25 Jan SHCC January 2022 meeting minutes
Alright everyone, thanks for coming to the Sugar House Community Council meeting tonight.
Approve the minutes from last meeting. A motion Judi Short, Second Mike Bagley
Treasurer report-Mike Bagley.
Hi everybody. Thanks for coming to the meeting. So January treasure report or balanced US Bank $7,462 and 77 cents. When I logged in earlier today and for December we paid out $80 that was for outreach reimbursement for flyers. We have $620.74 in our Paypal account Looks like it was all generous donations from our trustees.
Erika Wiggins: Micro Grant we received a micro grant in 2021 to obtain the tech needed to create maps of the Sugar House area. The maps are capable of also creating tours.One request that we’ve had repeatedly is to have a map created of public parking within Sugar House. This will also support tours such as the murals. We purchased that from a company called Mapme. And we also paid for some of the tech support that we need to actually implement it on our website and create landing pages that will have these maps live. We initially had talked about purchasing an app, but went with a tool that didn’t require an app download so that it would be more accessible to everyone in the public to get the information that we put there. And our subscription allows two maps so one would be general with chamber members but then also parks and points of interest. Parking all of that would be on there and you’re able to sort that.
Bill Knowles-SLC Ombudsman
Getting through the holidays, pretty quiet, relatively speaking, I mean for Sugar House we certainly had a lot of stuff going on for as long as we can. Remember, it was relatively quiet through the holidays with some projects wrapping up and and kind of opening up the streets and everybody being happy, that’s going to change your pretty soon, not people being unhappy, but the fact is, is going to get busy again. The construction on the Hawklight on Highland Drive is back up and running. This will probably be a 2-3 week deal. There has been a couple of already minor traffic shifting situations there but nothing dramatic and the electrician guys are there right now and they’re going to be followed by the folks that put up the infrastructure for the light poles, etc. that hold up the hotline. So, that will be going on for the next two, three weeks right here in front of Kimi’s Chop House. Sugarmont Apartments are ongoing. They are currently installing the swimming pool and the town homes along McClelland. They think they will be done in the new few months. Demolition will begin on Monday on the building east of the of the old Snelgrove building. This building has been a problem for Sugar House BBQ so they will be happy it is coming down. Construction on the project should start up in the spring. The old 24 Hour Fitness development should begin early this summer. The second building is going through planning currently. In the more immediate future the 21st South sewer project will be starting up in probably mid to late spring, they’re going to let the contract out I understand somewhere that RFP will be coming out in March, and that would suggest that they’ll be probably mid April, May be may before that construction starts. We’re hoping for as much time as possible so that we can get the situation at the chick fil a drive thru corrected. And we’re definitely going to have just one lane of traffic when that sewer project starts. We’re working with the owners there in working with some other city transportation folks to kind of help move their project along and getting an extra driveway and some relief for the streetscape there.
Bob Norgaard-CIU Officer
So just a couple things I wanted to discuss tonight. I don’t know if you guys heard about an arson off of Elm Street recently there’s a very mentally ill gentleman that lives there he’s got some pretty significant issues. He decided to set some batteries on fire in his kitchen, and then start another fire on his porch. The fire department got there pretty quick put everything out there were no injuries. And we are trying our best to get this guy the help that he needs and see burglaries of businesses are on the rise again, including at our friends at Sugar House barbecue. And I’m pretty sure I know who’s doing it. I just have to prove it. The old Fisher cyclery building has been a real popular place for unsheltered folks to go in and do what they do. There’s been a another uptick of burglaries along the 2100 South corridor, and in the surrounding areas. So I’ve been in contact with our bike unit sergeants and some other folks to see if they can just spend a lot more time in that area to try to quell that. Vehicle break ins are still pretty prevalent.
Nick Wilkinson is a newish Beacon Heights trustee. He is going to be our representative on the East Bench Master Planning Group so any input you have reach out to Nick and he will relay it to the group.
