[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[5:27] Is that on now? Okay, perfect. All right.
[6:53] Absolutely.
[7:02] Okay. All right, we're going to call this meeting
[7:04] to order. Thank you so much for coming today, you guys. I'm really excited to have you all
[7:08] here. Our very first item of public business is our Pledge of Allegiance, and Chief Deputy
[7:15] Dumont has agreed to do that for us today. So if you could all stand.
[7:23] I pledge allegiance
[7:24] to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it
[7:30] stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
[7:40] Thank
[7:41] you so much. All right we're gonna go to our next item of business which is
[7:46] citizen public input. First thing we're gonna ask is there anybody online
[7:50] today? Nobody online. Okay do we have people in the room that would love to
[7:55] speak during our citizen public input today.
[8:01] You're welcome to come and talk
[8:02] to us about just about anything. We'll tell you if it applies or not. Okay, seeing
[8:08] none we'll go ahead and close the citizen public input portion and move to the
[8:12] report of elected officials. We have a comment now. Okay, who is it that has a
[8:17] comment? Oh, okay. Sorry Steve, we just heard you. So Steve and Marin has a
[8:24] comment. We'll turn the time over to you. You know the ropes.
[8:33] I've been monitoring the Mayor's Finance page for the today's budget. I have the slide presentation, but I can't see the actual digital budget.
[8:45] I just wanted to report that in case somebody could take a look and get it up there.
[8:49] All right, Steve, we're on it. We'll get that link up.
[8:54] Thank you.
[8:55] Thanks Steve.
[8:56] I'm seeing yes.
[8:57] The head's nodding yes, Steve.
[8:58] So we'll get it up as soon as possible.
[9:00] Thank you for being engaged and looking for that.
[9:06] Okay.
[9:07] Any other online?
[9:09] Any more in-room?
[9:11] Okay.
[9:11] We'll move on.
[9:12] All right.
[9:13] First order of business is council members.
[9:15] Any council member have?
[9:16] Oh, before I do that, I do need to excuse council member
[9:19] Snail Grove.
[9:20] He's got an emergency at home, but he'll be joining us by phone.
[9:23] So, and we do have another comment. Oh, then let's go back to that.
[9:37] Gaud Moragani.
[9:44] Can you guys hear me?
[9:45] Yep, if you'll set your name and your address and then you have three minutes.
[9:49] Thank you. Yeah, this is Gaud Moragani.
[9:53] I just had a couple comments today that I wanted to make during the public comment period.
[9:58] The first one is that, you know, I'm running for county clerk.
[10:02] yesterday I was talking to my opponent about scheduling a debate and one of her comments
[10:09] was that she doesn't have time because she's going to be working on the election and I'm
[10:16] just wondering if I think it's a little bit there's questions about having the deputy
[10:21] clerk work on an election when her name is also on the ballot and I'm wondering if we
[10:26] could get a schedule of her activities with regard to the elections. Another issue is that
[10:34] poll watching in the downstairs in the ballot center, it's not very welcoming. I poll watch
[10:43] during the primary and during the audit and they've kind of done the same thing where
[10:49] they have what they call a yellow brick road going around the ballot center and it makes
[10:55] it a little bit difficult to participate if you want to be a part of the process, because
[11:01] the lanes are very narrow. When I went to the audit, there was a woman there who had broken
[11:07] her toe, and she needed a chair to sit down, and they actually would have let her pull
[11:11] a chair out of the seating area, which is far away from everything, so that she
[11:15] could bring it to somewhere where she could be comfortable.
[11:19] And I wanted to note that if you look at how Utah County is doing their pull-watching,
[11:23] it's very different than Salt Lake County. They have some areas that are kind of taped off,
[11:29] but most of them are not. And I just heard the council take a look at that.
