At today’s meeting, the Council:

• elected a Chair and Vice Chair for calendar year 2020. The Council chose Chris Wharton (pictured left) who represents District 3, as the Chair, and Andrew Johnston (pictured right) who represents District 2, as the Vice Chair.
  
  Every January, the Council elects one of its members to serve as Chair and one member to serve as Vice Chair. Among other duties, the Chair signs documents such as adopted ordinances and resolutions, represents the position of the Council to the media and the Mayor’s Administration, and schedules items on the Council’s meeting agendas based on driving forward Council priorities. The Vice Chair provides counsel and serves as a backup to the Chair in the event that the Chair is unavailable for any reason.
  
  Read the full press release here. 

• interviewed and approved the appointment of Katherine Lewis as the new Salt Lake City Attorney. 
  
• received an updated draft of the Foothills Trail System Master Plan. The Council initially received the draft plan in January 2019. This will be the first master plan in the area and lays out the future of 106 miles of multi-use trails. Funding has already been secured for the highest-priority trails and the Council expects to hear detailed plans for trailhead improvements and budget requests for future phases of the trail system. 
  
• received an annual report of the City’s emergency management programs and current efforts, including the City’s Emergency Operations Center, changes to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program, and the Fix the Bricks program, which is the first of its kind in the country to help residents implement seismic improvements for unreinforced masonry dwellings.