03 May SHCC April 2022 Meeting Minutes
7:03 pm Thanks for coming to the April Sugar House Community Council meeting.Just reminder. Everybody looks like they’re muted all questions will be in the chat.
Couple of notes: I met with the library last week and we are looking at possibly June to return to in person meetings. We will for sure have hybrid meetings going forward. You should start seeing some activity at the former 24 hour fitness site next week. The project will have activity on both sides of the street and they will keep the sideways safe and open throughout.
Secretary Report: Shane Stroud
Just a couple of things.
Hi everybody. First I sent everyone attachment, c. to our bylaws. If you remember, this is the last remaining portion of our bylaws of updates that we need to take care of. This has to do with information as to numbers of trustees within our neighborhoods based on 2020 census data. The actual total number of trustees, decreased by one between 2010 and 2020 that’s not because the population decreased. It’s, just because of the way the math works out and it’s mostly because the population is distributed more evenly across the neighborhoods, whereas historically, there were certain neighborhoods that didn’t have a very high population, particularly the Fairmont district, which before the Fairmont neighborhood, was mostly warehouse faces or commercial, and you can see that increase in population. So I didn’t get any replies to that with any changes. So I think if we can I’d like to vote on that for approval tonight, and once we do approve that our bylaws updates will be completed, and I can record that with a division of corporations and hopefully we’re in good shape on those for another 10 years until the next census comes out. So if I can get a motion to approve that attachment seat, or maybe I should pause and say, Does anyone have any questions or comments about attachment C. before we ask for a vote. So if I could get a motion to approve that from somebody. Landon made a motion to approve attachment C. Judi with the second. All in Favor…everyone said yes and it looks like the motion passes unanimously. Our second order of business so i’d like to introduce Charles Lyons. He turned in his petition to be a Beacon Heights Trustee. The spirit of full disclosure. Charles is an attorney with the Attorney general’s office in the Natural Resources section. We work together.Technically, Charles is, I guess, i’m his supervisor, but I promise not to strong arm him into any type of decision, unless it involves some sort of errant wildlife that happens to be harassing you in some way, and i’m just kidding there’s no type of conflict of interest under the bylaws. I will turn the time over to Charles to introduce himself. Thank you, Shane. I live in Beacon Heights. I live on 2300 east, pretty close to Hillside Middle School. We bought a house here about a year and a half ago. My wife, Sarah, and my son David I’m originally from Wisconsin. I lived in Miami Florida before attending law School at the U, and then took a job with the Attorney General’s office, doing natural resource work, representing the department of natural resources. Generally the biggest thing I worked on recently that you’re all aware of probably is the Parley’s Canyon mine stuff. I just wanted to join this group being new to the community, knowing that this is a great group from talking to Shane, and just want to be involved, and see what I can do to help make this place even better than it already is.
19:12:11 So it’s excited to be here excited to hopefully join the group. I filed my petition hopefully. Shane makes a motion to accept Charles’ petition. Judi seconds, no one objects. Welcome to the group Charles!
Fire Department Update: It’s spring and you know the main concern right now is the spring runoff. The water is going to start moving so just make sure everybody’s aware of you know any of the moving water that could be fast and could be dangerous for children and pets. We are staying busy with the fire department. We’re back to pretty much full normal operations as far as you know, accepting visitors in the station, and getting back to doing our the PR Events.
Treasurer Report: Mike Bagley
Bank balance. We said it’s $6,591.58.No new activity to report from last month you know other than a couple pennies from interest earned, so you know, probably not keeping up with inflation. But that’s where we’re at and it didn’t see any activity on our paypal account either. I just want to give a thank you to everyone who has donated to the SHCC, everything helps us on our mission.
