If you want to express you concerns about the TRSSD please email your city councilman.
Bill Colbert: bill.colbert@draper.ut.us
Bill Rapeleye: bill.rappleye@draper.ut.us
Jeff Stenquist: jeff.stenquist@draper.ut.us
Alan Summerhays: alan.summerhays@draper.ut.us
Troy Walker: troy.walker@draper.ut.us
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
New Contact Information
If you would like to contact a SunCrest Resident Representative with your comments we set up a a new email. This is also posted up on top of the blog.
suncrestresidents@gmail.com
suncrestresidents@gmail.com
City Council Meeting on TRSSD advisory board
Paul Tonks and I attended the Draper City Council meeting last night. (April 27th) They had on the agenda as a study item to discuss having a SunCrest (TRSSD) Advisory Board. Since this was just a discussion between city council members no public comments can be given…isn’t that nice! So here is the outcome of the discussion: Colbert , Rappleye, and Mayor Smith wanted an advisory board for TRSSD. Stenquist was strongly against it. He commented that they had a Community advisory board before and it turned political and problems developed so it had to be dissolved. Cobert commented that the previous Community advisory board was different and that the council didn’t handle their funds. TRSSD is special because the SunCrest residents pay this special tax and feel they don’t have a say about it. Rappeleye, made some great comments saying the advisory board could do the research on stuff like stop signs and using a private vendor. Stenquist was still was against it saying we didn’t need another layer of government. We voted in the city council members so we should trust them to make the right decisions with our funds. Stenquist also said if we have concerns about our special tax then we should talk directly to city council. Summerhays seemed to be leaning more against it but was on the fence. He wanted more information and how Walker felt. Walker wasn’t at the city council meeting so we don’t know his feelings. But it has been heard he is against it and voted against it last time it was brought up. So the city council decided it needed further discussion and can be voted on at a later city council meeting.
It was brought up about holding a town hall meeting for the SunCrest Residents. It was said that there isn’t time in May and maybe they could fit it in June? (yeah…after our budget is already been approved!)
You don’t know how hard it was to have to sit there and not be able to say anything. The comments made by the city council people that I wrote weren’t word for word but the way I heard and remembered by my memory. I could tell that Colbert and Rappleye really heard our voices at the meeting and want to help us. They believe we have concerns that need to be addressed and have some great ideas. They tried hard to convince the other councilmen. I don’t know how talking directly to city council about our concerns work as Jeff Stenquist advised? I have been emailing and talking to them and I just seem ignored. We even held the SunCrest residents meeting the other week to express our concerns. I mean really what more else can we do to EXPRESS our concerns about TRSSD? Do we need to email and call them every day until they listen! Alright, I am not telling you to do that.
Mr. Tonks suggested that we have a right to have a SunCrest resident on the actual board. There are state statues to back this up. Of course he wasn’t allowed to speak last night to show the council of his findings and that we want an actual SunCrest resident on the VOTING TRSSD budget board. I would love to have that but I think an advisory board would be great too. A group of 5 residents volunteering their time to research items like, stop signs, do we need or want a salt dome, would it be worth switching to a private vendor verses the city workers. There are so many things we can do and reach out to residents to hear what they want. We are offering our FREE service to the city.
I wanted to know if anyone has some suggestions on how to fight the stop sign issue. We all love the new blinking stop signs but the $24,000 for those signs shouldn’t have been taken out of the TRSSD fund. HELLO..they are stop signs, which should be out of the general fund. We need a good argument to present to council to have them refund us back on those signs. They say it’s because of fog and snow we needed those lights to see the signs. Yes, that is nice and all but I thought most accidents and traffic tickets occurred when people (mostly non residents) come up to the crest of the hill and didn’t even see them and ran through them in the middle of a nice day. Do we have anyone interested in getting those public police records of accidents and tickets at that intersection over the past couple of years? Let me know if you can think of something special that was done for traffic or something else unusual that the city had to do for LOWER Draper. Anything we can do to prove the point we shouldn’t have to pay for them.
Please look for further updates. Once we see the Advisory Board come up on the agenda again we want to notify everyone so we can fill that city hall and express our concerns. We will also have more information about our rights when it comes to a Special District tax.
Amy Baird
suncrestresidents@gmail.com
It was brought up about holding a town hall meeting for the SunCrest Residents. It was said that there isn’t time in May and maybe they could fit it in June? (yeah…after our budget is already been approved!)
You don’t know how hard it was to have to sit there and not be able to say anything. The comments made by the city council people that I wrote weren’t word for word but the way I heard and remembered by my memory. I could tell that Colbert and Rappleye really heard our voices at the meeting and want to help us. They believe we have concerns that need to be addressed and have some great ideas. They tried hard to convince the other councilmen. I don’t know how talking directly to city council about our concerns work as Jeff Stenquist advised? I have been emailing and talking to them and I just seem ignored. We even held the SunCrest residents meeting the other week to express our concerns. I mean really what more else can we do to EXPRESS our concerns about TRSSD? Do we need to email and call them every day until they listen! Alright, I am not telling you to do that.
