City Council - Special Meeting

A little treat for you.

Thank you. Ready? All right. All right. Welcome, everybody. I'm going to call this special City Council meeting to order on Tuesday, June 30th at 5.02 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to consider the consideration of repealing and replacing Ordinance 2026-10 with four... Sorry. That's okay.

Okay.

With doing to start over with ordinance 2026 dash 14 ordinance imposing a temporary ban on the discharge of fireworks within the city meant limits. As you all know at our last meeting we you all were fine with me declaring a emergency to allow a band of fireworks within the city. From that time, the governor issued a ban on fireworks throughout the state and then gave us some leeway of things that we could do to help support our decision to not allow fireworks. And what that entailed was myself and Chief Brewer to get together to meet to talk about why we would want restrictions in the city. And we both agreed that that was the case. I've got a formal letter from the chief in that regard. And so Nathan, our attorney, has rewritten the ordinance that we voted on on April 28th that identified areas in town where fireworks were restricted. We've amended that map tonight. You guys are going to consider amending that map to include the entire town. This will not impact the fireworks. Those are exempt unless there's an issue that night on July 4th, wind event or something, then the chief has the ability to cancel that event. But at this time, we hope that we can continue to move forward with a great 4th of July fireworks experience. and hope that the community honors this ordinance and does not light fireworks, personal fireworks anywhere in the city limit. They also are not allowed under a fire restriction stage two in the county. So the only fireworks that we want to see on the 4th of July before and after are up on the hill. So with that, TJ, do you have anything you would like to add?

No. and I can definitely read it or I'm sure everyone has a copy of it or however you'd like to proceed.

Okay. Any questions for the chief?

I was just wondering, for the public, I would appreciate hearing from you to all of our constituents, because I think a lot of people are feeling nervous. I trust and defer to your judgment. Yeah, I was wondering if you had anything for the public on that. TJ, would you mind coming up so we can get you on the mic?

Yeah, so my input on the concerns for fire danger are you can look outside just like the last time you guys met in a smoky in the valley. You know, we're a good department. We're prepared for incidents, but we can get inundated. We don't have other agencies that can come in and assist us rapidly. And with these conditions, most fires will grow exponentially. And if we were to have one that tapped out our resources, it's hard for us to pull in other resources. And I think it could happen. You know, we've had major fires around here and I would like to avoid those. Does that answer your question?

I think so. I think mostly concerns about continuing with the community fireworks. Just plans that you guys have in place, letting the community know that you guys, if that moves forward, it will be safe.

On the ban of fireworks? The fireworks show. Yeah, so this ban will actually relieve a little bit of our pressure from having engines all over the valley and we can concentrate a little bit more up on the dump hill. We had a meeting with Michael and the mayor yesterday and I I let them know that we'll have more up there, more engines up there, and that if the wind picks up or we're in red flag warnings or we do have another major incident, our resources are so short that I'll cancel the show. But I feel pretty comfortable up there. The fireworks have caught small brush fires up on the hill, but they're so scattered that the fuel load up there is not a huge concern for us.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Great. Any other questions?

So I'm just kind of reading it. And so the fire ban or the fireworks ban will be the 2nd through the 5th. And then I assume that this will be reevaluated for the 24th.

This order covers the 22nd through the 25th of July.

Okay. Okay, perfect. Okay. And then... And then did I see in here a fine?

Yeah, Lex was going to talk about enforcement. Okay.

Any other questions for the chief? No, I just want to say I appreciate so much what you and your crew does. I spoke with one of the wives of one of your crew members the other day, and we need to remember that these things, spouses or these family members that are left behind have needs. She just about cried because I told her, I'll come sit with your baby so you can shower or go to the store. And we forget that people that are here are holding up a lot on their ends.

Yeah, I have a bunch of deployed firefighters right now that left their family at home. So, no, I appreciate that.

What's that? Nathan, do you have a comment?

I do. Just in response to Councilmember Taylor's question, so just to kind of lay the framework here, and I think just for the record, the last council meeting, the mayor, in response to recommendations from the fire department, adopted an emergency order And then really quickly thereafter, the governor's office issued an emergency order of its own that applied statewide that effectively banned fireworks for the July 4th firework period. Now under state law, there are only certain periods of the year when you can launch private fireworks. The 4th of July is one, Pioneer Day is the other. And so the governor's order effectively replaced and negated the need for the mayor's order. But What the governor said in his order was, hey, I want every city, I'm recommending every city consult with their fire chief and then look at their authority to regulate the personal discharge of fireworks during these specific periods to the fullest extent of the law. And so that's what we did. We went and consulted with the fire chief and said, hey, what do we do under our existing authority And then their recommendation came back. And that is that we recommend that you prohibit fireworks for the rest of July, basically. So the fireworks for the 4th are effectively prohibited under the governor's order. And then per the governor's recommendation, we have worked with our fire department chief to exercise the authority we have under state law to expand that ban for the rest of July. Just without getting too much into the nuances of it, as the council may recall, you adopted a fireworks map Christopher Moffatt- Earlier this year in April, and the way that the law is set up is before May 1 we have to adopt a band. Christopher Moffatt- That can apply for the entire year and that's based on historic conditions, so those are the places we know are going to be a problem every year. Christopher Moffatt- what's changed since then, and now is that everything's drier with the watering restrictions, you know the whole town is basically turned into a tinderbox. Christopher Moffatt- And there are, I think, four specific categories and state law for which we can prohibit fireworks. And now because of the dry conditions, you know, based on the fire chief's letter, the whole town fits within those four specific categories. And so that's the basis for this ordinance now as we're just extending it through July. And that authority is based on your authority to prohibit existing fire risk conditions based on the fire chief's recommendation. So really all this ordinance does is just put into place what the fire chief has recommended as requested by the governor. And we are going to monitor conditions for the rest of the year, and we may need to adapt another ordinance. But the next fireworks periods are at New Year's Eve and the Chinese New Year. There are only four. So hopefully, if we can get through July, things will be a little bit wetter. Hopefully, we'll get some moisture, and we won't need to have this discussion again. But I wanted to provide a little bit more context because this is confusing, and you've probably seen some press in the that's talking about, well, cities don't have the ability to ban fireworks citywide. I think that may be the case for larger cities in which not all of their geographic boundaries fit within these four categories. But Moab is not a big town. And based on your fire chief's recommendations, you do now. Maybe you didn't in May, but you do now.

