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.
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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