City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. All right.

Caitlin is not with us this evening. She is out on vacation, I believe. So she will be at our next meeting, but she's not here today and she will not be on Zoom. For what?

Oh, okay.

Okay. Okay, so next we have Bill, who wants to come up and make a public comment. And if anybody else is interested in making a public comment, please fill out one of these forms and get it to Michael.

I am sorry for the interruption.

Oh, that's all right.

Yeah. Okay. You're going to have this little microphone. It's on here. Here, put on Max. Okay. On. Okay. So when I look at you, just hit that button right there.

That one?

Yeah, right there. All right, so. already started.

What was that reading? 66.

Okay. I heard the sneeze is the loudest thing. I'm pretty sure a screaming kid at two years old can get there too, right? So anyway, good evening. So this is going to be a little bit of an unconventional public comment, but I think it will be insightful and a bit fun. So When we talk about noise, we don't often experience noise in a controlled environment. So I thought I would just play one of the ATV noise measurements in my front door. So for reference, the city ordinance specifies that the noise can be measured at two distances, 25 feet or 50 feet from the center line of the street or the tailpipe. So the specific recording from this specific recording is from a 50 foot setback. Again, this is my front door. At this distance, the city ordinance threshold is 74 decibels during the day. It's 72 decibels at night after 8 p.m. So remember the chart I gave you. For every three decibels, the noise energy doubles. It's a critical component. So at three decibels, it doubles. At six decibels, it quadruples. At nine decibels, it's eight times. So for a bit of fun, at the end of this recording, I'm just going to ask for people, did it exceed 74 decibels or not? Hands up, hands down kind of thing. So anyway, at this point, I'm just going to play a recording. You're going to hit max.

Tell me when. Just a second.

So without looking, everybody else, was that more than 74 decibels or less?

You know, Bill, normally we do not engage you with public comment.

Okay, fine. So I'll just do this. I'll take it. Sorry. 75 decibels is what that was, right? So that's right at about the threshold for the noise ordinance. That's what's at our front doors on Mill Creek. But I think the key part here is this measurement was actually at 78.9. So even though this meter didn't register that high, that means it was at least two times louder than what you heard at my front door. And so, you know, and the maximum values I've recorded is 81 decibels, which would be four times the noise that you heard. So I guess my point is that reducing Mill Creek to 20 miles per hour is going to greatly improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and reduce noise. I'm greatly appreciative of that. My concern is if the city council does decide to move the 15 mile per hour OHV ATV signage, ATVs will most likely drive at posted speed limits of 20. So this will expose residents to more noise than they're currently experiencing. So an increase of five miles an hour will likely double the noise. It's only going to get worse. So anyway, I appreciate everything you're doing. I know it's hard. And I just want you to have the opportunity to hear what I hear. And I've done other measurements throughout the city, and they're not too much different. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Bill. Anybody else want to make a public comment tonight? All right. We'll move on to department updates. And we did have on the agenda tonight victim advocate update, but we're going to have to postpone that because Nathaniel had to leave town for a family emergency. But we're going to replace that with Lex to give us an update on the bear situation we're having in town right now.

I need bear. Seriously?

But he made the grin and bear it.

Yeah, I'm very excited to be here. Yeah, today we had a fifth bear issue in town in a week and a half near the high school. It did require us to lock down the high school and the middle school for the last couple hours of school today. Um, and I wanted to, we put out some information on our Facebook page via social media as well, uh, on bear safety, DWR DNR is published quite a bit. Uh, this year statewide, we're seeing a lot more bears coming into residential areas and the towns because of the drought situation. And that obviously is what's going on here. Uh, this is more than I think in recorded history that I've heard of talking to longtime residents. This is, this is more than they've ever had. Uh, And five is just conservatively what we've tranquilized and removed from town. Outside in the county, there have been many more. So we really want to caution folks, especially if you live around the areas where we're seeing a lot of them near the orchards, along the creeks. Be smart about your garbage cans. Try to keep them in your garage, out of an area where are bears. They're coming down to access easy food, and that's it. Water is one thing. Food is another. A lot of these are older bears. Some have not even had any teeth in their mouths. So the peaches are an easy food source for them and garbage, dog food, those types of things. So be careful about those. One thing we want to emphasize is if you do see a bear, by all means, call dispatch. You can dial the non-emergency number or you can dial 911. But we're going to respond if it's in the city, the county will respond if it's in the county. Our job is to contain that bear if we can, but to keep everybody safe. And that's our primary goal is the safety of everybody in our city today, especially with it being a couple of times running on school grounds. You know, it can get kind of hairy, but that is our job. And then we wait. We try to keep that bear contained until we can get DNR and DWR on scene. And at that point, they're going to try to tranquilize the bear and then make a determination based on their criteria of whether that bear gets relocated or if it gets euthanized. That's out of our hands and out of our control. We don't have any say in that. But our job is to help them keep it contained and then in one way or another have them get it trapped and out of the city. Any questions or clarifications? The biggest thing, obviously, is there aren't very many human run-ins with bears that result in injury with black bears. Very rare. All of us in the last few encounters have been as close as you are to me right now from these bears and they haven't made a single aggressive move towards us. But do not try that at home and do not corner it in your yard. We'd rather you just call us and do that and let us come deal with that.

Great. Any questions for Lex?

So when I was five, I fed a bear in Yellowstone my ice cream.

i did not take out my mom did but yeah we discourage feeding them and that's you know people have been posting that you know fed bear is a dead bear i mean maybe maybe not but obviously an easy food source in town is going to encourage a bear to do things it's not supposed to do have they just been around they're not like causing damage or anything or Not that I've been told, not that I've seen, and everyone has been really kind of staying to the creek bottoms and running around in those areas. This one was, you know, Pack Creek, south of the school. That's, we get them there. They made a break towards Maverick at one point and back, and then this was a, like, five to seven-year-old, 250 to 280-pound male. Big, healthy boy. Yeah. The others have mostly been females and mostly been older females that have been in town. But, no damage this guy could climb fences like nobody's business he was pretty agile but wouldn't go up a tree and that's what we usually try to do is contain it in a tree keep it in a tree and then they can come tranquilize it we'll try to catch it and off they go but he was he was very much not wanting to go up yep we did we did uh took us a few hours but he was he was tranquilized and um dnr's dealing with him now i'm not sure the determination on his you know, what they have determined with him, whether he's relocated or what will happen.

Okay. Anything else? So the key is don't feed the bears. And if you see one, don't try to do anything. Call the police.

Yeah. And keep food sources out of your yard. Don't encourage them to come down. Dog food, garbage, whatever it might be. Police up the fruit that grows in your fruit trees. You know, keep it off the ground. Yep. They love hummingbird feeders. Anything sweet. Pick up your peaches. Right.

All right. Thanks, Lex.

Yep.

You bet. We all bear some responsibility.

Oh, you're unbearable right now.

Oh, you guys. Bunch of corn balls. All right. Next, we have Corey to talk to us about community development and housing. I know I talked to some of you guys that went to the housing task force or the housing panel, and Corey gave an excellent presentation. I understand. I had to leave before we got to the end. But it sounds like there are some things that we wanted to hear more about. And so I asked Corey to come and present to you guys. So here he is.

Great. Alrighty. Well, thank you for the opportunity. I think review some of the topics that we were able to discuss, not just myself, but the panel at the housing town hall. And then some of those that we didn't quite have enough time to circle back to. And really with this presentation that, you know, a certain way, if there's any questions jump in, this is really not super formal, but just an opportunity to really provide and continue to get that information to the community.

