Greater Avenues Community Council Meeting Minutes

A special workshop will be held on how to start and operate a community garden on July 19th from 10-12 pm at 8:00 S. 600 E. Please come and learn how to start your own “Our Grateful Tomato” garden. Sponsored by Wasatch Community Gardens.

A Citywide 4th of July Celebration at Jordan Park at 1060 S. 900 West, to be held from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. Street festival venders will sell fun foods.

POLICE: Our stats look really good this month. Only 39 crimes. Car strips/prowls-18; sex assault -1 (a friend and a woman); robbery – 1. (Suspect went to a credit union and demanded money. Suspects took money and ran.) Burglaries –14; all to homes. 6 were non-forced entries. Auto thefts - 5. The cat mutilations have not been solved but we are putting a lot more officers in the area. We have been able to solve other things such as peeping-toms because of the extra patrols, and we would like to have all the substantial tips you have. We have also been looking into some of it being caused by wild animals.

SO. TEMPLE CONSTRUCTION: Pat Peterson. For you who are wondering why “E” Street is not finished, we found all the conduits for the power lines for the area only 6 inches from the surface. Utah Power and Light has no construction people any more so we have had to wait for their subcontractors. We hope to be finished by a week from Saturday. On August 1st you will not be able to go through the intersection at Virginia and South Temple. It will be closed for about one month, but it could go faster. We have told the U of U. We are working from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm 7 days a week. We are going to do a few cosmetic repairs to the Wasatch Elementary School tunnel but the tunnel is really sturdy and sound. If you find a hazardous situation in the construction, please give me a call - 535-7235.

THE STREET FAIR AND THE SOUTH TEMPLE BUSINESSES: We are providing banners that we are going to give to the Avenues to reuse afterwards.

LEGISLATURE: Ralph Becker: Paula Julander sends her regards. I represent the Avenues and Capitol Hill area. There has been a transportation committee with representatives from the Avenues and Capitol Hill. We have been trying to find solutions for the traffic problems. We had a meeting in June and focused attention on traffic coming through Victory Road and into the Avenues. None of our suggestions in the past have been acceptable to the traffic experts. We looked at a combination of things and now some good things are being recommended: To put in traffic lights at 500 N and 300 N on Columbus, and to put in traffic control measures such as raised mediums. They think it will slow down and discourage traffic from the Avenues. The effort in the past has been to move the traffic out of the neighborhoods and into the City Streets but that has not been successful. So now they are willing to look at traffic lights, which discourages commuters. UDOT has agreed to sponsor some public meetings for you to have input. Jim Jenkins, your Traffic Rep attended the meetings. UDOT has owned two houses at those intersections and they are now selling those houses back to the community. They had bought those houses to tear down and widen the street there, which was opposed by the Capitol Hill neighborhood. So they are coming around. We had a special Legislative session but the only thing we had time to do was to tie up a few loose budget ends and get the budget balanced. When I look at other states financial woes I’m glad I live in Utah. Call us, Paula and me. Our numbers are in the newsletter.

AVENUES BUSINESS ROSTER: Peter Corroon: We are going to make a business roster of Avenues Businesses and put it in the newsletter. If you are a business, please contact me. You can send me the information via the web and we will put it on the Avenues Web page. You need to have a Business License. We are trying to help our Avenues Businesses that have been hurt by South Temple Reconstruction.

WYNN: Please go through the gravel and rough roads and take time to patronize our businesses on South Temple. They are really hurting.

SCHOOL BOARD: not here

MAYOR’S OFFICE: Gwen Springmeyer: We are having a huge 4th of July event at Jordan Park so that we can spread out the celebrations through the City. We will have volleyball, Arts and Crafts, Face Painting, Contests, Kids Activities and Games. Live Music by local bands including Luciano & Fate and Moosebutter.

STREET FAIR - Walt: The Governor’s Mansion will be giving free tours from 10-2 the day of the Street Fair. We are pursuing having some of the artwork from the Mansion on the tee-shirts. The Masonic Temple will also give Tours. Call me if you want to volunteer to help with the Street Fair: 531-0678. The next Street Fair meeting will be Saturday July 12th at Jaynie Brown's home, 817 -17th Avenue at 9:00 a.m.

