City Council Meeting (Pt. 2)   4/3/2018

So we could amend the motion.

$539,000.

And that's it.

Because we feel that's better than having a greater number allocated to West Main.

I'm talking about just in terms of the smart scale and all those approvals.

Is it better to have that?

Well, if we get the $5 million, we can use it as part of the leverage.

Oh.

Right, because like we talked about in the meeting in terms of us, they need to see that we have our own money.

Call for the vote on the original vote.

Because essentially we have to have

Thank you.

Roll call vote.

Ms. Hill?

Yes.

Ms. Walker?

No.

Mr. Signer?

Yes.

Okay, so it carries four to one.

Oh, I have a small other business, which actually it doesn't really matter.

I would like for there to, we've had some back and forth on this, for there to be babysitting provided at work sessions for the public and for counselors as there is at town hall meetings.

But this will not, as it turns out, be necessary this Thursday because we're not doing one.

But it's $105 for a session.

It's a good gesture.

It helps a lot at town hall meetings.

We also do, in disclosure, have three counselors with young kids.

And it can be very difficult to find sitters sometimes during these blocks.

Thursday, it doesn't matter for me.

But I think it would be nice to start doing it at work sessions as well as at the town halls because it does help the public.

And we even saw at the last work session a lot of kids there.

So I don't think we need a full... Well, I think those kids were there for the YMCA.

That's right.

For childcare for everybody?

Yeah.

For any work session?

Right.

Me too, and my little people.

Okay, anything else?

I'm disappointed in you guys.

I feel that way a lot, but it's different tonight.

I mean, I know you're sitting up there and you're disappointed in us and the way we behaved tonight, but I don't envy your position.

I know there's no right answer from up there when Nazis come in here and disrupt these meetings, but you found a way to choose the worst wrong choice, which is remarkable.

I mean, it's a low bar.

Sending us out into the hallway, clearing the chambers.

I mean, that was the indoor equivalent of what y'all did on A12, clearing the park into the streets, bottlenecking us into an enclosed area with armed fascists who just said in front of you that they want to harm us.

Chris Wayne said, catch me outside.

He wanted us to go outside and fight him.

That's what you did.

You sent us outside into the hallway with him.

Brian Lambert was carrying a gun.

which apparently is allowed here.

You can't take a gun to the courthouse or the library or Whole Foods.

Why can't we bar them from council chambers?

That man pulled a knife on the member of the clergy.

You think he won't hurt us?

And you sent us into the hallway with him.

You did nothing.

Like I said, there's no right answer from up there.

It's tough.

You can't shout him down.

I don't know.

I don't know what I expect from you, but that was a remarkably, poorly thought out choice.

It was dangerous.

And you have the nerve to sit up there and say that you're disappointed in us, that we're making it hard for you, that you're going to draw criticism for this, for the way that this went down, for the way that we behaved.

I'm worried that man will kill me.

A man with a gun got in my face in the hallway because you sent us outside with him.

What are y'all gonna do better?

How are you gonna handle this next time?

Because there will be a next time and a next time and a next time.

This happens every second or third meeting.

Somebody shows up here talking that trash, endangering us.

It's not new and it's not gonna stop.

You need to have a plan.

There needs to be a plan.

And it can't be to send us out there to fucking fight.

Because we will fight.

We will defend this city.

We will keep defending it.

But here in City Council Chambers, that's not our responsibility as yours.

Do better.

Make a plan.

Have a work session.

Have childcare at it.

Do all that.

But make a plan.

Protect us.

So I'll respond since that was directed towards me.

We couldn't even hear because of the noise the threats that individuals who I believe are not lying about the fact that he threatened, but we couldn't hear what he was saying over the noise.

My point is

What I read to you was saying that I don't agree, and everyone up here will tell you that in terms of reading rules, setting them, that has not been a part of my agenda, it's not how I work at all.

So when you talk about complete chaos,

Right?

That is something that I hope would just unfold on its own that would turn in a different direction.

I see it very differently.

I can deal with it.

But in terms of sitting up here and deciding whether we close down a meeting all together or we just try to clear the room to make it, it wasn't sending out in the hallway for something to happen.

It was the only choice other than shutting the meeting down.

Okay.

So, again, it wasn't scolding.

