GREATER AVENUES COMMUNITY COUNCIL Minutes
July 3, 2002 Held at the Sweet Library

Chair-elect Wynn Johnson opened the meeting at 7:00 pm. We will launch right into the reports. Nice to see a large group here.

Wayne Green will do the police report and the mobile watch. He is not Kim Guess. Personnel cutbacks have been discussed. CAT teams are being reduced and reorganized and Kim was a member of the CAT team. She will get Wayne all the statistics and he will do the reports. An official police reporter will come once a quarter.

Crime Stats had one notable omission—the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. 2 aggravated assaults. 1 we inherited. Someone came into LDS hosp having been assaulted but it didn’t happen here. Only one happened here which was domestic violence related. Not out of the ordinary. 8 auto thefts. 2 stolen elsewhere and found in Avenues. One was in process and an observant neighbor phoned police and they were caught. Burglaries were entrances from screens pushed in and garage doors left open. 22 car strips and prowls.

Mobile watch – watch your car program. System where you have decals you can put on your car windows that says to the law enforcement if they see the car out between 1 am and 5 am they can stop it and see if it should be out that time of day. This might help in the event your car is stolen because it would be likely to get stopped and apprehended. Sometimes comments are made requesting mobile watch to go out and arrest somebody. Mobile watch is a volunteer program which has no law enforcement authority. The are only eyes and ears on the street for the police and community. We are effective because we know the neighborhood and know when something is out of place. We don’t have enough volunteers. 30 have been trained but only 5 are active. They have to go out in pairs. Need people who have been through the training. Patrols can go during the day or middle of the night. Whenever is comfortable for you. With mobile watch signs on your car, people perusing the neighborhood and seeing your car will be less likely to commit crime in your neighborhood. You need only to fill out an application form, have a background check, and one night of training at the police dept. You go out with someone in the Avenues once and then you are good to go. We would welcome your participation. Reach Wayne Green at 521-7917 if you are interested.

Legislative: Ralph Becker – we are back in 5th special session mostly to deal with deficit. Planning the 2003 budget which begins July 1 and runs into next year. $173 million budget deficit. Has received valuable and constructive ideas from constituents this last week or two. Let me answer questions. Senator Julander unable to be here. Question about firecrackers. There is a state Fire Marshall. Don’t know his assignment as it relates to bans on fireworks. Some counties have different risks than others. Why is state continuing to build buildings? We know how much growth we face in education. What buildings can we delay? Can be expensive to start and stop construction. Some have been put on hold. Some are life safety issues. Some classes are being held in hallways. Looking at delaying a number of highway projects. We rebuilt I-15 first –part of the promise to do that was to fix US Highway 6 and 50. Legacy highway is being delayed. Others-- the commitments are there—like the state capitol. We face lowest interest rates in our lifetimes. It’s lower than the rate of inflation has been. Largest portion of our downturn relates to construction jobs. Have not been keeping up with our infrastructure. State building needs are over $400 million. Very good time to invest in our state infrastructure because of low interest rates (in Becker’s opinion). Building money does not come from the same pots as education money. When we invest in buildings we don’t take away from education. What about exemptions? Have been reviewing sales tax exemptions? More than 50 of them have exemptions-- for ski resorts, amusement parks, vending machines, airline food, etc. It’s costing us many, many millions of dollars. Looking to get sales tax exemption removed. Will be seeing a proposal coming forward from some of us on Monday. Where is the dividing line between yourself and Scott Daniels? Between districts? Becker goes East as far as O street, from about L street and North to 13th Ave. Doesn’t go further up hill, and has everything West of that. After this coming election Ralph will have all of the Avenues and Daniels will have Federal Heights and Arlington Hills. It is easy to govern when economy is solvent. We were building up a pretty good rainy day fund but we needed more money in it. We should build a budget for a $200 million deficit. Do not do a very good job of planning in this state. Comment: need to monitor to see that what is legislated is carried out.

City Council: Eric Jergensen 532-4844. At work 535-7600 (Sylvia). Thanks to all regarding the Elizabeth Smart situation. Many in this neighborhood searched for her. Wayne has done a great job in organizing a search recently. Thanks for help in clean up. Budget was passed a couple of weeks ago after much effort. Things went fairly well with the cuts as normal attrition. Only laying off about 12 amongst 1000. City services effected very little. Passed last night a joint resolution regarding nuclear waste. Do not think that the work they’ve done thus far is adequate to prove to us that we will be safe if they ship 6 truckloads a week down I-80 for the next 30 years. Eric’s concern was more transportation than placement. Memory Grove was officially opened today after post-tornado work. Please go see it. We continue with Olympic Legacy Park issue. 2 more options being discussed. Would like to get it done by early next summer. Discussion of banning fireworks but enforcement is a problem. Let’s just not have them. UP commuter rail going into 5600 W and 9th S. The discussion is how to get Union Pacific off of 9th S. Eric thinks we need to have commuter rail. Question regarding water elicited the comment to not water except every 3rd day. State Capitol is worst offender. Call Eric with questions and input.

