County Commission - Regular Meeting

okay welcome welcome everyone appreciate everyone being here um thank you for being here i look forward to uh i was just telling one of the other commissioners the other night i some i always think about what my grandpa said had many worries in my life most of which never happened and i I feel like that all the time in my life. I lose sleep over things that never ever come to pass. So no, we appreciate you guys being here. Janet's been great to fill us in on a lot of the things that have transpired. I think we, as a commission, have been trying to work on some things that we could do with some of these bigger projects have better communication because it's communications what it's really all about and it's it's tough sometimes to communicate what we want as a county versus what a developer wants and make it all fit together so we appreciate you coming and working with us and and uh so janet do you do you want to take charge do you want brandon to take charge

I think Brandon can start for now, and then I'll pipe in as necessary.

OK, why don't you explain to us everything that's been changed since the last time we met. I know that's been a long, long time ago, but maybe not everything, but the highlights of where you guys have come from, what you're doing, and how things have changed according to what you were feeling like we wanted from you.

OK. Maybe what I'll do is go back to, it was February of 25, I think was the last time, well, we had a work meeting. Well, I don't know where to start, but I will start with this. We have taken what the commission has requested and tried to incorporate that into a development plan. Some of those requests were higher density phasing out towards old highway. Now under the old development agreement there was, well I shouldn't say old development agreement, under the current TC zone the zoning requires an element of commercial. And we had expressed in meetings past that to get interest in just because of the amount of commercial that is already zoned. So we presented a development that was completely single family residential. And realizing that there was still the element of a percentage of that property, 44 acres, 35% of that had We worked with county staff on a amendment to the TC zone, which would allow for us to basically or actually it would allow us to take that commercial requirement down. So with that approval we then began working with the county on a new layout that would be entirely single family like I said and implementing amenities that would be and to the development as a whole. I know there are a lot of thoughts on how this should look and how this should turn out. I'm basing my comments strictly on the town center zone and what the town center zoning would allow us to do. Now we can go one of two ways. We can follow the town center zoning without the amendment, which would allow a mixed use 25% of that property would be commercial and the rest of it would be townhomes Or we could go to what we're proposing tonight which would be 267 single-family homes A portion of that would be some townhomes about a third of it would be townhomes and two-thirds of it would be single family Single family would range in lot size some smaller the towns and then some larger lot sizes on the east there's roughly six acres of open space amongst all of that we are proposing to construct a trailhead and construct a trail along your corridor of the cochlear creek I've reviewed your documents and it's very clear in there that that is a trail corridor. The county wants it to be a 10 foot wide asphalt trail with two foot shoulders, soft shoulders on each side. We're prepared to do that. We're prepared to put in a clubhouse. We're prepared to put in amenities and we're prepared to also allow the community to use HOA maintain all of that open space. That's been a discussion that we've had internally and with the county staff, but we're prepared to do that. We are, I guess maybe the last couple of things I would like to say is It's a big development that takes a lot of time, a lot of coordination, a lot of effort. I've put forth my best effort in trying to meet with each of you to discuss and show you what it is that we're planning to do, and I hope that you've felt that that's been a very transparent exchange. I've never once tried to hide anything. I'm grateful to the staff for their time and their energy in helping us through this process. It's been a little process and i feel very good with what we have and where we're at and i'm prepared to answer any questions and talk about anything that you guys would like to talk about in full transparency so thank you thank you thank you did you have anything further that you wanted to share on that um commissioners uh

Questions, I have a few of my own, but why don't we start down at your end, Mike, and we'll work this way.

Maybe more comments and questions. Commercial. My intent was never for it to remove 100% of the commercial. And in speaking with other commissioners, I don't believe that was the intent of anyone here. So I was very shocked and surprised when your application showed zero commercial. And frankly, pretty disappointed by that, especially given the fact that the town center zone is a commercial zone. That's what it was designed for. I'm actually the only one here that was around when I helped create that zone. So I know very much what's in it. Debbie back there was around at the same time, but nobody else here was around during that, and the intention was a highly commercial zone. The vision actually was commercial main floor and residential above that. It was never a vision of townhomes here and commercial over there. It was actually mixed commercial, mixed use. That was the vision all along of the TC zone. When this particular parcel was rezoned to town center, we brought that very issue up and said, look, We understand there's a desire to put residential in here, but we want to maintain some commercial. Part of the issue is that there's very little property in Morgan County that's even halfway suitable for commercial development. There's just not a lot left. It needs to be an area where there's sewer. Well, that only exists in Mountain Green and in Morgan City. Nowhere else in the county do we have sewer. good water systems or sufficient water systems, I should say. We have good systems. They're just not sufficiently large for commercial elsewhere in the county. And so part of this was trying to preserve commercial space as much as possible. I, at the time, advocated for 50% as the number, not 35. And I still think that it should be higher. So to see such a To see zero is a little shocking to me. That was never something that I felt was on the table and a little surprising. Now, that being said, I want to give you guys credit because you went, after we asked you to, you went and sat down with the other two property owners and developers in the area, and I think you did your best to try to come to an arrangement to move some of that commercial around and try to cluster it, which is what we had kind of envisioned. I feel like the other developers didn't play ball, and I don't think that was fair to you. And frankly, I'm going to remember that when those other developers come in here and want to do their projects. Unfortunately, it seems that all three of those developers that own property there are all residential developers. None of them are commercial developers. And so they're trying to do what they do best, and you're trying to do what you do best, which is residential development. And I understand that. But it's a little disheartening. And again, I think you guys did your best to try to work with them. I feel like they did not play ball, and that's not fair. And I don't know if you have any comment to that before I go on.

I do, actually. So when we drafted the text amendment, I left it kind of open, so you could go down to zero. commercial, like it doesn't specifically say, I don't think they could go down to zero, but it's available in that code and I texted it, or I drafted it that way so we'd have the flexibility. When they came after and working on the application, I'm like, well, you can go down to zero and just start from there, thinking about the negotiation process. So some of that is on me for making that suggestion partially, so.

Can you stand up for a minute so we can throw a dart?

Well, if I'm being honest, and I've said this to many developers in other scenarios, you don't need to play the used car salesman trick on us. Don't start high and move to the, or start low, or whatever. Let's just be honest with each other and come to a reasonable negotiation.

That's exactly what we want. Let me just back up a little bit about... Neighboring property owners and developers. I will say that I have been working with agreement where we now have access out on the old highway we traded some property and and so we had to do that we had to work together we're providing connectivity we've we've moved i don't know if you know this or not but we've moved a couple piles of dirt and that required cooperation with with grueling gardner and the johnsons so We are working with them. I think where we're having some struggles is, just like you said, how do we allocate that commercial? You know, for us, and I guess I would just ask, in your opinion, Mike, or Commissioner, how would you view, where would you view that commercial going? And the only reason I ask is because between us, gardeners, and what is the town center, It's kind of, it's separated. There's a gap and it's not joined. So you would be coming through potentially some residential

I think it depends on the type of commercial, but I actually would envision it probably closer to the fire station, closer to Old Highway, so you're not driving through an entire subdivision to get to it. At the end of the day, if all you want to do is residential, it should be zoned residential, plain and simple. It should not be a town center zoning. We shouldn't be trying to shoehorn residential into a commercial zone. That's my opinion. If we want to do fully residential, then that's the zoning that we should have, and that's where we should work. on an agreement. And I understand that logic of, well, maybe it doesn't work, and maybe it's disjointed and whatever. That's part of the issue of having a large area that is owned by multiple people. And we're trying to, at the end of the day, we're designing Mountain Green City, whether we like it or not. I don't like it. I wish they were incorporated and designed their own city, frankly. I'm being very honest. Because I don't want to design their city. I think the people down there should design it. That being said, if that's what we're doing, we've only got one chance to make it right. And as soon as we fill that area with homes, maybe there's only need for 20 acres of commercial today. But in 20 years, there might be need for 40 or 50 acres of commercial space, and we've filled it all with townhomes, and now where are we going to put that commercial? We can't put it up on the hillside, so where are we going to put it? And that's the concern. I understand from your perspective, you need your ROI. You want a return now. You don't want to wait 20 years to sell a commercial. And I get that, right? That makes sense. But I also think that as an elected body, we have an obligation to try to look out for what's best for our community now and into the future. And if we're not forward looking, we're going to end up in a situation where we have no place to put the commercial. don't have the infrastructure for it because we put in tiny roads or whatever we've done and now we're you know having a big issue and frankly morgan county is a bedroom community we don't have a large tax base from commercial development and we need that the the property tax burden is on the backs of individual homeowners and we've been working to try to alleviate some of that but That doesn't happen if we just add more homes and don't add any commercial. That makes sense. So is there a perfect place? No. And I brought that up when we rezoned this property in the first place. And I realized you didn't ask for that rezoned to town center. That was the previous owner. But that was brought up and discussed at that time. And we said, I really don't see where a commercial is going to go here well. But that's what they wanted. And we said, OK, fine. But you're still going to have to do the 35% commercial. So I guess that's kind of my point. And I get, you know, there's some frustration here in terms of, you know, what the commission has asked you to do and what you see in the code. I also think that, you know, there were some promises made by the previous owner that need to be upheld. Whether you're bound by that or not is kind of irrelevant at this point, I think. We need to ensure that that happens. And part of that was that you would move to larger lots and less dense development the further you got closer to Old Highway and the, I guess the R01 zoning that's there. So I don't know. Those are just some of my thoughts. And overall, I mean, I'm not opposed to what you have here per se, other than we're talking about a commercial zone and we're saying, let's put zero commercial in our commercial zone. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me. I would rather rezone it to a residential and do it that way than to try to shoehorn it into commercial. But that's my opinion. personal thought. Who's next to you here?

Sorry, this is Tom .

Hi, Tom.

Hi, I'm Tom . Awesome.

Nice to meet you, Tom.

Thank you. And he's been great to work with.

And Cameron's not in the room, is that correct? Hi, Cameron. That's great. I'm going to address something really quickly to you, Cameron. I want you to know This guy has done more for you than you realize and If it were you up here I wouldn't even be talking to you because I don't want to do business with a guy that that talks the way you did in Fact I'm going to read what you wrote about us real quickly here You called the commission an amateur group of elected officials with an overbearing sense of superiority That have no idea the tenants of professional urban planning Frankly, I don't want to work with somebody who talks that way and treats the public officials that way. So if this gets done, it's because of him and not because of you. And I hope that gets back to Matt and, oh, I forget the name of the other guy that's above you. Anyway, I hope that gets back to them, because there's no room for that. And you should be ashamed of saying that. OK, enough said to Cameron. Back to you, Brandon. That's my opinion on the whole thing. If you really feel like there's no potential for commercial here, okay, then let's figure out how to make that happen as a residential zone. But let's not try to – there was never an intention in my mind of having 0% commercial in a TC zone, in a commercial zone. That's my thought.