It was in terms of understanding that this is the direction that we'll have to go.

So I have been since the beginning of the year having conversations about that I'm allowing noise, that people are still talking, that the same thing that was happening under the previous mayor

And my comments each time was that hopefully at some point we would get to a point where people didn't feel the need to do that.

Not me having to tell you to stop, because I don't feel like that's my place, but that it was happening on your own.

It's not how I work and I said that.

Anyone who know when I was on the other side of this, I wasn't back making noise, holding signs.

It's not what I, if I felt like there's something that need to be said, I said it and I moved on.

Okay.

So in terms of just because we're having a conversation, you are someone that I would have had to consistently remove from the room, which is not something that I wanted to do.

Okay.

I think that people being in the room, including you,

is valuable to the entire discussion.

Now we're in a place because of what happened tonight where in the future I will have to say can you please escort including you out of the room, which I think is a problem that I had and expressed under the previous.

So it's not the direction that I wanted this to go and I was hoping that we could on our

come to a place where if we felt like we had people up here representing us and our voice that I would have never had to have this conversation.

So that was very uncomfortable to me.

I did not want to have the conversation.

And I even sent a text to Mr. Bellamy like I want to leave this meeting tonight because it's not how I function and how I work or the conversations I want to have to people.

with people.

So sending you all out into danger, there was danger going on in here.

And it's asking the police to have everyone removed from the building is not the direction that we want to go.

It's figuring out how to help heal this madness that's going on without not having people at the table who need to be a part of those discussion.

So that's the direction that I hope we would have never arrived here.

I don't care about criticism.

I don't care about scolding.

It's not going to get better on its own.

You were uncomfortable?

You wanted to leave?

Uncomfortable with having to tell you all.

So you're not listening.

Uncomfortable with telling you all that there are rules that I need to read to you about how order works.

That is what I'm saying.

I don't want to do that.

Not because I have a problem with reading them, but because I don't think that I should have to tell.

anyone how to conduct themselves.

And I think that sometimes, if you get upset, you should be able to express that.

And I've consistently said that to everyone.

If you can't see the difference between light and light, you're going to get a gun directly to harm us.

Yeah.

OK.

So you still didn't hear me.

Well, I heard you.

OK. All right.

All right.

I have been going back and forth with the city manager for the last probably 10 days now regarding construction on 2nd Street.

I am so frustrated with this because I'm on a street that people drive through and whenever there's construction on any of the buildings around that area, the street gets closed down.

and it always seems to, like any kind of construction that goes on in the area, the street is really a luxury.

I mean, if this were like the Seaville weekly building that they were doing repairs on, they would have to figure something else out besides using the street.

However, I know that the street was not closed and I'm grateful for that.

My entire storefront is in a construction zone when the construction is going on on the building across the street from me.

My proposed solution, I don't know if this will do anything, but move it down a little bit so that my storefront is not in a construction zone.

People are so confused as to where to go because there's one sign that says sidewalk closed.

And also, maybe move it across the street next to the building that's actually being worked on.

or maybe take it to the building owner's personal lot in the back.

But every time there's construction going on in the street, my storefront gets affected.

My numbers have dropped again.

I mean, we are barely coming out of a pretty big slump.

I'm considering leaving the downtown mall, and I love the mall.

I'm just so frustrated.

We're finally doing well, and then something else happens.

And I would like to also address the lack of enforcement of the permit applications

I write to you every single time that road is closed saying we weren't notified and this last time we were notified but then the permit changed at the last minute and we weren't notified of that and while the permit change was in our favor I was expecting one thing and got a different thing even though it was something that I was happy with or what the entire street was happy with we didn't know about it

Nobody knew about that last minute change.

If you have a permit that says you need to notify one week prior to, or however many days, prior to this event happening, and then you make a last minute change, that week should be up

you know, should start over, like to give us time to adjust.

Yeah, sure.

And I apologize.

It just didn't get on my it slipped off my radar.

But and it's Miss Raffel.

I have

We've all been getting emails, I think, and I watch, and I watch, and I watch, and I wait for a resolution, and it doesn't come, it doesn't come, and I step in, and I said, and I wanted to bring this up tonight and under the business, because I wanted to see what our protocols were, I wanted to know what our construction permit requirements were, and when I say protocols, how do we notify?

