Neighborhood Districts

Neighborhood District 5 Meeting Minutes – October 26, 2023 16 residents signed in as attending, and an additional 6 joined on Zoom. Executive board members in attendance included Laura Leavitt, David Harding, Dylan Cindrich, Art Occon, Daniel Friend, and Jason Ream. Leo Lines attended via Zoom and Sariah Hillam and Shannon Bingham were excused. 1.Department Topics (6:30-7:00 PM) A. 700 West & 100 North traffic study report (Vern Keeslar, Traffic Manager) The first order of business was reporting on the 700 West and 100 North Traffic study. Vern Keeslar was unable to attend but sent a statement that was read. They are holding off on starting the study until the almost finished raised crosswalks on Center are done and Halloween is over. In the study they will look at speed, volume, and crash data for the blocks from 500 West to 900 West on 100 North. He included some Q&A that went into what they will be looking for, such as the different types of accidents and how engineering solutions might lessen the severity. He also addressed safety standards and what warrants installation of traffic control devices. Rachel Breen mentioned that he has done some preliminary research already looking at crash data and wants to get a true study started. A resident asked how to contact Vern Keeslar. Laura mentioned that his contact information is available on the city website and that he has been responsive to her emails. Another board member said that they can also get the question to the executive board and we can follow up on it. Another resident asked about the intersection on 500 N and 500 W. There are "no turn right on red" lights that are never turned on. She was also asking about what the standards are on what the requirements are for stop signs and bulb outs and is hoping to have him cover that. Another resident mentioned that the motivations for putting in stop signs are based on crash data and that it seems backward, waiting for accidents to happen first. We should try to make the changes before the crashes occur. Shannon McGuire, who brought this agenda item to our attention last month, says that is the reason she brought this up—a small child moved in recently and they often have difficulty with cars passing other cars stopped for them to walk in the crosswalk. 700 W and 100 N has had a child hit in that intersection some years ago and nothing had been done. Laura noticed there were zebra lines in crosswalks south of BYU campus and was curious to know what made it possible. A resident thought that meant that no matter where a person is in that crosswalk, you have to stop versus a crosswalk without them where you only have to stop if the pedestrian is on their side. There is also a visibility issue at night to promote seeing where the crosswalk is. Dylan mentioned that engineering can only fix things that they know about. If we as neighbors are reaching out then we have a greater likelihood of them acting. B. Provo School District update (Gina Hales, Provo School Board) The second topic was an update on Provo School District by School Board member Gina Hales. The first item in her presentation was that when they did their survey preparing to get a new superintendent they realized that their communication was really bad. They have been working hard on improving it. You can sign up for their weekly podcast. They are working on a strategic plan and would like input. The steering committee met last week and the completion date is April 2024. She mentioned a report on the Dixon Property put together by the superintendent. Basically, discussions have started on what to do with the property once the new school opens in fall 2024. Gina has been pushing to have a decision made so the property will not fall into disrepair. She listed some possibilities of a STEAM secondary magnet school, district offices, or a resource center for adult education classes. A resident asked if the earthquake concerns would be addressed in any of these options. Gina said she had talked to the architects. They said it would take a lot of money to restore the old building. More cost effective would be to demolish and rebuild, but they would want to talk to the community about it. They are trying to get better on listening to the community, and mentioned they have a survey open about preferences for the 2025-2026 calendar year. One resident asked if they could have the fall break align with Halloween so kids wouldn't be so tired. Gina thought teachers would be on board with that. The questions mostly ask about how long the break would be, and historically it aligned with the UEA convention. Gina asked the resident to put it in the comments. Gina mentioned that school start times could be changed, but there would be a cost. Usually when they bring it up everyone wants to have it go later, but then people don't like how it would affect afternoon programs and other logistics and back off. She says there will be a short survey probably in January to gauge interest. Rachel Whipple asked that when you put out the information, that you put on the cost of the current system versus any changes so that it can be a fair comparison. Timpanogos is the only walking only school, so they change will need to be system wide. All the research says we should start school later for teenagers in terms of better outcomes. The board is willing to listen. Camp Big Springs has had some significant damage in the heavy snows last winter. The tent platforms would need to be replaced. They are asking whether to move to a day camp format. Still nailing down the costs but it expensive to run and so are asking for feedback. Is this something we really want to keep or feel we can do without. Open to keeping it if the community