September 2, 2009

Others Present – Jaelene V. Myrup, Melissa Lichtenstein, Soren Simonsen, and Adriane Juarez. 

Call to Order – Maggie Shaw, Chair 7:01 pm

Approval of Minutes –  Cabot Nelson’s motion to approve minutes passed unanimously.

Treasurer’s Report –  Dolores reports a balance of  $3,705.96. 

Public Comments – Sheila O’Driscoll asked Det. Cryder about laws pertaining to bicycles and expressed concerns over bicyclists breaking the law.             

Detective Mark Cryder – Crime Report – Passed out pamphlet on Proposition #1.  SLC Officials will come in October to discuss this proposition in depth.  Det. Cryder responded to a question concerning noise complaints by explaining that noise disturbances are given low priority. Depending on the nights activities noise complaints may be low down on the list if they have not received more than 1 call in a 2-hour period.  Any questions call Detective Cryder 801-799- 3669. 

Sugar House Merchants’ Report – Barbara Green – Mayor Becker attended merchant’s breakfast and addressed questions about the street car, street lights timing, and traffic within Sugar House.  Mayor Becker spoke about connection between street car and area residential and business growth and urged people to call the city to report miss timed light signals especially those for crosswalks.   Next month DJ Baxter (RDA Director) will be speaking at the Merchant Association meeting.  Whole Foods event on September 5, 2009 to highlight farmers and food artisans, 11 am to 3 pm.   

Business Spotlight – Grace Sperry invited Craig Mecham to speak about his family’s involvement and history in Sugar House.  Mecham’s family have been business and property owners in the Sugar House since his grandfather owned and operated Hyland Lumber Yard (Leisure Living is located in this site today).  His offices have been located in the business district area for 30 years and he believes Sugar House is the place to be in Utah.  The name identity of Sugar House gives us a unique quality and is the place to live, work, and shop and thinks we can continue to make it better.   Delay on 2100 S property is directly related to the economy and lack of financing for any large scale developments.  Mecham is mindful of the delays and feels bad about the timing and in retrospect believes the landscaping was a good thing.  The development plans are the same, but the phases have shifted focus to building the condominiums before the office complex.  Plans on putting together a website expected to be out in the spring to test the economic waters and interest in condos.  Mecham participated in the trip to Portland with Mayor Becker and felt he learned a lot about how a street car can make a difference in the community it serves and that housing is critical to support retail and a 24/7 environment.  The trolley line in Sugar House will do a lot more for the community than anticipated.   Mecham’s office number is 801-466-4800.

Presentations –

• Woodbury/Westminster Mixed Use Project – Lance Bullen (project manager) and Derek Payne (architect) presented proposal for redevelopment of current Woodbury building.  The proposed development would replace the existing building and would be a ground floor (garden level) community outreach, small business office space, the 2nd floor is retail and the 3 remaining levels will be Westminster housing/apartments. Westminster College is shifting focus to more of an urban campus and Sugar House is the core of the campus.  Community resource and small business resource center is approximately 15,000 square feet and is located at the first level, which is below 1300 East.  This floor is level with the anticipated Sugar House Draw trail that would link Hidden Hollow to Sugar House Park by an underground tunnel.  The garden level should enhance pedestrian safety with an interactive dynamic between the community resource space and the trail activity.  The 2nd floor is level with 1300 East and will be a retail space (no tenants as of this time).  The remaining floors would be housing for Westminster upper classman with a residential deck area on the 3rd floor to provide outdoor green space.  This should allow those students to have direct access to the Sugar House business district and campus. The proposal also includes a separate parking structure with approximately 300 stalls that would be mixed use to the public and residents. Parking structure would link into Redman Building parking and would propose access from 2100 S, 1300 E, and the Homestead parking lot.  The current pedestrian easement that runs along the east side of the Redman building would be blocked in favor of streamlining the crosswalk across 2100 S and Douglas to align with the pedestrian easement running on the west side of the Redman building to provide direct access to Hidden Hollow.  This proposal includes a request for a variance to allow for top 3 floors to not be set back 30 feet from the sidewalk as ordinance is written.   
• Sugar House Summit – Annalisa Steggell, Director of Community Relations from Westminster College presented information about the upcoming Sugar House Summit they will be hosting to promote a dialogue among residents in regards to the issues they find of interest and concern.  Sugar House Summit is an ongoing event in which residents, merchants, and the community council to gather and talk about their interests and what the future should look like.  First session is October 9th – Open House to start at 6:00 pm and October 10th for interactive sessions looking at issues of access to nutritious locally grown food, organic food and gardening in Sugar House from 9:30 am to 11:30 am with a service project to follow.  Future Sugar House Summit’s will focus on the history of Sugar House (Nov 14th) and buying local for the holidays and sustainability (Dec 5th).      
• Elections Committee Report and Candidate Presentations – Trustees have until September 30th to declar their candidacy with the Elections Committee.  The following are the candidates for office and their comments.  For an official report see the Elections Report online.