CERT- Judith Locke: A CERT refresher class will be held July 16th 200 S. 500 East at the fire station. 7:00 p.m. If you want to learn how to get more prepared, please show up.

CITY COUNCIL: Eric Jergensen: Congratulations to Phil Carroll who organized the great clean up in Memory Grove. We had about 200 people there. They did a great job, which takes a lot of pressure off the City. Thank you also to Pat Peterson for her work on South Temple. I get complaint calls everyday. There was a lot of extra work with the intricate interweaving of all the electrical lines. Some have called about traffic calming. There are 2 projects in the Avenues. 11th Avenue has 2 street tables being constructed. Federal Heights Way is also getting two speed tables on the east and west ends. New projects have a moratorium; old ones will continue. We are having them stopped until we put in new regulations of who gets what and why. We have a great concern with the Zoo – the county is interested to moving the animals out south. I have nothing good to say about that. I would like to request that the Greater Avenues CC pass a resolution and get a petition to the Legislature to keep the Zoo in the City.

OLYMPIC LEGACY PROJECT - Eric Jergensen: Out of the Olympic City Funds we were allocated $100,000 to make an Olympic-themed improvement in each area of the City. The Avenues and Capitol Hill Area has $10,000 to spend on a one-time Olympic theme improvement. One suggestion is an improvement in the lighting into Memory Grove from 4th Avenue Stairs. Another idea we’ve heard is to do some construction over the roads entering into the Avenues with the Olympic Logo that states that it is “The Avenues Area.” We would like the GACC Board to come up with some proposals. You have a marvelous opportunity to do something good with this money.

DIAL 2-1-1 – Josh Pederson: We are a private nonprofit corporation that is a Hot-line Referral or Link-Line to help primarily low-income people find the Health and Human resources, like where the homeless shelter is, or where free food can be found. One list we have is the Homeless Resource List – it shows where you can get shelter, shower, health care, etc. We cover 80% of the state. There are many other resource lists, like a list for one-parent families. We call it the Red-book of human services. It costs $30, which we will mail to you; but we have a web site where you can get all the information in the red book for free. www.informationandreferral.org.

FOOTHILLS PRESERVATION – Doug Wheelwright: I would like to give you a little history of the foothill preservation attempts. It all began in 1976 where there was a flash flood and water and mud came down Terrace Hills Drive and went into the basements on several homes on the east side of the road. So the City declared a moratorium on foothill building above 5200 feet for 6 months while they put out some new regulations. The 5200-foot elevation restriction ended in 1977. In 1982 we put in some site regulations, such as the steepness of the lot (40% slope – which is 40 feet of rise in 100 feet of run.) In 1987 the Avenues Master Plan policies were established. And in 1994 the Planning Commission made changes to a 30% slope and made it more restrictive. We look at each 10-foot interval and look at the elevation. Driveways are limited to 16%. We have limited lot sizes in zoning; and we have limited the grade on a street to 10%. In 1995 the City adopted new zoning designations that relate to foothills, with different lot regulations. One was a 16-acre protection-zone lot size. In 2001 the site developments were changed to become clearer. Some of the tools we have used are Public Ownership. The Forest Service bought a great deal of land. The City bought Foothill Protection land. We have zoning controls that limit and restrict density. We have easements and exactions, where we require developers to donate improvements for us to service the land. We have eliminated “stub” streets and made them into cul-d-sacs, which ends the building and utilities. These things have served to help preserve the foothills. Last fall our City Attorneys told the Planning Commission that they had a problem, and they gave some suggested regulations, which we made. Some of the Citizens appealed and it was sent back for a new regulation. Since March we have been working with the Planning Commission to change things to make the City Attorneys more comfortable. At some point in August or September the City Council will consider those regulations and there will be public hearings. There is still some foothill land in private hands, (72 acres) at the end of Perry’s Hollow Road to develop. The developer has said he will develop it, but has decided not to do it at this time. QUESTION: What about Dorchester Point development? ANSWER: There are 20 lots, with about half of them built.