Shane Stroud-Bylaws We will hear from Shane tonight, he can make corrections up to the next meeting in February and then we will vote for approval. The reason Landon gave me some time tonight is because I’ve been working with him and also Brandon, for quite a few months, actually, which is my fault. I could have gotten this done earlier to get some updates to our bylaws. And the real push behind this was so that we can work a little bit more cooperatively with the Sugar House chamber of commerce and you’ll see that change in the version that Landon sent around to everybody this afternoon. But while we’re at it, we thought, why not just update the bylaws, it has been since 2004 since this had happened so occasionally need to do that so I promise this is not a long PowerPoint, but I think it is helpful so what our bylaws and why update them now. Well, the Sugar House Community Council is a nonprofit corporation, that’s a private entity. So under Utah law, all nonprofit corporations have to have bylaws on file with the Division of Corporations. And along with the articles of incorporation the bylaws, just dictate how the, the organization runs, we’re not changing the articles of incorporation, they’re actually in pretty good shape they were, they were filed in the 1970s and I can send them to anybody that might be interested. But the bylaws actually speak a lot more to how the organization runs on a day to day basis, things like the board composition of the board meetings. The types and numbers of officers and other provisions, like how many people need to be present in a meeting in order to constitute a quorum for purposes of voting. So that begs the question, why update the bylaws now. So the reason why is to make three types of changes, big change one big change some small changes, and then some clarifying cleanup changes. So you’ll see that the version that Landon sent around, it has all of these changes marked in red line. I just wanted to go through them so you have a good understanding of what’s in there and you’ll see in my PowerPoint here that I’ve marked some and
read those that are marked in red are changes that I made today based on feedback that I got from various trustees So, like I said, the big change here is a change that allows us to work more closely with the Sugar House chamber of commerce that section. Basically, it allows the Sugar House chamber of commerce to appoint one of their board members to serve as a board of trustee with the Sugar House Community Council and likewise the chamber, the Chamber of Commerce is making a change to their bylaws that will allow one of the Sugar House Community Council trustees to serve on the Sugar House chamber. So they’ll just be more opportunity to collaborate to know what the others doing and we’ll both have that investment and the other organization. So that’s the big change, small changes. There’s a change that provides notice can be made via email I think that was probably implicit in the old bylaws but just make it a little bit more explicit, especially since we hadn’t updated the since 2004 email wasn’t quite as widely used than other small changes change that allows the chair. Upon approval of the board to waive the requirement that a new trustee gather signatures and file a petition, you’ll see that language, I’ll send you out an updated copy of these bylaws after the meeting, it’s done today. You’ll see that change and this is basically just to account for, you know, what we’ve experienced over the last two years with coven where folks haven’t been able to gather signatures because it hasn’t been say, so know if. Hopefully that will end but if if we ever had a situation like that again Landon could appoint somebody, and the board could waive that requirement if need be. There’s also a change that provides must monthly meetings can be held electronically and talks about how those should be noticed a change that eliminates a reference to the public meeting act. So that act is actually only applicable to government agencies, and the Sugar House Community Council like I said as a private entity under the laws of Utah now.Funny thing is is, we probably run our meetings as open or even more open than a lot of government entities, but still, that law just doesn’t apply and so I struck the reference to it. There’s a change that allows the chair with the ascent of the board of trustees to appoint assistant secretaries and assistant treasures. These are just folks who might help the secretaries and treasures with their work. There’s a change that specifies how expenditure should be approved before you had to have two signatures, I think, on the checks, or at least that’s kind of one way you could read the bylaws to approve any expenditure. That seems really unreasonable for like a $19 check for, you know, flyers for a meeting. So now you’ll see that if it’s under $250 just has to be approval by the officer by one other officer, if it’s between 250 and 500 approval by a majority of the officers. And if it’s over $500 the entire board of trustees needs to approve that expenditure.There’s a change that speaks to how the Sugar House Community Council would be dissolved if that ever became necessary before under the old bylaws, it could probably just be a quorum of whoever was president in a meeting that could dissolve the corporation, and this change just makes clear that it needs to be at least three quarters of the board of trustees to dissolve the organization, when I say dissolve I mean if if somebody wanted to shut down the organization, and the rest are just clarifying cleanup changes so nothing really substantive just things to kind of bring them in line with how the law reads now and modern techniques for drafting these types of documents so clarifying cleanup changes cleanup change that organizes and reformats the bylaws bylaws into sections and sub sections just kind of cleans it up, makes it a little bit more readable, a clarification that the Sugar House Community Council does not issue stock or pay dividends so I know, I was very disappointed when I didn’t get my
dividend check or my stock options from the trigger house Community Council, but, you know, that’s not what this organization is about apparently so I just made that clear, a clarification that the Sugar House Community Council can participate in all activities that support its mission. I think that’s actually implicit in, in throughout the bylaws and the articles of incorporation but this just makes it clear. There’s a clarification that there are no limits to the number of terms on another wise qualifying trustee. Again, I think that was probably implicit in the old bylaws. This just makes it clear there aren’t such things as term limits, a clarification that members of the Board of Trustees must make their primary place of residence within the Sugar House neighborhood they represent. So for example, I live in Nibali so you know I petitioned in Nibali, I wouldn’t go and petition and deal worth because I don’t live in that this doesn’t change the way that at large, members of the board can qualify somebody that’s eligible for out large membership can still gather signatures from throughout Sugar House, and represent as an out large member so this is actually kind of how we’ve been doing it forever.