[11:34] And the last one is this. We've been trying to get a schedule from the clerk's office
[11:38] of when they will adjudicate and duplicate ballots. These are areas where there's a little
[11:43] bit more risk in terms of, so for ballot adjudication, if you're ballot, they use
[11:50] software to read your ballot. And if the software cannot read it, you know, because you filled
[11:55] in a circle too much, filled it into a little or whatever, they have a team of two, then
[12:00] look at that ballot to determine how the person intended to vote. There's a risk there that
[12:05] they could change the vote or make a mistake. And we want to be able to have poll watchers
[12:10] present when they're adjudicating ballots. There's a similar risk when they're duplicating
[12:14] ballots. And so we wanted to have poll watchers present for that as well. I just
[12:19] I just want to note that in the 2020 election, they didn't track the number of ballots they
[12:22] adjudicated, and after we did our review, they estimated it was between 9,000 and 26,000.
[12:30] Yeah, so anyway, if we could get a schedule of that, that would be really helpful so that
[12:34] we can actually help poll watchers present.
[12:37] Okay, thank you.
[12:38] Thank you.
[12:42] All right.
[12:43] Anybody else?
[12:44] Okay.
[12:45] Thank you.
[12:46] All right.
[12:47] Speak now or forever, hold your peace.
[12:49] Okay, come on up.
[12:50] Actually, would you like to do it during the independent elective portion, Sherry?
[12:56] Let me have you do it during that portion, so it's during the official time if that's
[13:00] okay.
[13:01] Thank you.
[13:02] We're going to go to the first item, so we'll have council member business, then we'll
[13:06] have other elected officials, and that's when I'll have you come on if that's okay.
[13:09] All right, perfect.
[13:10] All right, council member business.
[13:17] Speak now, forever holds peace.
[13:19] Come on up quickly.
[13:21] The
[13:25] head nod.
[13:26] I didn't see that at all.
[13:27] sorry my name is Lawrence Horman most of you know me and I will be brief because
[13:32] I know you have a lot of business to get to today I was and where you reside I my
[13:37] address is where I am standing that is because I am homeless and that is why
[13:41] I'm here to advocate for the homeless there has been a push lately by other
[13:46] non-county coalitions for a authorized campground for the homeless and to be
[13:55] brief I would simply like to encourage the County Council and the County to
[14:01] seriously consider it. I know there's been some concerns and reservations before
[14:04] and I understand those concerns. I would like you to take please a look at the
[14:09] possibilities of how to do it and to do it in a way that will resolve most of
[14:12] those concerns. I am not suggesting that it will not come without
[14:15] concerns and difficulties because it absolutely will but I would like you to
[14:19] take a more serious look at it. I have been going to the various cities
[14:22] within the county to the mayors to their council meetings and leaving them a
[14:27] copy of the desert to find initiative package which you already have a copy
[14:32] of for them to consider not only for the purpose of the concept of promoting a
[14:36] homeless campground but to understand something which the county has and I
[14:40] am grateful to say already recognized that the homeless have that we are
[14:45] capable of participating in solutions for our problems and helping you to
[14:51] resolve those problems and that is something else so that I would like to
[14:54] say is I am grateful for your allowing us and to encouraging the homeless to
[14:59] participate
[15:02] Okay,
[15:06] I'm going to ask one more time for public comment. Is there anybody else that wishes
[15:10] to speak? Anyone online? Okay. We're moving past then. We'll go on to councilmember business.
[15:19] Do we have any council members who have business during this time? Okay. All right, we'll go
[15:25] to other elected officials. I know we actually have several in the room right now, so we'll
[15:29] give everybody an opportunity to speak. Cherie, did you want to go first?
[15:34] We'll have you introduce
[15:34] yourself for everybody at home who's watching and everybody who will watch this in the future.
[15:40] Cherie Swenson, County Clerk, and I would like to respond to the comment by Goud Maragani.
