Cc - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, folks, welcome to our City Council meeting tonight, August 6th, 2026. We will go ahead and get started as it is six o'clock. We appreciate those that are here to participate and to observe. We will start off tonight. We've invited Bishop Steve Blanchard of the 17th Ward to offer a thought, reading, or an invocation, and I will follow him with the Pledge of Allegiance. Bishop Blanchard, if you'll come to the podium there.

I wasn't prepared for a thought, but how about a prayer? Our Father in heaven, we're grateful to be able to meet in these favorable circumstances tonight. We're grateful to be residents of this great city and state, and pray that that will bless these council members as they consider the business of this city, that they will be able to do so with wisdom and with the inspiration. We're grateful for their service and grateful for all the members of our community who make it great. We pray that that will bless all of us to do our part to serve our neighbors and friends and to help keep this a great place to live. We pray again that thy hand will be over these proceedings that will Bless us with wisdom and insight, and we pray for these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Bishop. Will you please stand and follow me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Council, it looks like we only have the one item for the consent item, which is the minutes from the 20, July 16, 2026 City Council meeting. Can we have a motion for approval of consent?

So moved.

We have a motion by Council Member Hipp. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Council Member Smith. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Any opposed? Thank you. Motion passes. We want to recognize three employees that have joined the Brigham City Council team uh angie green down in public works as administrative assistant uh danielle i'm sorry well daniel not daniel sorry dan daniel greenall uh in water as a water operator and juice eustomorphin as a tree term i think we all know just used though who's still who's still and uh but we're we're happy to have them uh join us uh and hope they enjoy their time here at brigham city We will open up now to public comments and invite those who would like to comment. This is the public comment is reserved for those that live within Brigham City, own property in Brigham City, can vote to run for office in Brigham City. We invite you to come to the podium, state your name and where you're from. And we'd love to hear from you for up to three minutes.

I give you this.

Yeah, absolutely. And I can.

Thank you. I'll try to be as fast as possible. Real quickly, my name is Jesse Roberts. I'm the athletic director of Boxler High School. Just a quick backstory. A year or so ago, we met with representatives from Brigham City Recreation and had a conversation about gym space. And this is me being here is more being asked to be here by a few people. This just kind of informed the council kind of where Boxler High School is at as far as gym space goes. For years, we've had the opportunity to kind of share space with Brigham City, whether it's the Buckler Middle School Gym, Adelphi Young Intermediate Gym, or the Natatorium. Oftentimes, the Natatorium Gym is open for public hours for members of our community to come in at a very minimal cost to use that gym or weight room. Over the last seven years, we have been not necessarily mandated by Utah High School Activities Association, but encouraged to adopt new sports. In the past seven years, we've added seven sports to kind of include more kids participating in the athletics of the high school. So we didn't increase gym space, but we increased sports. So what I have given you This morning, I just picked two random days in January, and I could have picked, honestly, two random days from October to March. Basically, as soon as the weather starts to turn and seasons change, that's what our gym space looks like. So on that front page you're looking at is a non-game day, what I consider a non-game day at Boxkiller High School. And you can see some of those gyms start being used at 5 a.m. by one of our teams. or two of our teams. Another team comes in at 6 a.m. And then down at the bottom, I added kind of the end times for those teams. You'll see that they are exiting those gyms oftentimes at 9.30. So once the weather kind of turns, you see we have teams, which are our students, in those gyms from many days, 5 a.m. in the morning until 9.30 or 10 o'clock at night. This includes Adelce Young, which usually isn't listed on my schedule, but also Boxer Middle School. As you can see, I think it is Boys Lacrosse that has it that night until 9.30. Now, on that day, you'll notice there's no wrestling, which wrestling is in season. So we don't have a wrestling meet that night. Typically what is happening is our track kids, which can vary from 150 to 200 kids, are running in the hall those days. Um, softball, lots of times they've used an off-campus facility that we're renting because we don't have gym space to accommodate the softball team. There's also no boys volleyball on that day as you'll notice. So we have seven winter sports that take priority of that gym space. But in total, the 25 sports is what we accommodate at Boxler High School. We, 15 of those 25.

Three minutes.

Are, should I stop?

Keep going.

Okay. Okay. 15 of those 25 are competing for gym space in the winter, whether they're in season or they're preparing for their season, if that makes sense. So we have 15 sports competing for our gyms from October until March, essentially. So those numbers of participation have grown. Last year, we had over 800 athlete registrations. This fall, we're already at 350 athlete registrations. So my priority is our students. participating in athletics at Boxler High School. And then we try to open an auditorium as much as possible. And then we try to accommodate things like Brigham City Junior Jazz or prep league or men's league and things like that. In the conversation with the rec department a year or so ago, I basically had to tell them it's becoming almost impossible to accommodate city recreation activities. after trying to accommodate our students first. That's my priority. And so we patched work in city rec department programs when we could, but many times you're like, hey, we want every single Tuesday at the middle school from four to 10, or we want every Saturday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. And it has gotten to that point where we just cannot accommodate that anymore. We try our best, but it's pretty much impossible. The second page that I've included is a game day. With basketball, we run the same site, same night schedule, which means boys and girls basketball are at the same site on the same night. On those days, you just want to stay away from me as much as possible because it's a six-ring circus and we're running and it's wild. So almost gym space on those days is, again, almost impossible. I just wanted to come and kind of give you guys an idea, and maybe if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer them, of just kind of where we're at For a long time, we were able to offer this space to the city, whether it was patrons coming to the natatorium and using that gym and weight room or, you know, accommodating different things like junior jazz, which we want to. It's just become almost impossible after we accommodate our students first, which the numbers are continuing to grow every single year.