If I might, I would go back to our first proposals. wanted some residential. We expressed a concern that a mixed use, you know, live work units below and homes above wasn't working right now because that's what's currently in the Rome development.

And they're not selling.

They're not selling. And so that's why we took what you gave us back to the drawing board and came back. And there's been, you know, there's been multiple TRYING TO UNDERSTAND.

SEE, BUT THAT SEEMS LIKE AN ALL OR NOTHING, BRANDON. IT'S LIKE, HEY, WE EITHER DO ALL TOWNHOMES AND COMMERCIAL OR WE DO NO COMMERCIAL AND REDUCE THE TOWNHOMES AND PUT SOME SINGLE FAMILY. AND I FEEL LIKE THAT'S NOT A HAPPY MEDIUM. WE WANT TO BE IN BETWEEN THE TWO. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

IT MAKES SENSE. BUT YOUR TC ZONES HAS MIXED USE AND IT SAYS TOWNHOMES. THERE'S NO SINGLE FAMILY.

I realize that there's also should be no zero commercial in the TC zone. So, I mean, we could go back and forth all day long. Let's also remember you have another six acres you want rezoned. To me, we would never rezone that if you don't agree to do some more single family homes. You know, even if you go back to your initial proposal.

Sorry.

single-family homes in the TC zone, right? Because if you say, well, our only option here then is we're going to have to go to all townhomes and our 35% commercial. Okay, cool. Why would we rezone that other six acres for you?

We would keep it one acre long.

So be it, right? But you're going to lose a lot of homes compared to 8,000 square foot plots.

Well, we would, but the town center zone also allows us to get...

And it also requires you to have an agreement with us, and we can say no to that agreement.

Well, and I'm not, you know, I'm not, what I don't want to do is get into an argument over this.

And I agree, and that's why I'm saying, hey, instead of all or nothing, like, let's come to a happy medium. Don't come to the table and say, well, you either accept all townhomes or you accept no commercial. No, let's, somewhere in between. There's an answer somewhere in between. That's where we need to be. And maybe that commercial is, maybe it's an RV park, right, that's sort of residential, sort of commercial. I don't know, maybe there's a solution here that's not what we're thinking as commercial in our minds. Does that make sense?

It makes sense.

Like I think there are ways we can come.

There's also allowed commercial in the TC zone and commercial that's not allowed, so.

Well, and if there's a commercial that you think ought to be allowed and it's not, guess what? We have the ability to change that. And we would be willing to, that's what I'm saying. That's the whole reason I even suggested we have a work session with you guys today. Because if it were just, hey, let's put this on the agenda and vote on it, I would have just voted no. But I don't want to do that. I want to work with you guys and come to an agreement. Let's talk in this work session. Let's come up with something that works that you feel like is feasible for you and we feel like works for us in the community and what the community wants down there. Does that make sense? Sorry, I talk too much. You're fine. Vaughn, go ahead.

Well, I hate to say it. Mike touched on quite a few things, so I'm not going to rehash a lot. But I've met with Brandon a couple of times, and I do appreciate your openness and just willing to talk and your thoughts. I know that when we were talking the text amendment, I talked to Janet back when she was kind of wrapping that up and doing it. It was like, I never thought of the whole getting rid of all commercial. I was kind of on that same. I didn't, if we want residential, let's do residential. Let's not try to, to, to do that. Um, I'm totally in favor of thinking outside the box as far as commercial, like what fits and what doesn't fit and what is it, you know? Um, Kind of the same idea as far as, you know, we look down at Farmington Station, right? I know that, as we met before, we talked about Farmington Station as this massive commercial development. And I think we were talking like we would require all the developers down there to provide 80 acres of commercial, which right now we don't need. But if you look down in Centerville and Layton and those other areas, they're now needing more commercial. And what are they doing? You drive through Salt Lake, and they're tearing down the old houses, and they're building businesses. And so it's hard to see everything. We don't have a crystal ball. There was a comment about urban planning. And the thing, I did not sleep well Sunday night. I think my dreams might have been similar to Mike's, or my thoughts. Just like, OK, where are we going? What are we doing? And one of the things that came to my mind was we talk about planning. We're trying to design Mountain Green City. Thank goodness it's still part of Mount Morgan County. A lot of Mountain Green residents speak to us about, well, some want incorporation, others don't, but regardless. People live in Morgan for a reason. We moved here for a purpose. What is that purpose? We all have a different idea what that is. I grew up 30 miles south of Boston. I hated all the people. My family has deep roots in Morgan. My mom grew up here. My uncle owns a 200-acre ranch in Mountain Green. One day, I'm sure there's going to be houses down there. I hate to even think of that. And when I moved to Morgan, it was like the dream come true. I got out of the city, and I was in kind of the urban area of Massachusetts. But people leave what we call down below because they don't like what it looks like. And I think that's the fear is that if we get this wrong, we're going to turn it into exactly what they left. that's where I think that's my concern as we're going through this and I know that you guys I mean you're under a lot of pressure and that's why I appreciate the time you've taken your calmness you don't I've never seen you really get animated angry and upset and I appreciate that I work very hard at times to not go that direction it's a challenge I have but I The reason, in my mind, that I want to move slow is because people are here for a reason. They love that rural. And I know I've been told that Morgan's not rural. Well, when I look out my front door, I see horses and cows. And my neighbor just cut his hay. I look behind me, and I've got cows on the mountain. I'm still rural. Will that change over the years? Absolutely. But let's be methodical. Let's be thoughtful. Let's think outside the box. What works? What doesn't? I have nothing against flagship. I think this is kind of your first go around here, Morgan. And to Cameron's comment, I am amateur. I'm an electrician. I'm a high school teacher. Okay? I'm not a politician. I did this because I care about my community. I want to listen to the people and try to create what they want and work with the developers. Growth is coming. It's inevitable. Mike made a comment a couple months ago. If we're not growing, we're dying. Right? But that doesn't mean we just uncontrollable, build everything everywhere. And so I do appreciate your time to listen and to think and to come back with ideas and We want people to come in here and be successful. But my big fear is that we go too fast. But let's be methodical. Let's think about what is it going to look like in five years, 10 years? Am I now heading to Wyoming because I hate what we've created? That's kind of where I'm at. And like I said, Mike touched on quite a few of the things that I want. But that's kind of where I'm at as far as like, let's think outside the box. As Mike mentioned, an RV park. Maybe that's a good fit. I don't know. Let's see what it looks like. What does it take? And we have one chance. And I do appreciate your time working with the other developers. You didn't have to do that. And you did. You spent a lot of time trying to work with them to create that town center. And that was a request. We can't make you do that. And you did. You stepped up and said, I will take that time and try to make it and try to get it right. So that's .

yeah i've loved working with brandon he's he's great um always takes our consideration or takes our suggestions into consideration and tries to put them on paper so i've loved the the trail you've incorporated the trail head um i really love that and and i am an amateur you are working with an amateur right here But I sit on boards where they are professionals, like Northern Utah Economic Alliance, lots of economic developers, lots of, I've talked to you about this before, and I've asked them their opinion on this development agreement. And personally, they think it's very well written. They do advise, do not go down to zero commercial on this, which I agree with 100%. So now we're at the spot where, where do we go from here? You've done a great job with this. One of the other concerns I had was in your first phase, there was zero amenities offered in that first phase. not until the second phase do we get to any of the amenities so that was a red flag for me um if you do go commercial i'm not in favor of an rb park depends but thank you i have i have a ton of questions on here about the da so i don't know where we're going with this work session but

Let me just tell you, as far as amenities, the amenities are now programmed to come in with phase one, because the road, the main road that comes in off of, across from Rollins Ranch, across the creek or creek, whatever it is, into our development, and then back out to Cottonwood, that whole road is built in phase one, and the clubhouse and the amenities so you're you can absolutely build and i think the development agreement talks about when all the amenities have to come in and there's been a lot of discussion with the county staff on when those come in yeah we're not opposed to building in I'm not saying we won't do it. That's a lot to ask.

That is a lot.

So let's put the amenities in as the amenities are needed. built to either meet the expectations of or exceed those expectations so that they're already in place and people aren't saying i'm paying hoa fees and i don't have a park for my kids to play that's not how we look at it so when you say there's a large park what is a large park like how big is that how many acres well i went back and i did some research in your current General plan. Your current general plan says that there should be three acres per 1,000 residents. Based on this, we're about 900. If you take the number of hogs and you apply the calculation of 3.38, I think it was, or something along those lines, this development would create 900 additional residents, which is just sort of a three acre park. We're showing with the HOA common space and the trail common space that there's, I want to say, 5.2 or 5.9 acres just in that space alone. And then you take a lot of those single-family homes. They're going to have their own yards, so they're not going to need open space. They'll have grass in their backyard to do whatever they want, but they're still going to enjoy those on that. We're proposing a trail along with that will connect all of that together, but you can't include sidewalk and some of that. So yeah, you take our development, you take what your current general plan says, and what we're providing is what the open space just not a big open park you're just kind of bringing it all together but i think you know i think and and we sat down and we talked about this how can we get people from here to there and what's the connectivity and where is the open space i i agree with you commissioner i i think that the city of oregon or the city of mountain green could use a place a little bit bigger than out that one bit. But let's create trails and connectivity and let's identify where that is. I don't think this is the place for that because with a large park comes parking. And if we're going to have to provide a large park, we're going to have to ask for increased get speed. Or decreased commercial.

Or decreased commercial. Right?

So that's, you know, that's, again, let's be creative.

Yeah, seriously. Thank you.

Wayne? I'm going to be a devil's advocate. But I have to agree with Mike on the TC zoning. I think maybe that shouldn't be the right zoning. My opinion is this area. And if you can bring up page 186 of the packet.

Yeah, that one.

OK, if you look at that, if you were to put commercial there, right in amongst everything, you've got residential development up above you. To the west of you, you've got more. The idea of Mountain Green that we were trying to do four years ago, five years ago, was to take the commercial and put it down towards the center of Mountain Green. not to put it up in the middle of residential, because then we start to become like Layton, where we've got commercial here, commercial there, commercial in this area, and commercial in that area. So I think the idea of having commercial in this zone is not a good idea. That's my own opinion. And those are my reasons for that. However, maybe the best thing is to change the zoning from TC zone and make it a residential area, or a PC zone, that we've been trying to do. And so far, nobody's taken us up on it. But a PC zone would work in this area. Am I correct, Josh? Yeah, but I'm just saying, would it work with the concept that they've got here? Because I like the concept. I really do like that concept. However, I don't think commercial fits in this area. Because if we're trying to put commercial down in the city center, why are we putting it clear into the residential area? That's my opinion. We've got commercial a quarter of a mile away in that area where it's pink or reddish. That's where Lee's Market is. But it's still a ways away from that for this commercial development. And I personally would like to see it like Farmington or Centerville because I watch Centerville grow. Because I was a mailman down there, and I watched it grow. And it turned in, I mean, they basically took these open fields and they put the whole city right there in the middle of Centerville, and here they had had government buildings just up one block. And then they tried to put gas stations in that area. Well, there was a gas station there anyway. Randall's gas station. That was the only commercial and then you got Maverick. And then you had a few things down on the other side. And so they went and took all of that that they were trying to build on Main Street and they took it and put it right into the middle of downtown Centerville where Dick's Market is and those other places. And they built a good development. And yes, they might be hurting for commercial now, but Centerville doesn't have any more space and Centerville can go out west and that's all they can do. So they built the Maverick down there and they got the whole industrial zone out there. That to me was good planning, real good planning, but they're done. They don't have anything else. I do not want to see us have a commercial area here, commercial area here, a commercial area down at Canyon, the Canyon View. I mean, it's all there, but the city of Mountain Green needs to be centralized into a commercial area. And so I'm in favor of the concept with zero commercial. But I want you to change the zoning so that we can make it work. So you're not going to be obligated to the 35% commercial. Put the 35% commercial on the other side of these residential areas. You've got all residential here in this area. I mean, I'll come up here.