This just makes it clear that you need to live in the district where you’re, where you’re a neighborhood trustee as opposed to a large trustee
clarification that only natural persons, can be members of the Board of Trustees, natural person is just a legal term that means human being.
19:36:59 And the reason that clarification is here is, there’s a famous line by our esteemed senator romney that corporations are people too well that might be the case but corporations can’t be members of the Board of Trustees. They need to be human beings, a clarification that meetings are open to all members of the Sugar House Community Council, means anybody living in or working in Sugar House. Two persons residing in owning property in or doing business in Sugar House into anyone invited to participate by an officer clarification that A Quorum is a third of all Board of Trustees members present at At a meeting. These next two or one clarification changes that I made today, a clarification that the annual meeting and officer elections may be held in a month, then October. Generally they will be held in October, but it can be pushed for some reason and that just makes it clear that’s permissible a clarification that a member of a committee, need not be a trustee.But that the chair of the committee should be a trustee.And then there are some other non substantive changes to correct typos, eliminate some archaic terminology and enhance clarity and readability throughout the document but nothing substantive.Those are just truly clean up. And typo corrections that I made is I was going through. One thing to note, the way that trustee neighborhood trustees are allocated is actually through census data.
We don’t have that yet. At least it’s not in the attachment see that I sent in the bylaws update today.So when you look at that attachment see you’ll see it’s based on 2010 census data but that will be updated to reflect the 2020 census data and we can just raise that in a future meeting to show if there any changes to any of the numbers of Trustees that might be allocated to an individual neighborhood. Other than that, those are the changes to the bylaws the updates to the bylaws. And also, like I said I’ll send you out a clean copy tonight that shows all the changes including the ones I made over the course of the day, but I discussed every change that I made tonight and I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have about that. Shame put in a ton of work on this so thank you Shane. And then I Shane we were talking about how we would vote will send an email out to vote with the final draft, and then we’ll adopt them in February, right, and try to, If you look over the copy tonight, if, if, if there aren’t any changes or any concerns
19:39:58 just go ahead and email and and that that you approve the bylaw changes, and then we’ll officially enact them in February and then record them with a Division of Corporations, and hopefully by that time, we’ll have updates to attachment sees you can see if the census data is changed any of validation of the chairs are the trustees.
Councilwoman Amy Fowler
Happy New Year. And I just want to say start out with a few thank yous thank all of you, district seven, for re-electing me. I look forward to another four years, and I don’t know if any of you saw the swearing in but I meant what I said to be better than I was last year, my new year’s resolution isn’t a resolution, it’s the same thing every year. And it is, do better. And so that’s the goal, and I want to make sure that that happens.So thank you, and I look forward to being a representative and serving you for another four years. I want to thank detective Norgaard for his update. We are seeing an increase people experiencing homelessness moving into abandoned buildings and starting fires, etc. Yesterday at the City Council meeting, I asked the administration and our other council members to look at what other cities and municipalities throughout the country are doing which is called the Code Blue ordinance. It’s something that the county did last summer when they hit the temperatures were rising so quickly is having cooling areas for people to come get water and not be dehydrated. The same thing would sort of apply if we could have just temporary places that would open so people don’t freeze and not using these abandoned buildings and starting fires to stay warm and alive.
And then inadvertently lighting the place on fire, which in all reality we’ve seen an increase in over the last two years. The other thing I wanted to talk about is the census and redistricting. As everybody knows we do have some of our census results back, most of them all of them, and are working on the redistricting per state law we only have six months. From the day that the state decides the final redistricting lines to when we as a city council decide our redistricting lines. So that will be May, And we as a city council are currently looking for sub committee members.
The sub committee members will do the outreach to help draw the lines that will then come to the city council or make the recommendations. We want people on the subcommittee from all of the different areas within Salt Lake City, want to make sure that it is actually representative of our city. And so that we’re being very transparent and open about how we make sure that the subcommittee has people on it from all over the city, and then really looking at the boundaries and what we’re looking at.
So please if you know somebody that you think would be a good candidate for that subcommittee is Subcommittee on redistricting have them reach out With the new census data we are looking at having 28,540 people in each of the seven districts. But we can give and take about two to 3% on that just for boundary issues in communities and not wanting to break people up for no reason right or break neighborhoods up for no reason, except for numbers. And so we’re, we’re within that same, just with the area that we have right now we’re within that two to 3%. That doesn’t mean those lines can’t couldn’t change, which is again why it’s so important that we have a subcommittee and that we’re actually looking at these lines.