Oh,

Let's see. There we go. All righty. So again, on... The 12th, we had a host from Moab Area Housing Task Force, where a selection of panelists, including Ronnie Schultz, Randy Day, Chris Parker, and Sam Wiener, Andrew Jackson, and myself, were able to work through a series of collaborative questions, Q&As for the audience, and then just general takeaways and topics over this last year within the Moab community and what we're seeing with housing, both from a pipeline perspective and housing solutions and tools currently at work with some of the development and lending agents and then into a little bit of the forecasting what we anticipate coming up next and where as the leadership of the community we can maybe put emphasis or work towards some solutions ourselves. I think you'll all be familiar with this slide. I've recycled this a couple of times. But really, this is such a great primer. I think when we're talking about housing pipeline, I think when that term is heard, it can really mean so many different things to folks. So what that means from our perspective is. As development is working its way through the process, it has a variable selection of stages of approvals, both that go through the city's perspective, but then also into the private sector, construction, and then even beyond if it's commercial development into licensing and additional measures. So with this pipeline, when essentially from... a concept or the initial actual application or pre-development application, when we're coordinating with the developer of where can we do this project or we found a site that might be applicable, it can often be years beyond the realization of that project. So with market at play that is beyond just our community and then nationally and even internationally, there are so many factors that make the success or speed of efficiency of that project work. So we saw, and this is going into what was our 2025 town hall, so not this past town hall, but the previous, we were still seeing and receiving implications from post-COVID development freeze. We all know with tourism and what we saw in 2022, but the way that affected the larger markets of availability, labor, lending components, we saw this general freezing. So when we talked pipeline, we had a number of what we'll use these technical terms, vested or entitled applications sitting as almost kind of a bowling ball above Moab. Meaning when economic analysis was done of our community, Those economic markets were saying, you have over 2,000 units proposed and ready to build in Moab. Why on earth would we come build there? Well, the reality is, if you looked on the street, there was nothing being built. And so we were in this perpetual freeze and gridlock of interest in developing Moab or those projects that were Vesta Entitled trying to get through. So at 2025, we were seeing just the break off, the beginning of that iceberg to start to calve of movement. And then over this last year, kind of reporting now into 2026, we've seen really the thaw of that iceberg. We're seeing movement. We're seeing lending begin to relax, developable options opening up. And so we're seeing that what was a bowling ball start to not be so much of a bowling ball, but actually integrating into our community in a pretty pretty successful way so with the fulfillment of a number of those things that were in that pipeline if we can remember back all these numbers i threw out once upon a time um movement in subdivisions multi-household developments townhomes condos and general construction it's we're beginning to see some normalities um But we're also seeing what I think could be identified as a utilization of many of our housing tools. So everything from our incentive programs, ordinances, agreements that we've worked through, a massive amount of movement towards affordable housing, attainable housing, and even market rate multi-household. So that's been, I think, the greatest block of And I think just anecdotally, we look outside, we see all that movement beginning to happen. And so I really would look at that as a major success in us being able to bring our community through what was nationally a really challenging time and then into a more contemporary movement of actually satisfying some of our housing needs. And we've also seen, and this is a little bit of the back end, we'll talk, which is where we missed a little bit, is what are we seeing with single family housing? We've heard so much about affordable housing, so much about attainable housing, multi-household, is what's happening on the other end of that housing typology market. But I do want to just, I think it was a great show of success of what we've gone through. So here's some numbers that really represent our current housing pipeline. Again, this is meaning everything that is vesting, meaning they've come in, they filed an application that is just beyond conceptual level. They're beginning that process that has some entitlement-like elements to it, all the way through approvals, meaning they have option to build or are waiting. So that's building permit holds. They can build at any moment or actively constructing under that building permit threshold. and then recently built. So you can see that bowling ball, there's still a lot moving through the pipeline right there versus what we'd say in the last year, which is what we call recently built, actually coming through. So still a lot more to come. With this, I think we're currently seeing that market shift in response. So in this year, we're seeing a lot of multi-household interest or developers that maybe even had a vesting project quieting down or even removing the interest in that project. So for multi households, apartment projects, we're seeing people maybe walking away and re reevaluating the market for that. A common term that we're going to hear for that is saturation. Are we being saturated in any one typology or any one particular market area? I wouldn't say it's a total cooling. We are still having new developments coming in big multi household projects. I'm not an economist as much as I'm playing one right now, but I think is indicative of there are experts out there reading the tea leaves of their own markets and how it's going to respond. And this is something we got to spend just a very little bit of time during the town hall talking about. So that's what I'll spend a little bit more time now to do is looking at this. This was a A material provided by Ronnie Schultz that is really just what we're seeing in the market right now as far as trends. Trends of average sale prices, median, just very interesting to show our current status. Again, this is available for us. We won't go through all the metrics here. But when we're talking about snapshots of housing, that's what often economists will look at with their performers and their market analysis of what are we going to do? What are we doing right now? And this is what I would think when the planning department's talking to developers is. If you're talking about right now, you're already behind. You need to be looking into the future. What will be the needs? What will be coming? And that's the marriage of what I think we're seeing here and what we were just seeing as far as pipeline. So reading the combination of those two things gives great insight towards the needs of the community of what will be coming or need to come.

So wouldn't you say that the median sales price is kind of skewed? It's always based on what's sold. It doesn't really give you, I mean, are those numbers what was actually sold or those numbers that are on the market now? Because it seems to me like the median sales price, even though it says June of 2026, it's $742,000. It's not really that high. I mean, you know.

I think what you're seeing is that the houses that are being sold are cash sales. Yes. With higher income levels. Yes.

Okay. And that was, I think, Ronnie's great.

Exactly. And so, yeah, that's pushing the median way.

And we're, you know, Grand County is, when we're looking at these markets, obviously quite skewed given our gateway natural resource amenity and park system type. of community, but we're, yeah, we're among the players that we need, you know, again, why I consider us among some of the most unique in the state. I think Wasatch, when you're looking at Park City, some of those other communities, they fall within obviously a set of their own, but when we're talking about We're not in the same league, even with them, even though they may be our most adjacent. We're certainly not in the same as St. George. So we really are a unique marketplace that has its challenges, I think, apart from most other communities here.

So when I look at that, and it's like 742,000, but only 10 homes were sold. And so last year it was 515, but 17 houses were sold. So it just seems like that number doesn't really reflect the actual median price of homes.

Well, I think I think you're well. I think you're nailing what is kind of my exact point is the economists are looking at this and they're forecasting and we're saying on the ground, that doesn't sound right. It's not ringing perfectly true. And I think this is where numbers versus what our understanding or experience of the market, and this is where I think a lender, which is what Ronnie's putting together, versus what Randy might have been contributing as a real estate agent, what is out there versus what is sold, that's maybe the third component. So the panel setup was really, I think, an excellent way to have this conversation. If you were there, or I think there may be an opportunity soon where it has been recorded and may be able to be posted so you can go back and watch it, especially if you haven't seen it. is how I think even compared to last year, the alignment of understanding was so much closer than what I had anticipated. I think we had, you put all these panels together, you had all the makings for some pretty interesting fireworks. But what came out of that is a real genuine alignment of what we're seeing our community experiencing and what we think some of the needs will be going forward. So it was really an exceptional event in my opinion. But you're, you're nailing it. And that's, so we're grappling with that with new interest in our community. And they're saying, well, this is what you need. And we're like, not really. I'm not saying no, because the numbers are what the numbers are. But I think that is what we're struggling with to advertise what we need to out outside of our community and then have those within our community maintain the fortitude to move through into what, what our needs will be. So this is one that I didn't get. I did share during the, the, the panel but didn't get to spend a lot of time on to explain a little bit further but really this is a very elementary level understanding of what we're seeing right now. And so I would say that we're somewhere in the realm of number three sitting up there is that we have this massive deficit and this is coming off of COVID, where there were massive constraints on our economic capacities. with the growth of our community. And then with that housing, obviously corresponding, but as we saw in 2022 and this demand for services, as far as services towards our community, the housing wasn't quite there. And so we've been, I think coming away from that where we have now had this great influx of affordable and attainable housing and multifamily households where our housing stock has potentially from a workforce perspective, I think this lineal path can be done for any typology. So this is not just a one-stop shop. This is really just an extraction of showing a story is we have right now at this moment, units available that our economy doesn't have the ability to support because our businesses are grappling with last year's advertising of economy. They've hired the same number of employees they thought they were gonna need. Now there's more housing this year, but they are already mid-season or post, you know, getting to the end of their seasons. So we're having apartments that aren't being filled as rapidly as some of these developers thought based off our demand. So we're seeing a little bit of this cooling effect. And so this is really similar. I've shared with staff. Hopefully it's not too inappropriate. But in a natural and organic landscape, you have a predator-prey relationship. And that symbiosis, that's what we're seeing, is the supply and demand of economics to housing is going to be with such a small community at odds until it eventually naturally bounces out by a supply aspect. So next year, businesses can say there is going to be housing supply. I can maybe open up more hours of operation, more trails, more options, more services, because I know I'll get staff to be able to actually house those. Obviously, I'm not... series more of market factors there. But that's generally what speaking is until we get to an equilibrium, then the next economic factor comes in, whether that's a new business, big new business that comes in and then we're at a deficit again or something shifts and we're at a oversupply again. So I'll try to wrap it up here a little bit. But the next question we didn't really get to at all was about what's in the crystal ball. What's next? which is really kind of exciting thing for this group and where we're going, is talking about housing needs. And we did talk a little bit about it. The way I've described this is one of the symptoms I'm seeing is the lack of housing fluidity is creating a gridlock of what a natural housing system might allow. So when we're talking about entry-level housing, people moving through sizing appropriately or life-appropriate housing, folks are unable or with the fear factors of the market, not moving. They're not moving through the housing life cycle of you know, family home to individual starter or rental into family home to a larger home, then downsizing and then into seniors, senior housing potentially. So we're having folks aging, not just in our community, which aging in place is what that means aging within your community. We're having people literally aging into the same places they are that are disproportionate what the needs are. So new people aren't having the opportunity to have those. So that's a bit of okay, that's the opportunity we're seeing. We're satisfying our workforce housing, but are we creating the rest of the housing stock we'll need to create the fluidity? I think Moab has always been symptomatic of chasing highest and best, and that's usually from a developer. Why would you not do that? So I think this is where we're working with developers saying there's a lot of higher and best. You just got to see through the cloud of what the obvious proformas are showing. So I think as we're looking into this, There's a couple articles that are talking about proximity of location of housing. So something about what I'm seeing is we're talking about incentives. What does the city need? Well, we have a lot of affordable restricted housing, and now we've got a lot of Tamils, so what's next? Beyond just saying the easy section of, oh, subdivisions for single family detached, that'd be an easy thing to say. I don't think we're quite there. I think it has to be a little bit more dynamic that, and that we need, and this has been said a lot, senior housing, but we also need childcare. There are many studies now how with, well, not many, but we're talking about this with developers and looking into this ourselves of how can we create a incentive-based system around a dynamic housing that can accommodate attainable housing, senior housing, and even childcare within the same group, particularly our senior community and our child community being able to interact and grow together in those places. And so this is the concept of proximate or proximate location sharing of these housing typologies. Don't separate these folks. We need to be able to bring them together almost in a closed loop system. So some really exciting developments we're talking about right now where they had maybe a townhome condominium project. They're saying this may not work out for us. What does the city want to see? Well, that's hard. That's your guises. What does the city want to see? That's the community spoken through your leadership. But I think when we're talking about demands, we still need senior housing. We still need childcare. We might be doing pretty well in these other groups. So how can we activate our housing demands or incentive programs to bring these needs that we still desperately have? And this is not totally novel, but it's something new to our community to consider. So that's about what I have. Thank you. Happy to talk through any questions or any of that data.

