There is a lot going on in the city of Cottonwood Heights.

A developer wants to build a tall building, nearby neighbors don’t want it.

The city planning commission is under fire for the process. Apparently there were some mistakes made, but the Cottonwood Heights Planning Commission backed up and corrected it.

There is the issue of the Canyons School District Bond Vote on June 22 2010. The city of Cottonwood Heights is one of five cities that make up the Canyons School District. The Canyons School Board is recommending $250,000,000 Bond to take care of the immediate problems.

Tall buildings pay a pretty good chunk of cash for property tax without adding children to the school district, that seems like it makes sense.

So the hot seat is on the Cottonwood Heights City Council. We have schools that are old that need replacing and/or major renovations. Both for modernization and seismic safety.

So if the Cottonwood Heights City Council approves the tall buildings proposal and rezoning of three areas, the kids win BUT they tick off an affluent neighborhood.

You can read My Not So Humble Opinion About The Tall Building Being Proposed in Cottonwood Heights

Currently there is an application to amend the General Plan  to allow up to a 12 story building over at the Old Mill Corporate Center.

The City Council has decided that that while they are at it to explore the feasibility of possibly adding other sections of the city.  The other sections would be the Gravel Pit on Wasatch and the Union Park Office Complex.

This of course has pros and cons and will make for some interesting and quite possibly entertaining hearings and city council meetings.

One thing I learned that no matter what is proposed there are folks that think any sort of change is from the dark side and everyone involved is evil.

So the pros are more taxes and usually with this type of tax there are not as much city services required to generate as would be with the same amount collected by  a residential tax.

So far the only cons I see is more traffic. None of the proposed sites back up to residential properties.

The Cottonwood Heights City Council has two open houses scheduled April 14th and 15th followed by public hearings on May 5th 2010 and in June.

Here is a link to the application for the General Plan Amendment.

There are some interesting comments about LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

It was a typical city council meeting, people complaining about one thing or another, budgets being presented, fire department and other reports. 

But the real star of the meeting was Hope Allen.

Hope is a Cottonwood Heights fourth grader from Butler Elementary School. She was at the Cottonwood Heights City Council Meeting to present to the council her science project on cell phone usage while driving. Her hypothesis was that cell phone use while driving was greater in the afternoon then in the morning. Her reasoning was that people were more focused and hurried in the morning and in the afternoon things were not always solidified and people were making plans for the rest of the day.

So she set out to do sampling and three times counted cars as they went by in the afternoon and three times in the morning. Her conclusion was that yes people do use their cell phones more in the afternoon. She also stated that driving while talking on a cell phone is the equivalent as driving under the influence.

This was an awesome presentation, and Hope had won her school and regional competition but was too young to be in the state competition, lucky for the other state entries.

After her presentation Cottonwood Heights Chief of Police Robby Russo and Mayor Kelvyn H. CullimoreJ Jr. Presented Hope with an award. What an awesome young girl and Cottonwood Heights is proud.

Impressed With Cottonwood Heights City Council

I want to share with you my observations of a Cottonwood Heights City Council work session. This is where the city council, city manager, city attorney, city planner, and various other department heads meet and work through issues. The meeting started at 6:00 PM and goes till finished. Well when they took a break at 9:00 PM, I left and they were about 2/3 of the way through the agenda.

The group discussed an issue of a particular residence that is basically operating their business from their home. The business is not the issue, the issue is several trucks and trailers are parked all around, then many cars come to the residence in the morning park all over for the day. It has been brought to the residence’s attention that they could not do that till finally the city had to give them a citation.

What I thought was fascinating was how the Cottonwood Heights City Council including Mayor Kelvyn H. Cullimore Jr. made sure that every avenue had been exhausted before the citation was given, then the mayor asked can they handle it, meaning financially.  I was very impressed by the fact that the leaders knew they had to do something, but did not want to hurt the person they were citing. It was a genuine caring of neighbors.

You see the Cottonwood Heights City leaders are not politicians they are our neighbors elected by us to serve us and they genuinely get that. They were not there to go out and fine this residence, but they have to serve all the folks.

I want to say thanks I am impressed.

Cottonwood Heights City Council Meeting

For those that live in Cottonwood Heights and get the Cottonwood/Holladay Valley Journal have read an article or two from Stephanie Archibald.  She covers government things among other stories for the Journal.

As a hard working person she was at the Cottonwood Heights City Council Meeting Tuesday evening. For those that have never been to one, well let’s say it is not much of a spectator sport.

Well near the beginning of the meeting Mayor Kelvyn H Cullimore Jr. went off the agenda and called Stephanie to the front. She had that look of I am not sure if I am in trouble or not.

Mayor Cullimore told the audience that Stephanie has just graduated with a degree in English, which is a good degree for someone that works as a journalist. The Mayor along with the City Council presented Stephanie a dictionary as a graduation gift. Of course she is going to read my writing and say well he means well. I am by no means a journalist or an English major by any stretch, I just like to report things that no one else will.

But who cares

Congratulations Stephanie

Cottonwood Heights Getting

Some Stimulus

The Cottonwood Heights intersection at 3000 East, 6200 South and the I-215 ramps is going to get a nice makeover. We are getting about $1.8 million dollars of federal stimulus money we are giving matching money of about $127,000. That is a nice set of our tax dollars coming back to us.

The median will divides the traffic on 6200 S will be modified to collect more cars in the left turning lanes for entering I-215 South/West, also there will be a triple turning lane from 3000 E onto 6200 S. This will hope move the traffic and make it far less dangerous. Currently there is a lot that goes on there. You have people coming from the East, the South all jockeying for one or two lanes that can be backed up.

This is good news for Cottonwood Heights residence, it will make the intersection safer and we are getting some of our money back.

I attended district 4 town meeting and it was a fairly typical event and well attended. There are those citizens that exercise their right to complain about things. Some complaints are legitimate and serve as a beta testing for the leadership. A good example is the Gravel pit, the city has worked with the gravel company to keep the gravel on the side of the road swept and the company has gladly complied. The problem it has created is when they sweep up to the property line it leaves a section that now has a pile at the end the property that has become a hazard to bicycles. Mayor Kelvyn H. Cullimore and Councilman Bruce Jones assured the attendees that they would speak to the gravel company and expressed that they are good corporate citizens and felt they would be glad to do their part.

There was much discussion about the Sky Meadows project as of right now there is nothing pending from the developer. Some people would not like to see any project go on. But the council made it clear if the developer can produce a plan that meets zoning and building code then so be it. Same for the developer that wants to build a 12 story hotel.

I also learned one of those obscure little pieces of info as a citizen voiced his feelings on the noise that loud motorcycles make. He point blank asked whose responsibility is it to enforce that to Police Chief Robby Russo. The answer is the department of health. I am trying to imagine a DOH worker trying to enforce a noise ordinance to a group of motorcyclist.

Another announcement that came from the city leaders, we are DEBT FREE. Our police department is under budget.

It was mentioned that the police department writes tickets for revenue. I think everyone has believed that about one city or another at sometime. We were told that our city has twice the mile roads than a neighboring city and we write half the tickets. Robby Russo expressed that they are going after DUIs and the reputation of driving drunk in Cottonwood Heights is not going to be tolerated.

There were some other rumors cleared up, like that some company gave the police department a four wheeler, it was purchased with a federal grant.