[15:46] Our ballot center, EMC as we call it, has marked areas where poll watchers can stand. We do
[15:53] have it taped off. There was a bill passed that said that poll watchers could be no further
[15:58] their way than six feet from any of the processes and so because of the way the
[16:03] tables are set up down there for people processing ballots for our Jillis
[16:07] machine for signature verification it's kind of a crowded area especially when
[16:13] we get ramped up with all of the people that we will have working down
[16:16] there and we didn't have another way that we could facilitate the number
[16:23] of people who might be there. A poll watcher can be anyone that's a
[16:27] registered voter in the state of Utah. When we met with some of the individuals
[16:31] early on they said that there could be up to a couple hundred poll watchers. We
[16:37] have no idea. And so we called in the fire marshal and they told
[16:43] us and suggested that this is what they recommended that there wouldn't be
[16:48] seating areas because it would create a fire hazard if there was seating in
[16:54] those areas because people, if they had to escape quickly, wouldn't be able to get through.
[16:59] We also have carts with ballots in the carts that are going up and down the aisles.
[17:05] And so that is a problem in itself.
[17:08] And so it isn't because we're trying to be unfriendly to the poll watchers.
[17:12] We're trying to facilitate, keep people safe, keep our ballot processing safe.
[17:18] And that's the reason there is a large area where they can watch the adjudication.
[17:22] And speaking to the adjudication, our previous system did not track adjudicated ballots.
[17:29] We kept track of them by separating them.
[17:33] They were put on top of the boxes in 2020.
[17:36] However, we were not asked for those until eight months after the election,
[17:41] and those ballots were stored and secured.
[17:43] We couldn't open them and tell them how many ballots had been adjudicated at that point in time.
[17:48] Our current system does track adjudicated ballots.
[17:52] so that's the reason it wasn't available then but it is now and so that is my
[17:57] response and if you would like to come down and see our area we would love to
[18:02] show it to you. We just had a group of 20 people through the center including
[18:07] Representative Dunnegan and we're showing them our entire process and and
[18:12] letting them observe what's going on and we're trying to be very welcoming to
[18:16] people who want to see it. And no one's going to push a pole watch or if they're not within
[18:22] those little yellow lines, but we are trying to secure the area and facilitate pole watching.
[18:30] Thank you. All right. Other independent elected. Come on up.
[18:41] Again, if you'll introduce yourself
[18:43] for those at home. Good afternoon, Council. I'm Sheriff Rosie Rivera. I'm the Sheriff
[18:47] over Salt Lake County. I just wanted to give you an update from what occurred last week.
[18:55] So last week I was at a legislative hearing and I had to testify and I just wanted to
[19:02] make sure the council is up to date on what occurred. The discussion that was discussed
[19:09] at that hearing was the statutory duties of the sheriff and the unified police department.
[19:15] So I'm here to offer you that update the intent of the hearing and forthcoming legislation as we understood it was to remove the statutory duties and countywide law enforcement duties away from the office of the sheriff.
[19:31] recommending eliminating decentralizing or conducting a bid process to provide these services.
[19:37] It was also suggested to the legislature that county taxpayer dollars you appropriate be
[19:43] divided between cities and given to unelected city managers and police chiefs to address
[19:48] the needs in their areas of the county.
[19:53] I believe that the efforts will only weaken and take away funding from public safety
[19:59] programs that we currently have here in Salt Lake County and I'm concerned with
[20:05] the fact that at the hearing I had to ask for us to be able to bring this back
[20:14] to this body because I believe that this is a county issue. It should be
[20:20] addressed by the county. When you make decisions for one sheriff you really do
[20:27] impact other sheriffs so there were many sheriffs that showed up simply because
[20:34] like I just said when you make a decision regarding statutory duties it does
[20:40] have a huge impact on other sheriffs and I really feel like the county can make
[20:46] these decisions and I'm asking you as a body to get involved and make those
[20:52] decisions. For five years we have been providing the information, providing a
[20:58] great service. There was no one in the hearing that said anything about the
[21:02] service not being great service. All we heard was it was great. The sheriff is
[21:07] amazing, but this is still the topic. Now the history is the UPD was formed
[21:15] over 10 years ago and the previous sheriff did give up law enforcement
[21:21] duties to the UPD under interlocal. We have been operating that way. We believe
[21:28] that we provide a great service and we have spent hours, hundreds of hours
[21:33] providing information to whoever needs information regarding the UPD. One thing
[21:41] I did ask was for a committee to be formed and I asked Mayor Silver
[21:45] of a stringy to conduct that committee review of UPD.