Thanks, Jesse. I'd encourage the council if you do have any more questions or like to get more information from Mr. Roberts to just contact him there at the high school.

Perfect. Thank you.

Hi there. I'm Keith Mecham and I'm a Brigham City resident for 33 years. It's been awesome to live here, raise my family with my wife, Robin. But today I'm coming as the new superintendent for Box Hiller School District. I never thought in 1993 that I would be the superintendent of Box Hiller School District. But I've grown to love this county. I've grown to love the north and the south. And I'm no longer purple. And that's true, Derek. I got red in me as well. But anyway, I just want to come and tell you, I'm open to any interactions and situations where we can support one another. We've always appreciated what Brigham City has done for our school district. And certainly I just want to let you know who I am. I'm open to any conversation at any time about things that can help as much as we can mutually for our district and each of you. I appreciate Mayor Bott. He's already reached out to me a couple of times. We've had some really good conversations already about, you know, upcoming potential, just those types of things. Was at a meeting with Tom Cotter and he kind of shared a few insights as well. Just appreciate the working relationship we have and just want you to know, My cell number is always on and you can call me anytime. So thank you for being awesome. Thanks, Keith.

Anybody else would like to publicly comment? If not, we will move on to council member comments. If the council would like to make a comment, we'll start with council member Smith and move to his left. I don't have anything tonight, Mayor. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Council member Troxell.

No, I don't have anything tonight.

Okay.

Council Member Hitt. Council Member Jeffries. Council Member Jensen.

I went to the community outreach event with the barbecue and had all the city departments there.

I thought they did a really good job representing the city. And it looked like there was a great turnout.

I think that was a lot of fun. I'm also on the Mosquito abatement board and they said the West Nile is a little higher than usual, so take precautions. Pass that out. Interesting. Okay.

No, thank you. And the only thing that I would like to add to Councilmember Jensen's comments is to publicly thank city staff who bore the load of the mayor's barbecue and the night out against crime that we had on Tuesday. I thought it was great. We changed locations from Bill Wright's Plaza down to Snow Park. I thought that was a good venue change. Lots of grass, lots of space for the kids to run around without the worry of running into Main Street, into traffic. And there was a lot more shade. And I enjoyed myself. I had a lot of citizens comment that they enjoyed the whole thing as well. They usually do, but they really liked it this year with the venue change. We had a lot of participation with city staff, and I appreciate them. Chiefs, if you'll pass that on, especially Chief Reyes, who is Officer Jensen. that was running point on that. So I appreciate all the work that you put into that. All right. Thank you, Council. We will move on to our action items. Thank you. Thank you, too. We have a consideration of an ordinance for the Spring Creek subdivision, the First Amendment, located at 500 South and 1150 West. Mr. Bradley, we'll invite you to present on that action item.

Mark, you might need to, oh, it's working for you. It wasn't letting comments.

I just did not want to pull that up during your comment to interfere with the screen behind you.

I'm sorry. I know. And I made you already in your process.

All right. Almost have it here. All right. So before you tonight, as the mayor mentioned, uh, we have the Spring Creek subdivision first amendment. Um, here is the, the location of the area that we're talking about with the lots involved in the Spring Creek subdivision to make the effort of extending 1100 and 1150 West, uh, further South and connect into the new Brigham, uh, city school subdivision. As you know, as a council, the city's acquired more lot to make this work with the roadway. And then our good city manager has reached out to the adjacent property owners and coordinated with them to get their support on making this work. And so as you can see, they're very linear, deep lot. And the yellow line, AREAS ARE THE EXTENSION OF THE ROAD. SO IF WE START ON 1150 ON THE LEFT THERE, THOSE WE ARE ABLE TO RETAIN FOUR LOTS. AND WITH THE ORIENTATION ADJUSTMENT, SO THE LOTS ARE FACING EAST AND WEST RATHER THAN NORTH ON THOSE, OF COURSE, YOU HAVE THE CORNER LOTS. AND THEN ON THE 1100 WEST, THERE WILL NEED TO BE, THERE'S ACCESS AREA THAT WILL BE ABSORBED INTO THE ADJACENT LOT. AND THEN THE FAR LOT THAT YOU'RE SEEING IS LOT 107, The reason it's shown, that will remain the same, but it's going to be changed with some easements where the water lines, the culinary and secondary lines can be rerouted through 1100 West. So that is the efforts that are being made to retain those lots and working with the property owners that have not built homes yet there to be able to extend 1100 West and 1150 West. And it went to the Planning Commission. And they recommended approval of this amendment to the city council. And again, this just identifies how those two roads will connect into the south subdivision for the new elementary site and into the sports complex. I'll go back to the plat and see if there's any questions.

Thanks, Mark. Council, if you have any questions, this has been a nice process. Of course, you guys have been kept abreast of it along the way, so this is just the final step to it. I appreciate city staff in looking at the future, you know, 5, 10. This was several months down the road. Instead of just the immediate, we could have just left it and found another place to make that connectivity to those subdivisions. So I appreciate Mr. Euler and city staff in reaching out to the developer and the property owners to get this ball rolling. But staff, I mean, council, if you have any questions, For clarification, please address them to Mr. Bradley. And when you are satisfied, we would entertain a motion.

So, Mark, ownership of those lots, is that the developer still?

One of them, actually two now with the developer, but he has sold most of those lots off. Okay. And so he actually exchanged one with the Habitat for Humanity so they could, with a lot further to the west, so that they could get started with the building permit. It was a very similar lot in nature, just a different location because these slots here will need to get the roadway improved and the utilities stubbed in with the changes there.

And Brigham City Corporation will own lot 104 at the completion of this.

Is that the bottom one there?