The other thing I just quickly wanted to touch on is that at the end of last year we did allocate around $60,000 for the Sugar House business district and looking at actually having a sort of Sugar House Alliance much like the Downtown Alliance And so I’m excited for that. The, the allocation will go to looking at what the maps are the SAA that whole process, which, to be fair is a state law thing that we have to go through but Landon and the chamber have been working incredibly hard on, and not just this last year but for years on trying to get this to go through and so there has been an allocation of money to the Department of Economic Development, to help us as Sugar House look at what sort of Sugar House Alliance would look like. And I know that there will be some community outreach with that and I would hope that everyone would participate in what those lines, what the map there look like as well.
Next I am going to turn the time over to Will Kocher to introduce our representatives. So, as Councilmember Fowler, said the legislative session is set to begin on January, 18. So it’s kind of an exciting time and a nerve wracking time. We’re very fortunate to have great representatives for area. So tonight we’re joined by Senators Davis and Iwamoto representatives Briscoe, King and Pitcher, and they’re going to kind of
give us a legislative preview what to expect, bills that we may see in the upcoming session, that kind of thing. Due to the format and being a zoom, we’re not going to be able to answer a lot of questions but please feel free to drop those in the chat, hopefully we’ll be able to get those answered with our first question for Senator Davis. What were your thoughts on the redistricting process. How did the redistricting process affect your district’s boundaries and what changes should residents, be aware of.
Sen. Gene Davis It’s always a pleasure to appear before the Sugar House Community Council. I was a member of the redistricting committee. And we looked at all of those issues. We also heard from and took testimony from the commission as they presented their presentation on the different maps that they had they had three different maps for all four areas, which was a House, the Senate, Congress and the state school board. And I think it had great interest and hearing. We heard that we then went to the floor and chairs came up with the maps and presented them to our various bodies.
And they were adopted their committee maps were adopted, not the commission maps, as everyone knows, the commission actually couldn’t come up with a preferred map in the Senate House, Congress, or in the state school board. So they couldn’t give us a hearty recommendation so they kind of left it up to us to impact the chairman of the committee, told us in our committee meeting that, what would happen is we could change anything they had presented to us and move it around because they knew that’s what we’re going to do anyway.So I don’t think the commission took their charge as seriously as they probably could have or should have.
20:05:12 And as far as district 13 now, which used to be district 3 is now district 13. Picked up a little around 1700 South And then also in Murray picked up the west side of all of the west side of Murray, on the other side of 215 which I didn’t have before. So that is the new district.
Other than that, it basically did not change my district had to pick up roughly 5000 people to meet the 120,000 plus people.
Sen. Jani Iwamoto- Same question your thoughts on the redistricting process. I just had one update before I get into that is speeding on 2700 South. I’ve been getting a lot of complaints and so I just wanted to say that Chief Brown is working on that. And they’re coming up with some plan on how to resolve that. So that’s just a separate thing with regard to new district thing I did put a lot in my newsletter because it was a very emotional time for me. I supported the Independent Redistricting Commission and it did change by compromise it’s not the exact same. So, the congressional and school board had no input whatsoever very disappointing. I voted against them. I think everyone voted against that because it really changed certain things on the school board, putting two very good board members together, and the congressional course split my district, I think, Salt Lake City twice. Murray twice Mill Creek four times. I think that I actually think my district was cut up the most by this And then on my district itself it changed. There were three commission maps we tried to substitute in the orange map if you looked like more of my district, and in the end I did vote with the legislative map. Because I talked to my mayors, and they did not like the Independent Redistricting map push split them into two counties for the first time, it would have been with Summit County, and so we went with the legislative map, which added Murray to this district. I was very sad I got very emotional in my speech because it cut out the parts of Salt Lake, that I grew up in and I’ve represented since my county council days. I’m so grateful I still have Sugar House in my district, and this district district 14 when it comes up.
Representative Joel Briscoe I am still angry that they divided Salt Lake City into two congressional districts. 11 years ago we were complaining that Rob Bishop in the first Congressional District, represented Salt Lake City, and from many of our points of view that meant nothing to him.
And we said we want Salt Lake City in one congressional district and they mostly complied, but they didn’t understand that Salt Lake City goes south of it. They had no qualms in splitting. I mean I love my cousins who live in Providence Utah, and my inlaws who live in Smithfield Utah, and we’re now in the same congressional district. There’s no reason for that, other than they knew that if they created any kind of congressional district then Ben McAdams could run in he would, and he would were likely.