U.S. CONGRESSIONAL REPORT – Jim Matheson: I am normally in Washington on Wednesdays, but the Capitol is closed on the 4th of July, so I am glad to be here. One comment before I take questions. I am sure you have discussed the flight paths issue that is being proposed by the FAA. The status is this: the FAA came up with a plan based on the idea that we would have a great increase in air traffic. In fact, since 9-11 air travel has gone down at our airport. The FAA had public scoping process; there was a public comment period. There has been a lot of concern about this issue. They are going ahead with their plans any way. We are all for safety, but we feel that they are rushing into this. They are going to do an environmental impact study. Please be involved in that. We do not want this to digress into an east-west debate. The flight plans will still be going over the west as well, but now they will be going over the two areas. I’d like to introduce our Salt Lake office manager, in the back. Our Office is in the Morris Travel Building in South Salt Lake and we have one in St. George.

WHAT COMMITTEES ARE YOU ON? I am on the Transportation and Aviation Committees. Utah is growing and needs more federal funds in transportation, so I am glad to be there. I serve on the Financial Services Committee – banking, insurance, real estate, etc. These industries represent 20% of the businesses in Utah. I’m also on the House Science Committee. With the U of U, a research university, in my district, that is of interest to me.

CAN WE LOOK TO ANY MORE FUNDS TO BUILD TRAX TO OUTLYING AREAS? 90 cents on the dollar collected from the states from the gasoline tax goes to the states. The extra 10% is discretionary money. Utah has been getting $1.03 for the $1.00 that Utahns pay in tax. Utah State collects an additional 24 cents in tax.

CONCERN OVER AMRTAK AND THE SUBSIDIES IT GETS? We have a very fine, honest and forthright new individual running AMTRAK and I think he can turn it around.

IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY OF GETTING A 4TH DISTRICT? There is a congressman in Northern Virginia who is sensitive to the fact that there are people in Washington DC who do not have a representative. People were concerned that there would be one more liberal representative. So his response was to give one to Utah, for they are all conservative there! But we will likely get another representative in the next census.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE PATRIOT ACT AND THE CIVIL LIBERTIES ISSUES? There was a sunset provision that the Patriot Act (in 5 years) would all go away. That’s why I voted for it. I think we need to live with it a little bit and see how it works before we make it permanent.

U.S. FORCES BEING SENT TO AFRICA? I have heard that we might send peacekeeping forces into Liberia but I have not heard if it is going to happen. He can do this without Congress passing an Act of War.

TAX CUTS: WHY DID THE LOWER-ECHELON PEOPLE GET LEFT OUT OF THE TAX CUT? While they were figuring out things, at the 11th hour, they found that they were short, so they cut out the lower rungs of people without most of the members of Congress knowing it. The Senate passed a different version, so they have to get together and figure it out and come to a consensus. It is our hope that this problem will be taken care of during these discussions.

WHY DO THEY GO FOR 10-YEAR PROJECTIONS WHEN NO ONE CAN REALLY SAY THAT FAR IN ADVANCE? It is a problem. Congress could be more effective if they had a bandwidth of possible projections.

THERE IS SOME CONCERN THAT THERE ARE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ. DID THE PRESIDENT LIE? The Information Committee made most of these decisions and information that was passed to the President, but their meetings are held in secret. I would be more in favor of more open public hearings.

WHAT IS YOUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HEALTH PLAN? WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO GIVE THAT TO EVERYONE? I have a job-based insurance. I pay 28% and my employer pays 72%. It is the same for all Federal Government employees. I don’t think we should have a national health plan, as that would limit our options. It is an important issue. There are challenges to all countries that have a socialized system, especially getting access and the quality of care. I think we need to have some way that we can get all workers affordable health insurance.

CONCERN WITH CERTAIN INTEREST GROUPS DONATING MONEY? I am concerned with the money.

In closing: Keep an eye on this airspace option. Keep involved. I am very worried about this one, for it will affect the quality of life for all of us.

OPEN FORUM - ZOO COMMENTS: We want to discuss this next month and have more information. We will pass around a petition.

ADJOURNED: 8:53 pm.