Parley’s Mine Update: Andrew Smith wanted to come by and just chat for a minute. I just wanted to give a quick update last week. Oh, and welcome to Charles, to the group! The Tree Farm Applications for both a small and a large mine were asked to withdraw. The board of oil, gas and mining allowed that to happen. It was talked about by a representative of those people that they would be filing another small minen application. I haven’t seen it but we’ve been looking, and so, as soon as we see a new application will let everybody know. Also this week, just yesterday, the biggest news was the vote by the County Council. After about 2 months of lots of meetings and letters, and some of you might have written letters they voted unanimously to make an amendment to the zoning ordinances to basically eliminate and prohibit mining and mining operation and mineral extraction types of operations inside of the forestry and recreation zones, and also the zones which is the foothill and canyons overlay. So anything that’s zoned right now is prohibited to do any kind of a mining operation. Now that said we want a nice battle, but the war is not over, and I said something to Landon earlier today, and to a lot of the other Salt Lake Community councils that I’ve been working with that over the next 10 days whatever new developments happen will get you an update, and I will try to pass that on for whatever new strategies or new plans that this this operator is trying to do to kind of over override what the county just did or try to get this mine approved, and so it’s like I say we won a nice battle, but we haven’t won the war. Lastly, and just in closing I wanted to thank Landon and all of the trustees on this council, and everybody that’s joining us right now. And over the last several months, as I’ve been informing you and powerpoints, and talking about it, and you can see the yard signs. All of those kinds of things, I wanted to thank you for all that support and it’s been very important to see that type of action, and the voices being heard. And so thank you very much. Okay, Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Susan, you have something to say. I covered those Salt Lake County Council meetings and I Listened to that discussion yesterday, and the council indicated that the ordinance, the amended ordinance, sort of protects existing operations, the end that they’re not affected by that vote. I wonder if I got that right. Is that correct? If anyone knows? Charles: Yeah, I have something to say. So it is interesting that this is the topic of conversation for the first time that I’m kind of joining you all because I’m actually pretty conflicted about discussing much of this stuff but I haven’t followed too much of what the counties are doing, just because I’m shifting focus to other matters.
But I can assume that part of the reason Why, it’s not going to affect any other existing mining operations is because they’ll be subject to constitutional claims. So those people have a right to do that at the moment. and if you’re gonna stop them there’s gonna be massive litigation associated with that, and the costs would be astronomical because i’m sure there are multiple operations. But so usually this type of stuff is just going to try to put a prohibition on any new operations going forward.
And so that’s probably what’s happening there just to clarify. All right, guys, I agree with that. Any other questions. We got to do it in the chat or brief for us to be at another meeting at 8: 30, so we need to get to our new detective.
Det. Sam Fallows
I’m Detective Samuel Fallows, a police officer for 12 years. I just got in this position maybe a month and a half ago, and then they switched up all the districts. And so, Bob went back to 3 and 4 and I am taking 5, 6, and 7, so I will be your guys’ community liaison officer. A reminder to please download the SLC mobile app. A lot of you already have that downloaded. If not, please, download it. It helps us be able to track the people experiencing homelessness things where there’s issues, or even if it’s just something as simple as speeding. That app is really helpful. Your top calls for service were vehicle prowls or vehicle burglaries. There were 40 of those in the month of March. It’s just a good reminder to make sure that we’re locking up our vehicles, not leaving anything of value,nothing in plain sight. A lot of them happen at night generally. Another helpful thing is to just make sure you have your outside lights on. Second highest was shoplifting. You guys obviously have a lot of business in your district, and so most of that is pretty much related to one area. So nothing to be super concerned about there’s not a lot we can do to cut down on that it’s kind of dependent on the individual store. Next is the reportal traffic accidents. There were 22 of those, again those are things that can be preventable. That’s what they call accidents right? It’s just an accident. There were 17 calls for mental health crises. We had 12 credit card frauds.So people are leaving purses. People are living wallets and things like that in the vehicles. Just make sure you’re taking all those things out of your vehicle. And then the last one that I had is a theft of parts from a vehicle, lately it has been the front license plate. We’ve been having some catalytic convergence being stolen off vehicles, so just make sure you’re checking your vehicles. Make sure you have both your plates. and all that sounds kind of kind of weird, but they take the front plane all the time, and I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t look at my front plate very often so so just make sure you check in it to make sure it’s there and Then report it if it is missing. When you guys report things, you see anything suspicious, I like to see those types of calls for service. because that means that our citizens are letting us know.
You’re going to see the numbers go up for sure it’s just kind of how it works over the summertime. But if we can help to like start mitigating some of the vehicle problems that seems to be your number one call each month. So let’s try and work on that talk with your neighbors, family members remind them to lock their vehicles. Then a couple other things of note. There were 17 burglaries between residential and non-residential.
There were 23 damaged properties between vehicles, residences, and businesses. If you have something happen, please call us and let us know we can take a report.
Michael G Spotlight on Business: Brandon Hill co-chair along with Eric Wiggins of the Sugar House Chamber. Tonight. We’d like to introduce some good friends of ours for the monthly business spotlight the Neighborhood Hive, where we will be having our next chamber meeting on April 20th at 5:30. If anybody would like to attend, we will be up in the neighborhood.