You've got residential here.

You've got residential here.

You've got residential there. Here's commercial. where the interchange is going to be.

And that's my personal opinion. And that's the way we had tried to design it back in 2021 when we started doing this, was to go and try to make it to where, in our economic development at that time, we were going to take and put the city center down in the city center. All the government buildings, the libraries, the commercial, the retail, everything was going to be down there. And then commercial, Ken UU Commercial. plan that we had my opinion that's why I say I'm a devil's advocate when it comes to that but I think what you need to do is you need to change the zoning and yeah it's going to be a bigger process you're going to have to go through planning commission and all those kinds of things but I don't want to see commercial in this area Period. I'm sorry. That's my opinion. I'm gonna be different than the rest of you. I don't think we need to have commercial there, because if we have commercial there, then that just starts the process of having a commercial here, commercial part here, another part over here, and another part over here, and you got residential island between. I don't wanna see that for Morgan County, and I'm gonna be alive for the next 30 years, I hope. I'll be 102.

And didn't you vote for this to change to TC zoning?

No, I did vote for it to change to TC zoning.

But you knew there was going to be commercial there. That's right.

I did. You've just changed your mind since then. Yes, I have since then. Fair enough. Just pointing that out. I can change my mind throughout the years. Absolutely, you can change your mind. I can change my mind just like everybody else has changed their mind throughout the years. But this was originally what we had designed, was this area was going to be residential and not commercial. unless we were going to put the whole commercial area up here, which we weren't. It was down around where the Lee's is. So that's my own personal opinion. Yes, I voted for it at the time. And if you remember, we were all brand new. Have you been on?

We had that discussion at the time. Is it appropriate to have commercial here? That was a pushback. I know. I know that was.

Have you been on Wasatch Choice, like Wasatch Friends Regional Council? They have neighborhood developments, urban developments. But they show examples of this cluster commercial, like we're talking about here, inside neighborhoods. And it's very well done if you go to wasatchchoice.org. They have all that information there.

I'm familiar with them. I've seen them.

No.

I guess... again, I go back to what's already been approved, what's already been built, but isn't, I mean, what's not working right now. And we all know that in order for commercial to be successful, it requires rooftops. I mean, I heard that in meetings from 2023 here from people standing up.

So can I ask you a question, Brandon? What, I know you guys are, under a specific timeline. I'm sure the powers to be want a project moving forward. I know you're moving forward down there. I do know you have some hurdles still to cross. I don't want to rush anything, but at the same time, I don't want to be a thorn in your guys' side all the time. You did pick up a little bit of ground because of the movement of the power lines. Am I correct on that, or am I not correct on that?

the power lines, the road was going to be, the main road that went through there was going to be along the power lines. So we may have picked up a few acres with the power lines, but we were trying to position those power lines so that it didn't interfere. Because we weren't quite sure what was going to happen there with the power lines.

So can you give me a... Can you kind of give me a timeline of what you hear in your construction meetings?

What we hear?

Yeah, what you're hearing from, can you give me a timeline of what you're hearing as far as this is what we want done by then, da, da, da, da, da, da, da?

Because what I'm hearing right now is... We were hoping to get approval by early this year and then start working with the preliminary plans, getting those submitted. Our goal was to be putting infrastructure in the ground this year, thinking that we were going to be able to make it through some of those hurdles.

Do you feel like the county's holding you up on all that, or is there other things that are holding you up?

If we were to get concept and approval for this development, we've got to go down and get the sewer and bring it up. We could start phase one and still be working around the power lines. We feel that that's almost done. I just had to make one minor adjustment last week with one of the property owners, and I think that's going to get signed, and so those power lines are going

So there is there is no reason that we couldn't start Okay, and so I guess My last question would be for you is is that so did you have a where you had talked about we had thought, well, we might not get zero, but we might get some. Did you have a concept of what that would look like or not?

No, I completely took maybe I didn't understand, but I thought the input was clear from the commission that we wanted to go from high density down to low density, and then there was a document that was presented saying that the residents didn't want this. I heard several commission meetings where

So that's how I understood it as well. I told Mike that today, that we wanted the commercial down there like Blaine just explained, and then we wanted higher density to go to single-family homes and bigger lots at the outside edge of that. That is how I understood it as well.

But the intent was they need to take their 35% commercial and trade it with somebody else. Correct. It wasn't... Oh, you can just not do it because that's not what we want here. It was you got to trade it someplace else. And I told you that in person when we met.

But that's not how the revisions to the town center zone were written. It was we would provide amenities that would reduce.

Reduce, not eliminate. Well, no. Reduce.

We were under the impression we could reduce it.

In no place does it say eliminate. And maybe we should have put a minimum in there. Hindsight, now I kind of regret even doing it at all because I think it... ...things that you're talking about just don't needle for me. A pocket park doesn't move the needle for me. You put in there a hot tub for your residents, that doesn't do anything for the community at large.

We have to have amenities.

I get that, for your community, and that's fine, but that's marketing for your community. That shouldn't be something that offsets commercial for us.

Does that make sense? It makes sense, but you've got to understand that in your current town center zone, I'm required to have a clubhouse. 750 square foot is the size of the clubhouse. That's a tough check for him. I'm required, I'm only required,

And you're welcome that we have very low standards there because we could say we want you to have a 50,000 square foot clubhouse, right? We didn't do that. We purposely kept those standards low to give you some opportunity to be flexible for what you need. We understand that you're not going to put a tough shed there because you want to attract people to want to buy there, right? Ultimately, you need to have some amenities that attract people to buy homes in your community. But what I'm saying is those amenities to me do not offset the... their community, not your community, but the entire area of Mountain Green. So when we talk about a park, well, it needs to be a park big enough that doesn't just support your subdivision, that supports others. And it sounds like you're trying to do that to some degree.

The other concern that we have as a developer is we're also asking our HOA to maintain Senate Park because the county doesn't have a parks department big enough. So now we're asking not only to provide a park, but to have our HOA pay for the use of said park, which is not a problem. I'm not saying it.

It's just at what point- Hold on a second. Did we ask you to do that?

Let me finish. At what point do we say our community cannot support And that's very nice for you to offer to have the HOA maintain that park, but to my knowledge we never asked you to do that So it's cool that you're that you're suggesting that and I like that and

But what I'm saying is if you came to us and said, hey, we want to do six acres of park, the county would have to take over the maintenance on it. We might be like, yeah, that moves the needle because we could build some ball fields and that would really help the community. But if you're saying, hey, we're going to do a pocket park, we'll maintain it, OK, cool. But who's going to come from the other side of Mountain Green to use a park that's two acres in size? Generally speaking these pocket parks are just retention basins that have grass in them and you call it a park and that's cool, but that's not What I'm getting at is You got to move the needle and you're not moving the needle To say hey, we're exchanging something for commercial, right? It's got to be something that actually is value to the community in my mind Not just simply because if we give away the commercial if we just let it go, right? That's tax value We could take those taxes and use that to build a park or to maintain a park someplace else, right?

It's tax value if the commercial develops. If it doesn't develop, there's no tax value there until that develops.

I guess my thought is here, because we're going...

Can I say just? You bet. OK. Sorry. Just as this discussion is going back and forth, I think there's a few things to remember. The application that we have is the one before us. And maybe it may be helpful to ask the applicant, do they intend to move forward? And do they want a decision tonight? Is there something they've heard some feedback of maybe some would vote for it, maybe some wouldn't? There were some comments earlier about what's required. And as far as the TC zone is, if they meet the 35% commercial, and then they've got the multifamily, and very bare minimum, the tough shed, the other stuff, as long as that development agreement comes through, then the county the entitlements are done and so as long as it checks the boxes of our code then we would have to approve that development agreement in that case now I think we would say with under the new text amendment in how it's been amended it allows more flexibility and it doesn't have all the criteria and maybe there's some ambiguity that we could change in the future but for the purposes of tonight that's what the applications under is the new code and it legally complies with the new code, but you do have discretion of whether you're willing to make that adjustment away from the standard TC zone. And so I don't know if I've hit everything, but the TC zone does not require single family. in its original form. The amended code allows that flexibility to exchange that single family for the commercial, whether it's between 0 and 35, whatever that number is. I just wanted to clarify at least the legalities. It's not really a policy argument. It's just to say it might be good to ask the applicant, do you want to move forward on what's been presented? Do you want to take some of this feedback? come back with something else. We can ask them to do a lot of things, which we've asked them to do, and they've done them. But the PC zone and rezoning, if they want to go that way, they can. But I think it would be good to know what they want. Do you want a decision today? Do you want to take it and work with it and come back? If you get a no, are you going to bring back the old one and then we make a decision on that? What does it look like? Okay.

So, and that's what I was going to say. I guess I'm trying to put myself in Brandon's spot or flagship spot or whatever and sit down there. I guess I would be frustrated with us if I was in your spot with we want this, but we aren't telling you what we want. And so, I mean, we can move forward with it, Brandon, or we could assign a couple of commissioners to specifically work with you quickly, to work through some stuff, come to agreement on what it is, but I agree. We need to be clear on what it is that we want. I love having the single family homes. I do. I think if we put one more town home down there, we're all going to be lynched. So I want that. I just want it to be beautiful place I want Mountain Green to be a beautiful place and we do have one chance to do it and if we can assign a couple of guys if there's a couple of us here that you would prefer to work with that's fine too but we'll do whatever you want to you can I think from our perspective we would like a decision tonight and I look at it this way we have three decisions approve or approve with conditions

Because that really tells us where we go next. If the approve with conditions is, you know, we work with a couple of commissioners to come up with some reasonable things, then maybe we can do that.