Thanks, Nathan. Any questions for Nathan? I'm going to ask Lex you want to come up and just explain how you're going to enforce and then I'll ask for a motion. It's a long one.

If we pass this ordinance we can cite under this ordinance or the state ordinance for any violation of our fireworks. Ordinance or state law, the ban right now as it exists, and it's an infraction with a $1,000 fine that's attached to it. Our plan is to have two to three extra officers out from a time period of about 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., every single night, the second through the fifth, with the primary focus of making sure that nobody's doing illegal fireworks in the city. So they will proactively be patrolling neighborhoods looking for any violations. And I've asked them to take a zero tolerance approach to it. So if you are caught doing illegal fireworks, you, one, should know better. And so there's not a lot of tolerance for that. And two, we're going to cite you.

Any questions for the Interesting for the press and for the public, if you see someone showing off fireworks, you call dispatch.

Yes, call dispatch, report the address as best that you can or the direction from your address where it occurred, and we'll respond. But absolutely, you can call dispatch. They'll create a call. They'll send us. We'll also, like I said, with those extra officers out, hopefully we'll be out in the neighborhoods. We'll see it too and be able to respond quicker.

Thank you.

I've seen a couple of things for other cities and stuff where they've written into this ordinance, and I don't know if it's in here in some way or form or another, that if people are caught doing fireworks, there's a $1,000 fine. And if they start a fire, they are responsible for the cost of fighting that fire or any damages. Do we... Is that implied in this?

Yeah, I think... Nathan can respond to this or Lex too, but yeah, there's going to be that infraction part, but based on the damage that is caused and, and if it's reckless and if it's reckless, there's a lot of other charges that could come with that with, with other fines and restitution and things like that.

Yeah. And bigger charges, you know, reckless burning negligent. It climbs.

Yeah. Okay. Yep.

Nathan did you have anything you wanted to add to that?

Yeah, just to be clear. So we're prohibiting the discharge of personal fireworks, but we're also prohibiting open fires, which we've defined based on some language in state code. The violation section is under Section 5 of the ordinance. It's on page 5. It doesn't mention the fact about people being personally responsible for damage. I think there was a comment that that's already covered in state code. But if you wanted to, we could certainly add some language there that just says, um maybe pun it you know maybe a second sentence there that says violations that result in damage to the private or public property you know may also be compensable under state law or recovered or something to that effect but it is already covered under state law so i don't know if we necessarily need to add here yeah i don't think i don't think we need to add it it's already covered already there And one thing I also wanted to add, typically we don't need to do this when you adopt your map based on the historical risky areas. But this time around, since we are taking a zero tolerance approach, I felt the need to include the state definitions of what constitutes a firework and what doesn't. And that's under Section 1 in the definition section. That's not anything Moab is creating. I'm literally just quoting what state law says. But I thought that that would be helpful for both residents and for your enforcement officers to have that handy rather than have to sift through hundreds of pages of state code to find the definitions. Thank you. I want to be clear that we're not coming up with those. That's what state law defines. And we don't have the ability to redefine it differently.

Great. All right. Thanks, Lex. Thanks, TJ. Hopefully, this will not be an issue, but I'm going to ask for a motion. Jason?

I'd like to make a motion to an ordinance. for an ordinance repealing and replacing ordinance number 2026-10 to reaffirm prohibitations on the discharge of private fireworks in map areas of the city of Moab that are subject to historical hazardous environmental conditions and to prohibit the discharge of private fireworks and the use of open fires within city boundaries from July 1st through July 31st, 2026, due to existing hazardous environmental conditions pursuant to code 15A-5-202.51MB.

Thanks, Jason. Do I have a second? A second. Second by Tawny. Any discussion, Jason?

No.

Tawny? No. Anybody else?

I just want to say, I think it's obvious with the community what I heard about or what I heard from community members after our initial ban really made me hopeful that the community understands why we're doing this. Now we're seeing it come down from the governor. It's dry out there. Please, please let the fireworks that we're putting on for everyone be enough. And let's keep our town safe this 4th of July. Thanks.

And just another comment. We do have fireworks are allowed on New Year's Eve. So don't not buy fireworks, but save them for New Year's Eve. Hopefully it won't be dry. We'll determine that at that time. Anyway, motion by Jason, second by Tawny. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Great. All right. Thank you guys for taking the time out. I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. A motion to adjourn. Motion by Miles.

I'll second.

Second by Jason. All in favor? Aye.

All right. Meeting's over. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good luck out there.

Yeah.

Yeah. Good luck.