[21:51] And at the end of that committee,
[21:54] we were gonna bring the review to you so you can decide,
[21:58] but that didn't happen.
[22:00] Instead, we ended up at the state legislature
[22:03] with draft legislation.
[22:06] Now the legislation did not get submitted,
[22:09] but the conversation was,
[22:11] is this a county issue
[22:13] that can be handled by the county counselors at state legislature and I really respect this body
[22:21] and your authority because you're elected by the people to make those decisions I think that you
[22:26] can make those decisions but I'm here today to ask you to to help me move forward so we
[22:35] five years down the road we're not still here talking about this issue. My priority is public
[22:41] Public safety in Salt Lake County, we will provide that whatever way you would like, but
[22:47] I really feel like you need to be involved in the conversation and if you're not involved
[22:51] in the conversation then the impact is not just to me, but to all sheriffs, so if you
[22:58] have any questions for me I'm happy to answer them.
[23:01] Okay, thank you,
[23:09] we're going on to any additional, well let me check, any additional elected
[23:13] officials who would like to speak before I move on. Anybody online? Awesome. We'll move
[23:21] on to the mayor. Well I would like to speak regarding the proclamation in the
[23:25] second Madam Chair. Other than that I'd just like to say thank you Council for
[23:30] your engagement today as we hit day one of budget deliberations and I look
[23:37] forward to the next few weeks and we're available to answer questions
[23:40] both that may fall within my portfolio or budget staff so just know we're a
[23:47] resource. Thank you. Thank you. Okay all right we're gonna move on to item 4.1
[23:55] joint proclamation between the Salt Lake County Council and Mayor Wilson
[23:58] proclaiming October 2022 as Arts and Humanities Month in Salt Lake County.
[24:03] This is an exciting day for those who don't know. My background is the arts
[24:09] in so many ways. I grew up in a very musical family. My mother is a Scottish dancer as well as an Irish
[24:17] and Hawaiian and international and all sorts of other things. So, and now teaches at three senior
[24:23] centers, which is really fun in Salt Lake County. We play multiple instruments. We were just,
[24:31] we've always been a very musical talented family. And then my background, of course,
[24:34] is in technical theater. So I've worked in film and television theater over many years.
[24:39] So this is true and near and dear to my heart because the arts are something that is vital
[24:44] to me. And as a teacher in high school, I will tell you that the arts are critical
[24:50] for many reasons. And number one reason is it connects parts of the brain that don't
[24:54] connect any other way. And that is one of the things that most people don't understand
[24:59] about the arts. It is really fun to see the brain lit up of somebody who is doing
[25:05] artwork versus somebody who's doing writing versus somebody's doing math
[25:09] versus somebody playing an instrument. It is night and day. The critical
[25:15] pathways that are formed during that time so it is not only critical to the
[25:19] brain development of the children in our area, it's not only critical to many
[25:22] other things, it is vital to our communities and pulling us together
[25:25] community and bringing us together as one. And I have seen that over and over.
[25:30] So I'm excited about today. I'm gonna get a time over to the mayor to speak and
[25:34] we'll go from there. Well thank you. I'm just gonna sit and address the crowd and
[25:40] then I'll turn it over to you Madam Chair to read the proclamation. I'm
[25:44] just thrilled to join the council with this joint proclamation today
[25:49] recognizing culture and arts in our community and I see so many familiar
[25:56] faces and I just want to say we made it it's been a tough couple of years so
[26:01] thank you.