Yeah, well, it's on 1150 West. It's the bottom right. Yeah, it's a little bit small. But, yeah, I said bottom right. It's the bottom right. Yeah, southeast lot. Lot 104 would be the city. And we need to go through a surplus process at the completion of this and sell that lot. Yeah. Remind the council, the city purchased four lots. And we could not get the roads to line up. the way that City Engineer wanted them. That's why we went through this process. We've had really good support of the developer and other lot owners to move through this. So we would essentially have a surplus lot there at the completion of this at 104. We'd have to go through a public process to surplus that.

Those two upper lots on 500 south there on 1150 west, can they only face east I guess one side will be east and the other side will be west. Can they not face north? They could. Okay.

So they could go either way? Yeah. Ideally, a lot of the, they like to do more of the depth with those lots. So most likely, the builders will put them east and west. But on a corner lot, they could still face north.

Okay.

I mean, that's a good point. But if I buy those lots, I'm facing them east and west because then the sun will melt off my snow in the winter. Yes.

And it, on the east, maybe just a little bit more colored, the east. There's a house on the other side already. The remainder of the two city lots that are there now, the road goes kind of through the dead center of both of them. The remaining parcel will just be vacated to the adjacent property owners.

Any further clarification, Council?

It's not going to sell. How's that going to work, the transfer there? A little extra piece.

Your approval right now in recording this plaque will give that property to those adjacent property owners. That's the process. There's not enough there remaining to do anything as far as building or anything like that. So, yeah, the process you're making tonight will be that vacation of that.

I mean, there's really probably, what, 10, 12 feet maybe there?

I think it was 13, if I remember right. Mark, do you have that?

In between the ?

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's exactly, I think it's 13 feet.

OK. It doesn't look like they're very much there.

Yep.

Been in a situation like that with family, so. Mm-hmm. It's a nightmare when it doesn't go the right way. That's how long it is.

We need to entertain a motion.

Okay, May, then I move that we approve the ordinance for the Spring Creek subdivision, First Amendment, located at 500 South and North 50 West.

We have a motion by Councilmember Smith. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Councilmember Hibb. This will be a roll call vote, and we'll start with Councilmember Smith and move to his left. Ryan's aye.

Robbins aye.

Hayes aye. Jefferson's aye. Matt's an aye.

Thank you. Motion passes. We move to our second action item, which is the consideration of a resolution authorizing... the activation of the new core project area parcel for the 2027 tax year. I'll invite our community development director, Mr. Tom Cotter, to present.

Thanks. We also have Stephanie Pack with us from the Utah Inland Port. We are excited to have this trigger before us tonight. Inland Port has been a great partner for Brigham City. Um, so we'll just go quickly through some of this and what is the golden spike inland port and why we're triggering it? What does that exactly mean? And all that fun stuff. So as the council is very aware, uh, we, we entered into agreement with the inland port to do some project areas inside Brigham city's corporate limits. There are also other project areas inside box letter County, Tremont and Garland Willard. Um, and it's all part of the golden spike. Inland Port project area is what you'll hear. Regardless of where they're located, that is the project area for Boxwater County. And we've worked with the Inland Port. The Inland Port's helped us to promote strong economic development in that project area, in those parcel areas inside Brigham City. They've helped us go and recruit businesses and help with infrastructure development. Because really the long-term vision here is let's get in advanced manufacturing help improve freight movement how do we get the rail opportunities and really how do we help regional economic growth and the inland core i can't say enough good things about what they have helped the city do and what they've helped box super county do as a whole uh christina if you want to hit the next little slide so a little timeline uh kind of what where we're at what's happened is in 2023 we joined the golden spike project area 24 through 26, we've worked with the inland port to help refine some of the boundaries. We've also expanded opportunities. We've added some parcels into the project area. And today we continue to work with them to really leverage their resources to help infrastructure investment in our community in Brigham City. And so we talk about tonight as a triggering resolution Really at this point, it's kind of a formality in the process. So what we're talking about here, that's why you can see the wonderful pictures in the corners, it's Nucor Towers and Structures. Super excited that they located here, that they're building here. For the public that doesn't know, they're the huge new buildings that are going up down there on Waterly Lane in that area. We're excited to have them to add to the Nucor campus. That is part of our community and they've been awesome. So the triggering resolution, what that does, part of the inland port project areas is, hey, we're going to use some of the tax increment that's generated inside that project area, inside that very specific geographic boundary. We're going to use the tax increments to help with the infrastructure that is needed for a lot of these major lifts. And also it's to help our economic development continue inside the city. So, Christine, if you want to hit the next one. This is just kind of a very, These are not the real numbers for what's going to happen. So every, it functions, the inland port project areas, you're familiar since you serve as the RDA board for the city, they function in a very similar manner. So we have a base year value. So in this example, we say, hey, the base year value is $10 million. That base year value, the taxes generated off that, they will always continue to flow to the entities. So whatever they were getting before the project came in, they continue to get that money. And so on the next chart, you can see that little green. So that's when we start talking about incremental value. All right, so we're going to trigger it in 2027. Because in the property tax world, the lien date is January 1st, 2027.

You actually don't pay the taxes until November.