So they created four districts that method for Republican legislators for Republicans would represent those districts. I’m still angry about that.
As far as the map, I’m happy that we had an Independent Redistricting Commission. We knew that they were independent but they could not force the legislature to take their maps, but the comparison of them having all their meetings in public, and then redistributing Commission, the legislative commission having meetings behind the scenes. And then saying these are our Maps is one that will still be reverberating in my opinion and many people’s minds in 10 years. I’m sitting legislators did have some input on the legislative maps on the floor of the House of Representatives, I sponsored the orange map for house legislative seats.
I knew it didn’t have much of a chance but I sponsored it democrats sponsored at least one of the legislative Independent Redistricting Commission maps for Congress, school board States House of Representatives I sponsored the org map that map would have mokved me out of the district that I currently represent into a District, represented by Jennifer daily parole District 25 which I’ve represented since 2010 is not district 24, it moves all the way west to I-15 moves all the way south, I, at the North boundary is for South. Representative King picks up a larger chunk of Sugar House But I’m still part of this community council and I’ll still be hanging around
Representative Brian King. The Sugar House Community Council has always been remarkably smoothly functioning. I’ve always been impressed, and you accomplish great things. And as representative Briscoe said I’m excited about the idea that all district 28 becomes new district 23 and as more of the Sugar House Community Council area within it. Right now, Representative Briscoe mentioned the boundary is 13th east. That will change so that between 17 south and 21st. Well, putting 17 south and I at the boundary will go down to ninth east and between 17 south and eight South the boundary will be 11 east. So I’m excited about the prospect of having a greater area of Sugar House. I’m looking forward to that. I do agree with those other folks that have legislators who have was done, particularly for the congressional district in a way that was a reflection of good principles of redistricting. I certainly don’t think it kept the communities of interest in Salt Lake City in Salt Lake County together in a way that makes sense but this is one of the things that you have a problem with when you’re in, such as clear minority up in the legislature as the people that are here on this call with you as representatives of the Sugar House Community Council. We are all Democrats, and they’re super majority Republican legislature as you all know, and that creates some problems for us. But having said that, we work hard to get along with our colleagues and to accomplish some good things that represent Well, people in the community council and we can accomplish some good things.
Representative Stephanie Pitcher Could you speak to what’s going on in your district. District 40 was changed significantly it used to be a north, or excuse me a yeah north south running district and it’s now an East West running district so the current lines of Hd 40 are from I-80 to about 5600 south or so and then between 700 east and Highland drive with some gerrymandering sort of on the north and south ends, it’s switched now, so that the eastern boundary is, I believe on Hartford Avenue, and then it runs all the way as far west as the Jordan River. My Sugar House area remains pretty much unchanged it’s more the mill creek side that’s quite different. And you know I guess I’ll just add to my colleagues, shared disappointment with the way that the independent commission was sort of summarily rejected by by my colleagues at the legislature I think that, I mean, even the conversation on the House floor was shut down really quickly. And the whole process I found to be really disappointing. Hopefully you know in 10 years we can have a better process in place that actually takes into account the will of the people but this is where we are.
What bills are each of you planning to run? And what would you like our community to know about these bills.
Senator Davis
Once again, I know I have three bills that are out, one is a committee bill that I’ve been trying to get here. Just allow individuals to be able to approach the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control and order, less than a case of spirits that are not currently carried at the DABC, we’re working on that. Like last year we are working on getting the wages up at the DABC, which brings up an issue also and that’s a pact that we need to take some of this tax money or surplus money that we have.And we need to make sure that we address the needs of the state employees. Some of them are working for $9 an hour, and we need to take a look at our HR. And what we’re doing in that area. Another one I was actually brought by a constituent of mine, whose wife had a stroke And he bought her a van that she could drive better but her driver’s license lapsed. And so he could not transfer the title into her name. Because she did not have a valid driver’s license. So I’ve worked with the state tax commission to fix that problem. I want take a look at the medical marijuana issue in the state of Utah And it’s being controlled by agriculture and the health department, and not addressing really a lot of the needs that those who have prescriptions to obtain some of those materials. And so I’ve looked around the country of what’s going on in many different jurisdictions and settled on trying to adopt the Massachusetts commission, which would then control cannabis and marijuana, medical marijuana from the seed to the sale of that product should all be in one smooth area, instead of $100,000 per farm going to the Agriculture Department and $100,000 per pharmacy, going to the health department.
