City Council Announcements
November 22, 2011
A. For Your Information
1. 2:18:38 PM Redistricting Work Group (Attachment 1)
The Redistricting Working Group has announced a series of meetings, which includes time for public comment. Their next meeting is 5:30 – 7:30 pm on Thursday, December 1 at the City & County Building, room 326. Attached is the suggested timeline for the Redistricting Working Group and the City’s redistricting process. Cindy Gust-Jenson said the group had shared a schedule of when they were proposing to meet. She said on December 1st they would be discussing issues with the school district and advocates who were interested in the school district issues. She said they had a condensed schedule and wanted to try to get a lot of the preliminary work done by December 13th. She said that would get them to the point where they could recommend to the City Council. She said they were considering getting a written report available by December 13th but it looks like time is pretty tight so Councilmember Love said they could get that at the first meeting in January. Ms. Gust-Jenson said the decision on redistricting would not be made by this current Council and would be made after the first of the year. She said filing for the school board candidates was March 9th and so the schedule as it was written proposed to have final consideration February 7th. She said if the Council wanted they could schedule one or more public hearings before that time or on that night. Councilmember Christensen said the statute said there was six months after the Legislature adopts but then there was a filing deadline. He asked if the filing deadline would apply to the old districts. Ms. Gust-Jenson said they needed to find that information out from legal counsel.
2. Ms. Gust-Jenson said RDA Chair Garrott wanted to check in about the retreat. He said he had talked to DJ Baxter about time sensitive items of the retreat. He said if they did not have a retreat they could circulate the goals to the board before the December meeting, have a discussion in December about the goals at the December meeting and make a decision in January. He said the two new Council Members would be asked to approve the goals with minor alterations. He asked how the Council felt as the RDA Board about postponing a retreat to whenever the next Chair/Vice Chair decided. He suggested holding the retreat in the spring. Council Members were in favor of circulating the goals. Councilmember Garrott said there could be a request that the Chair/Vice Chair meet to discuss the task list for the communications position. He said Mr. Baxter had indicated it would be helpful for them when doing their interviews if they could have the Council’s idea about what that task list might be. Councilmember Christensen asked if there was a possibility of taking a month out of the budget process and maybe adopting goals at the first of February so they would have a chance to meet with the new Council Members. Mr. Baxter said it would be tough to take a month out because when the budget was presented in May there were frequently requests to change it. He said that would not allow them enough time. He said an alternative was that they would be doing an orientation for the new Council Members and they could walk through the goals at that time. Council Members were in favor of the orientation process.
3. Ms. Gust-Jenson said the annual schedule for Council meetings will be made available in draft form next week for feedback from the both present and incoming Council Members. She said that needed to be published in keeping with State law.
4. Ms. Gust-Jenson said the National League Convention was coming up in March. She said that was the time when they had the opportunity to send Council Members to meet with the congressional delegation. She said a couple of people so far have expressed interest in attending. She said more information would be made available soon.
5. Ms. Gust-Jenson said on the agenda tonight there were a couple of changes. She said they did a revised agenda and Item No. 4 which was the presentation by Arthur Chris Nelson with the University of Utah that would relate to data and the ADU program would be rescheduled for January. Councilmember Simonsen said they had a public hearing on the ADU’s. He asked if the information was not vital prior to the public hearing. Councilmember Love said it was vital for the Council in taking action but they did not necessarily need to have the information before the public hearing. It was decided to include some basic information Mr. Nelson would be using as a basis for his presentation and attach that to the Council agenda. Councilmember Love said more and more comments were coming by e-mail so the comment period would be open well past the presentation. Ms Gust-Jenson said they could attach more information to Open City Hall and the Council’s website about the ADU’s from Dr. Nelson.
6. Ms. Gust-Jenson said Unfinished Business – Items 6 and 7 a couple of Council Members requested that the motions be consolidated. She said staff had worked with the administrative staff and the Bond Council. She said motions had been prepared on the peach colored sheet. She said if the Council wanted to make fewer motions they could use the peach sheet.