The county collects the taxes. They will send, distribute that money to the inland port. And then the Inland port will work with new core in the city and the distribution of those funds to pay for things. But we're back to incremental growth, but whatever is above that base year taxable value, that is what is coming to the Inland port, the incremental value. So in this scenario, it's not up there, but the incremental value analysis, they have to, we trigger it's worth $12 million. So based on how the Inland port is structured. if we were to assume a tax rate of just 0.01 for the whole area, the taxing entities are going to get $5,000 and it's going to be distributed. Majority of the line share is going to go to the school district. Um, that's just how our taxing has worked with school districts in most entities and the County about 65, 70% of individuals tax bill. So then these will get new money. The increment that didn't exist before. You think about this was vacant farmland. It was an ag. It was in Greenbelt, which we love. We're grateful for farmers and stuff they do there. But when they transition, Greenbelt is taxed very, very low. Anyway, now the school districts and the cities and mosquito abatements, we are now going to start receiving money off of this project. The 75%, so 15,000 in this case is going to go to the inland port in our agreement with the inland port. Uh, we, they get off before anything ever happens. 4% goes to the administration of this project area, because there's a lot to do there. There is a lot of the important handling for us. 2%. This is a new requirement that goes in. It goes to wetland mitigation and that is required to stay here. Like, it's not money that's going to go down and do wetland mitigation in other parts of the state. It has to stay in the project or project adjacent, but it will stay here. The next part is 4%, and that goes to the affordable housing portion. That's what we talked about a few years ago when we sent the money with Habitat for Humanity. So this money coming now will also help the city do more affordable housing. So once all that goes through, the remainder, after we take the $15,000, subtract all that off, 13,500 events is the imports. Well, they have a contractual obligation through a development agreement and how their structures are set up. 6,231 of that is going to be used as a project incentives. And so you can see down there really what we use for project incentive. Let's say there's site development, there's building instructions, job and wage. There's a lot of things that go into it. And they're all post-performance standards that have to be met. for that incentive to take place. The lion's share of what's gonna come, the bigger share, it has to be, so $7,269 in this made up example of numbers would come for public.

I can't stress enough, this is fictional numbers.

Yeah. These are just easy numbers to follow through. They're gonna be much, much bigger for the new core project area. So in this scenario, 7,269 would have to be used for public infrastructure. Now, inside the new core project area for towers and structures, that big lift we had there, as the council is aware, is an electric substation. Way back, I guess probably only two years ago, but it feels like forever ago, it was part of our bond. We went and bonded for Project Charm. That's what this is. project charges, new core towers and structures. So when our development agreement with Inland Port and new core is they will be using that money, the Inland Port will be using that money to pay for that infrastructure. And like I said, the lion, not that I got stuff in the lion's share, but the big lift there is electric. It's the substation that has just been energized. So you can see like already like the benefit of having being partners with the inland port and with new core to get infrastructure that the city needed and to use tax increment that's being generated just in that, in that geographic zone, there's no residential people in that area. There's no one of that. It's new ports, the new towers and structures. We're using their tax increment to help fund that infrastructure that the city needed. Uh, so it's, it's awesome. So the trigger resolution, all that we're doing tonight is we're saying, Hey, we're going to start, we're going to kick it off. 2027 is the year and it's going to run for 25 years. Um, so that's how that works. And again, we're excited for this to be happening. Excited. The new core is here. Uh, we've talked with their, their general manager. They're quite a bit. They're excited to be here. Part of the community, uh, superintendent Mecham talked about that meeting. Powers and Structures is there. They're representing, and they want to know how they can get more involved in the community. So we're excited. So any questions? We talked a lot about how it flows, and Stephanie can also correct me if anything was said incorrectly.

Comment, I appreciate you dumbing it down for us. I really do. It was easy to follow. You always lay it out really well. It does show a lot of plus for the community, for tax base, me and some experts. development in a cold environment, so I appreciate it. You bet. I mean, we're excited. I keep saying we're excited because NUCOR has been awesome.

They've been a great... And here comes NUCOR again and more jobs. And they are, as part of this, like we flat out say, hey, part of the participation agreement that we signed with NUCOR, their average wage has to be 110% of the base county wage. And NUCOR doesn't have a problem meeting that. But we're excited. We're excited that NUCOR is here with high-paying wages, good jobs, and it just continues to build who Brigham City is, and we're excited. Do you have something, Council Member Coxon?

Yeah, to clarify on that 35%. Yeah, that's wrong. It's 35%, it's 65%.

It's not wrong. For the electrical substation that we bonded on, Inland Port gets that tax money, and we

it will go towards the Brigham city.

Yeah. So that's the three party agreement we have. And actually new core has even said there's their percentage they're getting, they are going to pay it to bring them until the bond has been satisfied. So that's the key component to new core is saying, Hey, we understand what is happening and we want to be here and we appreciate the infrastructure that's coming in. And normally we would charge like an impact fee for electric, right? Well, this, far surpasses the impact fee that would have been assessed. So per code, we're allowed to go in and, hey, this is really what your impact fee is for the substation. And so in the development agreement, Nucor is saying, OK, we're going to generate tax increment here. Instead of giving us the money as an incentive, use it to pay the bond. And then once the bond comes off, then that will flow to Nucor as an incentive for being here. But again, they just don't get it.

They have to meet their specifications before they can get this.

Yeah, and it's all post-performance. Nothing's given up front.

You've got to do this. Is the base taxable value, that was established January 1, 2025. Was that an example part of your example?

So this one, I'll go, I think the agreement said it's either going to be what the agreement dictates, January 1, 2025, or it's going to be the 2023 when the city entered into the project area. Okay. Sorry, Steph. But in the agreement, so in the development agreement, which I don't know can supersede, the development agreement calls out January 1, 2025.

Okay.

That was before any construction had been.

Yes.

OK.

But Stephanie, again, because they have different.

Our statute has our project area base year be the year prior to creation. And so that would be actually 2022 would be the base value. So that could, we're going to record this trigger with the county. They requested that we get any recordings to them by October of the year prior so they have plenty of time to set up that trigger and set up that new tax ID. And so, you know, we'll work through those details with them. But, you know, anything before that base year will continue to flow to the taxing entities and then that 25% will continue to flow to the taxing entities.

