During the six-hour-long Cottonwood Heights City Council retreat on Feb. 24, the mayor, councilmembers, city manager, department chairs, and city staff members met to discuss the city’s priorities for 2024, updates to ongoing projects, five-year financial projections, and the city’s strategic initiatives. Here are some of the highlights:

The council would like to explore the possibility of implementing more older adult programs throughout the city and/or finding a location for a senior center. 

“Doing something for our seniors is really worthwhile,” said Mayor Mike Weichers.  

The council brainstormed potential ideas such as setting aside time one day per week for older adults to use the community room in City Hall for various activity and events, working with the Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center to offer more programs geared for older adult activities, setting up places for older adults to get healthy low-cost meals while being on fixed income, and offering some pilot services and events to see if older adults would actually attend. 

“The building right next to the Rec Center is being used by UFA as a search and rescue, but they are moving up the canyon so they might give that building to the city,” said Cottonwood Heights Police Chief Robby Russo. 

A significant change in the Cottonwood Heights Police Department (CHPD) is expected this upcoming year with the retirement of Assistant Chief of Police Paul Brenneman. As he is the primary contact of the Emergency Management team, city leaders will have a tough decision to make in order to fill his absence. 

“Brenneman spends hours and hours doing the Shake-Outs, CERT trainings, and reaching out and getting into the community,” Russo said. “It takes a lot of time to build and maintain relationships.”  

Russo explained to the council that the city could opt to be a part of the regional emergency management operation or start training an FTE officer to replace this position. He will come back to the council with a more detailed financial analysis of those different options. 

Developing and maintaining safe sidewalks throughout the entire city is a strong focus of city council’s this year. The city council has asked the Public Works Department to search for, locate, and allocate potential funds for sidewalk construction along 2300 East to Fort Union Boulevard around the perimeter of Hillside Plaza (2378 Fort Union Blvd.), and sections of the Cottonwood Heights’ side of Creek Road (into some of the neighborhoods on the way to Crestwood Park).

Even though Creek Road is not considered a regionally significant area, Public Works Director Matt Shipp believes his team will be able to chase down some county, regional, and maybe even federal, grants for a few of the other sidewalk and transportation projects. 

“I see kids walking in the gutter and it’s just unbelievably unsafe,” said Councilmember Matthew Holton.

In addition, Councilmember Shawn Newell really wants a sidewalk constructed on 2300 East by the United States Postal Service Office (6890 South) while Councilmember Ellen Birrell wants to see a sidewalk along Green Hills Drive. 

Further considering Public Works, the council would like to explore having conversations about the potential of constructing roundabouts in select areas of the city. Shipp did remind the city council that roundabouts do take quite a lot of land to construct.  

Brainstorming, the councilmembers identified a few areas where roundabouts could be beneficial within the city. Holton would like to think about using preservation funds for a roundabout on the corner of the Hillside Plaza development. Weichers would like to talk about adding some roundabouts along Fort Union Boulevard, along with the misaligned intersection from Oak Creek onto Creek Road. The locally-known Brighton Bump was also mentioned as an area that might benefit from a roundabout. 

Plans for a gondola up Little Cottonwood Canyon are still moving forward, even with multiple lawsuits against UDOT pending from various municipalities around the area including Sandy City. 

“The UDOT Region 2 Director (Robert Steward) was really positive about our Wasatch Boulevard Master Plan,” Birrell said. 

She would like the council to revisit the Wasatch Boulevard Master Plan to place more emphasis on public transit options and restate that the boulevard is not a highway.  

Mayor Weichers is curious about exploring more possibilities for projects funded through tax increment financing (TIF) and wants to explore the potential benefits and costs of creating community development areas. 

One of the current community redevelopment areas within the city is the Canyon Center. TIF is in process for that project as it needs to go back through all of the different taxing entities involved. Another community area within the city will be the Hillside Plaza as redevelopment will be encouraged throughout the plaza.  

“City staff put together some numbers that would include paying off our Hillside Bond and opportunities at every corner to go to a referendum bond request,” Weichers said.  

As a new bill (H.B. 330) has passed by the State Legislature, unincorporated islands will be required to annex into a bordering municipality. A few neighboring islands will be fought over by Sandy, Millcreek and Cottonwood Heights. Hyland would like to see some of these neighborhoods annexed into the city. 

Mayor Weichers is excited about the ongoing conversations with the Historic Committee for construction of a Veterans Memorial at City Hall (2277 Bengal Blvd.). 

Holton would like the city council to look into the possibility of finding a sister city in South Korea, especially since the Korean Chamber of Commerce was started in Cottonwood Heights. 

City leaders and councilmembers also discussed: preserving Crestwood Park; updating road maintenance along Siesta Drive; ballot issue timelines; future plans for the East Canal Jordan Trail; UFA plans; ongoing and potential traffic studies; considering adding a Grant Writing position to city staff; partnering with ULCT and the County’s Health Department; VECC upping their feeds by $8,000; Bonneville Shoreline Trail connectivity; modernizing the parking code, and keeping carpet within the community rooms at City Hall. 

“We are all very passionate about carpet,” laughed Holton. λ