Hive Derek I saw you guys on and I think I saw Jed and I’m not sure if i’m missing any other group. But feel free to unmute yourselves and say hello to the group Hey, guys, we’re super excited, I don’t know if anybody’s been up to 21st and 21st but the Neighborhood Hive sign has finally been painted on the building and the stucco’s done and we are super excited about it. You guys have heard from me for months and months and months all about the neighborhood hive. So I thought I’d bring some of my good buddies and business partners to tell you their take on the neighborhood hive. Neighborhood Hive is made up of 5 owners along with rental spaces from other vendors. The 5 owners represent Olio Skin and Beard, Hello Bulk Market and The Bean Whole Coffee. The entire business is made up of small businesses. Please come and check us out.
Director of Public Utilities Laura Briefer
I am here to talk. about our water supply outlook for this summer, and I do have a presentation that I’ll try to share if that’s okay. So this is hot off the press today, and it’s our 2022 water supply update, and just to sort of remind everybody here I think you all know this. but Salt Lake City public utilities, water service area includes drinking water provision to more than 360,000 people across Salt Lake City, and then portions of MillCreek, Holiday, Cottonwood heights. South Salt Lake, Murray and Midvale. It’s a pretty large service area about 141 square miles, and our website has a lot of information, including the definition of our service area here, and also just an update about our water supply sources. So this is part of our long-term planning. Our surface water sources that comprise our local wasatch canyon streams of Parley’s, Canyon City Creek, Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood canyons provide us about 50 to 60% of the water supply for that big service area. Then we also rely on surface water storage in Deer Creek reservoir that comes to us through the Provo River Project and the Central Utah project, and that comprises 30 to 40% of our water supply. In addition, we have groundwater sources that are deep wells and springs, which are about 10 to 15%. There’s variability about how much of what state is in our service area. Just really depends on things like climate and snowpack, and whether we have a construction project that, you know, makes one source a little less reliable than another. But those are the major breakdowns of our water sources, and that’s really important for us to consider in a year like this. and I’ll talk about that in a little bit here in this presentation, so as far as water utility. We are regulated as a public water system and a public water supplier under the Federal and State safe drinking Water Act and under State statutes that govern things like water rights and under the safe drinking water Act. We have a lot of obligation and responsibility in terms of making sure that the water here tap is safe, and that is a multifaceted strategy that includes source water Protection. I think many of you are familiar with our efforts and watershed for protection in our local wasatch mountains. That’s a big part of our source water protection we also have a water treatment, obligations, and Salt Lake City owns 3 water treatment plants at City Creek, Cottonwood creek and little cottonwood or parley’s Creek and then we are a partner in a water treatment facilities that are owned and operated by the Metropolitan water district of Salt Lake and Sandy. Our water distribution system consists of all of the water names, distribution lines, pump stations, those types of things. And then under the Safe Drinking Water Act.We are also required to monitor water quality from the source of the water and the watershed to what comes out of your tap. And so, you know, we exceed all of these requirements, and then some. We look at the regulations as minimum, and we want to make sure that we are protecting public health and environmental health through our work. We also provide on an annual basis water quality information that gets sent out to all of our water customers and then also posted on our website. and I’ve included a lot of website links in this presentation. I’m happy to share this presentation with you too, all right there we go. So what we do to determine every year is to determine the annual water supply outlook. we look at what we’re starting the water year with. Then we determine what probability we have of below average average or higher than average water supplies on our system. So this year we’ll start the water year with the water year starting in April. The first is one positive in that soil. Moisture is a lot better than last year. I remember the drought conditions we had last year. We had super inefficient runoff. Because our soil moisture levels were so low and that really affected the amount of water available to bring into the drinking water system. So one positive is that we do have better soil Moisture lover levels But, however, we’ve got this trend of warmer temperatures, and lower precipitation lower than normal snowpack and all of that has put us at the start of the water year in a situation where all of the State of Utah is either in severe or extreme drought. So it’s quite a persistent drought as you can see on the figures I’ve provided here. We’re not alone, persistent drought is evident across the entire Western United States And this is something that a lot of our neighbors are also dealing with. So because of where we’re starting the water year and the projections that we are looking at, models and projections that we look at, we have a high probability of below average water supplies, we’re seeing projections of runoff ranging between 65 to 83% of average yield of all of the sources on our system. And we’re still in La Nina conditions which typically in our part of the country deliver less precipitation. And then we also look regularly at the models for our 3 month outlooks for temperature and precipitation. So for April, May and June we are expecting a greater probability for increased temperatures, and a greater probability for decreased precipitation. That’s meaningful because increased temperatures often have an impact on demand for water, because we’ve got more demand in our vegetation and epa transpiration. And then, of course, the lower precipitation has more to do with the supply side.