Questions?

I have a few questions or comments and stuff. I find this fascinating and I really appreciate you putting this together. Because I was kind of talking about Ronnie and I at the chamber meeting. I was going to bring this up in my chamber report. We had a little talk about this at the chamber. That one of the issues that we're kind of thinking we're having with this housing is that we're bringing on in this housing. And the one thing that scares me to death, it really worries me as we bring on this housing, we get this housing coming in, we get people moving in. We still haven't solved the problem of year round employment or year round economy. So we still have this, you know, highs and lows and we're getting these people into homes and they're getting into great homes and they can afford it during the season, but then it goes into winter and they can't afford it anymore. And so we're not really, they're not getting ahead. They have a place to live, but they're not getting ahead and they can't afford that place in the winter. And so as a community, what can we do to make it so that there's a year round economy that And I don't care what that economy is. I just think that we need to be as we're providing these homes and these homes are coming online that we have a way for people to afford to stay here. And and so that's something that. I think is really important to me, you know, stuff. And also, you know, when they're talking about rents that that. you know, Ronnie actually reported that rents are starting to fall a little bit within the town, you know, that they're starting to, they're starting to flatten out, that they're starting to see dips where people can't afford, you know, to start moving into these places, which is what we want, but we got to have that other chunk is so important and stuff, you know, and then, you know, the aging homeowners is, you know, like there's a lot of people who are in these homes that, are too big for them, but they literally can't afford to move into something smaller the way the market is right now and stuff. And so I think that that's a huge issue that I've talked to quite a few people about is like, I have too much house, but I literally can't afford to move into a smaller house.

Sorry.

It sounds silly, but that's... And these are the people that are living in that missing middle that are trying to raise families here, that are trying to raise kids here, that need those homes to be able to do that. And then you have the segment who's like, I can't mow my lawn anymore. I have too much house. But they can't mow. And we have to figure out a way to fix that. So thank you. This is super important and it's it's it's great to see how it's changed over the last three years i remember you know like during covid it's just like dude please just start turning some dirt you know start moving some dirt start building something and we can get people into these things and now we've kind of got to that point where now we got to get people in them yeah so thank you you put a lot of work into this and it's been i appreciate it thank you yeah go ahead colin uh are you done do you have anything yeah

To your point, Jason, and thank you for bringing that slide back up with the economy and housing, because I think that's really relevant to Jason's point about the year-round economy. And so anecdotally, I had a really interesting conversation with somebody yesterday who owns a piece of property south of town who wants to develop it, wants to start a business there. And right now that individual is focused entirely on businesses that have a low number of employees that are required to run that business because this person has run businesses in this town, his own business in the town, and knows that that's always... And so that's a perfect example of how once there is housing and affordable housing, and then... We add more people and then, you know, it really, the economy then catches up. One of my concerns, and I have many concerns about where we are in that relationship between housing stock and economy, is that we created a few, several, sort of incentive programs through ordinances like AEH to help guide the housing stock, you know, up and towards, you know, those who are in that case actively employed in Moab. And we were very successful. We have a lot of AEH units coming on. As we've now transitioned into a different, you know, into a different place on that relationship, do those still serve us well? Because I know, or do we need to relook at those? Because I know with AAH still as an example, a lot of these AAH units that have come online, if they're not able to rent to people who are actively employed in Moab at that time, then, and I can't remember what the timeline is, but there's constraints to this, but then they're able to move beyond that, right? And rent outside of those actively employed in Moab. And so just as an example, and you don't have to, I mean, if you can't answer this right now, Corey, but do you think are those still serving us well? Or do we need to look at those ordinances and sort of revisit them now that we're in a different stage of this development process and where we are?

Oh, maybe I'll go back here for a moment. I think where we're at, well, maybe go back further here, is kind of back to the housing pipeline per se. So we have all of I guess the short answer is I think it will be appropriate about every two years to really critically analyze, is this still a tool we need moving forward? So I think there's two answers to that. One is we have all this coming through the pipeline. Now, if it satisfies, if it manifests, if it COs, if it fills, then yes, we should be looking to what are the next targets, which is kind of my idea of incentivizing at this point. somebody, a new developer coming in for a project that will manifest in two years from now, where these will have then gone to work, affected the economy, built up our housing stock, I'd say, oh, maybe we are looking for new incentives outside of AH right now. So if that's what you're asking, is I would not say we need to remove AH because they haven't even been realized yet. We have one project that's come online, so we haven't even realized all this pipeline yet. So I think once that does its work, we should have things in the hopper coming down the pipeline that are already thinking about the next day, the next year. So I think you're right in both that. We do need to continually review, is this still a good tool, both in what is currently being used Do we need to release it? Has the market gotten to a place that we are releasing these units left and right, which means that we have a market that no longer needs this. Because if we go back, and if I can, one more little tidbit of this. So AEH, when we were generating this, we were in a runaway effect to highest and best use in the community. It was It was post-COVID, it was 22, the mayor actually came and said, we need to install this. We were having our downtown core, the R3 and R4 zones, typically our local housing, which happened to also be the most desirable locations in our community, scraped. Low density or mobile home park properties were being bought up, gobbled up, scraped, people kicked off, usually not being able to be replaced in our community for luxury housing. AEH was a direct and very specific tool to curb that. It says in these areas, if you're going through the study that we did, the Essential Nexus study, we showed through a study that we need for every house that's on demand, 42.5% of homes built in Moab must house workforce housing, other than the lights and the water won't go where it's supposed to go. The lights will go off, the water won't go where it needs to. We need this many people to actually just keep the lights on in Moab. We've curbed that ordinance to 33 to create an inherent deficit, let alone the other market deficits, so that we shouldn't feel people are just getting rid of this ordinance left and right because it's too superfluous. It isn't. So I think this ordinance is basically what is the bottom of the barrel. I don't think it ever should or ought to go away because 33% of your community probably should be your community. We're in a weird place where over that can be not our community. That's very odd. But to your point, though, we need to be looking not just putting all of our eggs in that basket, continually moving forward. We have a good stock. Let the economy catch up. So maybe we pivot incentives. So it's kind of two answers to your question, I feel like. But, yeah, it's it's. And are you always assessing this?

And so you will you will keep us. you know, being proactive with this stuff.

Yeah, and that's kind of near to the end of this is, hey, I think we're at a place now where folks are coming and saying, we want more density, which they always want, or we want concessions, heights, setbacks, whatever. What does the city want? Well, it used to be really easy, affordable housing. Okay, we want attainable housing. okay, now we have a lot of affordable, attainable housing that's waiting for the absorption to work. So maybe in the meantime, right now, people, developers coming in were saying, we have hardly any childcare. We have very limited senior housing. Those are areas that are not being saturated. So maybe we'll pivot our incentives or our attention to how can development help us place those types of people. And there's some really cool models that we've seen with the developer recently that are integrated, elegant, dignified to create this variable type of housing. I think monocrop type housing is not healthy, and I always look at planning and our community as an organism and like an ecosystem. And if you go out to a farm field that's 100% alfalfa versus you go up in the mountains, which one looks healthier to you, you know? I think that we're always striving for that ecosystem. I always appoint, you know, kind of paint our community more like a reef. There's lots of nooks and crannies and different variability, and that's really how we manifest ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, it's a really exciting new step we might be taking with you guys.

And the housing that's being built, you know, I'm just going to use the generic term apartments. Seniors aren't a monolith and young families aren't a monolith. There is no reason seniors can't coexist in these buildings that are being built. Not every senior needs assisted living. Not every family needs Not every family needs childcare. So there's not any reason these can't be integrated to some extent.

Absolutely. And that's the idea. We can't pigeonhole either typologies or individuals or households into, hey, this is a formula and all the variables are the same. What I think that we found, though, is that that's what the market's trying to do. We've heard this recently. We're not creating homes. We're creating units. We're creating products. We're not creating homes and community anymore. So when you hear anyone talking, especially a developer walk through the door, it is, you might as well be talking units of bottles of water. It's not about homes and family and community building. So we need, in my opinion, to turn that back. It's to not pigeonhole us into, well, here's who's going to live here and here's what makes sense. And that's how people make a lot of money is they hedge those bets.