Sure. So I'm not here to argue policy. Specifically, flagship, can you hear me? Yes, we got you. where the project has been. And when I look at the record, these discussions have been going on really since 2023. A developer did purchase the property in 2024. And so they've been getting a lot of feedback. There've been a lot of county work sessions. They've engaged the community. And it's been a moving target, and the goal line seems to keep changing. So I guess from a legal perspective, and I appreciate, Garrett, what you brought up, which is you have an application before you. Staff has done an excellent job putting together staff reports. And at this point, it would be most helpful to have the county commission make a legislative decision, and put it on the record to either approve the project, approve with conditions, or deny, but then make the findings in support of your decision so it's on the record. what we prefer not to happen is that the project you make a motion for postponing the decision or to ask for another work session because I think that's happened quite a few times so I think tonight it would be great if we could just get whatever your decision is just get it on the record that's very clear appreciate it

And we'll just clarify, it is administrative, but there is discretion because it's a development agreement under our code. Because the entitlements are already there for the legislative decision, so this would be administrative.

Well, exactly. But I think the thing that maybe gets lost in all of this is that developers sincerely felt that they had taken all the input, and we have been working with staff, really, I have that we thought addressed everybody's concerns. We presented the joint concept plan, which is required at the TC zone. So we just need to know if the project we presented meets the code requirements, then entitlement's there. But we need to have the findings on the record.

Well, how would that look like when we don't know how to figure out the commercial?

Well, the application in front of you is that there's no commercial.

I know that, but if we do it with a condition, how are we determining that percent of commercial?

I guess that's the risk that these guys are going to take by moving forward with it.

That's why we had this work session was to talk about it, but it seems like they don't want to talk about it. They just want to say it's one or the other. And that's fine. That's the risk they take when it gets to the decision.

I have one thing for you, and I know it's past time. You've got two minutes. I don't even need two minutes. The big thing I see is if you're going to have open space, and you are going to try to have something more than a pocket park, please. And I know it may not hit your ROI, but... that area where you've got that last little town home near the pickleball courts or whatever, near the fire station, maybe you ought to turn that into a complete park. And whatever you do, any open space, leave it as open space. Don't let it be developed or resold or redone or however it has to be. Just plain leave it as an open space. That's just my two minutes.

Thank you. We'll move forward then in our meeting. We're going to take a five minute recess, and then we'll come back and start our regular meeting.

So my groove, I did all the slides.

They're protective. I'll still graduate. I did. I know. They say it's really fun.

I know. I really appreciate it. Excellent.

Thank you.

So I wanted to ask this question. When I start looking at, okay, what does the world stand for? I mean, that's pretty arbitrary. So it's like, okay, the clubhouse is gonna be off on this table. So that's kind of this, that doesn't, when it comes to, you know, so the amenities where, and that's what I really want to ask, maybe I'll ask when it comes for us, is, and this will give you some time to do that, what amenities are we wanting to work with?

Which I agree, again, we have quite a complex in the swimming pool. I don't want every time to get to know anything. Correct. Nor should, and you guys said, well, I'll take care of it. I said, okay.

We were talking about it. We were talking about it.

So, and that's what it's like.

So, and that's what it's like. And that's what it's like. And that's what it's like. And that's what it's like. And that's what it's like. Because my frustration with trombones, yeah they're great, but they're not really good.

So I'll go back to, and I'll bring this up when we come in.

So what I mean is when I work, and I'm not going to hold you simple. I'm just trying to...

She's caught on to that I was revolving like this, and so she doesn't ask me, and so I just am like...

There's only There was a miscommunication.

I would like to see all of that go.

OK, we're going to go ahead and get started with our regular meeting. Welcome, everyone. We appreciate your attendance this evening. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your input. Thank you for being part of our wonderful community and having concerns and coming out. We really do appreciate it. We're going to have an invocation by Commissioner Newton, and then he will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll go to that.

Our Father in heaven, we're grateful to gather this evening. We're grateful for Morgan County and the people who live here. We're grateful for the beauty that surrounds us. We ask the Father to bless us as we discuss the needs of our community and the desires of the people who live here that we will be able to make wise decisions and think through them fairly and logically. We ask you to bless those in our community who may be suffering or have needs and help us to be able to help them. These things we pray for in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen.

You'll please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, Appreciate that, Mike. Not many consent agenda items, which is nice. So I think everybody had a chance to look at those, I'm sure. Mr. Chair, I move we approve the consent agenda items.

Second.

I have a motion by Commissioner Newton and a second by Commissioner Nickerson. All in favor? Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, is there any conflicts of interest? Okay, I have a conflict of interest on number five, the discussion on the Buster VRBO. OK, so now we'll turn the time to public comment. Looks like we have a few people here tonight. So I'm sure we're going to have some public comment. Please, when you come up, state your name, where you live, and if you would restrict your time to three minutes, we'll, is our timer working? No? OK.

These are, can you remind them it's not the public hearing?

Yes, thank you. We have one thing that's been removed from our agenda tonight, and that is the Cottonwoods DAPRUD.

Sorry, Chair. I don't know that that has been removed. I think there was discussion about removing it, but there hasn't been any decision with the body, to my knowledge.

OK. Really? OK. Well, we'll just leave it on then. We'll just leave it on there until we get to that.

So if you have a comment on any item except for the Cottonwoods Third Amendment or Flagship Homes Development Agreement, now is your time.

Or number seven, the county ordinance. Oh, just kidding.

Or the ordinance on monuments.

Anything with the public hearing, which are seven, eight, and nine. But you're welcome to come forward. OK. All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good. How are you? Good. I just want to come up here. Sorry. Introduce yourself. Say your name.

Golden Barrett. I thought you guys knew me.

I apologize. But it picks up on the AI and it'll code everything.

So Golden Barrett, Deputy Fire Chief of the Mountain Green Fire Protection District. So thanks for hearing me out. We're here on just two different items that we'll discuss one later. So first of all, for the flagship development. So I just wanted to lend my support. You guys are probably all aware at this point, the agreement that we're having with flagship development and our fire station expansion, the potential expansion that we're going to be having. So that they're going to lend some property to us so we can start to build our fire station out a little bit so we can start to get full-time staffing. That's the whole point here. As we all know that volunteerism is starting to decline nationwide. We're looking into the future and to make plans for the health and safety of our community, we're going to be adding on to the station to get full-time staffing, bedrooms, and a few more bays for our fire trucks. So, I don't know the particulars and what you guys are looking to accomplish as far as the commercial. I'm kind of staying out of that. But with that being said, thank you guys very much, and hopefully you guys will support this development.

You said you had two?

I have another one, and that's going to be on the, looks like, item number. It's the COP for the Buster's VR meetup.

This is your time to make that comment. Perfect.

Awesome. So this is another one. When it comes to fire code and the role of fire code within our community, fire code is always, hey, how do we get to this? It really comes down to zoning. that prohibits a lot of the uses within a given area. And I just want to make sure that you guys are aware of that. It's a fire code and building code. If it's permitted within a certain area, then we can usually get to whatever project and get it accomplished. And it is really not up to the fire code or the building code to be able to say you can or cannot do something within a given area. That is not our responsibility or our role. So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear and everyone understood what was going on there. So thank you very much for your time. Okay.

Thank you. Anyone else have a comment? OK. We will move on to our action items. Before we do that, I had something, one of the beautiful things about being in public office is that we get to be everything gets to be public so it's come to my and been brought to my attention by some of the commissioners and other people in our community some of our constituents that sometimes I don't run as tight a ship maybe as I should here at the at the podium as the as the chair I will try and do better about that I like a light mood I like to kind of laugh and have a little bit of fun, and some people don't appreciate that. So I will try and keep things in a little bit more orderly manner if those that, I'm gonna obviously give latitude to our commission, because this is a commission meeting, If a manager and council would ask to be recognized, that would be appreciated. And we will obviously recognize you. We appreciate. And if we're going to make any decisions, Garrett, please butt in. We don't want to make any. I appreciate everybody that's up here that I work with, and they're good people, well-intended, always trying to do the best for our community. So we will turn the time over to Erica if she wants to come forward, please.

All right, you guys had a chance to read through the agreement. Do you have any questions? It's pretty straightforward.

Looks like we get a discount.

Yep. We get a little bit of a discount, and we are already using them. They'll just be charging us on a quarterly basis and coming in pre-planned on Charlie and Delta calls or more serious calls and only transporting if it's required so that we're not passing on that additional payment to the citizens unless it's needed for the service.

I would just like to say I've had quite a few comments from residents like, why is North Summit responding in Morgan, and what are we doing? And I explain that to them, just having that extra coverage and making sure that residents in North Summit, whether it's Weber, Morgan, that we do have the coverage and that our residents, wherever they are, are getting the services that they need. And I think it's a great thing that you guys are putting together just to make sure that we're getting to the people as quick as we possibly can.

Absolutely, and it does provide that.

I think these are all great, so thank you.

Great. Thank you.

One question I have is it seems like, and this is an interlocal cooperation agreement, that everything is directed at us using them what about us i mean not us using them them helping us what about us helping them i mean that was the thing i noticed in here is it doesn't look like it's an interlocal agreement it looks more like a morgan to north so um the reason we had to have this agreement just because there's money in play when it comes to the paramedic services coming in we do have an agreement with them where we go in and we have been going in for fire coverage and ems coverage when they require it

So when there are structure fires, wildland fires up into Hennifer and to the Echo Junction, we've been going to assist on those and we'll continue to do so. They come in on our fire coverage as well. They're built into the stacks through dispatch. This is specifically because we do charge for EMS services and this is helping them recoup a little bit of their costs when they send paramedics to us. That's a good question.

It is working both ways.

So the commission's cooperative agreement for everything else you signed last November, which it wasn't something new. It was an extension. Correct. But this is, and I'm sure we'll see it the other way around once the Croydon fire station goes live. Cause that's kind of what triggered all this is, Hey, we'll provide for your, your side of that County for fire services. Cause we're going to have a station in Croydon. But at the time, they were not staffing the North Summit office or location. So this is the start of that cooperative agreement, but we're not, we haven't brought.

I just didn't know if this here, the charges, the fees in here are all directed at Morgan County. This is what we're going to pay. What about North Summit? If we need to go and help them, is there any kind of a cooperative agreement within that? Are we under the same obligation, are they under the same obligation as we are?

Yeah, so we don't charge for fire services at all, correct? So if we do, EMS goes into North Summit, then we're transporting. So we're recouping all the money for that.

Okay.

It just doesn't have it in there. That's why I'm asking. I'm just wondering why we're the only ones in here and not North Summit's in here as far as the costs that we collect.

Because that agreement was already signed. Yes. And they don't, when we transport, we recoup everything from that as well when we go in. So there's nothing, yeah, that they could pay on the other end because they're not billing when we go in for EMS. Does that make sense?

No.

So the agreement the other way is already signed? That's been in play? This is, now they're staffing North Summit, so they can get here quickly. Now that they're staffing, the original agreement that we signed, this is us adding North Summit into it. So we already get paid. That contract's already signed. Yep, this is just adding this one in.

I want to make sure it's just not all Morgan that has to pay anything and nobody else has to pay anything to help.