So we’re flexible and adaptable here. I share this model graph with you, because I just think it’s important, you know, as people who are relying on our water resources. And I think a lot of you are very interested in being able to access information and sort of look at things from your own perspectives. But here’s an example of what I use when I’m looking at projections for water supply. This is something that is published by the Colorado Basin River forecast center of the national Weather Service, and I look at this graph. That shows what the projections are for Runoff and Big Cottonwood Creek. Big Cottonwood Creek provides on average between 20 and 25% of our water supplies, and it’s an important one that I look at.
But I look at all of the streams on our system and there’s a lot of great information on this graph, but it shows us at the top of the graph a dashed green line that shows what was the maximum Runoff ever recorded instrumentally in Big Cottonwood Creek, and that was in 2011. Then you can see on the side that the volume is in 1000 acre feet, and then the bottom part of the graph is in this By month and then you’ve got the solid green line. The dark Green line is the average recorded on Big Cottonwood Creek, the dashed dark green line is the median and then the bottom light green dash line is the minimum, which was 1934.
And so the shaded light, fated blue lines show the realm of possibility for what might happen. And on big cottonwood creek in terms of runoff with the dark blue line in the center being what we’re projecting. And so with this projection you can compare it to what we’ve seen in terms of maximum flow minimum flow, and also look at yield. And so what this is saying is that what we expect the yield of big cottonwood creek to be this year is 25,000 acre feet, which is 74% of average and 86% of Median as a water manager. That’s really meaningful to me because I can compare the What we’re expecting in terms of yield on this creek with what my demand needs are for each part of the system. So I just wanted to share that it’s a little technical but I think it’s important for you to know some part of the science and modeling that goes into these projections each year. And then we also look at a lot of other resources related to things like water storage, for instance. So, as I mentioned earlier, the water that’s stored in Deer Creek, that’s part of our Provo River Project and central use Utah Project supply is very important to us and comprise this. About 30 to 40% of our supply it’s really a very important piece of the water supply, especially to me peak demands during the summer, or to get us through multiple years of drought. And so currently, Deer Creek is sitting at about 85% of capacity, which is really good, but not all of that is available to the stakeholders in the Provo River Project, in which Salt Lake City is one of those. You might have seen a newspaper article recently where About 14,000 acre feet of what is sitting in Deer Creek has been through a collaborative agreement pledge to Weber County Water Conservancy district, which has some really substantial challenges in terms of water supply this year. Which brings up another good point in that with respect to water management in the State and in the region, we all really need to try to work together on conjunctive management, and really try to make sure that water supplies are getting to where they need to be and then finally what we’re looking at. Here is water conservation, and demand management so we’re heading into another year of drought. we’re going to be asking all of our customers on the system, our residents and businesses and institutions and government agencies to continue to do the great work as evidence last summer of reducing overall water use and demand during our summer peak period. Last year Salt Lake City entered into Stage 2 of its water shortage contingency Plan due to the drop conditions stage 2 of our plan means that we have voluntary water restrictions for businesses and residences and mandatory restrictions for government entities. We’ve not gone out of stage 2 and I’m not recommending that. I think we need to stay in stage 2 of our plan and we’ll continue to keep evaluating to see if we need to move to any other stages of our water contingency plan. There’s a lot of great information on our website and resources in other areas to help you conserve. Our water conservation plan has a lot of good information but I’ve also got a lot of other resources here for you. So on our website, slc.gov public utilities, for water conservation and draw information we’ve got a lot of links to various programs that you can take part in, including Rip your strip. We’ve got rain barrels and We also have a water tech program that Salt Lake City administers alongside Utah State University. So a lot of really great resources out there, and even a landscape guide that we’ve put together that shows examples of water wise landscaping locally.
Suzanne commented: We know it would be bad. So why not get the public used to some strong regulations and incentives? Asap. My main concern is that we know we’re gonna have problems, and we need to implement and start the conservation Now and not wait until July. Yeah, I think we’re being too cautious. I think you have to educate the public. I think we need to have incentives. We need to have fines or some kind of punishment if you don’t do such and such. I mean if you’re running your sprinklers in the middle of the day, can you report your neighbor or can your water rates go up.
Laura response: Last year we avoided additional regulatory restrictions, because the voluntary efforts were so substantial.So system-wide. we saved 20% and the really great thing about that was because so much was saved on our system, I think it was something like 2.6,000,000,000 gallons of water. We’re going to be able to refill our 100% allocation in water storage. However, your point is really good, because you know, this could be a year over year drought, and as we contemplate that, you know we do not want to cycle down our reservoirs. It’s too much. We want to make sure we still have adequate supply to meet really critical demands And so one of the things that we’re doing right Now actually, we’re working on a press release, and some other information out to the public next week.