Miles? So I had the pleasure of attending the housing meeting as well. And I think in regards to this conversation, I'm really excited to see the conversation growing from a push just for workforce housing and trying to get roofs over people's heads, which is essential. But I think kind of what was brought up in regards to the information that Ronnie gave us, which is We're seeing a lot of cash sales of high-end homes, but we're not seeing a lot of people move out of the rental market and into starter homeownership. And if there's like one focus that I personally have in this area, is getting, is setting up an environment in which that is still possible. And I see that as still a difficult hurdle for many people in this community and something that I'd really love to see because that homeownership is what's going to tie people here, encourage people with skills and the ability to bolster our economy and catch that graph that Corey showed us back up. If we give people the opportunity to own a home here and start a life here they bring their skills and their you know potential business or their potential contribution to the economy to our city um whereas if if a lot of people are trapped without that fluidity that cory mentioned then we we end up with people who i mean I've had many friends who were skilled in otherwise healthcare, engineering, otherwise, who have stayed here for a couple of years because it's amazing to live here. And when they have gotten to a point where they want to start a family and settle down, they have moved elsewhere because the housing, the costs here have been prohibitive. And I would love to do what we can to foster that transition here in the community so that we can, it feels like I might capture them, but that's kind of what I mean. It's like keep people who are skilled professionals here in town contributing to our community and our economy. So I think it's fantastic that we built that workforce housing foundation and I'm really glad to hear the conversation, adjusting to, you know, what can we do to broaden that entire fluidity across the housing market I think just as important like you mentioned Corey is having, having housing that we can. move into across the board having a starter home then that family home then that you know home that if you do well you're you're getting something more individualized and then that home that's more comfortable for you as a senior and i'm really excited to see some of the maps projects coming forward that are going to provide that or begin to provide that and i'm really excited to brainstorm on how we can start to bridge that gap between i came to town and found a place that's an affordable rental now how do i end up in a home and really truly settle into a life here in this community. So I'm excited to see all of that. And as usual, Corey, thank you for all of your hard work and your very brief discussions.

Yeah. Anything else? The only thing I want to add is the MAPS project is coming up. I'm getting ready to sign the contract with our consultants. And, you know, it's interesting because that project has been in the works for over 20 years. And when we started that project, there was no senior housing here. We got the MAPS apartments. It's more affordable. And so now we're at this place where we still don't have any senior housing. I mean, really, the only place as a senior myself that I would want to move because I don't want an elevator and I don't want stairs. but I also don't need a 2,500 square foot house. So some of us, and I found what was interesting at the panel, but some of us, my house is paid off. I could sell it for the top value and move into a smaller house that's more expensive. I think there are people like me out there, but there's also people out there that I found interesting from the panel is that still have a mortgage and they're not going to sell their house at top dollar and then get a mortgage rate at 67% when they're paying 3% now. And so that kind of that fluidity piece is a challenge because of that, I think. So until there's some economy changes with the market rates of loans, I think we're going to be stuck. But I'm really excited about MAPS. I don't know how, you know, you're going to be a part of that, by the way, because you're, you know, things aging in place has changed in the last 20 years. Everybody still thinks when you age in place, you go to different levels of care and then you end up in a nursing home and then you die. Well, only three to 4% of the people die. that are over 55 end up in a nursing home for the longevity of their life. So aging in place has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. So the group that we hired understands that, and they look at things a little differently than we looked at things in the past. Technology has moved things forward. So there's a lot of opportunity, and I'm really looking forward to this project and having you and Caitlin work on that and whoever else wants to be a part of it. So more to come on that. So it'll be kind of a nice little innovative project for us to all get behind. So anything else?

I have a request.

Okay.

So with that, like I had mentioned, the planning staff, we're looking at the needs that we're seeing. What are the deficiencies in the community? What are we hearing from of people trying to start businesses in camp? Right now that doesn't, you know, the economic side of it is a whole different conversation. That is a big one. But right now in the housing side, the request I might have is just that. I'm guessing off these needs, but it's really the leadership of the council that is the voice of the community of what it is that we, and through you, believe we need. So we're having these discussions with developers. They say, I want X. What does the city want? Having a strong general sense of what it is that will move the council to concession. What is the quid pro quo that seems acceptable now? We're throwing out this idea of variable housing typologies right now. But if we can get a stronger support back, this is what the council would like to see. That would really help us. get negotiations that are going to work for you guys when they come to the table. It's, it's actually teed up as something you do want to see versus we don't really need any more of that. So right from the get go, the negotiation is not great. Is that a strategic planning discussion that we should have? Is that, yeah, I think so. It's kind of on things. Yeah.

Do so.

Plant that seed now if I can. And, you know, a couple months we'll come back and hopefully we've got something.

Right. And, you know, for the MAPS project, you know, we are, you know, the district is not going to be the developer. And so I hope if there's some developers that you're talking to, give us a year. We'll have a nice plan. And hopefully there's somebody out there that would help us implement it. Because that's the key is getting it done, not just planning for it. Right. So. Thank you, Corey. Appreciate that. Thank you all so much. More to come on this topic, I'm sure. All right, we have next on our agenda is consent agenda. We have five items. We have recovery day proclamation. And by the way, we've got the recovery day folks here today. So good to see you guys. There's an event on September 3rd at Suwannee Park. It's gonna be another good one. I know the police department will be there as usual. I hope you guys can make it. Is there gonna be a dunking booth?

Oh, darn it.

I was going to put Michael in there.

I do. We'll all be there.

Try to see if you can get that. I know.

okay well you know if you guys don't mind i'm going to read the proclamation at the event on the third and it's great to see you guys and i'm looking forward to seeing you guys on the third of september at what is it four o'clock at swanee okay i'll read it at around six okay starts at four okay all right very good very good that's for being there being such a huge part of helping the honors

all the things that this event stands for. So thank you.

I know. We're really proud of what you guys do. We're very fortunate to have so much support for our recovery folks.

I feel the same.

The event you guys had, was it last weekend?

Oh, that was the tattoos.

That was a very well-attended event.

Yeah.

People were really for their creativity through tattoos, and it was fantastic. One of the most powerful rooms I've ever been in in my life. That's great.

Yeah, it was packed.

And then this upcoming event is a really great space to share all the available resources, help like end the stigma around our health care crisis with mental health and substance use, share stories and hope and all of the amazing things and of course honor the facility boss as well. So thank you guys.

Thank you guys. Thank you for everything. So that proclamation you guys are going to approve tonight. I will read it at the event on next Thursday. We also have a suicide prevention and awareness proclamation. We have a ratification of a letter of support for USU's grant application for the ending of wasted food award and the approval of the minutes from August 11th and approval of the bills against the city of Moab in the amount of $445,379. So before I ask for a motion, I'm gonna go ahead and read the proclamation. by the Mayor and by the City Council of Moab City proclaiming September 26, 2026 to be Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. Whereas the state of Utah has consistently been in the top states for suicide deaths since 2012, currently 11th in the nation versus 2025 reporting of seven. And whereas Carbon Emory Grand Counties often lead the state of Utah in suicide deaths per capita. And whereas people who lose their loved ones to suicide are at a 30% higher risk of ending their lives by suicide as a learned coping mechanism and learned behavior. And whereas the risk of suicide can be reduced through awareness, proper evidence-based training, including self-massage, messaging, educational resources and treatment, And whereas according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Statistics, suicide is first leading cause of death amongst Utahns between the age of 15 and 24. The second leading cause of death amongst ages 25 and 30 for and ties second with ages 35 to 44, fourth for the ages of 45 to 54, sixth for the ages of 55 and 64, and has the highest rate of suicide, and 17th for ages 65 and older. And whereas suicide has a ripple effect that affects everyone, suicide is everyone's business. Talking about suicides does not plant the idea of self-harm. And suicide is one of the most preventable deaths that can be eradicated by learning the warning signs of depression and suicidal ideation, knowing how and when to ask about one's suicidal thoughts, being aware of life-saving measures such as safe storage of firearms and medications, and familiarizing ourselves with the resources available locally as Four Corners Community Behavioral Health statewide, such as Live On Utah nationwide, such as calling or texting 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Now, therefore, I, Moab City Mayor, Gillette Langanese, on the 25th day of August, 2026, do hereby proclaim September 2026 to be Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month in the City of Moab, encourage all residents of Moab City to recognize how serious suicide is and the steps each of us can take to protect those around us from this preventable tragedy, one with devastating generational and community-wide effects. So with that, I will ask for a motion to approve our consent agenda. Sure.

Apologies. I'm Amanda McIntosh. I'm the Suicide Prevention Liaison with Four Corners Community Behavioral Health.

