those using the emergency shelter 87% spend less than 6 months in the shelter, while 13% spend more than 6 months. The average length of stay for the first group is 36 days but the second group averages 577 days. That is why the Road Home Agency is looking for long term solutions for the 13% who use the most emergency shelter services.
Mike provided a handout that summarized Road Home Shelter bed use 2012-2016 and another that provided a Road Home Agency Summary and Highlights. He finished by joining the discussion conducted by the SL County Mayor’s Office.
SL County Mayor’s Office – Homeless Resource Centers
Shaleane Gee, Director of Special Projects SL County and Patrick Reimherr, Representative for SL County to the state legislature
For two years Shaleane has been working with the Collective Impact on Homelessness Steering Committee that has approximately 35 stakeholders including state, county, and city (multiple cities) representatives along with service providers, property owners, and homeless advocates. They are looking for solutions to improve the homeless situation that we are currently experiencing at the Road Home location. Salt Lake County is the major fund provider of our homeless services in the county. Over half of the funding comes from the county.
One component of those recommendations is the Homeless Resource Centers. The county did not have input on the locations of the resource centers, but rather work in a funding capacity only. Funding will be provided based on outcomes for this model.
Shaleane, Patrick, and Mike conducted a question and answer period that provided the following information:
The Collective Impact Steering Committee meets once a month on the second Wednesday in the morning. The meetings are open to the public. They have a website that contains the agendas, meeting minutes and projected budget for building and implementing programs. The link is on the Sugar House Community Council website.
The Steering Committee has recommended a variety of proposals
- Homeless Resource Centers – scattered model
- Residential Rehabilitation Facilities – substance abuse treatment facilities
- Hospice Facilities
Programs would include
- Coordinated entry system for assessment and assignment to a facility
- Ten year initiative to address and end child homelessness
- Affordable housing initiative
The state legislative request for $27million was made last year. They have received the first $9 million that is being held for the construction of the new resource centers.
The scattered site resource centers are not an experimental model. There are national standard practices for how to look at specific populations and how the programs should work. They have been thoroughly researched and vetted looking at utilizing only the best practices.
The “Pay for Success” program is new and unique. This is a service program strictly for financing the centers and programs. Private donors/investors pay for the services and if the services are successful by measurable methods the investor is repaid by the county.
The county was not involved in the city’s decision to spend $7 million dollars on the Simpson parcel. There are still many questions about the finance portion of the scattered shelter proposal that have yet to be answered. There will be more information forthcoming.
It is felt that the only demographic of the homeless population that will fit at the Simpson location would be families with kids. Most if not all would be single women with kids. Most likely this would not draw down the population at the Rio Grande location, but rather work in conjunction with the Midvale Family Shelter. This location would primarily serve people from the Sugar House area and their kids who already attend the local schools. That is what the Collective Impact Committee is recommending.
Shaleane has met with Dr. Marmit, a national figure who has been outspoken about the failures of this type of shelter model. She said that he doesn’t know the context of SL County’s data driven stress testing that has already been conducted.
There is a federal mandate that children be allowed to continue attending the schools that they were attending prior to becoming homeless. That means children at the Road Home are currently being bused around the city.
The county has been developing a system for assessing data streams from different sources. That way they can correlate homelessness data regarding housing, medical needs, criminal justice and others. The scatter resource center model is a data driven model.
The Initiative to Prevent Childhood Homelessness addresses the topic of avoiding disruption of children and their schooling. The new resource center or the family shelter will be housing children who already live in the area and are already attending nearby schools.
No shelter plans will go forward without very specific and vetted funding sources.
The goal of the new model is to provide a service based system, not a shelter based system. That means that different locations and facilities are required to meet the needs of each demographic group. Some demographic groups will require more security than others, some, like the mothers and children shelter, need more integration into the surrounding community. Some need more access to health care than others. Each facility will be different in physical appearance again based on the demographic using the particular center. Outdoor courtyards will allow residents to be outside without having to leave the facility grounds.
The county did not have any say in the location selection process. They had no part in the decision to displace existing businesses. If the Sugar House site goes forward, the county will make sure that the resource facility is funded and that it works as planned. The county knows that the responsibility for success is theirs and they will be doing everything in their power to make that happen.
There will be a Utah State legislative subcommittee meeting regarding the budget for homelessness solutions on Monday morning at 8 am. Call (801) 326- 1698 to sign up to comment.
There are comment cards on the back table. Comments will be forwarded to the mayor’s office.
Meeting Adjourned at 9:00pm