That does exactly what you’re saying in terms of public education. It will also point to the places where we have incentives. We do have tools available for people to report water waste, and when you report water waste we actually contact the property owner where that’s happening and try to help them. You know, reduce that way, or to make changes there’s not a regulation that is in our ordinances. That has a fine associated with that. but we have found that being able to contact the property owner and have that conversation with them and provide them with assistance, has been really, really beneficial.
Larry question: I’m wondering Laura, did you take a position on the gravel pit, and did you have any observations related to effects on water supply from that proposed gravel pit.
Laura response Yeah, yes, we have taken a position on the proposed gravel pit in Parley’s canyon from the very beginning, you know, like a lot of others. We were surprised by the Proposal and the concern that we have with the gravel pit is mainly threefold like our neighbors in MillCreek, and elsewhere. We’re very concerned about air quality impacts but we’re also very concerned, too, about water quality impacts in the Parley’s Canyon watershed, which does provide about 20% of our drinking water and we’re very concerned about the water resource footprint the application did not indicate how much water would be needed. A lot of the air, quality and water quality. A mitigation proposal in the application requires the use of water, and so we have put those concerns forward to the State division of oil gas and mining. I signed an affidavit with those concerns.
We also testified yesterday in favor of Salt Lake County’s amendment to its forest recreation zone that would restrict those types of activities so we’ve been pretty active in that process.
I-80 Update
My name is Molly Betabenner, and I do public involvement in communications with UDOT on their I-80 Reconstruction Project. Today we have Becky Stromness, UDOT Project manager with us, and Becky will be giving a construction update and a look ahead in terms of upcoming impacts and construction milestones. So with that, Becky. I’ll hand it over to you. Thank you, Happy to be here. I think it’s been maybe not quite a year but happy to come tonight and give you guys an update with the progress we’re making. So this is just kind of some fun graphics, with some trivia of some of the accomplishments during the last year. And so our first year focused on reconstructing the center median of both I-80 and I 2-15, and the purpose for that is, it’s going to allow us to shift the traffic. We’ve also been working on reconstructing some of the on and off ramps of the bridge. 1700 East has been a big focus. We’re having to build temporary bridges between the eastbound and westbound lanes at both 2000 east and 2300 East. So that’s been the focus of 2021. Lots of work still remains, but we’re excited as the weather warms, and we can really pick up the pace. So a big thing coming up in just a few short days is going to be the 1700 East Bridge replacement. And so in just a few days from now, this coming weekend, this bridge at 1700 East is going to be demolished, and the new bridge that has been built to the west of it is going to be slid into position. So, starting Friday night about 9 o’clock the demolition’s gonna take place There’s gonna be a lot of equipment, a lot of trucks lot of action out there on Friday night, Then moving into Saturday morning and afternoon will be the slide itself, and the intent will be to be wrapped up and get traffic back open. By Sunday afternoon. We have a little video to kind of depict what’s gonna happen. So take out the bridge and then slide the new one into position, then open it back up. So I want to talk a little bit about the traffic impacts. So plan ahead. Tell your family, arrange your schedules, and plan trying to get the word out that to accomplish the bridge, demolition and replacement interstate 80 is going to be closed. Over the weekend both the Eastbound and westbound direction between 700 East and Parleys is going to be closed. Starting at 9 o’clock on friday night and we’re anticipating this to go through Sunday around one o’clock. There’s obviously lots of variables when you’re demolishing a bridge and sliding it but that’s our best projection. Hopefully things will go smoothly, and we’ll get through it and open sooner than that. As you look at this map from a global perspective the detour is out and around, using I-15 and 2-15 best to just avoid the area. It’s not as far as people think it is but that’s what our recommended route is to go out and around. Now, if local, like the Sugar House area and those in the neighborhoods there. All the other main roads are gonna be open but there will definitely be extra traffic. Those that choose not to detour in the out and around They’re going to be told The detour is 700 East and 3300 South. So then in the local neighborhood similar to what’s been in place over the last week, and we certainly appreciate everyone’s patience with the closures that we’ve been preparing for this bridge demolition and bridge slide in your neighborhood, but 1700 will be closed between Parley’s Canyon Boulevard and Stratford Avenue again, starting on Friday about 7 o’clock, and that will continue until Monday morning, so our intent will be to get the road all patched up and put back in time for school on Monday morning, and during this closure, obviously those that are you know, residential businesses. You can still access kind of where the red dotted with the white is that’s still available to be accessed.