Just to fill in, we're under a statewide mutual aid compact, the entire state, we sign, and ours is with dispatch. So it doesn't matter if we go to Anaheim Transport or if we go to Ogden. Last Monday when the whole world erupted, we were reported to the burn victim. If we were transported, we bill. So it's only, this is specific only to paramedic service. Paramedics, that's what I thought. If we transport anywhere in Utah, we bill, we keep the money. Yeah. The fire is like, when we have a fire, we need everyone. Monday was the example. We had three calls going in here, we read the news, that guy lost his life in the fire, and everything got covered, but seven houses from my house caught on fire, and two of the fire trucks that showed up came from 13 miles away, because we take care of each other. Hopefully that answered your question. That does, it does.

I mean, I knew we had an interlocal agreement with everybody. But it's just that, those fees. That's the only thing I saw in there that was a problem was the fees.

Yeah, and that's just this. Because we just went from a mutual aid to what's called the automatic aid. So mutual aid means we ask. Now, with North Summit specifically, they're automatically dispatched to certain calls that we've stacked, so we don't have to delay getting people to help us. Same thing, when we go up to help them, we're kicked out on any kind of fire right off to get there.

So the North Summit Fire District is basically Hennifer and Colville, is that correct?

Yeah, they have three stations, one ship.

Yeah, one ship is one. One is Colville and Hennifer.

Yes, they open Hennifer, now it's staffed with paramedic services, they're full-time there. The bigger deal there is when you do insurance in Croydon, they're in the 11 mile, fully staffed, so when people up there get their call, now they can be insured. And when we add our station, now that's just gonna up the ISO ratings for these insurance companies, who basically run the world. But it's just better for our citizens, and that's the least impactful financially that we can do, is just all of us help each other. Okay, thank you. Any questions?

Mr. Chair, I move we approve the interlocal cooperation agreement between Morgan County and North Summit Fire District regarding paramedic transport services.

Second. One of us?

Okay, I have a motion by Commissioner Newton, a second by Commissioner Fackrell. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner. Motion carries.

Okay, this application is for final plat. How are you? Good. So this is for a final plat request. for Wasatch Peaks Ranch, subdivision phase 6B. It's a 16 lot, single family development. The PC approved the preliminary plat for this phase and phase 6D on March 26th of this year. If you have any particular questions, I'd be glad to address those at this time. Justice here so he could do so do the same and we have representatives for Wasatch Peaks branch here as well.

Yeah Do you have a question for the applicant?

Yes. Well, no, it's for him. Yeah, it's for whoever wants to answer it. I don't care. Okay, okay on The attachment a in the vicinity Which ones we're talking about here? They were marked A, B, C, D. This one here is attachment A. Attachment A has at least 30 homes.

You have to look at the different ones, and it shows you which is A, B, C, D. There you go. Yep, it has colors on it.

The ones with the color, okay.

This one? Okay, that's fine.

Ooh.

See phase 6D, 6B.

Did you still have questions or not?

Is that a, yeah, I do have a question. You've got B39 right there, 3.52 acres. That trail... going to that location? Is that a trail, is that a ski type of thing? How do they get to their home?

Brian with WPR.

The driveway actually circles around B38, so what you're seeing is a ski run that's going along B39. So if you look at B14, The shared driveway goes around 14 through B38 to B39. So the previous final plat, 6A, shows that shared driveway access.

Okay, so there is a, basically they've got an access to B39. That's correct, yes. Okay, because I was going to say, they're going to have to pack everything in all the time. Yeah, no, there's a driveway. It's home.

Yeah, there's a driveway.

Okay, thank you. And the same would be, well, B50's already got one, so... And are those others, are these B42 and B48 and B49 on the other side of the trail, that's their property also? Or is that another potential lot? B42? B42, B48, and B49.

Looks like a ski run between, that goes through their properties. There's a ski run between them. It goes through their properties, it looks like.

Yeah.

Might as well come up, Brian.

Hey, Brian, put his glasses on. I can see now.

Yeah, so B42, the driveway access is between B45 and B48.

I think he was asking about the gray, the ski run.

You've got a ski run through there, and then you've got on the other side of that, is that on the opposite side of the ski run, is that? Part of that, is that open space or is that part of the lot?

Yeah, it is part of each of those lots, but it's declared open space.

Okay. It'll be recorded that way. All right. So it'll be restricted. Okay.

Okay.

That's fine. Thank you. Okay. Let's look for a motion then.

Mr. Chair, I move that we approve Wasatch Peak's Phase B final plat. 6B. 6B. Oh, sorry, 6B.

I'll second it.

Okay, I have a motion by Commissioner Nickerson, a second by Commissioner Blocker. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous.

Okay, this next application is also for Wasatch Peaks Ranch. It's for subdivision phase 6D, final plat. And it's for five lots that are single family and The preliminary plot for this phase along with phase 6b were approved by the Planning Commissioner Recommended Approval on March 26th of this year. So I'd be glad to try to address any questions you might have this time.

What's the green for in that B70 area? Do you have any questions, Blaine? I do. Okay. That's what I asked. What is the green area for on B70? Oh, that's, I believe, a wetland.

Yeah, that's what it says on the key. Existing wetland.

Native. It's also open space area.

So this one lot that is, I mean, this whole area is not green velvety, is that correct? Correct, where the green is.

They have a building .

No, I meant in any of these areas, because you've got 6.04 acres from B67, which could make it eligible. Is this Greenbelt? No, that's what I need to know. Is it Greenbeltable? B67. I think you had said that once before, Ed, that it was all this area had been taken out of Greenbelt and could not be used back into Greenbelt.

All of phase six has been removed.

OK, good.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I move we approve the WPR Phase 6D final plot. I'll second.

Five lot subdivision. Okay, I have a motion by Commissioner Newton, second by Commissioner Blocker. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. OK, looks like I have the next item, E4. This is a discussion on BOE.

So on BOE, do we need? Sorry, I didn't notice it as BOE. You're just questioning the policy.

So my question is, the people that have been calling me complaining that they've lived in their homes for many, many years and suddenly have received letters telling them to declare that it's a primary residence or they're going to be charged as a secondary home. Okay, they're back up Okay, I know you attached The different codes Kate I appreciate that You fill out the form at this point, they still can appeal their property tax being taxed as a secondary home. They still have that time period, but that's not how they're understanding it. They're understanding that it's too late. You're going to pay the full amount. That's concerning to me. I understand why we do this for people, new residences, people that just moved in for the first time and all that. but to mass send out these letters, I'm concerned about that because I don't want our people to be overburdened with property taxes and I don't want them to be missing and I don't want to be overburdened with a bunch of BOE appeals. So why are we doing this? So if Janelle wants to answer that or if you want to answer that, I don't.

So I will give the Kate version Reader's Digest version. But then the actual intelligent person, I brought Janet back in. And Janelle, your county assessor is here as well. So per the state tax commission and state law, it says that the county will pass a policy if it's going to require that primary exemptions fill out a form proving their primary exemption. In 2003, the county commission passed that ordinance requiring that the document be filled out for primary exemption. Janelle took office in what year? Two years ago. Two years ago, we have staffed her up. She is now going back through and making sure all Ts are crossed, Is are dotted. The people that receive notice are ones that we have habitually given primary exemption to, but that form is not on file. And as you may or may not know, your state auditor is coming to visit. A primary exemption is just that. It is an exemption, it is not an assumption. So any time that we give, the commission gives an exemption to taxation, whether it be primary exemption, green belt, or any veterans exemption, homestead credit, You are literally taking the tax base away and then dispersing it amongst everyone else, all the rest of the tax valuation. In order to do that, that is a reduction, which then, in theory, could raise everyone else's taxes. So in 2003, the council passed the policy to require that documentation be given to prove that this is your primary residence. The assessor's office, in trying to make sure that we're in compliance, sent out to everyone that we did not have that piece of paper on file. The state tax commission, if they wanted to, and the state auditor, if she wanted to, on anyone we didn't have that signed piece of paper, could come back and do what's called, there's a special word, capture the last three years exemption and charge that back to those people so like on my house if I didn't turn in that primary exemption it wasn't on file and in an audit it was caught the state tax commission the state auditor could force the county to come back and charge me that 55% times three years so she's covering everyone's butt at this point and that's sorry and that's not very PC but that's exactly what it is I do understand that it is frustrating because some people, you're right, they've lived in their house the entire time. But we live in a litigious society where anyone can sue for anything. And My pushback to that would be, if someone told me that I could save $9,000 by coming into the county building, showing my proof of residency, like signing a document, showing them an insurance card, and it would save me $9,000, I don't know why they wouldn't fill it out. But yes, Janelle has deadlines as an assessor. Those deadlines have passed. They 1,000% can appeal. And that appeal is just proving their primary exemption.

But we may have elderly people that don't understand that. OK. We might have some people that are young that don't understand that.

Agreed.

And all of a sudden, they're stuck with a full year. And we as a BOE have to make all those decisions like we did last year, which is, I think, redundant and ridiculous of doing it. It says we may adopt an ordinance that requires an owner to file an application.

Correct.

Okay. So we can also not adopt.

Correct.

And then we wouldn't get audited, correct?

No.

Well, we could get audited, but if we've said that we don't require it, then they can't.

As of January 1 of that year. So if you were to pass the, you were to rescind ordinance from 2013? That 2003, there we go. If you were to rescind the 2003 today, it would go into effect January 1 of 27. Well, guess what? The state legislature, they already changed it. So as of January 1 of 27, it goes away anyway. But right now, this is the only way we have to protect everyone so that the state tax commission and the state auditor cannot go back and capture all those lost revenue.

So how are we going to protect our elderly and those that that we've done this to.

We haven't done it to anybody. We've, this is a paperwork process thing. You're welcome to come up.

But yeah, we have done it because we've.

So your previous, the previous elected.

I'm just saying, we sent out the letters.

Correct.

Which kicked this into effect because previous to that, I know because I've lived here long enough. This didn't happen. This was instituted by Janelle.

No, it wasn't. It was not. That's actually inaccurate.

You told me that.

It was not done by me. I am just fulfilling what the law states.

Okay.

So the law, it is a state.

So you instituted it.

It is a state law. It is not a Janelle law.

No, it's not a Janelle law, but Janelle instituted the law here in Morgan County because it was not being followed.

Yes, it was being followed. It actually was being followed.

It sounds like you were enforcing what the commission passed. Well, not just that. It's the state, too.

No, it is a state law. It's not just a county law. This is a state law.

So is it?

So let me just kind of go over a little bit.

You're the one that told me yourself that Gwen did not enforce this.

Gwen did not push the residency. She did go through with things and there was still BOE and there was still the process. But we do have in the last two years as well with legislation, there is the law that states that you have to have proof of domicile. So she did actually do everything of going through the PRE and going through that primary residential exemption. She tried to get everyone to be compliant with it. And I'm not blaming anything that Gwen didn't do. She did it right. What we decided to do is that because of what the state law is stating, we are saying someone needs to state their domicile and they need to be able to state whether they're primary or non-primary. We give them ample amount of choices. We try very hard to get the information out. We are not changing people that have been there for 35 years or plus to non-primary. Now, if they don't comply with us, we have to do something because we have lines and dates that they're not complying to that. They're not giving us the information. And it is their responsibility as the taxpayer to sign that primary residential exemption. If we do not have a primary residential exemption on file, they should not get the exemption. That's all that is.