Mr. Tonks suggested that we have a right to have a SunCrest resident on the actual board. There are state statues to back this up. Of course he wasn’t allowed to speak last night to show the council of his findings and that we want an actual SunCrest resident on the VOTING TRSSD budget board. I would love to have that but I think an advisory board would be great too. A group of 5 residents volunteering their time to research items like, stop signs, do we need or want a salt dome, would it be worth switching to a private vendor verses the city workers. There are so many things we can do and reach out to residents to hear what they want. We are offering our FREE service to the city.
I wanted to know if anyone has some suggestions on how to fight the stop sign issue. We all love the new blinking stop signs but the $24,000 for those signs shouldn’t have been taken out of the TRSSD fund. HELLO..they are stop signs, which should be out of the general fund. We need a good argument to present to council to have them refund us back on those signs. They say it’s because of fog and snow we needed those lights to see the signs. Yes, that is nice and all but I thought most accidents and traffic tickets occurred when people (mostly non residents) come up to the crest of the hill and didn’t even see them and ran through them in the middle of a nice day. Do we have anyone interested in getting those public police records of accidents and tickets at that intersection over the past couple of years? Let me know if you can think of something special that was done for traffic or something else unusual that the city had to do for LOWER Draper. Anything we can do to prove the point we shouldn’t have to pay for them.
Please look for further updates. Once we see the Advisory Board come up on the agenda again we want to notify everyone so we can fill that city hall and express our concerns. We will also have more information about our rights when it comes to a Special District tax.
Amy Baird
suncrestresidents@gmail.com
Thursday, April 15, 2010
SunCrest Residents Meeting
I wanted to thank everyone for the great turn out. I would say about 80-100 people? The meeting started at 7pm and ended at 10:30pm. I hope everyone got a good education on what is the Traverse Ridge Tax (TRSSD). I did hear a few people confused on my point of this meeting. So let me clarify again why I called the meeting.
1. I wanted to educate you on the tax you pay.
.
2. I had the City Finance Director, Danyce explain the budget and where your money goes.
3. I wanted it pointed out that we paid a fixed fee of three salaries and administrative expense which is close to half our budget. Like about $250,000 out of the $500,000 budget. Last winter we paid that same fixed price as this winter. But....last year the city plowed ALL of SunCrest and this year only half of SunCrest. So why should we pay the same price for half the service?
4. I wanted to introduce the company (Great Western) that plows Utah County for Zions bank. Because I think it would be more cost effective if we hire out private and pay for the services we receive and eliminate the fixed costs we currently pay.
5. I wanted to recommend a SunCrest resident advisory board to help the City Council with this budget. Be the voice for the residents. This was brought up before and the City Council voted it down. I think after tonight’s meeting it will happen.
6. I wanted some accountability of why should we pay for those $24,000 flashing stop light signs out of the TRSSD…..I was told because lower Draper doesn’t have fog so that isn’t something that would have been purchased for the city.
7. I saved this part for the end of the meeting because I didn’t want everyone angry and just talking about this issue. But when I met with the city council on Tuesday, they mentioned that they don’t have the funds in tune to around $850,000 a year to support our fire station. They had pulled up city minutes dating back to 1998 when the SunCrest developer talked with the City Council about including a fire station and the expenses in the TRSSD. Then in 1999 the city council approves the TRSSD tax without any mention of fire safety or station. So the City Manager was considering, now just thinking out loud, to see if the TRSSD fund could pay for it now. I got very angry and told them not to touch our money and shut it down before you make just the SunCrest residents pay for it. I did bring this up at the meeting tonight and the city council said they will find other ways to fund that fire station and not ask us for the funds. So hey if you have any suggestions of where that money can come from please let the city council know.
Several residents brought up some great issues. Like the safety of SunCrest drive. The lines need to be painted in the road because you can’t see them in a storm. The Council said that is private property of Zions and that is Zion’s responsibility. But they would take it to the council to talk to Zion’s to see if they can maybe get permission to do it. But then again, it’s a private road and why should the city pay for stripping. Well, my opinion is the city had no problem plowing the lines off on SunCrest drive the past few years, what is the big deal to replace it?
The city will hold a town hall meeting sometime in May for the residents of SunCrest.
Councilman Colbert and Rappleye did a great job at answering questions, as did Danyce. They even told us that the other councilman couldn’t attend tonight because they were in an executive meeting right now to work out some SunCrest issues. Hopefully, within in the next several months we will start to see improvements with the lawsuit. The biggest hurdle is to solve the SunCrest Drive issue. The city hopes to see a developer in here and finish building out SunCrest.
My last goal was to get the residents to come up with some suggestions on how to reduce this budget. So let me know ideas you have besides making it disappear because sorry but its here to stay. But at least we should get a voice on how it’s spent.
I apologize for my grammar; I am a number person not a letter writer.
Amy Baird
1. I wanted to educate you on the tax you pay.
.
