05/22/2018 - Work Session - Announcements City Council Announcements
May 22, 2018
Information Needed by Staff 7:59:18 PM
A. Inland Port Board Appointment
The Inland Port legislation (SB 234) creates a board to manage and conduct the
port's business affairs. The bill states "the member of the Salt Lake City council
who is elected by district and whose district includes authority jurisdictional land
shall serve as a board member."
The Inland Port boundaries include both Council Districts i and 2, but only one
representative may serve on the board.
The legislation requires the appointment to be made by June 1, 2018.
➢ How does the Council wish to assign a board member to the
Inland Port? Cindy Gust-Jenson, Executive Council Director,
said there had been a number of different versions of the bill.
She said the most recent one said "the member of the Salt Lake
City council who is elected by district and whose district
includes authority jurisdictional land shall serve as a board
member."She said this would apply to two different Council
Members (Districts i &2). She said a decision was not needed
tonight but Staff wanted to bring the issue to the Council's
attention and find out if Council Members wanted to make a
decision during an upcoming formal meeting. Councilmember
Wharton said due to the lack of clarity/ambiguity, he felt
another follow-up letter needed to be sent to all stakeholders.
After further discussion, Councilmember Johnston said he
would discuss the issue with Councilmember Rogers (absent
from the meeting) before the next scheduled Council meeting.
B. Request for research on alley preservation
Council Member Mendenhall would like to request Council support for staff to
research and explore options and come back with ordinance recommendations to
help preserve city owned alleyways, such as increasing the threshold
requirements to request alley closures. The intent is to identify and establish
standards that would keep alleys as public assets.
➢ Does the Council support directing staff to start on this research?
Ms. Gust-Jenson said there were two Council Members who were
specifically interested in ally issues/preservation of them as
walkways,potential for them to be something more of a
community asset. She said it was a big project so Staff had not
been able to tackle it. She said the Council's legal advisor could
come up with something for the Council to review/discuss. She
ask if there were more than two Council Members who were
interested in pursuing the issue.
Councilmember Luke expressed concern about adding/funding
additional City infrastructure that would have to be maintained.
Councilmember Mendenhall said the request was not to commit
more funding toward alleyways, it was just to provide less
liquidation of alleyways while the Council looked at ways to
expand the transportation network.
Councilmember Johnston said he was approached by a
constituent who wanted to close an alley because of drug
dealing/crime, speeding, and safety issues. He said he wasn't sure
he supported stopping closures or having a moratorium while the
Council came to a decision. He said he would feel more
comfortable allowing the current process to continue while the
Council discussed options.
Councilmember Kitchen said he did not think the discussion was
about stopping the process but just raising the application
threshold. Ms. Gust-Jenson said she thought criteria (such as
crime) could be added to the process to help stem the tide.
Councilmember Fowler said she agreed with Councilmember
Johnston. She said she did not mind entertaining some language
but did not want to make any decisions at this point.
Councilmember Mendenhall said it sounded like the Council
wanted some criteria not a full cutoff Ms. Gust-Jenson said
usually if we are going to have something like this drafted we
have a majority of the Council who was interested in it. She said it
sounded like some Council Members were interested, at least for
purposes of having further discussion, (may not support it in the
end) but the Council at least wanted something to discuss. She
asked if that was fair. No objections were raised.