Thank you for just a few minutes of your time. Thank you for reading the proclamation. I believe this is the fifth or sixth year that a proclamation has been presented to this body. And it's truly amazing to me to see the progress that we have made in talking about suicide and reducing the stigma associated with self-help seeking behavior. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of myself and Beth Wright, who is a prevention coordinator at Four Corners Moab office. I'm out of the Price office, but I cover all three communities. So in relation to the proclamation, we do have a few events coming up in September that were a part of the packet that was sent to you, beginning with World Suicide Prevention Day that is on September 10th every year. That will be taking place at Swanee Park beginning at 7 o'clock p.m. And it's a special event where we can bring members of the community who have lost somebody to suicide, who have experienced a suicidal crisis, and the family and friends that support those in mental health crisis to come together in a reverent activity to speak of our loved ones that we have lost to suicide. So many times, especially in our rural areas with the stigma and taboo of talking about mental health, we are often left feeling the shame and guilt about talking about how our loved one lived because everybody's so focused on how they died. And so the candlelight visual is an opportunity to bring that community together, provide a safe space, share some kind words and thoughts about our loved ones. And then respectively at eight o'clock p.m., worldwide in the respective time zones, we do light a candle. So we are providing battery operated candles to the community members that come and giving them peace and reverence because although they are not walking with us on the earth side, we want to remember that their light carries on through their legacy and how we remember them. The second event that we have going on in September is our second annual Moab Walk, Out of the Darkness Walk, that is taking place on Saturday, September 26th at Grand County High School. That event begins at... 5 o'clock and is already coming together to be a beautiful event, again, honoring those that we've lost to suicide, supporting those who are currently or have had past suicidal ideation and mental health crisis, and showing up for the community that supports them and the lost survivors. So again, with that, thank you so very much, Mayor, for reading that proclamation. You did it so beautifully and articulately. And I'm open for questions if you have any. Any questions? Thank you for all the work you do.

Thank you. We got two very special people here today. You too, ladies. All right. Can I have a motion to approve the consent agendas item 4.1 through 4.5?

I will move to approve the consent agenda item 4.1 through 4.5.

Motion by Miles. Second? Second by Colin. Discussion, Miles?

No. I'm really pleased to see both of these proclamations, and I appreciate the good that you guys are doing in the community, and I want to thank you for that.

Colin?

Thank you.

Anybody else? No. All right. We've got a motion made by Miles, second by Colin to approve the consent agenda. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.

Thank you, guys.

We'll see you next Thursday.

Thank you.

All right. Next up, oh, this is a long one, but your motion doesn't have to be this long. And Johanna is going to talk to us about this. But essentially, this is a consideration of Ordinance 26-16, which is amending some of the things that one needs to get in compliance with the state code. is some kind of minor recording updates and also a change to the bylaws for commission attendance requirements. So the item is Consideration Ordinance 26-16, an ordinance of the Moab City Council amending section 2.52.030 planning commission chapter 16.08 subdivision procedure and section 17.12.050 damage building restoration of the moab municipal code to extend the recording deadlines for approved final plats in the related one-time extension for such plats to eliminate the public hearing requirement for preliminary path plats to adjust the Planning Commission attendance requirements and to amend regulations on rebuilding or renovating non-conforming structure and uses after a fire or calamity. That would be pretty Jane. That word. Anyway, basically, these are just some minor. This is kind of part of our zone title update that we needed to get done sooner than the full thing. Am I correct, Johanna? Yep. Just some cleanup.

Yep. Okay. So do you want to go ahead and go? Absolutely. So we can sort those amendments into two categories. One is subdivision and one is. assorted. In the subdivision, we are deleting the public hearing requirement and extending the time in which somebody has to record a plant and then otherwise amending damage building restoration code as it pertains to non conforming buildings, and then Planning Commission attendance. This Planning Commission gave a positive recommendation of this ordinance. So the subdivision, our current code says that there's a public hearing required for the administrative action of a subdivision approval. So we have been not holding this public hearing at a public meeting. We have been holding it in Planning offices. I haven't had nobody show up to the public hearings yet. And it's an administrative action. So similarly to when we go to Planning Commission for site plan, it's just a checking of our work. And so we feel that it would be best to just take it off. In our current code, we have 180 day limit between approval of a flat and when they need to go down to the Grant County Recorder's Office and record. And then there is a extension of 30 days available. And we think it would be wise to extend that to a year. And then on top of that, an extension of a year available upon request, which would make for a total of two years between approval and necessary recording.

Um, so that would be the limit two years, two years you've done, you have to come back. Correct. Start over. Okay. Mm hmm.

Yeah, so the public hearing is a couple of years ago. State had a code change, which made it a little unclear whether we had to have a public hearing. So then we took the public hearing out from public meetings into our offices. And now we've determined that the state code doesn't require a public meeting at all. And then the extension for time between recording is going to be a benefit to developers who have infrastructure requirements that are unable to bond. So they need to actually put in the requirements in the ground before they can record some conditions to approval of recording. And we want to give them enough time to practically do that and not force anybody into bonding when that's not their best option. And this is what that red line looks like for both of those amendments, the extension and the taking out of the public hearing requirements. Okay, damage building restoration. Our current code says that you can replace up to 50% of the replacement value if your building is burned down and it is non-conforming. Essentially, you can remain non-conforming if whatever is destroyed in calamity is less than 50% of the replacement value. It's recently been brought to my attention from a citizen that that is out of line with the state code, which says that any calamity that destroys your building, you can, again, rebuild, even if your building is nonconforming. So this is what that red line looks like. We are using exactly the state language.

Any thing in here about if your building burns down, you have to tear it down? Within a certain period of time?

I think it is if it's not repaired or stored within six months.

That's not in this code. Okay. But it's somewhere. But it is. Okay. Good. Because you wanted some. Yeah. Okay, and then a couple meetings ago Planning Commission voted to amend their bylaws and adjusted their absence requirements. So, and that also lives in the code. So we need to align what their new bylaws are with the code. Old Code said they must attend 75% of meetings to remain members. And new code says if they don't attend 75% of meetings or have more than three unexcused absences, they may be removed. So a little bit more flexibility and adding in the concept of unexcused absences.

Oh, sorry.

This is the one I had an issue with or I had a question about because it seemed like that it was if they have 75% of meetings in a year to remain, but now it's 75% of meetings over a three-year period. Is that the way that reads? Because it says like, in terms of the office speech, a member of the planning commission shall be for three years. Commissioners who fail to attend 75% of the meetings or have three or more unexcused absences may be removed from the commissions. And the red line that's crossed out is planning commission members must attend a minimum of 75% of meetings held during the course of a calendar year in order to remain a member of the planning commission. So it seems like you only have to attend, the way that I read this, and I very well could be wrong, is that you have to attend 75% of the meetings over a three-year period.

Yes, that certainly wasn't the intent. So we can reword it if it's... And maybe I'm reading it wrong.

No, you're not. That should be added back in if it's something you agree with. Yeah, absolutely. Like Johanna was saying, it wasn't the intent for it to be that.

In the one year, we've moved 74% or three more unexcused within a one-year period.

A calendar year period, yeah. Okay, that was my question because it seemed like...

And then I was going to say, this is a may isn't a shall and only the mayor could remove someone. It's not the planning commission chair or anything like that. So it would, it would come to the mayor in this body before somebody was removed. Okay.

Yeah.

And just speaking like to do, we don't have to.

Yeah. speaking to the discussion that I was privy to and the Planning Commission liaison position. One, it was always intended to be within a year, as Johanna mentioned, during their discussion and what would or wouldn't work with this. I think the biggest consideration is We do work hard to keep a full quorum on our planning commission. And there are people who end up having life changes that create a few absences. And so having a little bit of flexibility around that, that's part of why May turned or shall turned into May is, you know, if you have somebody who's really dedicated, but they have an event in their life that creates a little bit of turmoil for a while. Since we work so hard to keep a quorum and keep people on planning commission, you know, it would be helpful to have a little bit of flexibility with that. And then addressing both total attendance percentage versus unannounced missed meetings or essentially unexcused absences made a good distinction between people who were really trying to participate and had things going on in their life and people who were not taking it as seriously as we'd like planning commission members to take it.

And that's it for me. Any other questions for Hannah on these changes? These are, like I said, part of the total zone title change that the Planning Commission is working on. But these are items that they felt needed to move forward a little quicker than the rest. Correct?

Yes. This is a city-initiated code amendment. Yes. Yep.

All right, motion.

And if you want, yeah, how do we incorporate that?

The changes? Yeah. Well, I would say that all you really need to say in this motion is, if you look on the motion that was given to you, is read until damage building restoration and then when you ask about when you move for section 2.52-030 planning commission just say and add uh to that code for one year within the year within a calendar year yeah that's how i would suggest you do it

It seems like since you brought it up, it's the natural.

I move that the Moab City Council approve city ordinance 2026-16 in ordinance. The Moab City Council amending section 2.52.030 planning commission chapter 16.08 subdivision procedure and section 17.12.050 damage building restoration of You don't have to read the rest. of the municipal court to extend the recording deadlines for approval of final flats and the related one-time extension for such flats to eliminate public hearing requirement for preliminary flats to adjust planning commission attendance requirements as changed to include one year of attendance calendar year of attendance um and to amend regulations on rebuilding or renovating non-conforming structures and uses after a fire or calamity.

I know that word. It's a nice word. It's a good word. All right. We got a motion by Jason, second by Tawny. Discussion, Jason.

I'm done. Yeah, thank you.