20:24:16 This would alleviate a problem in that chain of getting the medical product to market.So, that’s the other one that I’m working on right now, there’s a couple of others that I have there I’m looking at, and I haven’t decided whether I’m going to do those are not.
Senator Iwamoto-This legislation describes the circumstances under which, and the method by which: A municipal, legislative body may cancel a local election or race in a local election; and A local district board may cancel a local election or race Presently, the statute is silent on cancellation of uncontested races, including atlarge (clarified if there 3 at-large seats and 3 candidates, those races can be cancelled) seats. This bill clarifies cancellation of one, multiple or all. Example: Holladay City. The Mayor’s race was uncontested, two council seats (Districts 1 and 3) races, had one contested and one uncontested. Under present law, the ballot would go out to the entire city, although there is only one council race. Under this proposed bill, if Holladay City Council voted by resolution, ballots would only need to be mailed out to District 1, where there is a contested race, and not the entire city. SB 58 designates designates an annual day of remembrance on February 19 observing the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. This bill removes the prohibition/restrictions for 19-year-olds to work as correctional officers for the Department of Corrections and takes off the pilot of county jails (5-year extension to 2027). This is a continuation of efforts I made during both the 2019 and 2020 general sessions. This bill amends provisions relating to the waiver of court fees by: Amending provisions regarding an affidavit of indigency; Defining the term, “indigent”; Allowing court fees, costs, or security to be waived for indigent individuals; and Professor Emerita Linda Smith testifying in support of SB 87 Requiring a court to find an individual indigent under certain circumstances. Other supporters of the bill included: the Utah State Bar (to enhance access to justice), Utah Legal Services, Legal Aid Society, Timpanogos Legal Services, the YWCA, and individuals of the Executive of the Family Law section of the Utah State Bar. This bill aims to decrease the maximum flow rate or quantity for toilets, urinals, sink faucets (not kitchen faucets) and shower heads. Specifically, this bill relates to new construction and remodels, and modifies provisions related to requirements for plumbing fixtures or fixture fittings, specifically modifying the International Residential Code (15A-3-306) and the International Plumbing Code (15A-3-306). With explosive growth and greater demand for water, the most severe drought we have ever experienced in Utah, necessitating a state of emergency, temperatures are rising (annual average of 4.7% since 1948) increasing watering needs, changing land use (more indoor use), we need all hands on deck and to get there more quickly. We are the only Colorado basin state that has not either passed a law to require WaterSense fixtures or to allow municipalities to pass ordinances requiring these fixtures. There is no more new water so we need to do as much as we can with our existing water supply. Estimated saving is 16,000 acre-feet per year (4.5 billion gallons), an estimated reduction of 4 gallons per person per day, or enough water to support the indoor and outdoor needs of 30,000 Utah households at current usage rates. For just toilet usage alone, estimated savings would total 1/3 of Dry Creek Reservoir fully filled!
Representative Briscoe-I’m going to return to a theme that Senator Davis started with two summers ago I had a constituent 80 years old, email me and asked me why in Utah, he could get online with a local grocery store order food have food delivered to him. And he couldn’t have beer delivered to him. So I think people ought to be able to get online and have beer delivered to their homes. Over 21, of course, people ask me Well, well let’s do wine and other things, let’s, we’re going to start with beer.
20:33:06 That would be a heavy enough left. Let’s see if we can make that happen. I’m interested in making sure I’m convinced that the number of people buying an electric vehicle is going to start increasing exponentially in a few years, people who own single family homes can simply pay someone to install a charger.But if you live in an apartment building or a condominium, it’s a little bit trickier. There are about eight or nine states that have what they call right to charge laws, I think we should do the same and you thought if you live in a condo or multi unit housing, and you want to purchase or have purchased and an EV, and you’re willing to pay the cost of installation, some minimal requirements. I think you ought to be allowed allowed to put in a charger for your electric vehicle on the Clean Energy front, I’m sponsoring the creation of Utah Clean Energy Fund. I think we should have free fares on mass transit 365-24-7. I just think, we don’t pay people. We don’t charge people to ride the elevator to the top of a building, why do we pay people to write anywhere on public transit And Senator Davis and I are working on a concurrent resolution on homelessness, and boy are their opinions on homelessness. So, we’re going to try and thread multiple needles on that when there might be some other pieces of legislation.
