Cottonwood Heights has a reputation for arresting too many DUIs.

Wow that’s a good reputation to have I guess. Unless you like to frequent a tavern in the City of Cottonwood Heights and then drive home.

Since the City has created its own Police Department back in September ’08 it has made it a point to clean up the DUI in the area.

People have complained that the Cottonwood Heights Police Department of harassing them. According to a statement in a September 2010 SL Tribune article the CHPD along with the Cottonwood Heights Government wants the owner of the Canyon Inn to sell to a developer. The owner of the Canyon Inn a local watering hole claims that his business is down 47%. While I believe CHPDs efforts to get drunk drivers out of the city may be part of the blame. I am assuming the economy has some part.

The owner and the staff of the Canyon Inn asked customers to sign a petition to stop targeting them. I find it laughable the fact that people that drink and drive in our community are petitioning the police to stop arresting them for a DUI.

Here is a little story that supports the efforts of the Cottonwood Heights Police Department’s efforts on DUI.  On Christmas Eve a woman driving drunk in Cottonwood Heights was fighting with a passenger in the vehicle. Her car crashed into a gas meter and then a house, causing a gas leak and the evacuation of at least ten homes. This was Christmas Eve, you know families celebrating Christmas.

The Christmas Miracle was no one was seriously hurt.

The driver has been arrested and put in jail.

As a husband, father and resident of Cottonwood Heights I am glad that the CHPD is serious about DUI and stand and applaud Police Chief Robby Russo and his gang.

There’s a little known ordinance that is often broken and a challenge to enforce in Cottonwood Heights that does not permit more than three unrelated people to occupy a single residential unit.

Most cities and the Salt Lake County have the same ordinance. It was my understanding that it started up in Salt Lake City where the housing density is higher and four room mates could pose a parking problem, not sure if it’s true. But it makes sense, there are plenty  of homes in Salt Lake City that do not have off street parking,

According to an article in the tribune The City of Cottonwood Heights is considering changing that to four.  The idea that three or four does not make a difference as to the flavor of a neighborhood.

The city is not in a hurry to get it done it will just go through the process.

The City Of Cottonwood Heights
Request For Proposal for IT Services

Complete Document

1. Introduction. Cottonwood Heights, Utah (the  City ) is a Utah municipality of approximately 37,000 residents that is located in the Southeastern quadrant of the Salt Lake Valley. The City currently has approximately 65 employees, about 37 of which work in the City s police department ( CHPD ). There currently are about 40 fixed computer work stations at the City s offices, and an additional 20+ mobile computer workstations mounted in CHPD vehicles.

Software platforms currently in use in the City are as follows:

(a) Microsoft Office Suite 2003 (with planned upgrade to Suite 2007)

(b) Microsoft Server 2003 (with planned upgrade to Microsoft Server 2008)

(c) Microsoft Exchange Server

(d) Microsoft XP Professional (with planned upgrade to Windows 7 Professional)

(e) Caselle Clarity   financial software

(f) ESRI Products   GIS software

(g) Spillman   police software

(h) Laserfiche   imaging software

(i) Various other small platforms with minimal useage

The City desires to enter into an annual, renewable contract with a qualified and acceptable provider (the  Provider ) for provision of all labor, supplies and materials necessary to provide information technology ( IT ) maintenance and support to the City as described below (the  Services ). Consequently, the City now is requesting proposals for performance of the Services from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011 from qualified independent contractor proposers. While full-time on-site IT services are not required or desired, the City does anticipate needing (a) on-site support eight hours weekly, or as needed, during regular business hours, and (b) additional support via remote access or by telephone. Therefore, proposers must have an established local presence with ability to regularly provide the Services on-site as scheduled by the City, and also must be available 24/7/365 to provide IT services via remote access or by telephone.

The Service Contract will be structured as a contract for services as needed and requested by the City; will incorporate specified hourly rates and charges; and will not guaranty the Provider any minimum number of hours or base remuneration.

As more fully explained below, the City s selection of the Provider will be based on the bid received as well as on the City s determination of the bidders  respective expertise, experience, and resources.

Request For Proposal Insurance Requirements

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).

Cottonwood Heights 1^st Recognition Program and Banquet

I had the privilege of attending the 1^st Annual Recognition Program and Banquet for the Cottonwood Heights Police Department.

I’m here to tell you it was really fun and well done. The event was organized by Officer Michael Galieti and gang. This was not your typical rubber chicken dinner either, well there was chicken but they also had some serious beef.

A special thanks to Midvale’s Chief of Police Tony Mason and his gang for covering the shift so that all of the CHPD could attend.

The event was sponsored by Mayor Cullimore and the members of the Cottonwood Heights City Council: Don Antczak, Scott Bracken, Bruce Jones and Gordon Thomas.

The program started off with a tribute to “Our Star Spangled Banner” followed by the presentation of colors by the Cottonwood Heights Police Department Color Guard, then of course the singing of our National Anthem.

The evenings Master of Ceremony was KUTV 2 News Anchor Mary Nickles, what a consummate professional she was. Mary moved the program along with grace and style as she introduced the awards.

There were various awards and recognitions given and to present the awards were Chief Robby Russo, Assistant Chief Paul Brenneman, and Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore. The special award of officer of the year award was given to Officer James Woods. Wow when you hear the long list of things that these dedicated officers do and the time that is put in both on and off the clock makes it easy to honor these folks.

Last but not least the key note speaker and a long time favorite of mine Salt Lake Tribune’s Humor Columnist Robert Kirby. Robert is a former Police Officer and told some really fun stories about being on the police force before becoming a writer in 1989. He also told us about his passion for Utah’s Fallen Officers and he is a proud member of the Board of Directors for the “Utah Law Enforcement Memorial” on the west lawn of the Capital Building. You can visit the web site www.UtahsFallen.org where you see the slogan, “All Give Some, Some Give All”.

]]> http://livingincottonwoodheights.com/cottonwood-heights-police-1st-annual-recognition-program-and-banquet/feed/ 0 http://livingincottonwoodheights.com/cottonwood-heights-proactive-policing/ http://livingincottonwoodheights.com/cottonwood-heights-proactive-policing/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:31:59 +0000 Rob Aubrey http://livingincottonwoodheights.com/?p=429

I ran across this video that features the Cottonwood Heights Police Department doing their proactive policing. The Cottonwood Heights Police Department is almost a year old and have made great strides under the direction of Police Chief Robby Russo and his gang.

In less than a year they have gotten rid of some serious drug dealers, put a big damper on DUIs. Most recently they have created the resources and have reached to the citizens to create a city wide neighborhood watch. The neighborhood watch program combined with the proactive policing is really making a difference.

So what is proactive policing? I thought you’d never ask. It is the police department not waiting for crimes to happen to do something. Assistant Chief of Police Paul Brennenman teaches us at the neighborhood watch that if take away opportunities a lot of crimes will go away. So what is an opportunity. That is when you leave your garage door open when you go to bed. We all have done that, I know I have on more than one occasion.

So watch the video (sorry for the commercial) as Lori Prichard reports as Patrol Officer Nick Garcia explains his proactive policing, then she talks with Officer Beau Babka to more inside scoop.

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