2. I had the City Finance Director, Danyce explain the budget and where your money goes.
3. I wanted it pointed out that we paid a fixed fee of three salaries and administrative expense which is close to half our budget. Like about $250,000 out of the $500,000 budget. Last winter we paid that same fixed price as this winter. But....last year the city plowed ALL of SunCrest and this year only half of SunCrest. So why should we pay the same price for half the service?
4. I wanted to introduce the company (Great Western) that plows Utah County for Zions bank. Because I think it would be more cost effective if we hire out private and pay for the services we receive and eliminate the fixed costs we currently pay.
5. I wanted to recommend a SunCrest resident advisory board to help the City Council with this budget. Be the voice for the residents. This was brought up before and the City Council voted it down. I think after tonight’s meeting it will happen.
6. I wanted some accountability of why should we pay for those $24,000 flashing stop light signs out of the TRSSD…..I was told because lower Draper doesn’t have fog so that isn’t something that would have been purchased for the city.
7. I saved this part for the end of the meeting because I didn’t want everyone angry and just talking about this issue. But when I met with the city council on Tuesday, they mentioned that they don’t have the funds in tune to around $850,000 a year to support our fire station. They had pulled up city minutes dating back to 1998 when the SunCrest developer talked with the City Council about including a fire station and the expenses in the TRSSD. Then in 1999 the city council approves the TRSSD tax without any mention of fire safety or station. So the City Manager was considering, now just thinking out loud, to see if the TRSSD fund could pay for it now. I got very angry and told them not to touch our money and shut it down before you make just the SunCrest residents pay for it. I did bring this up at the meeting tonight and the city council said they will find other ways to fund that fire station and not ask us for the funds. So hey if you have any suggestions of where that money can come from please let the city council know.
Several residents brought up some great issues. Like the safety of SunCrest drive. The lines need to be painted in the road because you can’t see them in a storm. The Council said that is private property of Zions and that is Zion’s responsibility. But they would take it to the council to talk to Zion’s to see if they can maybe get permission to do it. But then again, it’s a private road and why should the city pay for stripping. Well, my opinion is the city had no problem plowing the lines off on SunCrest drive the past few years, what is the big deal to replace it?
The city will hold a town hall meeting sometime in May for the residents of SunCrest.
Councilman Colbert and Rappleye did a great job at answering questions, as did Danyce. They even told us that the other councilman couldn’t attend tonight because they were in an executive meeting right now to work out some SunCrest issues. Hopefully, within in the next several months we will start to see improvements with the lawsuit. The biggest hurdle is to solve the SunCrest Drive issue. The city hopes to see a developer in here and finish building out SunCrest.
My last goal was to get the residents to come up with some suggestions on how to reduce this budget. So let me know ideas you have besides making it disappear because sorry but its here to stay. But at least we should get a voice on how it’s spent.
I apologize for my grammar; I am a number person not a letter writer.
Amy Baird
Sunday, April 11, 2010
SunCrest Residents Meeting
When: THURSDAY, April 15th at 7pm
Where: SunCrest Information Center
This isn't your boring Owner Association Meeting. This is a meeting held just for the residents of SunCrest to discuss issues we have in SunCrest. We are all residents and not part of the SunCrest Management Company or Zion's Bank.
IMPORTANT Discussions concerning your TRSSD (Traverse Ridge Tax) that is in your property taxes. If you look at your property tax bill you will see this is the second highest tax you pay. The is a special tax ONLY SunCrest residents have to pay to keep our roads plowed in the winter. The new budget is being decided by the Draper City Council. We need your input as we think there needs to be changes and reductions done. This year Zion's bank has been footing the bill to plow most of Utah county while the city has been charging us for plowing ALL of SunCrest. I hope you all show up and express your concerns. Its going to take the help of the residents to get the city to listen to us and make changes in our budget and hopefully reduce our taxes. If you have any additional questions please contact Amy Baird amyemail@aol.com
Where: SunCrest Information Center
This isn't your boring Owner Association Meeting. This is a meeting held just for the residents of SunCrest to discuss issues we have in SunCrest. We are all residents and not part of the SunCrest Management Company or Zion's Bank.
IMPORTANT Discussions concerning your TRSSD (Traverse Ridge Tax) that is in your property taxes. If you look at your property tax bill you will see this is the second highest tax you pay. The is a special tax ONLY SunCrest residents have to pay to keep our roads plowed in the winter. The new budget is being decided by the Draper City Council. We need your input as we think there needs to be changes and reductions done. This year Zion's bank has been footing the bill to plow most of Utah county while the city has been charging us for plowing ALL of SunCrest. I hope you all show up and express your concerns. Its going to take the help of the residents to get the city to listen to us and make changes in our budget and hopefully reduce our taxes. If you have any additional questions please contact Amy Baird amyemail@aol.com
Friday, April 2, 2010
Draper City Easter Egg Hunt
When: April 3rd, Saturday at 9:00 am sharp! Be there early
Where: Draper City Park
Who: kids 0-12 years
Over 4000 eggs and 200 prizes given away
Free pictures with Easter Bunny
Free face painting
Free balloons
Free cookies
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