Representative King-I’ve got several bills that I preparing and have prepared and I think that they’ve got some great things about them but let me go through them quickly, maybe the most important that was to build a preserve forensic biological evidence for felonies from the time that the case is being actively investigated, or an individual is convicted of a felony remains in prison. This will help with investigating cold cases and allow for more definitive results when dealing with claims have been full conviction right now Utah has no obligation to preserve that type of evidence and whether it’s cold case that technology results and being able to pursue leads that the time of the crime. We couldn’t pursue or whether it’s a claim of wrongful conviction. I think it’s important that we preserve that biological forensic evidence for us. Most of the states in the country do that, two thirds of them do you talk to us and. And we can do a better job on that. The second case is right now. If you’re a state employee covered by PHP, and you become disabled. Due to mental health conditions, you are able to get disability benefits only for two years. Whereas, if you’re disabled to the physical conditions, you can get the disability benefits until you turn 65. It’s just a statutory discrimination between disability caused by mental illness or versus disability caused by physical illness. I’ve got to build to eliminate that disparity. It’s going to cost some money but PHP is on board as long as we do come up with the money to help with that. A third bill is making it illegal to post a video of a felony occurring if the person who were who posted the video has not reported the felony to public safety officials before they post it doesn’t outlaw posting of a felony on social media.
It just says that you can’t post it, unless you report, the felony before you post it. There’s another bill that I’ve got to require the Department of Public Safety and other relevant state agencies or subdivisions of the state to produce an annual report, identifying the source of firearms, when they are obtained by restricted persons. We want to know the source of the weapons that end up in the hands of restricted persons. This is an informational requirement. We’ve got that information we’re going to be able to do a better job of keeping weapons out of the hands of restricted persons. And then finally, I’ve got a bill that I’ve run a couple of times the past to expand background checks before the purchase of firearms are allowed, is a good idea overwhelming support among members of the public over 90% say, let’s have basic background checks before you can purchase a weapon that will cut down on the number of people who obtain a weapon who shouldn’t have them.
Representative Stephaine Pitcher- One would create a victim address confidentiality program. This is a bill that I have run in the past but due to sort of timing issues with the legislature wasn’t able to see it all the way through, essentially the idea of the bill is that if you’re a
victim of domestic violence, stalking sexual assault, things like that.
You can apply for a type of fictitious address. It’s really a way to sort of keep your address, safe protected out of the hands of an offender domestic violence offender. And you know for the other 41 other states have already done this so I’m hopeful that you took will be next I think now is particularly timely that we’ve seen so many domestic violence cases go up under covered and sort of consequences of the pandemics hopeful that that one will be well received. I also have a bill or I’m working on a bill that would create it sort of a voluntary program for individuals with underlying mental health issues, if they so choose, they can place a marker on their drivers license as well as registered at a with a Department of Public Safety so that when an officer is running a check on someone’s license plate, or if they encounter an individual on the street, and they see the marker on their license plate that law enforcement
officer will sort of know going into their interaction with this individual that there may be an underlying mental health issue which would influence the dynamic or the interaction between those individuals and so the hope with that is that it will sort of flagged law enforcement early, and hopefully de escalate any potential interaction that may be sort of out of the norm. From officers perspective And then another role that I’m working on would close the out of county loophole that exists for registering vehicles. So currently, you can register your vehicle with the DMV and provide any random address people can register at that address, and if they’re registering in a county that is a non emissions County, they can avoid emissions testing all together. My hope is that by requiring an individual to provide two to three pieces of mail that will sort of close that loophole and make sure that the individuals are actually registering their vehicle and the county where they actually reside. The bill may also include some type of civil penalty as well maybe $1,000 or so for individuals who provide false information when they’re registering this registering their addresses. Of course the hope there is to keep on vehicles and niche and don’t bypass that process. So those are the main three. I do have others that are in the works but I think this is probably the most relevant and interesting. I’m also we’re still able to open bill file so if anybody has an interesting idea or a problem or an issue that they think needs to be addressed please contact me I’m very happy to look at it.
Senator Davis-I think one of the things that we’re going to look at is clean air of course it’s going to be one of those foremost issues. I attended a meeting on the Great Salt Lake, and the environmental impact if we lose the lake.What’s going to happen to our quality of life.
And there’s a number of issues on dust storms and everything else. I think that’s going to take a lot of effort, and a lot of discussion during the upcoming session to try to deal with how we’re going to get the water that back into the lake, there was a number of proposals that were presented by the presenters, I think that’s going to be saved one of the big issues.
And that will contribute, largely to cleaning up the air in Salt Lake City We’ve done a lot of things over the years, but I think the one thing is we keep talking about affordable housing. And what we really need to do is that housing has to be affordable to people of low income. And that’s a problem that we’re going to have and I think wages are also going to be an issue that we’re going to talk about during this upcoming session.