How many residents are not in complaint? I don't agree with that. How many letters did you send out?

It is. If you go to code 592103.5 sub 4, we won't even go to those. I can show you some of those things. The one thing that I kind of wanted to just discuss with is when I first saw this, I just wanted to kind of throw this out as well. But I am also an elected official and a peer to you. And I just want to make sure that... We understand where we're all standing because you never came to my office. You never even emailed me. You just went to a discussion and a decision tonight. And there could have been a lot of things that maybe education or we could give you some of the other codes of why we're doing this. We are very much following state code. That is my job and that is what I'm overseeing. So the primary residential exemption is something that the assessor has to govern, that I have to place that. And so on May 22nd, I have to place, wherever anyone is, I have to place that value, right? And I have to state whether they're getting primary or they're non-primary. Now they still have until September 15th, by the end of the year, to do a BOE. That is part of the due process of BOE that they can make that change. And anyone that gives us the right information, which is they're living there 183 consecutive days, right? If they are compliant with that, we give it to them through the BOE process. Most of those are just done by assessor adjustments that I make. And then when we go to the BOE, that's what you guys see is a lot of those are ones that I've already said, yes, they have the right information. What I see and what I'm going through, that's the ones that you're assigning.

And you think if everybody that understood that wouldn't fill it out? They would just on purpose not fill it out and not pay it.

Yes, there are many people that throw it in the garbage.

I know they do, because they don't understand.

Well, I don't know how much I'm supposed to put in there, though. Matt, this is the problem. How many times am I supposed to send them an email or a text? You know, I'm trying to send their mail to them as much as I can. There are going to be some that maybe slip through. But if you don't even use your disclosure and you don't look at your disclosure... Like, there's so many things that I actually can't handhold people to make them sign an exemption. It's not my obligation in some ways. Now, as the assessor of Morgan County, I try really hard to get the information out to that person.

So, Kate, are you saying that it's null and void next year anyway?

No, next year you have to have it.

Janet. You have to have. That is a Janet question. The primary residential exemption is one that that's one thing that it does say, because they just did it in legislation. And it's the third page back. You can go there if you want me to.

On my screen? No, it is. So it just says superseded. Did I read it wrong?

It's at the very end, yeah, in January of 2027. So what they're doing is you have to, the taxpayer shall, Right? That's not a maybe. That's not a whenever you want to.

That is, they shall. Where are you on here? There is.

Which part do you want?

We're on page 60, I believe, is where we want to be. Page 60. If you want 2027.

Well, sub 5, that's the one back.

You need to go back farther. So sub 5, that it's talking about the residential exemption, that the owner shall file with the county assessor a written declaration. That is their primary residential exemption.

It goes down. So that's saying...

starting january 1 it's now it's required not that it's going away already required what they require now is that they are saying that you have to prove your domicile so whether that is and that is going to the next page

So it's no longer sufficient to just sign a form. You have to provide some evidence. Right.

I can't just be like, I, Janelle, have five houses. They're all primary. Checkmark. Doesn't work. You have to say what they are, what your intent is, what you're doing with it, whether you're renting it and you have a lease, whether it's your primary, or whether it's a secondary. That's your choices. So if you go to the next one down, Kate, and it's in 11, sub 11.

Sorry.

You're OK. Sub 11. And then you're going to go down to, it goes to B, and then you're going to see the II. So this is the information. It says residential property and address is listed to the residential. So these are the things that we're asking for. We're asking for a driver's license. or if they have a tenant that has a driver's license, that they're saying, what is on there? I can also ask for voter's registration. Now people are like, well, why is the assessor not just looking at that? Well, that's not a road that I'm going to cross and go into Cindy's office and say, hey, are they a voter?

I'm still seeing in line one, In the superseded effective 1-1-27, it says we may adopt an ordinance. So that means to me we may not adopt an ordinance too.

We do have an ordinance in place.

But we could resend that ordinance is what I'm hearing if we don't want that ordinance.

So what are you suggesting? Everyone gets primary?

No.

Unless they prove otherwise. Unless you send them something that says- And how do you want to prove otherwise? they would have to come in and show that that was not their primary residency.

Yeah, but most people aren't going to do that, Matt. You've got people that are not going to do. I mean, if you had a house that you were renting as an Airbnb and you were renting that, are you going to come in and say, hey, this is a secondary one? No, you're not. You're going to try to take the taxes as a primary residence. I know people will do that. People are not always honest like the majority. So what we're trying to do.

that we don't have correct information. So like Kate was saying, if they are going to be, if we're ever audited or anything like that, they're going to ask for those questions, right? And so one thing that we are just trying to do is we're not saying you're not primary and you're going to have to prove otherwise, because I've heard that many times. That's not what we're asking. All we're asking, do you live there? Sign the paper and say yes, and here's, you know, if you want to come even into our office, because you don't want to have your driver's license in the assessor's office, come and show me. I can look at it, I can verify it, and I can say, I saw your driver's license.

Yeah.

Good. It's a paper that needs to be signed. It is a 45% exemption that you are getting. Point of clarification.

I still am worried about the people that understand and the elderly. So we were looking at the old. I have a question. I have a question.

Wait. Please. Just a minute.

Can you ask for, to be recognized

Chair, may I be recognized?

So we don't have this going on, please? Yes, you may.

So that other code that we were looking at is the old one. This is the new one, beginning January 1. And it gets rid of the ordinance. Counties don't get to have their own ordinances anymore. We don't get the choice anymore. No, it's now a state law. We don't have a choice. Everyone's uniform. And so the state code controls. So all counties have to file it. We don't get to have individual ordinances saying when.

OK. All right.

And the way that we're trying with that, especially with new bills, so anything that we have that is a deed change, my goal is to try and get them out within 90 days. And that's actually in code. And it says, within 90 days, the assessor has to reach out to that person and say, is this primary? Is this not? And that's what I do, because we use the deed information. we send out a disclosure and say, hey, this is important. After the third and fourth one that we've tried, then we're like, hey, this isn't fake mail. You really need to make sure you see this. And if they don't respond, that's my choice is to say, okay, then I'm taking it off of the exemption because I don't have proof that they are primary and that is their domicile. Correct.

That's not your choice.

It's not my choice. Sorry.

Okay, well, if the state's taking over, that's a fight I'm going to have to have there, I guess.

Janelle, I'm just curious, how many are in noncompliance? How many of these letters you sent out? Is it a lot?

Well, I have only sent out about 1,000, which is... We have 5,000 residents.

I realize that, but 1,000 BOEs is a lot.

You're not getting 1,000 BOEs. How do you know how many BOEs we have?

I'm just saying.

Right now we have, because of new bills.

The potential of 1,000.

Well, we have a potential of actually 8,000. How many parcels do we have? 9,000, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's how many potential BOE that we could have. So we have 9,000 parcels that could apply to the BOE.

But that also- I understand that this is a change.

But this is also your job to be the BOE as well. Now, we are making them and we're getting them so that we're finding people. I mean, I had a person just yesterday call me and said, my house has been, the house that I just purchased, well, it was three years ago. It's beginning the primary residential exemption and it's been empty. Should have been secondary for three years. But that letter that you sent out, I probably need to change that if it's empty, correct? Yeah, you should.

Honest person.

Honest person. So I mean, there is the opposite effect, that it is helping as well. But my goal is very much, number one, not to hurt our elderly. And if you knew me and understood what my whole push was, that is one thing that I'm really trying to help in our society and in our county. So that is not what we're trying to do. We are very willing to move wherever we need to. Now there are going to be some that come after September 15th. And that's just part of it. That's just part of the late, if they have that late appeal criteria, they have the right to appeal. And we're going to let them. Now whether we approve or deny it, that's all up to the BOE. But I am not trying to make everyone non-primary in Morgan County. That is not my job. It is not something, but I need to make sure that everyone is compliant and that we're making sure that that primary residential form is signed and that it is up to date. That's my job.

Okay. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Yes, you may.

Janelle, so... I guess my question is, and I've spent some time in your office, and I appreciate your time. We've talked about, just me and your staff, as far as streamlining on the construction side. Like, how do we get from a building permit to CUP to primary exemption or whatever it is they're doing to make that process? So I think that one's kind of a fairly easy fix. Just... in my mind, as that process with the planning department, the assessor's office. And then we talked about what triggers you reaching out. So if I were to purchase a home, that deed change and those kind of things. So right now, you've sent out these letters. And just for my sake and maybe a bunch of others, come January 1 when this new law takes effect, What is the responsibility of you as the assessor and the resident to, because you're saying, because if I read it right here, sorry.

Of what they have to update?

It says they shall, right, owners shall file an application with the county board of people before the county applies residency exemption. So what is going to trigger that? So if we have all these people, there's nothing on file, how are we going to notify these people? Is it through these letters or how?

There's always going to be something on file, whether it's, I mean, there's always going to be when they purchase or when they have a building permit, they're going to have a parcel number given to that parcel, right?

Right.

So every parcel, whether it's a developer or the new owner, they're going to have that information.

So I guess what I'm saying is, so like if somebody has lived in the house for 35 years, this takes effect, and it says that that owner shall have it. And again, maybe I'm just, tell me if I'm confused. Because it sounds like if there's nothing on file, but we're being required to have it on file, we don't have the exemption form on file. Does that make sense?

There still is, though, a lot of those that we don't have on file.

And that's what my...

There still is an address. There still is their CITUS address.

So I guess my question is, so if we don't have it on file, I just want the residents to know that, okay, come January 1, you are going to get these, or whatever it is, because the state is requiring, according to this code, And if we don't have it on file, we have to get it on file. We need to get it on file. Or the state is forcing it, isn't it?

Yes, we do need to get it on file, but that's the whole thing. All that they need to do is fill that paperwork out. And the other thing, too, if they need help, by all means, come to my office.

And so I guess with that, it has to be on file. If it's not on file... you're trying to get it on file because the state is forcing it. We don't have the option to have an ordinance or not.

And one thing that we're really trying is if we want to go earlier, but what we've been doing is we get a building permit, the home gets to about that 50% complete, and then that's when we start sending out that primary.

Correct. And I think that's on the new construction side. I think we can get through that fairly simple. My thinking is for these people that have lived in their homes all these years, if they don't have, and I know I have mine on file. I didn't throw mine away. My wife says, do you know what this is? And I'm like, I don't have a clue. And I came in and I asked, I'm like, what is this thing? But I just want people to know, okay, these are going to be coming. If you don't have it on file, we want you to get that. We want you to have that proof. And it's not we want to do it. The state's forcing it.