Okay, Connie. No. Anybody else? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 4-0. Alrighty. Thanks, Johanna. And then our last item of business is consideration of a contract award to RevTech Services in the amount of $338,596.88 for information technology security, cybersecurity and information technology support services.

on summer how are you we never get to see because she's hiding over there i'm right there i'm with you every time i'm just get away from mike because i'm really loud um i just wanted to kind of give you guys a little background we issued why we issued the rfp um our existing it contract no longer accurately reflects our operational and security needs And our current service provider actually proposed a monthly fee increase with really no increase in services. So some of the services historically provided were outside of the formal scope of our existing contract. So the RFP gave us an opportunity to clearly define what service we were expecting and the level of support the city needs going forward. And so this recommendation is based on what we believe provides the city with the strongest combination of service, security, organizational capacity, and cost. There you have it.

I've got one more thing to add to that. So there was some confusion about the contract, and we received a letter in the mail just today about us soliciting for new services. And I just want to make it really clear on the record that this solicitation that we've done here is a solicitation for IT services, not for an individual employee. Right. Nothing in the contract designates what employee will work for us. The officers of the company, RevTech, will decide who would serve in this position based on a lot of different factors, but it's not something that's dictated by this contract. So just wanted to put that on the record, make that really clear that this is a contract with RevTech, not with an individual.

Correct. And our evaluation focused on the organization's overall capability, not on what was included as far as their proposal. Questions for Summer? Okay. Let me get back there so I can take my notes. All right. Do I have a motion then?

I will move to approve the contract with RevTech Services in the amount of $338,596.88.

Motion by Tani. Oh, sorry. Thrice the mayor to sign the contract. Okay, great. Thank you. Anybody who said second that? Discussion, Tani. Nope. Colin. No, thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0. All right. There you go.

Congratulations.

Yeah, that's the end. Good luck.

It'll be a pleasure to serve city of Boeth again. Good. As I was a technician under the. Great. It'll be a pleasure.

Great. Thank you. All right. We're done with our general business. We'll move on to city manager update.

Oh, you're excited. He's been adding and adding. So I've just got a few things. Miles and I were able to meet last week. It wasn't yesterday, so it had to have been last Monday.

Last Monday.

So we were able to meet and talk about a lot of good things. One of the things that came out of that I wanted to talk about tonight because it's an opportunity for me to explain a service that we have that some people may not be aware of. But there was some questions about how people find out about the bids that the city puts out, like sidewalks or IT contracts or any of those things. And I just wanted to let everyone know that there actually is a place on our website that has all of the bids. Now, we use a system that's... consolidates all of the bids for a lot of different communities for people to bid through and that's pretty common for us to get most of our bids coming through there or the people looking for bids going to that website but for people in the community who own small businesses who may not be bidding on that level if you want to know what the city is putting out to bid or anybody has questions about these things go to our website on the home page now as of I think yesterday, scroll down and there will be a tab that says bid opportunities. And you can click on that and that gets updated every time we put out any bids, RFPs, RFQs, any of those types of things. And anybody who has any questions on those can contact us. Probably Summer or myself will be answering those questions. But that is there. We want to just get the information out to people. We'll also be pushing that out on social media. So I attended a meeting, Jason was there with me and it was on the county complex. I think actually Caitlin was there as well. And we were able to listen to a presentation by some of the county's consultants and some other people who had some things to say about complexes for municipal slash county governments, things like that. It was actually a good presentation. It was interesting to see what the county has been working on over there and what they're thinking about as far as what we would call in planning site and massing, you know, scale, things like that for a new jail and for a public safety complex, including courts and those types of things and parking and all of that kind of stuff. It was obvious from the presentation that this is a very big project that the county is thinking about. And I just wanted to let you guys know that I will be contacting the county through their leadership, letting them know that we think this is a perfect opportunity since we are going to start our downtown master planning process for them to be part of that so that we can look at this block that they're looking at redoing and some other blocks in the near area that could potentially have some redevelopment in the future as well. and think about what the future is for the downtown. So we will be asking the county to be participants in that process and to work with us and keep us informed of what they're thinking so that we can hopefully keep you guys informed and also move that through the process and just have everybody on the same page.

No surprises.

No surprises. No, we don't want that. I don't think they want that either. So... Let's see. What else do I have here? Oh, I have a bunch of dates for different things that are happening. So SS4A, which is the Safe Streets for All grant, which we're working in cooperation with the county. There will be an open house on August 31st. Is this going to be the last open house for SS4A? This is related to... active transportation throughout the community. And so we're looking forward to seeing some proposals on different intersection treatments and a lot of different kinds of things. So look forward to that. Anybody who would like to attend that, it is August 31st and it is at the Grand Center. Thank you for that.

What time?

Oh, yeah, five o'clock. The next thing was, I should bring this up.

4.30.

Yeah, I was going to say that. I said 430.

3630.

I'll bring it up on my computer so I can see the whole thing. But the next thing I was going to talk about is on September 11th at Arts and Ag, which is late afternoon, we will – We will be tabling there, but we'll also have an opportunity to hear from the planners who are looking at the Lions Park boat ramp. You may remember you approved a contract for an evaluation of a non-motorized boat ramp at Lions Park. This was just an evaluation and it's grant funded. This will be an opportunity for the people who are working on that to ask the public some questions and get some feedback on that. In a general sense, on September 16, we are going to have a ball field redesign open house. This will kind of be we want it to function a little like a charrette. and a charrette is where people can come in and they can say, be the planner and take a map and say, I like this, I don't like that, draw on it and say, add this, those types of things. I will be meeting with the consultants and our staff this week, I believe, to talk about putting this together. We really want this to be a community involved plan and for people to have an opportunity to look at the plan to take the survey, which a lot of people have already done, and to let us know what they would like to see, and we'll respond to that. So we really appreciate people attending that. My computer won't turn on, so I don't have the time on that. Do you have the time?

Yeah, that one's at 5 to 7 at the Grand Center.

That one's at 5 to 7 at the Grand Center, as the mayor stated. So, um, that, Oh, I had one other thing. Um, Sasha, who's been our, uh, executive assistant here at the city for some time, I think probably around three plus years now. Um, she's decided that she's going to move on and she's actually moving out of state. Um, we wish her the best of luck. She's, she's been a pleasure having here in the office and, um, We will be opening up that position and talking a little bit more about organization, structure, and things like that in the future, but just wanted you to be aware of that. Your last day is actually this Friday.

Is that it?

That's it.

Are you going to mention the auditor?

Do you want me to? Yes, he's going to now.

Is our attorney, is Nathan here?

Oh, the auditor for the state, yeah.

If our attorneys are on.

You want to ask him about that?

Yeah.

So you received an email from Sasha about the state auditor and some others coming down from the state. They're doing basically a kind of a road show where they're going around to a lot of different communities and talking about a lot of different things. One of the big things they're talking about is the unclaimed property, unclaimed money website, which I got on there and looked at. I don't I don't have any money on there, but there's a lot of Michael Blacks who do have money on there. so they're going to talk about that they're going to be talking about a lot of other types of things the auditor will be here to talk about whatever they're going to talk about but we did send out something for you guys to participate in that that one's more of a elected officials meeting and local officials meeting they are also going to be having a town hall which our staff is helping them set up and they will be sending out information about that that town hall will be more for the public, for people to come in and to hear directly from the state officials.

Mayor, did you have a specific question for me about that?

No, I'm wondering, do we need to post that? Do we need to, I mean, all the councils invited, I'm not sure how many are going to be able to attend. But if we do have a quorum, and it feels like to me it is state community business, but it's kind of in that gray area.

There's no harm in posting it. I mean, typically when you look at the Open and Public Meetings Act and you look at the definition of a meeting, it's different. focused on who is calling the meeting and so in this case it's not the council that's calling the meeting it's it's the state auditor's office that's calling the meeting and you also have to have a meeting to discuss relevant business and relevant business there's some but i think you're probably safer to just notice it up and of course you could contact the auditor's office and get their recommendation as well do you know who's who from the auditor's office is coming

Is it the auditor? Yes, it's Tina Cannon. And who is the guy? The treasurer, the state treasurer.

Yeah, I can't. My computer's not coming on. But it was the two leads. I don't know if they're commissioners now with the new organization, but it was the treasurer and the auditor.

Yeah. Well, those trainings are always very helpful. The local government's Point person with the auditor's guide, our auditor's office guy named Seth Overson, and I work with him a fair amount. He's always very helpful. So I don't think there's any harm in noticing it up. And in fact, that's probably the safest way. That way you can have a free ranging discussion. I mean, I think there could be an argument that it doesn't qualify as a quote unquote Moab City Council meeting, but there's no harm in noticing it, especially if the public's invited to attend anyway. But you might want to check with the auditor and the treasurer's office first to see what their thinking and intentions are.

Yeah, we will do that. We've reached out to them on a few things. This was one of them. It is technically their meeting. But like Nathan was saying, if you're all going to be there and you want to let people know that you're going to be in one spot, it might not be a bad thing. But it is their meeting, so we should ask them what they think. That's Marlo Oaks.

That's the trigger.

Yeah.

Thanks, Nathan. Okay. Are you done?

I'll just mention one other thing since we're talking about auditor, it triggered the fact that we are actually starting our audits in the next couple of weeks, next week. And our auditors will be in town for a few days and then they will go back to their offices and finish everything up. So we'll be able to report to you on the normal timeframe. Okay.

Very good. And then once we get that audit, we'll do the final budget.