When does this happen?

When did the construction

happened that most impinged the property owners and the businesses.

This has been going on for six years.

I have been dealing with this for six years, and I have to convene meetings with staff and businesses for six years.

So I would really like us to get this resolved.

and please can we have it on an agenda item in the future so that we can get a resolution as to what we do when there's construction on our public public streets that affect businesses and residences and how do we notify them what are the requirements and stick with it period because it is wearing on counselors and public

to always have to convene meetings.

And I understand, based on the NDS efficiency study, that counselors of Utah's impinging on their turf and asking too many questions.

This is why I have to ask so many questions, because we keep getting the same complaints.

I'll just speak, I'll try to speak briefly, but on the West 2nd project I would just want to say, I think you know from the perspective of the community I think the larger issue I think is that the system is broken and I think as a community we have to start to figure out what is wrong with the system because it's true that Woodard did much more than most developers do.

It's also true that it only resulted in 16 units that aren't permanently affordable.

And it's also true that at a minimum we would need 1,000 affordable units to even start to approach the need that we have.

So something about the system that's producing options that are nowhere near good enough is just fundamentally flawed.

And I think that's the challenge I'm trying to figure out and I think everyone is trying to figure out.

How to change that because this development project is not unique.

The scandal of the West 2nd project is that it's totally ordinary.

Every development project is like this.

They can pay into the affordable housing fund or build units that are only 80% of AMI for a set period that aren't permanently affordable.

Our zoning process is fundamentally broken.

The process neighborhood development services staff uses to go through the zoning process and development is fundamentally broken.

Our staff isn't operating at the capacity that they should be in terms of doing community outrage and having a big picture, long-term vision of development.

And when these structural problems produce these awful choices over and over again, we get where we are.

We're in 30 years

working class residents are going to be totally displaced.

And you have developers by right, city council by right development, city council can't tell them to build affordable units.

And you have the flats going up by right, leaving literally a shadow over West Haven.

This is the reality of the system we have.

And I think if we only focus on

an individual developer as a community if we if we just stop at this one vote we're almost missing, this is just a tip of an iceberg and we're almost missing what the real structural issues are and I think you know we've had we have some idea of what solutions may be in terms of land trusts, community development corporations figure out maybe through a land bank figure out ways to put land in community land trusts but every time land

goes off the market before we get these things in place is a lost opportunity for a generation for affordable housing.

And I think three, you know, we have to figure out where the city does have leverage.

And I think a lesson of this whole thing is one, if the city has land, it's extremely valuable in terms of it can only be used, you know, if it's gone, it can't be used for affordable housing.

So one, if the city has land, it should only sell it for affordable housing.

Two, special use permits are leveraged.

They're a gift to developers.

It should be standard that special use permits are only given if there's some kind of community benefits agreement for affordable housing.

And three, when the city conveys land, that has value.

That's leverage.

I'm sorry that Mr. Signer left because I think he could probably benefit from these comments as much as anyone.

But I witnessed several times this evening what I would characterize as the squandering of an opportunity.

And it was probably most acutely revealed when Mr. Signer called the question during the West 2nd discussion that you were having.

And that opportunity that I believe is being squandered is taking advantage of the fact that Mayor Walker is a change agent on this city council.

She is going to bring a perspective that along the lines of what Mr. Payne was just saying,

introduces a new concept of what both is possible and should be explored when you're considering how to solve problems.

The institutional barriers that exist that prevent equity that have created the historical inequities that exist are massive.

and if you approach resolution of those problems by working within the framework that is conventional, those problems will not be solved.

They won't.

You have to look beyond what your instinct tells you is possible.

That's the only way that you'll get past where we are right now and where we've been historically.

So every single time you're facing a question or a problem and Mayor Walker starts speaking and trying to push you further than you're going,

you should be listening to her and really trying to suppress your instinct to think that I know the answer to this question, I know how we should solve this problem based on my life experience, based on my formal education because she knows things that you don't because you don't learn them from formal education and your life experience is not her life experience.

You should be listening to her every time she's speaking.

And Ms. Galvin, you supported that call to question when this discussion between Mr. Bellamy and Mayor Walker was happening.

And that was an opportunity for you to better understand her perspective, which is a perspective that was in dire need.

Any other comments?