[26:07] During the dark days of COVID not that it's completely passed we go
[26:12] get vaccinated please we know of cases right now I'm impacted by cases right
[26:17] now and it's a real thing. But I think back to those early days and the hardest day for me
[26:24] truly as I look at the many weeks of COVID and managing COVID was the day we closed facilities
[26:30] and it impacted each of you and you had to figure things out differently. And I remember
[26:36] meeting after meeting on opening facilities and closing facilities and managing facilities and
[26:41] engagement with our health department to make sure we didn't have super spread at our arts
[26:45] and culture facilities.
[26:47] So thank you for hanging in with us at the county.
[26:50] I want to thank our budget staff, federal government for the revenue we had to be able
[26:55] to keep people employed.
[26:58] So many members of our community stepped up in so many ways.
[27:03] Here at Salt Lake County, we had arts and culture staff redeployed to so many important
[27:11] initiatives including case tracing and Q&I, it was just amazing to me.
[27:21] So a learning experience, a tough time, I'm so happy I'm not in meetings, that facility
[27:27] meeting I'll carry, oh my goodness, anybody in the facilities meetings, I would almost,
[27:32] you know, check out because it was so stressful to figure out how do we protect our community
[27:38] but still hold on to what we care about so much.
[27:42] Each of you, thank you for your diligence and your commitment then and now.
[27:48] And we're back. It's exciting to see our arts thriving.
[27:53] Such a great cultural imprint.
[27:55] Very well put, Madam Chair, when you shared about how arts has impacted your life,
[28:02] it's true of me as well, the daughter of an artist
[28:04] who has owned small businesses throughout her life and continues to. So with
[28:10] that, thank you Madam Chair for my moment to just share some thanks to this
[28:15] community and I'll turn it back to you to read the proclamation. All right so
[28:21] this is a proclamation of the Salt Lake County Council declaring October
[28:24] 2022 Arts and Humanities Month in Salt Lake County, Utah. Whereas Salt Lake
[28:31] is home to over 650 arts and cultural businesses more than anywhere else in the state and whereas
[28:38] Salt Lake County is home to 3400 pieces of publicly owned art, the largest collection in the world
[28:45] of works by Utah artists and whereas despite significant losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
[28:53] Salt Lake County's arts and cultural industry generated 9.1 billion in total cells,
[28:58] 9.7% of Salt Lake County Council's 2020 gross domestic product and supported 50,877 jobs
[29:09] representing 6.9% of the county's total jobs in 2022 and whereas Salt Lake County's arts
[29:16] and cultural industry generated an estimated 155.2 million, that's million guys, in direct
[29:25] to tax revenue 60.1 million in local tax revenues and whereas the arts and
[29:31] humanities allowed diverse communities across the United States including
[29:34] those in Salt Lake County to explore and connect with their varied histories
[29:38] and cultures whereas and whereas participation in the arts and humanities
[29:43] fostered enhanced skills and creative problem-solving cultural awareness
[29:48] communication and developed brain connections vital to the development
[29:52] and growth of our youth, and whereas cultural engagement is in the very DNA for Salt Lake County residents.
[30:00] From its indigenous people to the LDS pioneers who demonstrated that commitment by building
[30:05] a theater before any public structures were completed here. Isn't that amazing? And whereas
[30:12] Salt Lake County provides the state's largest public investment in nonprofit arts and culture
[30:17] businesses throughout its arts and culture division for nearly 50 years and the Zoo Arts
[30:23] and parks program for nearly 25 years and whereas the arts and cultural industry
[30:29] remains a key sector of the Utah economy providing new opportunities for growth within
[30:34] even the most rural municipalities in the state and making communities attractive to business
[30:40] development. Now therefore be it proclaimed we the members of Salt Lake County Council
[30:46] along with Mayor Jenny Wilson do hereby join with our entire community in proclaiming October
[30:52] 2022 as Arts and Humanity Month in Salt Lake County, Utah, dated this 25th day
[30:59] of October 2022.