We will because they do all of the transfers and all of those types of things.

And what do you think in September, October?

When did we do it last year?

It was later.

Okay. So probably October, November timeframe. But we'll try to get it done before strategic plan so that you have that information going into strategic plan of how we did the year before. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, thank you. Council reports. We'll start with you, Miles.

All righty, I actually have several things this time. So looking back, was that housing task force meeting that I attended? I'll just touch on a couple of things that stood out to me. I think Ronnie's information was really, really interesting to see that we are kind of down overall in home sales and that the ones that are being sold are for cash. She kind of described that as, you know, a symptom of where interest rates are for the most part here. But I think that's an interesting kind of metric to look at is how many of our home sales in the community are cash sales and are not. 51%. Yeah, it essentially means that we are struggling with financing options for people who need them. So curious to see what thoughts are about that and how we can go from there. And then one of the more interesting things that I think was really discussed that I think deserves extra consideration is and it was actually brought up by Chris Parker, was the discussion of, you know, if we're going to have density, like, how do we want to see that density? You know, do we want to see ADUs in people's backyards or do we want to see apartment buildings? And the kind of different avenues to those things. And one thing that was brought up that I found really intriguing was there's really no good way to finance an ADU build without renegotiating your mortgage. Because you can borrow against your mortgage, of course, but an ADU bill is usually a fairly expensive thing, $80,000 to $100,000 in very round numbers. in the current kind of trap that people are in, which is they've secured a low interest rate on their mortgage and they don't want to borrow against it or refinance it or otherwise, the ability to build an ADU becomes further out of reach because unless you can pony up that money cash, there's not really a traditional lending way to access those funds. And so I just, I thought that was very interesting to bring up. I'm curious to say that one out loud and see if anyone has clever ideas as far as, you know, how we could incentivize people to build the kind of density we're interested in. And if ADUs are that kind of density, then how we mount that hurdle. So that was one of the more interesting points that came away from that. Planning and zoning was a really nice meeting. It was great to see our two newly approved Panel members, they're in person. Of course, we already got to talk about the... So I'd like to thank Robin and Matt for taking the time to be on planning and zoning. And I would like to thank Caitlin Pointer for being Johanna's helper. I think it's really nice to see that board up at full. We got to talk about the world's longest ordinance earlier and approve it. But they also did conditional approval of a development that is in our industrial zone. And I'm kind of excited about it. There is, I think, a need for essentially small business space in industrial zones. And I'm glad to see some of these projects moving forward. And then I wanted to kind of point out because it was pointed out there as well. We do have two new hotels going up they are the last vested hotels in within our community, per the moratorium we have on overnight accommodation. And so, those came in front of planning and zoning at some point I'm sure we will start to see them come in front of us. But the community has had a lot of questions I've gotten a lot of questions about what's going on with them and why there are still new hotels being built. And so I just I wanted to say out loud like these guys have had vesting vested approval for their building permits for quite a while. And so they're moving ahead with those. There's a discussion, which could kind of tie back into what we're doing with housing or otherwise but it is likely that they are either going to build affordable housing as part of their Wahoo requirement or they are likely to contribute to the Wahoo fund as part of that requirement and so I think it's worth keeping an eye on that as that moves forward. Their current level two site plan was approved unanimously. And then more code rewrite discussion. This time it was about sign code and discussing temporary signs, feather signs, bistro sandwich boards, and all that. So I continue to be excited to see what it's going to look like when that whole code rewrite starts to come to us for discussion. But the discussion at Planning Commission was lively and in-depth. So it's nice to see our planning commission really take an immediate bite out of something. I had a great conversation with Michael the other Monday. I think a lot of good came from that. I really care a lot about trying to position the city to see more competition on some of its projects. And hopefully that helps the city get a more competitive bid price and helps members of our community that own these small businesses work in tandem with the city instead of instead of feeling like the city is hard to work with. I think our building department is great. Finally, GWSA was a day full of audits. All of the individual special service districts were audited. There was no major issues with any of those audits. Two of the special service districts had more cash than they should, but that seemed like a good problem. And then... There was. So the snow and soil report and Ken's Lake report is kind of interesting. We ratified a letter to the BLM to be able to dip into the reserve pool. So typically we're supposed to keep a reserve pool. I mean, it's, you know, you tell me as scummy as it is, I don't know if we'd call it a pool or at least not one I'd want to swim in, but we're getting down below 400 acre feet is really what that is. And I also like, yeah, so I want to kind of put that in perspective for the public. which is an acre feet is like 325,000 gallons of water. It's enough water to cover an acre of land in a foot of water. So we are kind of on track to be down below 200 acre feet before the end of the irrigation season. We are currently, I mean, it's, hard to tell from the graph, but we're currently like 100 to 200 acre feet lower than our recent lowest, which was in 2021. So the lake is low and soil moisture in the mountains is actually up because we've been getting this rain. So that's a positive. But, you know, we're low. And so all of these conservation efforts that people are doing in regards to irrigation, especially people who are on secondary water, are appreciated. GWSA has noticed, like the city has, that There has been a reduction in irrigation water overall, which is really nice to see. But yeah, we're going to see the lake really low. And it's hard to think about it, but when we're talking about a couple hundred acre feet, we're talking about 65 million gallons, give or take, of water. It's a lot. So the more we can save, the better off we are. Finally, I know, that's it.

Thank you, Miles.

You're welcome.

Collin.

Okay. On the 12th, I also attended the House and Town Hall. And I just want to clarify something. When I was speaking earlier with Corey's presentation, which was excellent, I in no way, shape, or form was proposing getting rid of something like the AEH. I just think that we need to be – we're entering a new – stage in our housing development that i am watching with a lot of curiosity and i hope that as a council that we're we're just really being proactive as as policy makers and trying to stay ahead of all these changes that are coming in my miles has presented a bunch of great ideas tonight um and i'm sure corey will keep those coming in front of us but uh you know it feels a little bit like we're in uncharted territory in town with the the housing that's coming online and and where we came from to this point. And so, you know, I hope that we are just, yeah, just continue to be proactive. And then, you know, so not get rid of the tools, but definitely sharpen and add tools. Then on the 14th, I met with Rihanna from the Multicultural Center. I have been really concerned about pathway safety and some of the homeless population that's been spending time in some of the areas of the parkway And I just wanted to understand a little more from somebody who is intimately involved with those populations and some of the challenges. And one of the outcomes of that is something that I think I'm going to pursue moving forward is starting to put together a group to discuss regularly pathway safety and some of the enhancements that we can add. I can't stress enough, I think lighting is the low-hanging fruit, the pathway. The more I talk to people, the more I hear from the community that we need better lighting along the pathway. The pathway that has always felt so safe in our community doesn't feel safe anymore. And so I will be working to improve that. On the 18th, I went to the Bike Utah Summit. There was a wonderful panel discussion with the mayors from Provo, Parowan, and Nibley about some of their successes and challenges with active transportation. you know, I hope with some of the things we're doing that, uh, we can get our mayor up there in future years to celebrate some of the successes that we're having. Cause I was really proud thing to see, um, you know, very different communities and think about Parowan to Provo and, you know, these, these communities realize, you know, how it is important as to that people are able to move safely around their, their community, no matter what they're in or on or walking. Um, and then, uh, I attended a, uh, A really great breakout session about the risks and benefits of e-mobility. And one of the things that really came up and which really struck home for me because I was walking around Salt Lake City the night before and walking around all these e-scooters that are just parked in the middle of the sidewalks everywhere. Yeah. You know, so that came up again in our discussion. And so I started doing some research and back to 23 which I think some of you remember when the city started to, you know, try to take a really proactive stance on whether when he scooter rental companies, we're going to start coming in here and just kind of set the right framework to make sure These were a benefit to the community and not a nuisance. It looks like those efforts kind of fell off. Is that right?

I think we passed an ordinance where we only would allow one company and they would have to contract with the city.

Got it. Okay, that's what it was. So, yeah, so you went the RFP route of the three routes that were proposed. Got it. Okay. Well, that's a wonderful thing. And it sounds like, you know, a lot of... A lot of communities are suffering because they didn't put in the right framework.

Yeah, because I remember Carly brought that up, and I'm pretty sure we passed something, and that was it. Or else she said that it could be that we talked about it and never really passed an ordinance.

And that's what I saw, but I couldn't find the ordinance, but I found a discussion where you definitely, she recommended going the RFP route.

And I remember hearing, like looking at this while I was interviewing for the job. I wasn't here before. So I don't have any historical knowledge.

If we don't have an ordinance, because I'm starting to see a lot of scooters around, I haven't seen any rentals.

Yeah, the ordinance would just be the rentals, right?

And there are some great criteria you can put into effect for, you know, having a spot that they need to return the scooters to where then they can shut off their payment of the rental. And, you know, so... Just ways that you can manage the collection of those scooters so they don't end up just everywhere. Because it was stunning to me. Yeah, true. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. Walking around and people just drop them and go.

So if we don't have a norm, can we work on getting one? And is that something that would have to go through the planning commission or is that something we could do?

No, it's not related to development. But I'd have to talk to our attorneys. Just to make it clear, though, there is no scooter company who is pursuing us right now. But let me look into this and see what happens.