Well, and they'll also see with their disclosure, right? Because the disclosure, all of a sudden, you're paying half more. You're paying 50% more in taxes. So I would think if I'm only paying $4,000 and then the next year I'm paying $8,000, I probably would look at that a little better.

Right. Well, and I would hope that we don't get to that point to where people all of a sudden.

No. But they still have the right to use the BOE if they so choose.

Correct. And I wanted a little clarification on BOE, if I may. So we did a training just a couple weeks ago. And if I recall, they said that if it's initiated by your office, it still goes through the BOE process. Sure. And that's what you were talking about. Like, you're just bringing it forward and saying, yeah, we found that there was an error. It came in. We fixed it. And we've alleviated it.

Sure. We have 18 right now.

Right.

We have 18 that was from between May 22nd, when I closed the row, until today. We have 18 that we're changing from non-primary to primary. That was initiated by your office because they came in and... Well, and because we sent out primary exemptions. And they qualified, and they said, yes, this is my primary, and I've lived here for 183 consecutive days.

I was glad you didn't say years. I was going to say, man, I'm really... We all wish that we lived that long.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure I got that clarification so that in my mind.

And it's not one of those, and that's one thing. With this updated, right now they're already primary. I'm not changing them to secondary just because. Like, we're going to try and get the information as much as we can, and that's what we've tried to do. We've tried to send out multiple ones. We've tried to get their information of saying, hey, and by all means, call. Like, I'm here. That's what I'm here for. So we want to help the citizens out. We're not just going to be like, nope, you're secondary, sorry.

So it sounds like, and maybe... Tell me if I'm wrong here. It sounds like so there's really no reason for us to remove an ordinance because it's going to go away in January anyways. And really it sounds like from what has happened, what's transpired to this point, we really, hopefully we'll get, everybody can get their paperwork because, I mean, nobody wants to see their taxes double.

We've been able to make it a little more tight and configured so that we're not making big mistakes and giving people residential exemption or even keeping people on non-primary. We're trying to correct those as fast as we can. And we want what's right. I mean, I'm not going to try and, you know, that there are dates, though, that I have to keep to. And there are deadlines that are mandated by the state that I have to, I can't just be like, well, I know who you are, so you can come in. The door shuts. And there's the BOE process through the state if you want to go through that process.

Thank you.

Jay? Comment. comment and then a question so if we've already filled it out for this year come January 1st we don't have to come in and redo it no you're just updating your information so it's accurate okay so as far as a suggestion do you have to help maybe Matt out to the people that are have not done that, we could maybe contact them as their elected official and say, hey, can we help you to make sure you understand? Do you know people that don't know? I don't know. That's what I'm asking. Is there something we can do?

I mean, that's one thing. Refer them to the assessor's office. That's what we're there for, is to help with the BOE process. I mean, they need the information.

I think he's asking if you can give the commission a list of people that have not submitted

So that we can help them.

That have not submitted their?

That have not submitted it so we can help them. Because here they're going to end up going not through the BOE because they don't understand that that's what happened.

But when we have that situation, let's go through it.

What I'm saying is, is there some kind of a list that we as commissioners can go and help our residents

in hey did you get this in or you don't have it on file yet but you received it did you throw it in the garbage can we help you get this that's all i'm asking i will look through everything but i don't believe that we've changed anyone that has been in a primary resident for an extended a long time okay and we have not changed anyone to non-primary

But if they don't have something in file, we're going to have to let them know.

If I know a name and I know a parcel, I can definitely help you. Okay.

I'm just curious if there's a way that we can do it to where we can help the residents out.

Still worried about the elderly that might not get it and they just pay the bill.

Yeah, and not even going to worry about it.

So go ahead.

All right. Just to that last comment, maybe it would allow a little more discussion. I think we have to be careful as a government entity to treat everyone the same. And so just going through a list and choosing people that we want to call and going above and beyond, I recommend that we don't do that. But maybe there's some other way that applies equally across the board.

Maybe it needs to go to social media. I don't do that. I just read a lot.

Okay. Well, that's another idea we can do. Maybe put it on the website and somebody with Morgan Moms put it out there.

And that's fine because we do have a Morgan County Facebook one, and maybe that might be one of the options is saying, hey, we're updating our information, but most elderly people aren't on Facebook either. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you're always going to have some exceptions, but the more that we touch.

You can always say your neighbor or something like that. Correct.

The more that we touch, the more that it is.

That's right. That's all I was commenting on. Yep. You know, if there's a way we can help, I would like to help.

Well, I think the whole purpose of this, though, is it's not that the assessor's trying to gotcha. Yeah. That's not my intention, and it's not something that I ever want. My job is to make sure that I'm being compliant with the state, and my job is to make sure that we're updated, and that's what we're doing.

And I want to, the last comment I have is, I think Janelle's done a great job. She's done a great job at making sure the assessing of this county has been good. And that includes Greenbelt, because people have to apply for Greenbelt too. And I know you're going to be coming out with something on that. If you are in Greenbelt or you're taking Greenbelt and you're not using it for Greenbelt, you're going to have to pay taxes. I'm sorry. And I'll continue to do that the rest of my life, whether I'm here or not. Because, I mean, it's unfair.

Well, and the problem with any of these exemptions is it subsidizes to someone else.

Yeah.

And I think that's where we need to make sure we're being smart about is the people that really don't qualify shouldn't benefit from something. That's right.

So anyway, I commend you for your job. Mr. Chair, can I ask one quick question? You mentioned that you hadn't changed anyone from primary to non-primary. Is there a point at which you intend to do that if they don't file their paperwork?

We usually try to send out at least three to four. I've even gone to the extent of we're trying to even like with their title company or things like that. Like if there's any phone number that we can try and get to, we've been trying to research that.

The ones that... Is that just on new stuff or are you talking about the existing?

Those are just the existing. Now the new stuff, if you purchase a home and there was a transaction, those they have three. We send out three. If they don't reply, then they get changed to non-primary. So with these that we're just updating, we're not just like, change it over. Because we understand that 90% of our county probably is primary. But we're trying to work through all that. And it keeps getting more and more non-primary. And there's been a lot more since I've been the assessor that have disclosed that they are non-primary. So that's also a good thing.

I would just point out that the tax rate is derived by taking the budget and dividing it by total taxable value. So if you have an exemption, that just reduces the total taxable value. It doesn't reduce tax. It just shifts the tax burden someplace else. That's all it really does. Overall, the tax is the tax across the entire county. For Morgan County, it's about $3.5 million a year in property taxes that's spread across everybody. For Morgan School District, it's closer to $20 million a year that's spread across everybody. But when you talk about the difference between a tax exempt or a primary exemption versus not, It's not necessarily reducing the tax maybe for that individual, but it's just taking that tax and moving it someplace else.

Yep, it's giving it to the rest of everyone that is primary or whatever it is.

Which is why it's important to have it accurate.

Which is important. I mean, a 45% exemption is huge.

I've got just one real quick one. So when this is kind of said and done, let's say everybody's gone in, the whole county's covered, everybody's filled out their paperwork, How often, other than being triggered by a sale, deed changes, things like that, are longtime residents... how often should they expect to see these things?

So it says in the code right now that they're the ones that have to disclose that. So if they decide to put an Airbnb or they decide to move or whatever they're doing, or if they decide to make the home vacant, let's say a lot of those too, or whether it was a grandma's house and grandma passed away, that house technically should be turned into secondary because there's no one living in it.

Correct, but I guess my question is like, is there a time where they're saying, okay, every six years you need to go out and verify?

It's until the law changes again.

Until the law changes.

No, it really is. It's up to the taxpayer to change that. And I understand that. But it is good, and that's one thing that we're doing. It is good to... update all that information because sometimes there is 20 years down the road and it's still primary and it shouldn't have been. I mean, that's one thing. And whether we make a mandated, you know, every five years or whatever it is that that's, that's you.

Well, no, and I just didn't know if there was something where they can expect to see it.

Once they've stated, it goes forward. Yep. Once, once they've stated what they are, It goes forward until they decide that their domicile is no longer there. But it is amazing sometimes when I ask people, where do you live? And they don't know. They don't know which house to pick.

That's like when I went deer hunting. Pick one. DNR wanted to know where I shot that big buck. I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know. Pick one.

Down there.

Yep. So I think that's what it comes down to is they have to, number one, state what their primary is and go forward with it.

I just want to say thank you to you and Matt for both wanting to protect our residents and you know you have to follow the law and you're protecting them from what I understand the state coming back and clawing back three years of of tax well that would devastate some people too right so thank you thank you okay um the next one is mine also it's a discussion on

and decision on Buster's BRBO. I'm going to take a minute, first of all, because Mr. Matthews, one of our commissioners that's going to be coming up, felt the need to attack me publicly on Facebook. Had somebody send me that. Don't appreciate it. You don't know me from Adam, and I don't like my integrity questioned. I'm very, very full of integrity. I make decisions based on what's right. I don't need money. And in a small community like this, like you're going to find out, there's going to be conflicts of interest. The other thing is that no supporting documents submitted with this request. At times, there are not going to be documents submitted. And it's not because there aren't documents. It's because sometimes we don't want to just air all our dirty laundry on the internet to everybody. So I would appreciate it if we would take the time to, as a commission, as a county, to be kind to one another and do the right thing and not be accusatory of things that necessarily they don't know anything about. This item has been approved, Mr. Matthews, for a long time.

It was done already.

This was a discussion on how to move things forward. So I abstained from that vote, and it was voted unanimously. So just for your information. It's good to look into the back history and how things are before you start writing four-page things on Facebook. OK, so I think everybody understands and knows what's going on with the VRBO and Buster. I'm going to just give each person time to share their thoughts on it, what they feel like should happen. It's hard to have a vote when you've already approved something. But there's got to be something that we have to do here to move and make things right with Buster or give him options. So I think, go ahead Mike, we'll start with you.

I guess ultimately for me at this point, if we have code that indicates we can't do what needs to be done there, we did put in the agreement, whether we intended it or not, we allowed a use in that agreement for potential nightly rentals. So to me, if there's a code, and Garrett, I'll look to you to provide that, if there's a code that says we can't, then we probably need to revise the agreement and remove that, because we shouldn't have an agreement that allows something that's against code. If there's not a code that doesn't allow it, then I feel like we agreed to it, we move forward. That's where I stand on it, one way or the other. Vaughn?