Senator Iwamoto-I think more people are looking at water since we’ve had the drought, and we’ve had fires, So water is huge because two cities last year didn’t have any water they had to have it trucked in and it’s, huge for us to do that but we have worked as a state really well to prepare.
Unlike other states that were presented where owns lake and all these others that have dried up and all the cost of billions of dollars its cost, their state, but we have been working on things for a long time so we do have tools that we can use affordable housing, of course homelessness I think will be big. Income tax rate, I heard that they may try to decrease that social Social Security tax, some highlights mental health for first responders I heard there’s going to be some appropriations for that, that are looked into death penalty. And some of the scary ones to me, the voter ones that are coming up, or, you know, I hope there’s not many voter suppression bills but I’ve been hearing some, the transgender and sports I heard is going to have to be dealt with and critical race theory and the critical race theory upsets me greatly because you know just the story of the Japanese Americans incarcerated and Topaz if you go to Topaz and read the, the stories and the, just go there to the museum that is what critical race theory is how laws can be done to take away people’s rights and discriminate and us not talking about that. It’s not being talked about in the schools at all in the public schools but I learned it in law school. I even know the woman who one of the people who started the curriculum for that so it’s not. It’s just a national movement going on with the transgender sports and abortion bills, I heard there will be some of those, and vaccine vaccination. not having mandates and that. So those, there’s some scary ones but I’m hoping the water conservation and a lot with infrastructure, the right kind of infrastructure will be dealt with.
Representative Briscoe-Water.I appreciated what we were shown today, I didn’t learn anything new from the Great Salt Lake summit. I’m sure it was new for many of the legislators who I serve on natural resources, and the legislative Water Development Commission. They will tell you that we’re doing a great job on water conservation which is bunk, which is nonsense.
They said we’re taught we’ve made 25% reductions in water use and they took the baseline years one of the highest water use years. We need to revisit significantly, our water conservation goals and targets. I am incredibly concerned about the dredging of Utah Lake we attended a four and a half hour meeting today. And we talked about all these various state and federal agencies, private companies and nonprofits who just love the Great Salt Lake and want to make sure it doesn’t go away, and our solution to the fact that we have some problems in Utah lake is we’re going to let some developers from Dubai, come in and do the biggest dredging project ever envision anywhere, create some islands in the middle of Utah lake and put 400,000 people on them And this is going to fix Utah lake. The legislature gave them a $10 million loan last year. And there’s $25 million for the Utah Lake restoration project and the governor’s budget.
So be ready on that one. I’m concerned about the big lie. I’m concerned that there are people trying to claim that we had, you can’t trust your ballot in Utah. I don’t think this one has any traction because I think most people like it. But I’m concerned, anytime anyone gives any kind of credence whatsoever to that garbage. And my concern about CRT critical race theory is that they’re using it as a stand in for teaching about racism and structural inequality in our society. I mean I have former students and friends who are law enforcement officers and they’re fine individuals, but like teachers and a few other people that if you get a bad one, they’re in a position to do an incredible amount of damage.
Representative King-I am happy to see the Great Salt Lake being taken a slip taking a hard look at that. I think we ought to continue to figure out how we’re going to best spend the money that we have, there’s a lot of money floating around some of it comes from the federal government through the COVID appropriations, some of it comes because we’ve got a very healthy economy and I want to make sure that we appropriate that way that addresses the needs of people who are in the greatest stress, have the biggest problems right now making ends meet and providing for their basic needs that it goes to them in a way that helps them the most.So, we’ll be looking hard at that it’ll be an interesting session there’ll be a lot of election year so they’re going to be some issues dealing with posturing about cultural and divisive issues such as the transgender stuff and the CRT stuff and the abortion stuff you’ll see all that we always do, we’ll try and keep that from being a distraction from the things that are most important, but it’ll be an interesting session, I’m sure.
Representative Picture- the issue of the death penalty coming up this session that repeal of the death penalty. My take on that is that this may be the first time at least in a while that we actually talked about repealing the death penalty in a meaningful way. I think it has a really good sponsor I think there’s an appetite, among several of my colleagues to have this conversation so I’m looking forward to that but in terms of other issues I think my colleagues have captured at all.
You know, I said it earlier and it’s been said in the chat but we really are lucky to have some fantastic representatives for Sugar House and, you know, we’re appreciative of your service. You know I know from personal experience and I think most would agree that, you know, anytime we reach out to all of you. Your responsive, you know you listen to us.
You know, and you really give a strong voice to our community. So thank you all, we, we really appreciate you taking the time to meet with us.
8:58 pm Meeting Adjourned!