But they wouldn't have to, though. They could just come in and start renting.

No, they would.

Nathan, do you have a comment here?

Yeah, so I've dealt with this before. Typically, this is if you're mostly city ordinances are concerned about where the scooters are located and how they're used. In most cases, they aren't a land use regulation because they're dealing with the placement of scooters on public sidewalks and the use of them on public rights of way. So it's more like a regulation of a vehicle or in some cases like public nuisance ordinances. So the challenge of not having anything on the books now is that, you know, they come in and start just operating. So I have quite a few templates on these that we've done elsewhere that we could easily work with Michael on.

Great. Yeah, let me look into it and see what happened. Okay.

Thanks, Nathan.

Then the last thing that I have is at the last meeting, I committed to figuring out who at the school district was replacing Jeremy Spaulding as the Safe Routes School representative. It's Libby Bailey Matthews. I connected with her today. She's wonderful. Libby will get stuff done and she's excited to work with the city and try to use the program to get funding to put in some of the infrastructure that we're all excited about on some of the routes to and from schools. And so she's starting to right now just get into putting together a committee. And I think that, you know, I'm certainly going to try to be on that committee. But I think as Michael emphasized before that, you know, one of the things that challenges with the way it was organized before is that city staff wasn't very well represented and should have much, much bigger representation there. So hopefully that, you know, we can connect and I can or I can connect her with you and

Yeah, I heard some staff talking about that today. So great. I think Alexi got back to you, didn't she? She did. Yeah. So thank you. That's it for me.

Thank you, Bonnie. I don't have an awful lot. I think the only meeting that I attended was the Canyonlands Healthcare Special Service District. And we introduced our consultants to the entire board and talked a little bit about the MAPS development. And that's pretty exciting and looking forward to seeing that come to fruition. And my big excitement was I attended my mom's 90th birthday party. Nice. Good. So I hope she's around for a few more. Well, she's like my dad. She will be. She's still doing pretty good. Jason.

I have a few meetings. On the 18th, I attended an EMS, a county EMS meeting. And a few things that were kind of interesting about that meeting is calls from January, July are down slightly. In 2025, from January through July, there were 966 calls. This year, they're at 951 calls sold down. However, inter-facility transfers are up about 12%. Last year, they were 161. This year, they're 181.

And those are the expenses because they take ambulances out of service. That costs money.

Absolutely, yeah.

Is there reimbursement for that?

There is reimbursement on those, but however, You know, when we have, you know, only two ambulances on shift, you know, or three ambulances on shift. Now it's two ambulances on shift and sometimes you have three. But it takes that ambulance out of shift for a minimum of six to seven hours, you know, and sometimes longer. So it really does kind of put us into a situation. There was one day, I don't know if it was like yesterday or the day before, where they they had like four, um, transfers like waiting in one, like they're waiting for, um, EMS to, to get back to a transfer. So they'd go to another transfer, you know, and, um, they're just super long calls. So trying to figure that out, there wasn't really, um, uh, you know, a reason why, you know, that they are, it's just, you know, um, whether it's sometimes it's that we don't have an orthopedic surgeon here, we don't have a nurse or something. So they need to get transferred over. Um,

So before you move on off of EMS, we are needing to present to the county our asks for the sales tax money. And my understanding was we're still gonna be asking for the same thing we agreed to last year, right?

I haven't, I've not heard, we haven't talked about that, so I'll say yes.

I don't think we signed an MOU. We might have signed an MOU. In our discussion in the health care district, that's what we thought when we talked to Melody.

I thought it was the same split for a few years, something like that. EMS implemented a pre-hospital blood program here where they are now carrying blood on the ambulance. And on July 19th, They actually went to a scene where they had to give blood to two critical injured patients. It was a wreck on Highway 128. A few things that they're dealing with now. They have a transfer ambulance, which is a Mercedes Sprinter ambulance. And it's getting, I think it's over 200,000 miles at this point. And so they're looking at replacing that. Rural health care has been getting a lot of grants, you know, and stuff. And because of that, a lot of rural health care agencies have been ordering ambulances. And so it's created a two to three to maybe even four year backlog on getting a new ambulance. And so they're looking at ordering ambulances now for like 2029, you know, or maybe later and stuff. So that's kind of interesting. Other than that, EMS is doing good. EMS is having some, there are some, there could be some potential problems because they have not gotten their audit done. And so there's a chance that some of their funding could be seized up or frozen. But they worked with the county and the county picked an auditor and told the special service districts that they used the same auditor that they would get a rebate because they wanted to get all the audits done at a certain timeframe and stuff. And the county, their audit's not even done yet either. So they're waiting on that.

So they'll get a rebate? They're going to give us some cash?

Well, the county was going to help pay part of the audit if they went with the same auditor because they were trying to get it right on top. So it was like $2,000 or something to help them do it. But the company, they are having to do it. They're having some issues getting it done. um on eight also on that day 8 18 i attended like michael said the county meeting around the proposal of the public safety building um and i'm i'm just gonna say that i as as a moab city resident i do have some pretty big concerns with this and what is planned and um and i i hope that the county will work with the city on what is being planned and what is being used on that block, because I think that it has potential to be very, very impactful to our Moab City residents in this community. And I don't know what I'm prepared to say on that right now, but it is a huge concern of mine. And on the 20th, I attended a chamber meeting, which we talked a little bit about housing, and I kind of Talk about that with the course presentation. A few things that are coming up is, or big things coming up is on October 15th is the candidate debate. And it will be live streamed. It will also be at, I'd say it's at Star Hall, but I could be wrong. and um and there is discussions about opening that up and trying to get our state federal um people to write for state federal seats that come down so um like logan monson and his opponent and celeste molloy and can you don't um want to get them to come down and also be a part of that as well so i think that would be really good um that'll be long i know it is yeah that's what we're talking about trying to how how the timing of that would work out and stuff um And then I just want to say, Colin, thank you for setting up the Pathways Committee. You know, I know you and I have talked a little bit about that, and I know that the pathways are a concern, and I definitely would love to see where that goes and see if we can make our pathways safer or, you know, make residents feel like they can walk the pathways.

That's it. thank you um i was out of town last week so i didn't do a whole lot for the city i did michael a couple times via phone um i was able to watch the county workshop on the public safety facility and felt a little confused about what the conversation was actually about it was about a civic complex is it about a public safety building is it about both i mean so it's a little confusing to me but i do appreciate the idea of writing a letter to the county kind of saying hey we need to be in the loop on this i hope they include us before they make any decisions and before they decide if they're going to raise our sales tax to complete that project so that letter should go out this week i'm assuming trying yeah and um and you guys will get a copy of it when it goes out I did attend the Canyonlands Health Care Special Services Trick Meeting before I left. We did select the consultants called Elevate. They have a lot of experience in senior housing development and aging in place, have a lot of really good ideas about what that means today as opposed to what it used to mean. And so we plan, we're working on the contract now. We should have it completed by the end of the week. And there's companies from Salt Lake City and New York, not New York City, but Buffalo, New York. We talked about Buffalo the last time.

That's a good place now.

We're going to have to do a check to Buffalo. Anyway.

Let's go during the winter.

Anyway, so excited about that. They should be starting having their kickoff in October. They're going to be providing some community engagement. We'll be putting together a stakeholder group. They'll be doing a whole needs assessment survey. I know there's one out there that some community, I think the Council on Aging, did and the county did, but this one will be more specific to this project. And then they'll be doing a financial analysis for us and then they'll come up with a final master plan so that we can determine how we want to go out and get that development completed. Very exciting, really good, kind of coinciding with... you know it's a community project so it's not just like a private developer coming in so we all get to have a say on what we would like to see there keeping in mind it is deed restricted from the city for 55 and older so it's you know you know we could probably change that but it's really not intended for families um you know for big families with kids um anyway we'll see where that all goes exciting to have that and then i need to schedule a meeting with you guys i was thinking next week but i'm thinking more likely it'll be in between our meeting in september and our our first and second meeting in september because it's labor day weekend next weekend i think you're going to be out so and caitlyn i think it's going to be out until the second or third so um and also the um there's the homeless guy coming i mean the home no it's the homeless coordinator tom clancy i believe is his name from the state is going to be here i think he's an author i think it's the third that's his name though isn't it clancy

Yeah, he's going to talk to us about naval warfare.

Anyway, I guess this is terrible. We don't know our state officials' names, but Caitlin is kind of organizing all that. We're going to be sponsoring the lunch. I think she would like myself and Michael to be there. You guys are all welcome to come, too. It's just going to be lunch, and we'll hear what he has to say. we can come great i would love to yeah i think you know i got the impression she would like us to you know as many of us will be there sponsoring it so okay yeah so anyway that's the third at noon i can't yeah it's lunchtime so we'll we'll get information out to you guys please do yeah um let you know more about that could you yeah i'll try and get that really quick yeah that's all for me and we do not need to go into closed session we thought that we did no no because we um we basically aren't ready there's some things that did come up but we're not ready to really they're not ready um that's okay right so i'm just going to ask for a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn motion by miles second by tawny we're adjourned thanks you guys

Yeah, it's Tyler Clancy.

He's the State Homeless Coordinator Office of Homeless Services and