But the bridge itself is obviously out so there’s not going to be any ability to cross through. It will actually be pretty dangerous with the amount of equipment and large amounts of concrete debris and old bridge girders that are gonna have to be held out. You won’t be able to cross Parley’s trail in this area. Approximately a month from now, the end of April, beginning of May Once we have a seventeenth bridge gone it’s got that center pier, and that will be able to be removed with the bridge being gone, the new bridge doesn’t have a center pier and so once that’s removed, we’ll be able to shift the eastbound traffic entirely into the center. Then it will go up the center Median across the temporary bridge at 2000 and 2300 east. We’ll have a similar situation over on 2-15 where we’re moving the traffic to the center Median. So look for approximately a month out on that. Then we will also be doing some work on the 2000 East Bridge that currently carries eastbound direction. So we’ve got to demolish, and remove that and then start building the new bridge there, so expect some closures on 2000 East coming, and then the kind of a bigger thing through the summer in the fall will be the 1300 East bridge that’s a much much larger bridge than 1700 is but that’ll be occurring this summer, and into the fall with another bridge slide. And then I do want to let everyone know unfortunately with the covid situation We’ve all been living through and the shortages in all industry. It also affected construction, labor, equipment, materials, and as such we are going to be extending into 2023 To finish this project. So that’s the update back to you Molly. Great thanks.
Susan representing the League of Women voters Salt Lake Chapter this evening. I hope I can find one individual or even a tag team of individuals who might be interested in volunteering and joining the League of Women voters observer core. This group of people started about 3 or more years ago to go to our city council meetings and take notes mostly for openness and transparency in our governing bodies.We take notes, and we turn them around to our league. and if there are action alerts, we motivate and try to get our communities rolling in terms of raising awareness. But it’s also a way to, not only engage with our community councils and our representatives. We’ve got our Salt Lake City council not being covered at the moment.So in particular, I’m really hoping that this community council might come up with some volunteers for us, or at least in the neighborhood. If you’re interested in knowing more about the lawsuit with respect to redistricting, if you would like a presentation, I can also help connect you with the right people there, and I also wanted to make you aware I found out just this week that there’s a video contest targeting graduating high school students and students who might like to join a contest, enter their work in a contest on the importance of voting.
Sarah Woosley Friends of Fairmont Update:
We’re having an earth day oriented tree planting on April 24th. It’s a Sunday, join us at 9 o’clock on the east side of the pond. All abilities. ALong with Tree Utah we will plant around 15 to 20 trees. They usually help us dig the holes which is awesome and we’ll do some mulching to preserve the hydration of the existing trees.
Other Side Academy:
My name is Maurice Mugan, I am the director of neighbor recruitment for the other side village. We also have one of our village coaches Russell Pearson, and we also have Camille Winning, who’s gonna go ahead and lead our presentation. We’re joined by our other colleagues here and also Robert Robbie Myrick, and they’re all part of the team that is bringing together the other side village project. The other side village is a master plan community that is designed to house the chronically homeless.
We are essentially on the west side of Salt Lake City. It’s on Indiana avenue just west of Redwood Road. We wanted to tell you a little bit about the village, and what will be included there. And essentially what it is We’ll be offering the village is a master plan community with permanent supportive housing for over 400 people who are chronically homeless, who are currently residing in shelters or living on the streets here in salt
Lake City. We’ll install a peer accountability model to keep the community safe, clean, and orderly, and Russell will be telling us a little bit more about that in a few minutes and what that means, and what our history is with that. The village will be supported by revenue generated by our social enterprises in the village which will allow us to be operationally self-sufficient, and provide employment opportunities as well for the residents who live there. So really this is about a culture of pure accountability of myself. A little bit of background by myself.
I grew up in a strong drug culture but it was a negative culture, you know, started using drugs, in 4th grade had an uncle that taught me how to use drugs. That was a culture that I grew up in and it led me to some places that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. But that was a culture, and it was a strong culture, even though it was negative, and so getting to the other side village, which is a community for folks who have been chronically homeless those that suffered from mental illness on one drug addictions, and we want to help our displaced veterans well that’s who the other side of village is specifically for. Now we’ve had plenty of opportunities at least for myself. I smoked drugs for over 20 years. I was homeless for 10 years. I had so many different services available. I mean, I was able to get food, clothing, money, and housing. The model that existed for me still exists today. With housing is that you give a person a housing voucher? And you think that the problem is all well, it’s not that easy, because the person takes that housing voucher, and in their pocket you got crack, Heroine, meth or whatever spice, or whatever other drug and you take that into your new place a couple weeks later. Everyone else in your group does Drugs. Smoking in your new apartment and a couple of months later you get evicted. That’s a model that exists today. we wanted to make sure that we were able to teach a person how to actually maintain that housing after they were so hard to get it, and not be a part of that revolving door. And so for the last 7 or 8 months, me and my team, we’ve been in homeless shelters and resource centers, and some of the homeless encampments and letting folks know that hey There’s an opportunity coming down the pipeline there, which you want to take advantage of. It’s about getting folks healthy and back in a position where they can participate in society and be a part of that dream. We run into a lot of folks suffering from emotional, physical and mental trauma. We got PTSD a lot of different mental health issues. And a lot of substance abuse and so the thing that ours. We’ve been successful with our sister program The Other Side Academy. Let’s get your thinking straight. let’s get your health right and let’s begin that process of waking up. Maybe having a morning meeting, maybe participate in one of our social enterprises and get on a regular schedule. Throughout that day what we’ve been successful is establishing that culture which says that you know the amount of time that it takes a person to do something that’s destructed to themselves into the community the amount of time It takes for myself, my neighbor, my community, to speak up and say something is going to determine how successful you’re gonna be in life, and how successful your communities is gonna be.