Committee report from Jim Jenkin: ballots counted on 2nd Ave traffic project bulb-outs will not be back but humps will. Next Tues night here (Sweet Library) will be a meeting an open house by the city on what to do with the green space that will be East of the new library. On July 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th will be discussions as to what to do with this green space. On the 9th it is here at Sweet Library. Other dates are at other libraries. Check the web site: www.slcgov.com/events/lib-open.hdl

Phil Carrol Memory Grove reported clean up the 16th of June. 250 people (great) turned out. Saved the city some money. Contract included removing rocks on east side. Two large dump trucks full of rocks were taken. Thank sponsors of lunch: LDS hosp., Bill Spencer, Lagoon, Smith’s Food King, Adventisors. Individuals to thank: Ruth Roley, Werner Weixler, Bill Kettley, Dick Smiley, John Richards. Thanks to all. Now they plan to light paths going up canyon. Will get out more specific info about it in coming months. Thank Phil as well.

Nordstrom report: Dave Owen with Summit Group is here in SLC with Kirsten Tucker who manages Nordstrom downtown. She as been there for 14 years. We are here to educate (Nordstrom’s policy). Not here to battle. Would like to locate a new store at the Gateway. Nordstrom focuses on service, our goal is to provide this customer base with large city store kind of experience. Downtown store will not close until 2005. A challenge they’ve faced has been the ongoing Tenant mix is slowly depleting. Don’t have healthy competition at crossroads. Another is it’s hard to get there with TRAX. Entrances to parking are closed. Consequences are steadily declining revenue since 1994, less inviting experience for customers, have losses to more convenient centers, fewer premium neighbor businesses. Problems at Crossroads are bigger than Nordstroms. Are they expected to fix the problems? Is this happening anywhere else? Sugarhouse commons is thriving because they are adjacent to the new stuff. Q: What is future vision for downtown? Nordstrom has contributed over $200,000 to this community. Space in Gateway they would inhabit would be near the fountain on the NW. What are your patrons—are they SLC people and are the Gateway patrons SLC people? They share a good mix. Comments from audience say they have been priced out of buying there. Will re-address that issue. Have not made a case to move. Call Dave or Kirsten at the store. 322-4200 for Kirsten Tucker. Should not be government roll to determine where store ought to locate. Issue here is not moving from one commercial zone to another, developers of Gateway developers asked for no big box dept stores. Wanted to be a lifestyle center. City council and mayor are not allowing them thru different issues than zone. Nordstrom is caught in the middle.

School Board report Karen Derrick: Supt. Robles is leaving as of Aug 1. Not a surprise to the board. Board and Supt. are supposed to work well together and like each other. She has been with SLC district for 7 ½ years. Her background has been English as a second language. Has helped us extensively in that area. Don’t know yet what they are doing to replace her. Will put in place an interim superintendent for now. Will be developing that process and looking for someone to run the district. Phil Carroll phoned Karen about the dead grass along Lowell. A sprinkler is broken and that is being taken care of. Cuts in state budget published in newspaper. Boards recommendations are in paper last night and this morning. If legislature adopts that plan SL share would be $1 million in cuts.

Boundaries is the next issue to talk about. A committee made up of parents, teachers, and classified employees discussed issue from schools that have the potential to be affected by the closing of Lowell. Hard time coming to any sort of consensus. Washington abstained (Washington abstained because their boundaries remain the same) from and active principal of Lowell abstained. A recommendation was finally adopted and given to board. An adaptation came from Ensign and Wasatch school. She showed map of old boundaries and one of new boundaries.Big change was 3rd Ave down to 2nd Ave. Opened up school choice to keep from having to cut back number of teachers. Will continuous process students have a few familiar teachers follow them to a new school? We hope it can be done. No reason why it can’t be duplicated. 25% of kids are now under school choice. There is room for school choice in other schools but we don’t know about Wasatch. In some cases it might be okay in 3rd grade but maybe not in kindergarten. Hope to accommodate all school choice students. We commend Karen for writing the letter in the newsletter. Karen is elected by the Avenues but is responsible to represent all of the children in the city, so when she walks through that door on 1st S. she has to represent all of them. Thinks this is a legitimate boundary solution. Her idea for Lowell --We have a number of at risk children –use Lowell as a pre-school for them.

South Temple Reconstruction: Pat Peterson Valerie Wallace are here and reported on info already announced. Mostly what construction we are seeing now is private utilities. Will have crosswalk lighting and delineated lighting around curbs. Plan to use Bryant Parking lot during the summer but not during the school year. Plan to keep buses on 8th East. Won’t be done until next summer. If you want to be on our newsletter mailing list please let them know.

Smith’s Remodel: Jeff Short (manager) handed out pictures of what finished project will look like. Construction work starts sometimes at 5:00 am and is too noisy. How late are semi’s supposed to go past? City ordinance is 11:00 PM Will not do any work outside store after 10:00 PM All loading comes through front door now. Tool Shed is still in negotiations. Outside color shown as yellow in this rendering was a concern of this neighborhood. Actual color is shown in the contractor’s trailer. We will walk down and look at it if you come by. Parking is the current greatest problem. All parking will come back along with newspaper recycling. Phone number for Lisa Bridge 973-1757 to contact for True Value to give your input if you want it back. That may help the Tool Shed get the square footage they need to come back.

GACC history: Steve Moss league of women voters has requested and encouraged Com. Councils to make a written history. It would be a good thing if we had a history of this council and its forerunners. “History is an account, mostly false, of events mostly unimportant,…” (quote) contact Steve by phone 320 0761.

Open Forum City street lighting 364-5729 Chris Biltoft. He says the city street lighting plan is a problem. Please contact him.

Lawsuit regarding school issue. www.lowell-charter.org

Meeting adjourned 9:00 PM

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