wants. They will be running it this coming summer, feedback would be for further years. Rachel Whipple asked about whether they are expanding it so more children can go. Her oldest two were able to attend but her youngest didn't bring home the form in time so all slots were filled and he didn't get to go. How can we make it so more low income children also get a chance to go? Gina said they have been talking about that. The last few years it hasn't been full during and after COVID, but they expect it will fill in the future. They are looking at options shortening the time to have more sessions. It is kind of difficult to get to the area, and they are looking at moving the tents as well. When the original study was done for the new Shoreline Middle School, it was not expected that it would need bus routes. However, Gina and the rest of the board know that distance alone isn't the factor because that would mean many students will be crossing train tracks and Center Street and she knows many students' brains are not developed. The board were able to approve some bus routes north and east of the train tracks even though that meant a higher cost. The school will open August 2024. Gina made a lot of noise on this because her neighborhood was affected. If you have any comments or suggestions, please reach out to her at ginah@provo.edu and the other board members. 2.Additional Topics (7:00-7:45 PM) A. Matching Grant proposal (McKay Lenker) McKay Lenker brought a Matching Grant Proposal. She is suggesting to create a Community Toy Library. Similar to little free libraries, it would be a place for kids to take and leave toys. McKay is an artist and art teacher who works for Downtown Provo doing the Art Stroll and Murals, etc. She has lived in the Maeser Neighborhood in the polka dot house since 2019. She would like to repurpose the toy library from a cabinet about child height out front of her house, with good roofing and cemented in to protect and stabilize it. The neighborhood grant would help cover the materials cost. She thinks it could create an opportunity for low income families to have access to new toys and become a destination for walks. Pretty self sustaining once set up, but she thinks it would be fun to post every so often the new offerings on social media. She would take care of maintenance and organize other volunteers to help. She thinks it could get done in a month, would love to have it by Christmas. Someone asked if this would need city approval because it would be in the park strip. Abinadi Borjas said that his division split into districts, and he is over our District 5. He said she would need to talk to them because it wouldn't be an automatic yes or no. It would probably have to meet minimum height requirements, but besides that it is a great idea. Rachel Breen clarified how the volunteer hours would work for a matching grant. It would take about 200 hours to cover the $200 of supplies. Another resident is putting in a free library, and suggested McKay ask for more money. McKay asked whether we would vote on this today. Rachel Breen said the neighborhood already voted on a project—Rob Slater's project. It has been voted on but not put in or approved. Because this wasn't for a lot of money, it could be a backup. Dylan replied it would only take $200 out of the funds. Teri McCabe mentioned that the District has $1000 per year in a budget. Rachel Breen said that budget could be used for this outright without going through the matching grant. Teri asked if volunteer hours on this project could go toward Rob's project and Rachel Breen said yes. Laura said she is personally more interested in the budget funds. She and Dave Harding had dipped into it a bit for signs and pavilion for the voter turnout push. There would be enough for this as well. Dave Harding said that as far as projects go, this is fairly inexpensive. His personal leanings would be toward using the matching grant because we would have more flexibility. We have talked generally about these projects and how to weigh them, but because we didn't have many projects we simply lost the money last year. Rachel Whipple loves this idea and would like to have this be the first one and then look at strategically where to put others through the neighborhood, connecting lines along through a park and things like that as an ongoing project. Shannon McGuire also loves the idea and would love to host one in the Dixon neighborhood. Even if we start just one, this could be great to expand. It could help with a sense of family and serve lower income families who are working so much. Giving them an activity in the neighborhood that specifically involves the children will make it more appealing to them. Art Occon mentioned they already have a free little library in Franklin. He thinks it would be fun to have 1-2 in each neighborhood and a map to connect them. Laura would like to take a vote but is a bit nebulous on how the funding should be handled. Art said that if we vote whether we would like to see it happen then we can figure it out. Laura put out a motion to support and by raise of hands, it was unanimous to support. She said we would support it and figure out the details. B. Update on Matching Grant proposal (Rob Slater) Rob Slater addressed the community project to improve the parking strip next to Market Fresh. Last meeting he had unanimous support to go forward so he did some legwork. He went to the Elks Lodge who owns the property and they are in favor and would pay for the water after we do the landscaping. So what we would need now is matching grant money for the landscaping. They think they will need $5000 for materials and any excavating expected to dig out the asphalt and dead trees. So they need hundreds of