I thought on it. to your point too, Ryan, is I'll be honest, whether it's 2022, 2025, it's still very small. Yeah, it's still greenbelt. Yes. Yeah. Okay. But again, not to beat the dead horse. I mean, you'll see these again, as we continue to work with the inland port and do different things is whatever that base year value is. So in this case, in the example, I put 10 million, the base year value for this project is probably going to be between one and two million, in complete honesty. But anyway, the taxianities will always receive that money. They will continue to get it. They're never punished.

But before they did anything.

Yes. And the good part is, hey, the incremental growth that under an inland port scenario is, it's a 75-25 split. And some other increments or other project areas, that 75-25 doesn't exist. It may just be all 100% that flows to the RDA or whatever. But under this example that the import uses, 25%.

And the 30%, I guess the 75%, that stuff stays in the project area. And that project area is Is that this Nucor or is it all, is it the?

It'll trigger, so we're triggering the parcel of Nucor inside the Golden Spike project area. Which is? So this money here, it will stay in the Golden, in the Nucor. Parcel. Parcel. Oh, okay. Parcel. All right.

We've seen, I mean, we have a wide road there in that area. Is that part of this as well?

All public infrastructure is available to it, but. That's in the development agreement that we have with the Inland Port and Nucor. But yeah, I mean, make it abundantly clear. They are not going to take increment that's been generated by Nucor and go apply it out in Garland. Like the Lakeshore Learning Center. Nor is Lakeshore Learning Center sending money to Brigham. That's not how it works.

On the public infrastructure part that comes to the city, is it only to the city or does it, it doesn't flow to like the other taxing entities or the school district or anything?

Not on the infrastructure part. That is for the city's infrastructure.

And the city, is this our first project within the city limits?

With the Inland Port, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, it's exciting. That's why Stephanie drove from her home. We're not gonna say where you live, on a public meeting. People probably put it together. Nor Sam Peet.

And just as a side question, how many jobs do we figure that our construction will have? 200 to 300.

I want to say it's Brandon. Anyway, when I talk to their GM, he's talking about, send me whoever you got. I need people. And he's excited. They're bringing in people. They're They're very excited. Because they're currently, right now, the Towers and Structures is operating in the Volcraft campus area. Volcraft has given them one of the farther back bays. So they are, Towers and Structures is here. They are operating. They're putting out the giant structures. They do the power utility poles. They're massive. They have already begun that work. They're going to have a galvanization facility here that a lot of the other NUCOR facilities are going to be shipping stuff here to be galvanized. And that's cool.

Okay. If you're satisfied with The answers to your questions, we would enjoy a motion, which would be to authorize the activation of the new core project area parcel for the 2027 tax year. So moved. We have a motion by Councilmember Smith. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilmember Jeffries. Is there any further clarifications or questions? All right. This is a resolution, so I don't believe we need a roll call. Okay, all those in favor?

Aye.

Those opposed? Thank you. Motion passes. Action item number three. Thank you, Stephanie and Tom, for that. And we are excited about having another NUCOR project within our city limits. They're a great, great company. We'll invite Chief Thuisson to come forward and present a request for the approval to enter into a memorandum of understanding between the Utah Division of Forestry fire and state lands in Brigham City Fire for the deployment of resources and cost repayment for those resources for wildfire response and mitigation.

Thank you, Mayor. That is a little bit of a long title there. And I have to follow Tom, and I don't have any cool presentations or graphs or anything. Before we dive into what that memorandum of understanding is, I think it's a good opportunity just to kind of review why we do those kind of things. So this is something we've been a part of in the past for probably before even my term here. So this is part of what's called the Cooperative Wildland System in the state of Utah. And that system is really comprised of several key pieces, if you would, that make up make up that whole system. Along with that is things like preparedness. So when we do fuel reductions, so when Public Works works with us to reduce fuels throughout the community and wildfire areas, that gets counted towards a matched system that is part of this. And then some of the other pieces are response, equipment, training, and those kind of things. So this system really came into place about 10 years ago in the state. It's been around for about a decade now. And what it really does is help protect us as a city and our community. A lot of what we do as a fire department isn't just about response, although that is the bulk of what we do. Our crew is right now on smoke in a building in an apartment complex in our city. That's where Chief Poppleton had to run to. It is about response on day to day, but we also behind the scenes are working on interlocal agreements, trying to work with partners to build the pieces that we need to ensure the safety of our community. So what this MOU specifically helps us with is with wildfire response. If we were to send a crew out somewhere in the state to assist another agency, It allows us to then be able to recuperate, recoup some of those costs that we incur as a city for sending personnel and equipment out. Likewise, it also opens the door to be able to request equipment and have that come into the city. So then it protects us as a city. So at a meeting yesterday and in that meeting, one of the wildlife or wildlife wildfire officials with the state was talking to a group of chiefs and he was talking about the recent fires that you've seen on the news in Weber County, which they had another one today, another significant wildland fire that approached some buildings and vehicles and they had to shut the freeway down again. Those fires are costly when they happen. and uh for an example he gave was uh one of the recent fires that was up in the upper valley and in the ogden area they had a hell attack through a helicopter operated for about two hours uh that hell attack crew operated for about two hours of flight time was uh well over forty thousand dollars just for that single resource um a single air drop from a retardant aircraft can be $80,000 plus when we have to utilize those. So you can see the numbers can get big really, really quickly. So this is an important thing to us to participate in because then it gives us that little bit of insurance. Because what happens is by being a partner in this system, should we have that event where we have a catastrophic wildfire in our community on our east bench or something like that, and we have to delegate that fire or call in other resources from the state or the Forest Service, the state then picks up the tab for those expenses. And there's criteria that we have to meet, so we're very careful as incident commanders before we just start pushing those buttons, because we want to make sure that we're not inheriting some costs there that we don't need to. So this is one of those components. So this agreement that's before you is a part of that whole system. Again, this one specifically, we've been a part of in the past that's similar to the last agreement. It had expired. The state needed to update it. That's why we're bringing this forward to you. And so we're just looking for approval to authorize the mayor to sign that MOU to renew that agreement and be able to pick up that component of this this system so i'll happily answer any questions if you've got them thanks chief this is pretty simple one for me but please answer your ask your questions and when you're ready let's have a motion these this one says it was a five year five years yeah the state likes state yeah the state likes to do five years that the last one actually expired a little bit ago we've been trying to work with them to uh get this done so we are glad when they finally got it sent over to us.

