By Justin Adams | [email protected]

The next time you’re out for a walk or watching a child’s soccer game at a Herriman park, you may just bump into the mayor or a city council member offering you a cookie.

This summer, Herriman City has launched a new event called “Cookies and Connections,” intended to facilitate casual conversations between elected officials and their constituents. The first was held in August at the Herriman Skate Park. Herriman Mayor Lorin Palmer was joined by District 2 council member Teddy Hodges. Another one was held in District 3’s Prairie Oaks Park in September.

“The first thing we wanted to do as a council is get out more in the community and get more involved. Not everybody can come to city council meetings, but it’s our job to pick up the table and come to the residents. And this is more engagement than we get at council meetings,” said Palmer during the September event.

“It’s nice to be able to meet with the public and give them an opportunity to chat with us in an informal setting,” said District 3 council member Sherrie Ohrn.

The elected officials are also joined by select city staff members, on hand to help answer any questions that residents might have. They also bring along some posters with information about various city issues like commercial development and progress on road construction. Oh, and of course there’s some tasty sugar cookies for residents to snack on while they chat with their elected representatives.

“There’s a lot of interest in the auto mall and how we’re progressing on that. And then a lot of interest in capital projects, especially new roads going in. Especially in this area, we’re lagging a bit in our roads,” Ohrn said.

According to Palmer, the event has already helped the council learn about issues happening in the city that they might not otherwise have known about.

“We had our first one at the skatepark, and just down the road from there, there’s a stop light by Herriman elementary. It’s not a busy stoplight for most of the day, but they brought up that when school gets out, everybody’s trying to turn left so you can’t turn right. It backs all the way up. And we had no idea because it only happens once or twice per day. Immediately we were able to go and say, ‘What can we do?’ So now we’re looking at putting in a left-turn arrow or adjusting the timing of the traffic lights.”

Future ‘Cookies and Connections’ events are planned for Herriman’s other two districts though exact dates aren’t set in stone, follow the city on social media to find out when they are scheduled.