The Mountainland Association of Governments coordinates the use of the grant with the city. MAG director Jessica DeLora presented the grant’s budget and each organization’s requested amounts at the meeting.

Recipients filled out applications prior to their selection. Given that the combined requested amounts from each organization went $36,695 over the grant’s worth, the city council met to discuss options with spokespersons from each organization.

The council passed a unanimous motion giving $23,305 to the Curtis Center for Art and Education, $5,000 to the Friends of Utah County Children’s Justice Center, $265,000 to Lehi City Engineering and $40,000 to the Mountainland Association of Governments Administration.

The mission of the Curtis Center for Art and Education is to “create and nurture an inclusive environment of growth and learning for arts and education for  individuals with disabilities,” according to their website.

The Curtis Center will use their grant money to pay for furniture and technology that will go in their art and music rooms. The center’s campus is currently being built. So far, $8.7 million has been raised for the project with an expected price tag of $10.5 million. The rooms will be used by people with disabilities, not open to the general public. 

The Friends of Utah County Children’s Justice Center “aims to address the healing of abused children so they can live a happy, productive, and fulfilling life.” The CJC will put their grant money towards funding mental health services for youth victims of sexual abuse at their two child-friendly locations in American Fork and Provo.

Lehi City Engineering will use the grant money to add gutters and sidewalks to unpaved areas that will help children have safe, accessible walking paths to get to school and a local park. The area they will improve is along 200 West from 600 North to Bandwagon Park. 

“Kids actually go up both sides of that road and then they have to cross. It’s a piece of the city that’s been around for a long time and has never had anything on it as far as sidewalks go. It’s being heavily used by cars and pedestrians as the traffic goes up,” said Lauren Powell, Lehi city engineer.

Ranked-choice voting

After delaying a vote as to whether or not Lehi will continue participating with the Utah ranked-choice voting pilot project during the previous city council meeting, the body made a final decision Tuesday.

After an hour-long discussion with members of the community speaking both in favor and against RCV, Lehi will participate in the program for the 2023 municipal elections by a 3-2 vote. Council members Paige Albrecht, Paul Hancock and Mike Southwick voted for the resolution while Katie Koivisto and Chris Condie voted against.

A caveat was added to the resolution, that a primary election is still held. The primary election, like the general in November, will use ranked-choice. The candidate filing period for 2023 municipal elections will be open from June 1-7 with a primary election on Aug. 15.