It's a quick side note, Chief. When I saw the article in the paper where the firefighters from the different areas fighting the fires and how you were able to help out a little bit on their downtime and they parked their cars there and things like that. And I've noticed some crews at our local parks

and you know so i think you as a chief and above our fire department to welcome outside firefighters into our community when they're when they're working really hard to keep our whole county safe yeah and things like that that's a good point and i appreciate that and um i'll give that credit to one of my captains for uh for just thinking of that idea and inviting them to dinner one night without even asking, and that was good. We were good with that. It was a good outreach for them. That team has been very busy since they've been here. They've been on most of the fires in Boxhiller County, but they also participated on the fires down in Weber County that they've had there, the one along Washington Terrace and some of these others. So we were glad to have the extra help This year has been an extraordinary year around the country. I mean, we watch the news every day. We saw what happened in Spokane and what they're still dealing with up in the Northwest. So we're grateful for the extra help when we need it, for sure.

Chief, didn't you mention that they were from North Dakota, isn't that where that team was? That team was from North Dakota. All right. Are we ready for a motion?

Motion to approve the memorandum of understanding between the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands and Brigham City Fire for the deployment of resources and cost repayment for those resources for wildlife response and mitigation.

We need to mention to authorize the mayor to sign that.

Authorize the mayor.

OK. We have a motion by Councilmember Troxell. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilmember Hipp. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes. Our final action item is a request for approval of updates to the Employee Policy Manual, Chapter 9 through 6, Paid Holidays, and 9 through 17, Education Assistance. And Mr. Oyer will present.

Thanks, Mayor. Just a quick reminder to the City Council, the only employee policy changes that come to Council either are employee benefits or have a budget implication. That is why you are seeing these two today, because both of them have both, frankly. So, I know, so let's start with nine, six paid holidays. Maybe I'll just start with why we as staff are bringing this to council. And I know it looks like a lot of red lines. There's actually not very many changes. There was a lot of movement within the policy kind of just for clarity and making sense of it. So the biggest change here, and I'll go through the kind of the three, but the very biggest one, is where full-time employees would receive holiday pay equal to their regularly scheduled hours for that day. So currently right now, and let me back up a little bit, our city staff work multiple shifts. Frankly, there's about five different shifts citywide. So fire department, the 4896 modified Kelly schedule, fire employees are working a 4896, our police officers are working 12 hour shifts, we have four 10 shifts, we have eight hour shifts, and then we have the five, four, nine, or the nine hour shifts, eight hours on a Friday and every other Friday off. So what we're trying to do with this policy change is essentially if you are scheduled to work 10 hours, 12 hours, nine hours, or eight hours on a holiday, you get that amount of hours on that holiday time off. This policy change is frankly not geared towards public safety. It's the non-public safety employees that are either working 9, 10, or 8-hour shifts that would essentially have to use leave time. So if you're scheduled to work a 10-hour shift, right now you only get 8 hours of holiday time instead of the 10 hours of holiday time that is your scheduled shift of that day. So that is the biggest change that we're asking the council to consider with this is you would actually get the number of holiday hours in your schedule to work on that day. There are some corresponding changes that had to happen kind of as part of that, one of which, so there are two departments right now, fire and police. They're allowed to bank their holiday time. It's because of their rotating shifts, frankly. So if you're on a rotating shift And you're a police officer or a fireman, you don't take that day off. You come to work, whether it's a holiday or not. So through a departmental policy that's approved by the mayor, you'll see that within this policy. Fire and police departments are allowed to bank their holiday time and use that for scheduled days off later in the year. The second part of this is essentially capping the amount of hours that those two departments can be paid out for bank time. They're only allowed to, they can accrue, but they would only be able to pay it out, the maximum 24 hours for police officers, 48 hours for firemen, working the modified Kelly schedule at June 30 of each year. So really that's the only, there's some cleanup time on our, or cleanup language on our, if Christmas Eve is on a Monday through a Thursday, Any questions for me? What have I done a poor job describing?

We'll turn to Dave Jeffries to point that out.

What? It made sense to me.

So if you're in the fire department on Christmas Day, do you get your full 24 hours?

Holiday time for 48, it's right here. So holiday.

I missed where that's at.

Oh, sorry. I'm looking at my own computer screen. So it is in the very first paragraph. Fire personnel working a 4896 shift shall receive 12 hours of holiday pay. So firemen only get 12 hours for every holiday, even if they're scheduled to work.

Okay.

All right. I need to go through the second one. Any other questions on holiday time before I go to the next one?

If you're not scheduled on that holiday and you're a full-time employee, but your schedule never falls on a holiday, Monday in general, do you get any holiday time?

Yeah, so the way it works is even if you're not, let's use the every other Friday off, that's the most common in the city, so that's the best example. So if the 4th of July falls on a Friday, but that's not your normal day to work. You actually get your holiday on Thursday. Does that make sense? So those are shifted to the nearest next full-time workday.

