Attending: approximately 35

Chair Wynn Johnson and Chair-elect Peter Corroon were unable to be here so Past-chair Dick Smiley opened the meeting at 7:00 pm and welcomed the attendees. Someone wants you to vote one way or another on an open space bond which will keep your taxes at least level.

Nancy Tussman is here to speak to the library bond. We will have prop #3 to construct 2 additional branch libraries, one in Glendale area, the other in Capitol Hill area. The cost is 5.4 million dollars. Raises property taxes by $2.85 cents a year if you have $175.000 house. There will also be need for money to maintain those buildings. So it would trigger a tax increase to operate and maintain those buildings. If you want this package think of it in terms of $12/year if you have a $175,000 house. This is a series of individual items. Library happens to be prop #3. You will get additional information in voter info pamphlet. They will both be basically in West SLC. Bond question is specific to those areas—that will not switch.

Lawrence Reineke brought up another bond issue #5 which is for our kids. Has to do with $50,000 sports complex by I-215 near Redwood Road. The plan is to acquire property for nothing and with consent of voters will get money and build 30 soccer fields and 8 baseball fields. There is a dearth of playing fields in the city of Salt Lake. If we build this complex we will help what fields have been overrun. Half of all registered soccer players in the association are girls. It is worthy of your support. We don’t really have anything like West Valley does and SL County does. Taylorsville has superb one. Kids who are competitive are encouraged to go there to play. We would host soccer tournaments in these new fields. What is cost to taxpayers? Will be less than $8/year-- more like 7.87/year valued on home value. If bond passes when will these go into operation ---probably 2006. They will be game fields not practice facilities. All fields will be by each other in one area. Will maintain Jordan River trail. Are responsible for relocation of dirt bikes etc.

Police Report: Carrie Sanders reports large increase in car prowls last month from a dozen up to 47. Then came an increase in stolen vehicles. Happy to report the statistics have gone back down again this month. Can’t determine a pattern. 12 car prowls this month and it is probably vastly under-reported. We would like to know when things happen so we can look at the trends. Stolen cars went back down. One sex assault who was an unknown invited guest who took advantage of the circumstance. Need eyes during morning hours between 7-11 am. Break-ins and robberies are people involved spending a lot of time trying to get in, checking every entrance. Are all over the avenues not in any particular area. Spending a lengthy amount of time going through the homes searching for stuff as well. Take jewelry, checks, ID etc.

South Temple Reconstruction: Pat Peterson said one man left his car running and 35 ft away someone took it and went to Las Vegas to buy drugs. Reconstruction has 4 blocks to go. Have concrete all the way up. Actually looking like a street. Q Street is the only one closed to turn into the Avenues. Streetlights will be there until we put up new lights. Will have a road to drive on before Christmas.

Board of Education - Doug Nelson reports lately we passed a resolution to not bring guns to school since legislature passed a law saying it was okay to bring a gun to school. Passed out a paper about “no child left behind”. 10 different student groups are in each school. Break all the test scores down separately. In grades 4-8 kids are tested on math. If any school fails in any one of the 80 boxes it will be a failing school. The way this law is written every school in Utah could be on this list. Every school score needs to rise every year. Last year’s grade is compared to this year’s grade and it doesn’t show fair progress. Do we no longer have a truancy center? He will check on that. At Wasatch they promised they would not take playground and ramp—was not ADA compliant. Initially whole back yard of Wasatch was ripped up but it may not remain. Will be a kindergarten playground there. Still making it ADA compliant. If U of U wins its gun ban, will school district draft a law to also ban guns at school? School district does not draft law.

Legislature Ralph Becker reports briefly on traffic issues. Some of you have been part of a group that has discussed traffic issues in surrounding area. That committee looked at proposals to put in lights at Columbus on 5th north and next intersection. Held a workshop on that 9/23 and over 80 people went. They got a lot of feedback. Vast majority (80%) wanted to see traffic signals at those 2 intersections. That is a major change from where capitol community has been in the past. Original idea that came out of this traffic committee was to go to CC and get feedback on moving ahead. Looking at putting in these signals next spring. Did not have too many avenues folks show up. Would like your comments-- One comment was made that is supportive here.

City Council – Eric Jergensen said Jim Jenkin has been nominated to transportation advisory board. Call 532-4844 to give Eric input on anything you want. Traffic calming has been a major issue. New perimeters, when traffic change is discussed there will be a larger range of people who will have input. There will be no more calming devices put on emergency routes except for 11th Avenue and that is because it was passed before this was changed. Public hearing room #315 re zoning change in the Gateway . Church is reported to have said they will lobby the city council to keep large fashion box retail outside of the Main street corridor. Boyer and Gardner have asked to meet with the council as well. May company has too. Should there be large box dept stores (over 45,000 sq feet). How does it change downtown and gateway? Issue is zoning that is involved. We need to make decisions wisely now that will affect our city in years to come.