20:30:19 How many times in life have we been at a family reunion or a family? And so it’s that peer accountability that we’re really trying to help a person with in trying to teach a person within the other side village. Thanks. mo we’re gonna turn the time over to Russell Pearson.
I wrote a letter to the other side Academy and asked for help. You commit to some beliefs that we live by that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to save your life and that’s what I did when I first got to the Academy. It was hard for me to understand or believe some of the things that I was being told. But as I stayed longer and I learned this Academy could offer me a chance to have my life back. I started to buy into the culture and That’s the culture that most spoke about is that the accountable organization at the other side academy is different from the village, because there are no paid clinicians. It’s pure-driven therapeutic community. and it’s run by people who have gone through the program and then chosen to stay and give back and become staff members.
And so it’s always about helping, the next person being of service to others, and giving back, So I graduated after 2 years, and then I chose to stay a third year, because I felt like I wanted to give back to the place that saved my life, and I thought, you know what’s one more year kind of like an insurance policy, to give me a better chance of success.
A large number of the community showed up in support of the other side Academy, and said, We absolutely want this place in our neighborhood; we’ve never felt safer. you know we’ve let our children go and be involved with the activities and things going on there. So it was a completely different reaction from the community. once they had seen what had happened, and to speak a little bit about the social enterprises. The other side decided we wanted to start a moving company because as a nonprofit. We completely support ourselves. We don’t accept funding or government money, we completely rely on ourselves, and that’s one of our beliefs. There is no free lunch. If we want to live, we have to work.
And so we created a moving company, and that started with renting a u-haul truck. They now have the number one rated moving company in the State of Utah, with all 5 star reviews. I’m sure. probably some of you out here have used them or heard about them. I’ll never forget as a mover. I did that for one of my vocational trades you know it wasn’t until after the move that we were able to tell these people our story, and what sets us apart is that instead of walking to the truck we run to the truck. Nobody’s smoking cigarettes, nobody’s on a cell phone. We tell the people that gets noticed quickly because it’s such a high level of integrity. When we were able to tell our stories we would tell these people.
You know we were the people that used to take your stuff and Now we’re moving it, and you know they were a little fearful at first, but once they saw our abilities and the work ethic We had, the quickly became huge supporters and in that people started asking, Well, we have some nice stuff we’d like to give away. And so we turned that into another social enterprise. and now we have 2 thrift boutiques in Salt Lake, which have really high-end and nice stuff. So I’m sure some of you have probably been to or heard of the other side Thrift boutiques. All of these businesses generate revenue and it will go towards saving the next person’s life who’s sitting in jail like I was waiting to go back to prison. That wanted a chance to save my life. just to quickly show you the success rate of the other side Academy. I’m not gonna read these, you guys can see them but i’ll give you my story quickly. 5 years ago I was on my way back to prison, today I just graduated from the University of Utah with my bachelor of social work.
20:36:55 In December I start the masters of social Work program. I have also received my advanced substance use disorder certificate as well.
I’m getting ready to take that professional licensing exam and I’m Also a combat veteran. I served in Iraq and desert storm, so my goal and my role in my whole, when they offered me this opportunity to work with the village was a dream come true because I get to stay connected with the other side Academy who saved my life. We want to keep our community clean and beautiful and that’s what we’re going to expect and that’s how we’re very transparent, and talking to these people about what we expect.
And another thing that sets us aside is we’re asking that once they come from the neighborhood into the village, that it is a sober community. No drugs or alcohol and that’s what we’re going to expect. But something that’s important with that is instead of just throwing them out like a lot of places do when they slip up, which we know will happen. We’re going to take their keys and put them back in the village and turn the dials and figure out what went wrong, and fix it. Give them an opportunity to come back into their home and so I think we’re doing something that’s never been done. I know it works because I’m living proof of it as I’ve seen many others of you as you’re seeing on the screen, have gained their lives back from the Academy. And now we’re really excited to bring this into the village and work and help the homeless population.