That's the way it is currently.

Yes, and that policy, this policy change, it remains that way.

Yep.

It should change. It's not fair. All the working folk.

The common city practice, the government practice. And one day, it'll go to normal like the rest of us folk.

Well, when the rest of us folk are 24-7 on, in case somebody calls late at night, that's When a Coke dispenser doesn't work at Taco Bell and they call you. Don't call me out. You have short emergencies all the time. Yes.

Especially when you order the wrong sizes.

Okay.

I'm going to jump to, this is a little bit of a bigger conversation. And I will do my best to kind of describe why we as staff are asking the council to actually strike a benefit from The employee policy manual has been in place a lot longer than I've been here. So in 917, it's education assistance. So historically, Brigham City, through a process, has essentially assisted in educating our employees beyond what I would say that they currently come in with any type of education. So historically, In the past, we have financially participated as a city, which is a taxable benefit to the employees through our IRS. And there's a budget amount in the mayor's office for this, or the mayor's office's budget for this. We've paid for bachelor's degrees, associate's degrees, master's degrees. And the language in here is that it has to be a direct benefit to the position. I am the approver as a city administrator and the decider of that. We are seeing a lot of new types of education, new degrees, lots of trade schools, and what I would call an extreme diversification of education types that our employees have historically been interested in and are continuing to be interested in. And I am finding it very hard to decipher as the city administrator, is this a direct benefit to the city and to that employee's specific job? So, you know, am I just throwing my hands in the air and saying, let's just strike this out because it's too hard? No, we're not. Is Brigham City going to continue to educate its employees in ways that are beneficial to the city? Yes. We are through training lines within our departmental budgets. So if there is a prerequisite to continue, let's use an electrical lineman that is going through an apprenticeship program. That's a four-year program. The training lines within that departmental budget will continue to employ and educate that employee through what they need to become an adjournment lineman. I could expand that to a police officer or a fireman within those things. But, you know, maybe to get a little bit, a couple of details so you understand exactly what I'm talking about. And I'm not singling anybody out, but I'm going to give you a perfect example. Should Brigham City Corporation be paying for a nursing degree for a paramedic or an EMT? Derek's personal opinion is no, but I might be challenged because of the way that this policy is created. We don't hire nurses. We hire paramedics and EMTs. Does an administrative assistant need a stats degree from a bachelor's degree in statistics? I don't think so, but is that different than a master's of public administration for somebody that is in our planning office? So I'm having a real difficult time deciding what is a benefit to the city and what is not. And we're seeing a huge diversification in a higher education system of our state in degrees that are actually offered as compared to 16 years ago when we first kind of started, that I started paying attention to this. So what I'm actually asking the council to do tonight is strike this benefit from the employee policy manual and no longer offer it. And we as a city will still educate our employees in ways that are prerequisites for them to maintain their job or continue their employment for required or mandated education for them to continue their growth. But I would almost call these as maybe optional education opportunities that we have paid for in the past. So hopefully I've done my best to explain that. Any questions?

Council, any questions? Somebody's been approved already. and is currently going through an education that will continue until they're done?

They will be paid, yes. And the budget that is in the current budget will take care of anybody that's had pre-approval. There is a pre-approval process. Anybody that's been pre-approved will be paid upon their completion. If you read it, it's, you know, there's 90%, 75%, 50%, depending on the letter grade, there's a max, there was a max, there is. Unless the council leaves it, there is a maximum amount per year for, per employee for whatever that type of education. But obviously, yes, anything that's been pre-approved, we will continue with.

How much money are we talking here?

The budget has been $18,000, I believe, $15,000 to $18,000. Sorry, I should have had that off the top of my head, but $15,000 to $18,000 a year. How many people?

Per year, roughly.

I would say four or five at the most. Education is very, very expensive. There's been some changes to this policy over the past 10 plus years. There did not used to be a cap per employee amount. And because of skyrocketing costs of higher education, there was a cap that was implemented by the council. It's been probably six, seven years ago. So that was in an effort to try to spread that beyond just one or two employees. You know, it was kind of done on a first-come, first-served basis. But, yeah, you know, there's been, and we have a spreadsheet out here in front of me, but, you know, probably 30 to 40 over the last 10 years of employees that participated in this.

You've seen, like, a growth in it. So you said 30 to 40. Each year does it seem as if more people are interested in it? The diversification and the costs are rising, my assumption would be yes for this.

Honestly, I would call it cyclical. Yeah, I don't, you know, maybe a little uptick during COVID and a downtick post-COVID.

It seems like the increase is the ability to justify it to the career. Okay. Does that make sense?

Yeah, making the case.

Yes.

That has increased. Do they sign a contract after that to stay employed with the city after degrees? Yes.

So this policy that's in here requires two years post-payment of continued employment. And if they leave in that time, voluntarily leave in that time, they have a prorated payment back. That has happened a couple times that we've actually withheld some money from a final paycheck for employees. But it only applies if it's a voluntary separation of employment.

Service commitments are goods. But they also bind you, and now you've got a person who wants to leave, but they won't leave because they don't want to pay. So they may or could be a difficult employee, and then it becomes an administrative nightmare and looking for, are they violating rules? It could be a problem, too. But I get it. You want a service commitment if you're paying the money.

I'm willing to take – it's my job to take – You know, if somebody disagrees with my opinion here, obviously I'm good with that. I don't feel like I'm raising the white flag and saying this is too difficult for me to approve and it's become really hard. I will tell you that I think my approval and disapproval based on my opinion alone has created some negative opinions from the employees. And I have denied many and I've approved many. And I feel like we have created a little bit of negative morale in the city with this recently. And we went through, you know, as staff and talked about this, we've been talking about this for over a year. You know, could we make a list of this, this, and this? What is really hard for an organization like this to make a list of this is approved and this is not? We're cities, especially Brigham City, have the most diversified workforce of any organization that you can think of. You know, we have guys climbing poles, and we have people arresting people, and we have people fixing water lines. It's really, really hard to come up with a policy of this is approved, this is not. This is approved, this is not.