No one is here to report on the street fair. Had a round of applause for all those who helped with street fair.

Leonardo Program. Joe Andratti and Mary Tuttle spoke to project on library square (old main library bldg) which is now vacant and has been allocated to 3 major groups titled Leonardo. It’s a center for art, culture and science. Whole square will be open next Saturday; east half will be green space. Very interactive for adults and kids. Only city of our size that does not have a science center. Center for documentary arts and center for global art ways. Want to celebrate the power of creativity. It’s a way to try to enhance community’s approach to problems. Opening theme is going to be ‘Perspective’. Proposition #2 wants to acquire funds to do this and is a $10 million bond. Has a Dollar for dollar match and will provide money basic to this project. Will be 6 separate bond issues on ballot. In terms of cost for $175,000 house, will be $4.5-5.00/year. How is science center different from children’s museum? Kids will graduate from children’s museum about 3rd grade and then move to science center. Science center plan here is not for little kids. We are desperately in need of technological center and we have no money, will it be available to school district? Absolutely. Visit once a year. Curriculum will be standard space for schools. Will be a charter school on the 3rd floor.

RS247 rights of way - Joe Hatch and Gale Dick of Save Our Canyons brought maps and gave history of where those maps came from and want to suggest what we might do. Revised statute 2477 says—right of way is hereby granted which means there can be highway claims almost anyplace you can think of. Map shows roads all over Utah that are suspect. Some southern Utah counties can use this to cut off any future wilderness designation. Every little red line on map is potentially claimable under RS2477 –law of 1866. None of these claims have been made but they are worrisome. This was sent to Secretary of Interior in June of 2000. What has come out of it is a secret process (still secret) in deciding which of those roads will be selected. Most of the roads chosen have no problem. Some are controversial and are in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Chilling aspect of this process is that these roads are mostly on forest service land and is not Dept of Interior but is agricultural land. Next thing on their agenda is forest service land. Someone somewhere thinks that the trails that start out as access trails are now to be regarded as highway rights. Could mean these would be opened to motorized vehicles and have them going all over the hillsides. Would hope it would be possible that a letter would be sent to mayor and Nancy Workman asking that these claims would be disavowed. Joe Hatch is from county and agrees with Dick on 95% of what he says. Joe is always outvoted on County Council. SL County has only claimed 15 roads (in a letter) that are public. We thought that was it but in March, Fed government released this map and watersheds will be enormously impacted. Mining claims will be impacted. Problem is gathering of info is private and cannot be disclosed which would not be a problem but some bureaucrats in SL county sat down and came up with 5 additional roads. List is not public and all 5 are extremely bad and should not be made a road. Attorneys have a gag order on Joe Hatch. Send a letter to government office, attorney general and mayor of the county and ask that info be made public so people can comment on it. Put in minutes and put on agenda for next meeting.

GACC nominating committee Wynn Johnson has decided not to continue for his optional second year. Chair-elect, secretary, treasurer, board members and all except Tom DeVroom wish to serve again. If there are others who wish to serve please nominate them and get the info to Dick. Whether you are a board member or not you can come on the 2nd Wednesday and affect the agenda for the next meeting. Have 2 nominations for chair-elect Jim Jenkin and Jill Van Langeveld so far. Are there other nominations for chair elect? Are there other nominations for secretary besides Grace Wilson who has reluctantly agreed? Treasurer John Sittner has agreed to continue. Any board members nominated to serve? One will put in her name to Dick at end of meeting. We will vote at the next meeting.

Traffic calming – Jim Jenkin reports moratorium on traffic calming. There was a hearing, people spoke on both sides, most interesting thing is there is no alternative on the table to traffic calming. We could have compliance, we could have enforcement--there is not an effective mechanism in the system to control what happens when people are unhappy with traffic in the area. Pace car was an education effort. We have money in our kitty, why don’t we do some educating and put comments in about how our neighborhoods feel? Motion to have board consider a discussion to spend some money on education to help us. Will be brought up at next month’s meeting. Scott Vaterlas evaluates stop signs at city transportation 535 6650 (?).

Open Forum – Shannon Orr from Beacon Heights elementary on school community council, announced a thank you for being so welcoming and their Halloween carnival is on Oct 24. Open to anyone.

Eric Nielson works for KUED covering election coverage of live debates-- both are on Thursdays. These are audience participation debates and they are looking for audience members to come and be part of our TV production. Have seats for 24 and have about 10 filled. Request about 30 total for loss in attendance. Debates are at 7 pm

Do we want UDOT to come and make a presentation here? In Nov would be good? Do a very nice job on this. Have 3 proposals they can present

Motion to adjourn and seconded. Adjourned at 8:40 pm