13 Apr SHCC Meeting Minutes – April 2020
Sugar House Community Council Meeting Notes for April 1st
Reminder for everyone to turn in their census 42% of Salt Lake City has turned in the census, 41.8% has been done online. Deadline is August 14th to turn your census in.
Secretary report by Erika Wiggins
Two petitions have been submitted for reupping Chris Sveiven and George Sumner. Dayna, Shane, Sally and Laurie are also up but will collect their signatures when it is safe to do so but have expressed a desire to stay on as a trustee
Treasurer report not available tonight. Mike is working.
Det. Landvatter report
Crime is done throughout the city. We are still having a slight spike in domestic violence because everyone is home. Reminding everyone to stay home if possible, keep doing social distancing, Still seeing an increase in the curve in Salt Lake County with COVID cases. Judi Short asked about campers in the parking lot west of the liquor store. Starting to swap out groups of officers because of exposure to COVID-19. Sally with a question kids still on playgrounds? Relying on the public but we are short staffed but there is a governor order to stay off the playgrounds. Question from Shane about taping off playgrounds. Any plans to do that? Haven’t heard about that plan yet.
Kristi Swett District 7 school board member
School district has closed all of our playgrounds. We are trying to follow the orders from the governor and the state board of education about the soft close of schools until May 1st and will make adjustments accordingly. We are having our challenges with online learning, internet access, food access, etc.
Bill Knowles with a construction report.
All the projects are still in operation. Lowe’s Property has scaled but a little but are on schedule. Going to start some work on McClelland but will be put off to coordinate with the McClelland reconstruction. Boulder Ventures is over a year late and is currently working on the west building. It is a horrible mess in there. He is expensively going forward and hopes to have the west building open this summer. Working with the city on some street improvements in the fall including a raised crosswalk on Sugarmont. It will be a very nice looking street in a year. Not sure what is going on with the Boys and Girls Club remodel We don’t have a timeline as of yet. Crosswalk at Wilmington at the Legacy Village. The crosswalk light is very close to being resolved. The pieces are ordered and it should be fixed and working within the next 2 weeks. New project at 2700 South and 900 East: 32 residential rental units and a ground floor retail. It should be done by this time next year. It will have underground parking. Snelgrove’s property is under contract by the Thackery Group. The Sugar House Temporary Shelter is expected to close on April 15th and still on schedule to do so. Have not heard about the vet clinic selling. Big D office is staying for the next year and a half on Highland Drive. Clock is ticking on 21st South and the 1100 East road construction projects. Probably need to start discussing because they are within the five year window. Coordinating the cross walks at Elm and Sugarmont with Tom Milar. Need to coordinate with Lowe and Vitek about the McClelland street construction.
Laurie Bray update about the Santa Shack. It has been moved to a spot behind the Game Stop on Highland Drive for the foreseeable future. When COVID-19 is over, a gal from Park City is going to sale her baked goods out of the Santa Shack.
Superintendent of the Salt Lake School District Dr. Lexi Cunningham. Update on the earthquake: Our teams have been through all of our schools and we didn’t see any damage except a crack at Emerson but not sure if it was there before. The district building is okay but has not been retrofitted for earthquake safety. We are home now until May 1st and we are really focusing on two things: the basic needs of our students and the academic needs of our students. 50% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch, maybe a little higher. Since our students have been home we have been doing breakfast and lunch at 20 sites. They come once a day for lunch and pick up breakfast the next day. Currently we are serving about 4800 breakfast and lunches per day. This evening we added dinner at 15 sites. Salt Lake Education Foundation in partnership with the Utah Food Bank are distributing food bags to families on Tuesdays and Thursdays touching about 16,000 people. We have put together hygiene kits and have given our more than 1600 and we can make about 15,000 more if needed. The Salt Lake Education Foundation has a donation site on their website labeled COVID relief. We have seen about $84,000 be donated so far. We also have gift cards donated. We have to meet the kids basic needs. We asked the teachers to get 5 days of lesson plans before spring break just in case. Now we are really moving to new instruction by our teachers. . We have checked out more than 5000 laptops. We also have 200 hotspots for students. We have our K-12 students with laptops and moving ahead with teaching online.
Communication is critical so everyday around 3:00 pm we send an email to our staff and we also send an email everyday to the community and parents. Those come out of my office. It is the most current information. We also have a nightly chat with our administrators. We also have turned 4 or 5 of our schools to be used as daycares for first responders. We have asked all of our employees to stay home and stay safe. We have a lot of hourly employees but we have been able to find work for these hourly employees. Everyone is working together. What can we do to help? Donate to the Salt Lake Education Foundation or the Utah Food Bank. These are great ways to start to help. Support has been amazing across the city. The stimulus out of Washington should put some money back into the school districts.
Benny Keele presented a check from the Sugar House Community Council to the Salt Lake Education Foundation.
Kerri Schlegel is the community rep for Allen Park with an update.
The city has placed Allen Park under contract and it was expected. Without something happening unexpectedly, the city will purchase the property. The group is working on getting a conservation easement with Utah Open Lands. This was a massive step in a right direction. We have moved to taking in donations because the cleanup will be big. SaveAllenPark.org is our website.
Councilwoman District 7 Amy Fowler
Boys and Girls Club is on pause but is still planned to go forward.
The Temporary Shelter is closing on April 15th. We average about 120 people a night, higher nights are 150-175. Certainly concerns over what will happen to the folks staying at the shelter once it does close. The worry is the parks will become a campground. Looking at different city councils to see how they deal with homeless folks, campers, etc. and see how we can become better partners. Looking at using city locations to keep open for COVID-19 cases. Looking at keeping porta potties and sanitation stations open after April 15th. Looking at enforcement at camping at the parks. Looking at not accepting CIP applications from community members this year.
George Sumner update on homeless in Sugar House Park. Funding is tough for police officers so we are looking at security patrols. We are dealing with complaints and it is a struggle because it is a public place. Just can not camp after the park closes.
Tim Cosgrove SLC District 7 Liaison with a city update:
Hope everyone is safe and healthy. CIty employees are working hard to continue city services. Everything is still going. Census has been extended to August 14th. If any damage by the earthquake please let us know. Income taxes have been extended to July 15th. City/county building is still not open.
Committee Updates
Judi Short-Land Use and Zoning
8 Land Use topics this month
April 16th we are having a meeting about a rezone proposal at 2960 Richmond street at 6:00 pm with the developer
April 20th we will have another meeting about the ADUs that are being proposed in various backyards around Sugar House
Levi Thatcher-Transportation
Update on McClelland. Will be an active transportation street that is going to be awesome.
Meggie Troili-Arts, Culture and Events
Power box wrappings looking at funding
Most events are on hold and look forward to keeping everyone updated. Encourage public art in Sugar House. Continue to help encourage all of these developments to install public art. Pumped about Allen Park and hope for our community council to stay involved.
Sally Barraclough-Parks, Open Spaces and Trails
70% design plan for Fairmont Park Stream was presented. Tyler Murdock presented and was offered a lot of feedback.
Backyard Bash is on hold for this year. Will continue to evaluate on a month to month basis.
Meeting Adjourned