You're talking about a rubric or like a metric? Yes. A rubric you can use to justify the decision. Yeah. It would be hard.

Let me jump in because... I think this should not be on your shoulders. This is an HR function. Your HR person should be running this, not you. Because you need to excuse yourself as this administrator, so there's no favoritism rolled out. There's nothing. But if you leave it to HR, HR is kind of supposed to be a place that is, there's no favoritism, there's no, they follow the strict rules. They don't bend, right? And an education program is designed to make your team better. It's not, but I think, I don't know about giving up and just getting rid of it. I'm not supportive of that. I think you should rework it. And I think you should just get back to HR and then set up and change some rules and guidelines because I agree with you that, yeah, EMT, yeah, we're not going to pay for your nursing school because you're probably going to fail and go become a nurse. We got it. But the idea is that you have somebody in your lower ranks that want to be your future city administrator. So if you have someone on your team that's got three years in working for the city and you see some leadership qualities and you see an opportunity for this individual to take your role or someone else's role, but they need that degree, that's what the program is for. So I just think you maybe just, I'm just going to speak. This is my opinion. We have this at our company. And just because you want to go to college and get a degree doesn't mean Swire is paying for it. There's a process. And all management is out of it. It's an HR function.

I think you were saying there's still going to be a process within that specialty area. Yeah, we're moving into the training year. Using you as an example, because that was a great example, there may be some additional things that are specific to your role in, say, administrative role. There's going to be some different requirements.

Right, you're right. But if you want to become a state administrator, you have to have a bachelor's degree in some form, either public administration or business or something. And if you have someone who doesn't have it but has an opportunity to potentially be that one day for the city, That's why that program is there.

Yeah, and I don't disagree that I think I don't think I disagree that it is there to educate our employees and make us better as an organization. We spent hours as the mayor's executive staff trying to come up with what can the parameters be that are fair and equal for a 200 employee with 20 plus different job occupation fairness. And like, yeah, I am a little bit raising my hand and saying, I can't come up with one that makes sense. So the easiest thing would just be to cap it and approve everything. They'll go a lot smaller dollar amount each year. And anything that comes through, just approve it.

And you can still do that. You can still put caps on it because someone wants to get a bachelor's degree from Utah State. Public administration doesn't mean the city should pay for the entire degree. It's kind of a scholarship program. So you can't cap and put limits and go through that process.

Yeah, I don't know that.

I get my question, and I don't disagree with that. Councilmember Jeffries, I just wonder if the taxpayer is willing to pay for a degree that's not specific to the job that they're in.

Well, that's what I said. You have to give it to HR and then build the parameters.

Yeah, but that's still taxpayer money. So I get what you're saying, but it still comes from the city coffers. Somebody who is in the water department to pay for a degree that may get them to city administrator. I just don't know that the taxpayer is going to say, yeah, let's do that for everybody that's within the city. And that's why I think that's one of the reasons why we're shifting it to training, to the training certification within those departments so specific to their job title and their job description. Well, that should already be there.

Yeah, it is. You should already be doing that.

Yeah, we are. And that's why you talk about discontinuation of this because we do have that in the training line. We are increasing that so that they have more availability, more people can get those certifications.

I think the best example of that is, you know, depending on vacancies, we have a policy. If we're vacant paramedics, we sponsor people through paramedic school so we can get paramedics. Or if we have vacancies for so long in our police department, can't get certified police officers, we will sponsor somebody through post to get them up. Like those things are going to continue. What wouldn't continue is if I want a master's degree in accounting, Brigham City is not going to pay for that. I have to myself. So that's what would change if we strike this out. If you strike this out.

So is your suggestion to that $18,000 to move that over to the employee training program?

I NEED THE CURRENT BUDGET TO STAY AS IS BECAUSE OF PRE-APPROVAL. NEXT YEAR'S BUDGET, THERE WOULD BE AN ADJUSTMENT. OKAY.

ARE WE READY FOR A MOTION? AND IF WE ARE, WE WOULD ENTERTAIN THEM.

I WOULD MAKE A MOTION FOR THE APPROVAL OF THE UPDATE TO THE EMPLOYEE POLICY MANUAL 9-6, PAID HOURS FOR THE HOLIDAY, AND 9-17.

Uh, education assistance program is, but this two separate. Thanks. Yeah, you two separate motions. If you do, it's one policy.

It's just the one policy manual. But yes, if. Both in one policy, but yeah, if you want to split them, that's. You guys do what you want here, but somebody did make a motion for both.

Yes, we have a motion for both. Do we have a second? Then Dave, you want one at a time?

I think it's two separate issues. So it should be two separate motions.

I'll second the first motion.

So we have a motion and a second. A motion by Councilmember Hipp and a second to that motion by Councilmember Troxell. This is not a roll call vote. So all those in favor of that motion?

Aye.

Aye. Those opposed? All right, motion passes. All right, I think we have a subject matter for closed session, so we need a motion to move into the closed session to discuss the purchase, lease, or exchange of real property. I think that's it. That's it. So moved. We have a motion by Councilmember Smith, and we have a second. Second by Councilmember Hipp. This will be roll call going in. I'll start with Councilmember Jensen, move to his right.

That's an aye.

Jeff is an aye. Dave's an aye.

Robinson, aye. Ryan, aye.

Motion passes. Thank you. We will move into closed session.

Stay safe out there.