[31:12] Can I have really quickly, if you are here representing an arts
[31:16] organization or part of one would you stand for us today?
[31:23] It's pretty impressive.
[31:28] I'm just going to tell you one thing about these people right here. None of
[31:31] them do it for money, not one, because there isn't money in it usually. We do
[31:39] it for the love of it and hopefully down the road maybe you'll get a little bit in the process.
[31:44] But it is true that you guys are amazing. We appreciate all of your effort, all of your donated
[31:50] time, all of your gift to the communities around you. It is so, so welcome and so needed,
[31:57] especially in the world that we live in today. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
[32:03] Now, really quickly, we are going to have a photo with all of you here.
[32:08] So don't leave, but what we're going to do is this.
[32:11] We're going to finish up.
[32:12] This meeting doesn't take very long, but we do have a meeting right after.
[32:15] So while they're getting ready for the meeting right after, we're going to have you all
[32:19] kind of gather into the center here.
[32:21] We'll have the county council and the mayor come out in front and we'll take a picture
[32:25] going this direction so we can get jawline because I don't think we can fit you
[32:29] up here okay all right and we'll do that here and then we have some copies here
[32:34] that we're happy to send and if you need to make more we will send with you so
[32:37] that you have a copy that you can post in your areas that you're coming from
[32:41] and representing okay let's move on to 5.1 our public hearings and notices and
[32:50] And Arlen, are you there?
[32:52] Yeah,
[32:56] I'm here.
[32:59] And Madam Chair, hold on one second.
[33:04] Item 5.1,
[33:08] I will motion that we...
[33:14] We do not need to vote.
[33:15] We do not need to vote on that item, Councilman.
[33:19] It's just a recognition of the notice.
[33:20] Yeah, I'm a little confused on that.
[33:22] So I'll just note that item 5.1 is a notice
[33:25] of the proposed tax levy for the library system.
[33:33] And then 5.2.
[33:34] And Madam Chair, item 5.2 is also just a public notice of the cancellation
[33:39] of our Tuesday, November 29th meeting in conjunction with the Thanksgiving holiday.
[33:48] So therefore, a motion on the remainder of the agenda would be approval of items 6.1.
[33:58] 6.1 was pulled so you'll need to pull that one off that's right so 6.1 is
[34:03] pulled and not part of this agenda so the motion will be to approve 7.1
[34:07] through 12.1 which are minutes from October 4th perfect thank you drive a
[34:13] second okay I have a motion in a couple seconds all in favor say aye
[34:18] Hi.
[34:20] Hi.
[34:21] Hi. Any opposed?
[34:25] Okay, fabulous. Any other business before the council this time?
[34:29] Madam Chair, I'd like to make just a few comments.
[34:32] Sure. Go ahead, Tim.
[34:33] And it's regarding why you all are here today.
[34:37] I have a long legacy here at the county in terms of the arts and culture,
[34:41] and I'm very proud that Salt Lake County has continued that throughout the years.
[34:45] In two years there's a reauthorization of the Zoo Arts and Parks tax. All of you
[34:51] are obligated to go out and make sure that passes again and it should but I'll
[34:57] hold you all blame if it doesn't. And you know there may not be money
[35:04] in all the arts and culture but that you know money isn't everything. Any
[35:10] great civilization is measured by the investment and the quality of life
[35:16] provided by arts and culture and you all are to share in the blessing that we
[35:23] have really in terms of having probably much more than we deserve given our
[35:27] size and so I want to thank you all as well. Thank you.
[35:38] Anyone else?
[35:41] Okay, Harry
[35:41] Nunn, we will adjourn this meeting. If those of you who are here for the
[35:44] of arts proclamation.
[35:47] We'll just gather here in the front
[35:48] and we'll have the council come down and join us.
[35:51] I would appreciate that.
[35:52] Thank you.