Chair, Philip Carlson – Couple years since being chair and have gained experience and ideas where I think it will help to be an effective chair.  Would most likely run for 2 years while sons are on their missions.  Solicited ideas about how we can improve our internal communication to draw from our diversity of opinions and philosophies.  Wants to focus on consensus building to promote a wealth of ideas from the trustees, which does not always mean unanimity.

Vice Chair(s)

Judi Short – Bio includes: 9 years on the planning commission, serving on planning dept zoning rewrite committee, community representative to Westminster master plan that is currently underway, new trustees orientation, coming up with fundraising ideas.

Larry Migliaccio – Been on council for about a year.  Engineer is road and building construction and excited to see Sugar House developments.  Have ideas of things we can do to adjust agenda.  Propose more training for trustees with city programs, parliamentary procedures, courses perhaps from Westminster, and just getting along.  We need to do some things to the council to make it work better and adjust agenda for more council business.

Rawlins Young – Special concern is neighborhoods and believes our focus should be on how to preserve neighborhoods.  Ways to operationalize on how we deal with our neighborhoods and we have been too concerned with the community at large and a lot of time has been spent on the business district and we’ve neglected representing our neighborhoods and wants to promote neighborhood preservation.

Maggie Shaw – Would like to continue serving and would like to help the new chair in any way she can.

Secretary, Amy Barry – Over the last 9 months has made a concerted effort to expand the content of the website to go beyond just providing the agenda and minutes to trustees and the public.  Continue to prioritize highlighting committee reports, projects the community council is involved with, and related activities that promote our mission on our website so information is available to trustees, but also the public.

Treasurer, Dolores Donohoo – “If you don’t vote for me I won’t give you the checkbook back”.  She has enjoyed the treasurer’s duties and contributing to the council over the years and hopes to continue.

Mayor’s Report – Shawn McDonough 535-6338 SLC Community Liaison.  Mayor Becker is asking for public comments via website on the alcohol normalization ordinance and a commercial solicitation ordinance that is being drafted www.slcgov.com.  National Emergency Preparedness campaign has been kicked off to promote survival kits based on Homeland Security survey noted we are at significant risk for a natural or man made disaster, visit www.slcalert.com and www.slcgov.com/em for more information or visit Hot Topics on the cities website.  Commissioned a research poll for the public building safety bond that shows 69% responded favorably to voting for the bond.  Mayor just led a trip with area community members and retailers to Portland to gather information about street cars.  Residents can schedule time (encouraged to do so a week in advance) for the next round of One on One meetings with Mayor Becker September 16th.

Council Report – Soren Simonsen presented a list of all the upcoming issues and items the City Council will be working on in the next 4 months: funding for North Temple Grand Boulevard trax line and possibly replacing viaducts, public safety building coordination of the bond and follow up, zoning ordinance changes related to alcohol, landlord tenant ordinance to address problems, demolition ordinance and changing requirements, ground transportation taxi ordinance and entire ground transportation system, modification to conflict of interest ordinance, modifications to noise and party ordinance, modifications to ambulance contract renewal at the end of this year including looking at the fire dept providing service, series of meetings on citywide historic preservation plan, 2 new branch libraries authorized in Glendale area (site purchased) another location in the West Capital (site not selected), rebuild of 800 south with new power line going in and redesign, budget opening for potential additional budget cuts, urban agriculture ordinances (chickens and bee keeping), review nondiscrimination ordinance recommended by city diversity committee, final planning of sports complex, possible ordinance changes to significant upgrades to transportation (bus stops to sidewalks, shelters etc), 1300 E study from 2100 S to 3300 S and possible improvements along that section (state just turned over that road to the city and we can address what we want it to be), update to 10 year CIP plan to look at budget, emergency preparation discussions, snow removal ordinance timing and creating additional penalties for those who don’t remove snow, additional traffic mitigation methods, additional training for boards and commissions (Utah League of Cities training upcoming next week), modifications to police civilian review board ordinance, upcoming election (Districts 1,3 5, 7 in November), streetcar, look at issues coming out of bicycle summit that occurred earlier in the year to provide safe, secure, useful, functional bicycle system in the city, arts and cultural fact finding in the next few months.  Last RDA Board Meeting talked about interim uses for Wilmington Property – RFP is out until January to collect letters of interest. Still looking at about 24-36 months of interim use and RDA Board has authorized community meetings to discuss proposals.  Trustees interested in participating included:  Amy Barry, Larry Migliaccio, Susan Petheram, Sheila O’Driscoll, Grace Sperry, Ed Sperry, Benny Keele, Jason Bradley, Judi Short, Pattie DeNunzio, Maggie Shaw, Russ Callister, Rawlins Young, and Ruth Price.

Council Business

Chair Report – Maggie Shaw implored people to go to plant sale and bring 5 friends.  Sally is hosting a fundraising bbq on September 15th for the Imperial Neighborhood Park, cost is $15 with more information to follow online.

Committee Reports – View committee reports on www.sugarhousecouncil.com

Motion made by Grace Sperry to adjourn passed unanimously. 

Adjournment 9:00 pm