We’ll talk a little bit about the services they’ll have available a little here later, and what will be available to the community as well.
The homes will be anywhere from 250 to 400 square feet, with rents from 200 to about $400 a month, including utilities. So deeply affordable, they will be fully furnished, fully decorated with a full bedroom. The units that are 400 square feet will have a separate bedroom. Others will be more like a studio or apartment, but will have a complete full kitchen with all appliances. Normal bathroom, with all the amenities there but a beautiful home that any of us would be happy to live in, something you might rent in one of these nice new apartment complexes, going up a one bedroom studio apartment with
20:42:43 every nice thing that you can imagine, and each neighborhood is made up of about 20 to 30 homes each, and in those neighborhood circles they will have their own community centers much like a clubhouse. Each community center will have meeting and gathering space, laundry facilities, a full kitchen as well as Tv and recreational space and those will be for those neighbors and those 2 different neighborhood communities will share one community center. So creating an environment where neighbors can come together and really create a feeling of support and really support that culture of peers and helping peers. We’re going to be self-sustaining financially, we will have rental income from the units and we also will have a community in which is an airbnb type of experience, where we’ll have a number of those homes will be set aside that are for overnight stays like an airbnb unit. It’ll run like a community if somebody wants to visit and stay there. Somebody who’s coming to volunteer or somebody in the neighborhood, who has a guest who wants to stay at a place, or people from the surrounding neighborhoods who want to have family members come and visit and stay so those will be available to the larger community as Airbnb style units. That will be part of the village that will be one of our social enterprises. We’ll also have other retail businesses that will be both for residents as well as the surrounding community, including a cafe, coffee shop, small grocery store, hair salon, and more services. We will have onsite event spaces for performing arts, auditorium with 600 seats, as well as an outdoor amphitheater and event gathering space.
So there’ll be opportunities for people from the community as well as the neighbors in the village to have events, craft markets and community events. And right now our first major social enterprise will be a food production facility. We’re going to be producing packaged cookies that will be sold in grocery stores, convenient stores, and that sort of thing.
We’re actually working with our partner who was the founder of the Loft House cookies, as you all might have seen the pink sugar cookies that we got in the gas station for years. We’re working with the founders of that to help us create our own Cookie Production Company. We want to build this in phases. The first phase will cost about $7,500,000. We still need to raise about $3,000,000 for the first phase. We’re asking for people to help donate to help build a village. We have a number of builders, the Home Builders Association, and others who are donating actual units, school programs, vocational school building programs or donating and building units as well as families, and such also through philanthropic or
employee matches. We will be utilizing a number of volunteers to help keep the community operational. So if you want to learn more about us, here are our contacts. You can find us on social media, on Facebook and Linkedin on Instagram. Our website is the other side village com. You can go there to sign up for our newsletters. We send those out periodically about every 2 weeks to give up updates on the construction. We hope to have our approval for our zoning change request, as well as a lease from the city completed within the month of April, where, waiting for the City Council to meet and vote on those and approve those and then we hope to begin our construction by this summer. We are happy to give tours of the Other Side Academy.
Councilwoman Amy Fowler:
I know the power of the program. I’ll tell you that, and several clients that have been there, and I There is good work being done there.
And so once again I look forward to what we can bring in the future.
We need someone on the watershed board. If anybody is interested in serving on the watershed board, please email me and Laura Stevens and Brian, the new Brian Pantel, that we can get you on the list and getyou on the board. I was planning an Earth Day event on April 24th as well at Fairmont Park to pick up trash from 11 to 1. What we’d, like, to do hopefully and we’ll talk to Sarah is just combine the 2, and we’ll be there from 9 to one, so so we will have public services out there with trash bags and we’ll have a table and some schwag if you haven’t gotten a bag and a cool t-shirt from D7. We have a homeless resource fair coming up. April 15th, and May 20th. We are looking for volunteers to help serve lunches. We are also looking for volunteers to help us put up tents and take down tents. Budget season is just beginning. 20:58:37 So it’s back in planning and there is going to be other opportunity sort of for community input my understanding.
Sally Barraclough: April 23rd the SHCC will have an aid station for the Salt Lake Marathon. We will be just north of the 1700 East bridge at the Southeast part of Sugar House Park. Please come and help us out. Happy to have as many volunteers as possible. I will send out more information as we get closer. Thank you and Landon has asked that I adjourn the meeting. Thanks everyone. 9:03 pm
For the full meeting check out our zoom meeting on YouTube.