hours, but the city will take any hours. There are neighborhoods in Grandview who are using ward service projects to count toward those hours and stack them up. Art wondered about using My Hometown hours, and Rachel Breen said that it is any service that improves your community in your district—not bringing a meal, but something like fixing a yard or raking leaves or picking up trash. Something that improves the community as a whole. If a boy scout troop is doing something, go to them and log the hours. She just needs to know what the project was, where it was done, what day, how many people participated, and how many hours. Has to be within District 5 and something that beautifies your community. One resident asked how the program works. Rachel Breen says the city gets a 2-fer. They get a bunch of people doing service and they pay the community for materials to do it. Some districts do the service first, sometimes they put in the service doing the project and get reimbursed for the materials. District 1 put sprinklers in a neighborhood park. Their people did a project cleaning up the park and then the city contracted with the sprinkler guy to pay him directly after the work was done. Teri mentioned we are headed into winter, so we can get hours from shoveling sidewalks and try banking hours—Rachel Breen mentioned that the whole project and service hours need to be done in the same fiscal year. She said that BYU is begging for service projects, and anything they do in our district will count for hours for us to log. There have got to be projects in our area. They mentioned raking leaves and preparing yards for winter. Their whole club is cleaning up the community. The earliest they will start is at 9:15 (the My Hometown projects start at 8:00 so they aren't interested in those). Some classes require service hours to get an A, so they are motivated to come help. Art mentioned that My Hometown is not doing more projects until about next March. He is wondering if they can go back and use hours from September and August, which may fill up a lot of the needed hours. He asked Rob to figure out how many hours will need to do the project itself and we can see how much more may be needed to have the neighborhoods do that beforehand. Rob said we are going to xeriscape as much as we can, and will use volunteers from the neighborhood to go pick weeds now and then. Abinadi said that 40% will need to be landscaped to meet zoning requirements, a regulation that has been in place for a long time. The cemented portion has been there since the 1960s so they hadn't enforced it, but they could because it is not in compliance. He says we can put in whatever we want as long as it is living. Dave Harding mentioned that Home Depot has asked to participate in community project. Doesn't know about Cooks (Farm &Greenhouse in Orem), but we could probably make the matching grant money go as far as possible to work with people who want to help. Another mentioned that Home Depot is a good way to get East Bay involved as well as they are primarily business owners. He asked for a sign-up for people interested in helping so he could send out a link with updates and way to help. Laura mentioned we can put a link in the minutes and people can sign up through that. Art asked if there is a rendering we can share with people. He said know, but that some landscape design friends would be happy to do that. Abinadi says Chaz Addis the City Arborist, before touch those trees need to talk to him or will be in trouble, so talk to him first. Matt in their department is the one who first suggested using the matching grant, so is on board. Sign-up sheet for residents who want to help with the parkstrip project and to record service done within the Neighborhood District 5 boundaries between July 1, 2023-now: Gateway park strip.xlsx - Google Sheets Dylan is curious about the timeline. June is the end of the fiscal year, so we would need to reimburse people on plants before that. He was wondering if we could do the demolition earlier. Susan Keller said we need to see a mockup first. Another resident said he has been talking to people about xeriscaping and they say fall is a good time . Also in spring, it would be good to get My Hometown involved also when they start up in spring. Rachel Breen was asked if some city department could help with the demolition. She says we can ask on that. Rob will get started on a rendering to have a visual and a link. He'll talk to Home Depot. They have some limitations but it sounds like this is one area they could actually help.  C. Report on Get Out the Vote event (Neighborhood District 5 board member) Laura said that the get out the vote event didn't happen because as chair members they just had a lot going on. She has yard signs that people can put up in their yards (NOT in park strips) to encourage people to vote. 3.Public Comment (7:45-8:00 PM) A resident mentioned Chaz helped him plant trees at his house, and then the resident with his own money bought rings to protect them. 60% of trees that die we take down are because of lawnmowers and weedwhackers. Maybe if when trees are put in, something should be done to try to protect them. A resident asked if some penalty can be put on for lawn care companies who are consistently damaging trees. Dave mentioned park strips are city property but land owner responsibility to care for them. Laura said everyone can email Vern VKeeslar@provo.org with Becky Bogdin mentioned that by law have to follow certain protocols, called warrants. Until they meet the warrants, they cannot do anything. If nothing happens after an issue is brought up, it isn't because they don't care. Laura mentioned that the engineers we have now are proactive and is grateful for that.