There's a couple things. I kind of leaned on my son. He's the pilot in the family, and so he did some work on finding different things, talking to different pilots, actually called a couple of airports where I saw some things that kind of piqued my interest when you see hotels, things like that, near or close to airports. But I'll start with, I think the biggest thing that I see is, and I think Buster would be if I speak to him, is if there was something that was federally or by the Fed or the state that is prohibited, then I don't think he's going to put his pilot's license, his business license, things kind of at risk if he's going to break a law. Now, there's something, you know, when we look at the federal regulations, it says if we're a federally regulated airport, and I think that's kind of a big one. As I've talked to the different airports, their managers, Then we have to abide by the FAA and their guidance and what they tell us we can do. Nowhere can I find, when I spoke to the FAA and they said, this is where you go to look at that, are we federally obligated? And really, when you look at our airport and speaking to the people at the airport and the history of it, nor will we ever be federally obligated because of where the airport lies. The FAA hates where our airport is located, up that canyon. We have homes, or I'm sorry, not homes, but on the airport, our hangars to the west are actually encroached too close to the center line of the runway, so they would not give us any money anyways. And we've also allowed the commission, not us, but previous commission's councils have approved construction of buildings at the end of the runway, which actually encroach upon that same kind of protected space. anytime you look from what I could see from my understanding looking at it is You know, we don't qualify as federally obligated. They're not gonna give us any money So they don't the FAA doesn't like it, but there's not a you shall not and you're I could find We did find an Arapahoe County Public Airport spoke to Luke. I think you say his name's scathing He is their senior business support specialist. They actually have a They actually have a hotel on their public airport, and they've set up the lease so that they can run it. And so this is, you know, and I know that I've spoken to a few, like, well, if you can find that, so I had to kind of go back through. And so it's not that it's nowhere to be found, nobody's done it, but it also is like, when we look at the airport, And hopefully I'm not taking too much time here. We have a private section of the airport, and we have a commercial section. I think that commercial, when I look at that and I think about it, that commercial section was designated to try to bring taxes to the airport, to the county, so that the burden is not put on the residents. The burden is put on those that use the airport. And we've actually shifted, and if I recall, We put into our code that any money, or I would say money generated at the airport, just like our rifle range, and that goes back to that location to help to support that area. And so if we've created a rule that violates another rule, or we've made a lease that violates something, then obviously we need to look at that. But if there's nothing preventing it, we've encouraged people to bring business in. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. As far as the business aspect, I don't think that's our concern. But I also think, as we look at this, we can put restrictions on this Airbnb and be like, no, they can't stay there for six months at a time. I don't think that's the purpose. They fly in, they go skiing, they go hiking, whatever, and they're there for a few days, a weekend, maybe a week, and they leave. I look at this as a way to where the airport is no longer, this is the beginning of the airport not being a burden to our taxpayers. We're starting to make that shift. We just started this by saying, hey, whatever's generated there, stays there. The taxes that Buster would receive from these people, that needs to be reported and paid, and then we can get it. And I talked with Penny, and I'll bring this up in my commissioner comments. We want those tax dollars so that, I mean, I don't fly out of Morgan Airport. Many of us do not. So why are we paying for it? And that's the point of this whole thing is to get the burden off the residents. You know, if problems arise, then we deal with the problems. Now, again, if it's illegal, then obviously we don't want to get into an illegal lease or agreement, but me personally, I couldn't find anything. We spoke to an airport that is a public airport, and they have a hotel sitting on it that they leased the property from the county on the airport property. It's not in Utah, but I know that we've looked at all airports around, like Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and the feds haven't shut them down, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. That's me.

Bon, will you remind me where that airport is that allows a hotel on it, a public airport?

It's Arapahoe County Public Airport Authority. And I want to say that one was in Colorado. I'm sorry.

Arapahoe County?

I want to say it was in Sam. Yeah, if you want to step up. He's the one that actually talked to the guy because he speaks airport. I don't.

All right, let me just... I believe Arapahoe County was Colorado when I called, and then Centennial Airport, they also have a hotel, and that one is in California. And these are public? Both publicly owned by the county that have airports on airport property. The one in California, I wasn't able to get a hold of the owner. The county, I couldn't get a hold of anyone. The one in Colorado, he was really nice and called me back, and

Because I did the same thing. I searched and searched and couldn't find any. I spoke to managers from Wyoming, Montana, and they were not in favor of having Airbnbs at an airport.

So when I talked to the one in Colorado, he was like, are you guys federally obligated? Went down that whole rabbit hole.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm sure a lot of you have.

Yeah.

And he was like, are you ever going to be? That's his big concern with not allowing them. Where I told him, we're not. We never will be based off where we're at and all the points that.

From my information.

But in the future, we could possibly qualify for a grant.

Well, and that's what I was saying.

Because we have had one before.

No.

Didn't we have one before? No. To my understanding.

Just one back in 1971, I think.

Was that the one about relocating the airport?

Yeah, it wasn't the same grant assurances as some of the FAA.

And that's kind of what I was saying as far as the, because of what we've done around the airport, we're not going to qualify. We have hangers that are illegal. We have... There's a lot of things. And when we've talked about grants in the past, it's been like we try to avoid the federal because of all the strings attached. So when it talks about parks and open space, I remember Commissioner Newton saying there's usually a lot of strings attached to any federal grant.

and it kind of ties our hands um so so i'll be honest when we um approved the cup to me the airport sleeping in the hangar was the airbnb not the actual person habitating in the hangar so i was assuming that was the little the airplane sleeping in the hangar and not a person um so To me, there is a huge liability if we open that up for an Airbnb for pilots. Who are they bringing with them? Are they staying there? Sewage, water, who knows if they're going to be drinking and they're out on the runway. There's a lot of questions. And it is against our code right now to have any Airbnbs. So that's where I stand on it, is my understanding with the airplane sleeping in the hangar, not a person.

Okay. Well, my opinion, again, is we gave him a lease to be able to have overnight sleepers. And that's what I said the last time when it was brought up, is it's in the lease. And if we didn't want it to be in the lease, we should have done something then. And I am of the opinion that we, I mean one of the things we were trying to do in economic development quite a few years ago, is we were trying to bring about something we could do to increase revenue for the airport. Because in the beginning when I first became a commissioner, we were taking, we were subsidizing the airport. We were completely subsidizing it with our budgets, or with our monies, every year. And we finally have been able to turn that around, not totally, I think we have now with the Forest Service, with at least their pay. we've been able to turn that around to where it is being taken care of by the funds that are completely within, from funds that are received from the airport. Because our lease rates that we charge for them to put a building on that airport is so minimal, I would love to put a barn on it and put my hay in it for that lease rate. And that's been my biggest problem all these years. I'd love to be able to have that same kind of a deal using somebody else's ground to have my plane or my four-wheelers or my hay or whatever it might be, or my horse. For that rate, it's unbelievable. So I think when we went and put in, we allowed Buster to go and put in his development, we were thinking, in economic development area, we were thinking along the lines of, okay, look what he can bring in, or look at the charter service that we could get. We were trying to bring people into this county that were gonna be here for a visit, use our amenities, and turn around and go home. They were able to come into the airport, enjoy the airport, I mean, enjoy our area. Because there's snow basin they could go to, you know, it'd be nice to have a rent-a-car, you know, to where they could rent a car also. I mean, those were some of the things we were working on in the tourism area, is trying to find something we could actually go and, you know, take people up to Wasatch Peaks or up to Snow Basin or over to East Canyon or Lost Creek or whatever it might be where they could rent a car. And right now we have no rental cars anymore. at facilities in Morgan County. But is there a need yet? There's not a need yet. But what I'm saying is we need to bring about some economic development in those areas where they're not coming to stay, they're coming to, and VRBOs help us. They help us tremendously, especially with public safety. Or at least it should be done. And it helps us to bring about our county as a sense of a place where people can come and enjoy the quality and the tranquility of our county. And that is one of the biggest things I think we have in this county is tranquility. We have a place people wanna come to. And if we can, I mean, you can't buy a place here in Morgan County unless you've got millions. And so those are the things we've got to look at is just allowing people to come here and I think it's a good idea for him to be able to have that still.

Okay, thank you. We have our airport manager here and so I always like to hear what he has. I know I saw a letter from the airport board. Maybe he can share some of that too and his thoughts. He's a heck of a manager. I know you like to public speak.

You know, the airport, it's unique. Raylene, we'll never get a precision approach into this airport because of the mountains, which is why we'll never get any federal funding. Buster, when he flies out to pick up an IFR clearance, he has to get out of the valley and pick it up in the area. And Buster could probably talk to you about that. He has to pick it up out in the... Usually goes to the canyon if you can. But it'll never happen here. We've encroached on it. I think the perception of an Airbnb is a whole bunch of people are going to come in. That hangar will hold two airplanes and probably four beds. I don't know. I've seen it, but I don't know what he's going to put in there. It's not like we're going to have a whole bunch of people flying into the Morgan Airport just to stay overnight. It's going to be a family maybe of four or maybe two couples. I don't think it's a problem. I think it's a cool thing. I think it would be awesome to be able to fly into the county, go mountain biking at Snow Basin or skiing. Pilots understand airports. If they flew in here, they're not going to go play on the runway. They're not going to mess with any of that stuff. And there's a lot of us around there. Most of the board lives right there. The airport advisory board lives there, and we watch it pretty closely. So any other questions for me? I think it's a great idea, but.

I just think it opens up a can of worms and we set a precedence once we say, yes, you can have. an Airbnb right there, all of a sudden someone else is going to want one, and what about the neighbors right there?

How many spots are left to build Airbnbs on? There's only four building lots there, right, in the commercial zone?

Right, but I'm saying maybe private hangars might even come and say, well, you'll let them there.

It's a different lease, though, correct? Yeah, it's a different lease.

Yeah, the...

We'd have to change it at least, but I've talked to quite a few people, and it's like, and I had a hard time, and sometimes I still struggle with, like, separating the commercial from the private and saying that this falls under, this has, like, the commercial has certain things that they can do that the private can't, and the private has things they can do that the commercial can't. For instance, I think the one that comes to my mind is We have people that own a hangar, and maybe it holds four airplanes. They keep one, they rent out for three others. So they're making hundreds of dollars or thousands a month on those other airplanes sitting in there. On the commercial side, he can't do that. He cannot rent it out for hangar just to store somebody's plane on the private side. So there's a give and a take on both sides. And so as I'm looking at it, it's like, OK, I can't think of the private when I'm thinking of commercial. And I can't hold the private to the same standards as the vice versa.

And that's really the airport zone, not commercial zone.

What's that? Well, we have a commercial zone.

We have a commercial airport zone.

Correct. And a private.

A private airport zone.

And that's where it's like trying to separate the two. And they land in the same spot. And I didn't mean to say land. So they're in the same spot, but they're two very different places. And I think that's, and as I look at it, as I read over the, and I'm not, I read the electrical code. That's where I'm really familiar. But as I read through that and I'm trying to kind of discern it, it's like I've got to separate what we allow in the commercial zone of the airport, which I think six total hangars. Is that what it is? Is it six total or five total? Five total. And then you've got how many we have in the private? Fifty?

Eight. I'm sorry, but there's a lot.

We won't make you look at it, but there's a lot more. And again, I mean, we've had people try to live in their hangars in a trailer, and we've had to make them leave.

56 in an FBO.

There's what?

56 in an FBO.

56 in an FBO. So you have 10 times the private as we do the commercial. And it's just like trying to separate that. And it's been a challenge for me to try to keep that separate. And, I mean, listen, you know, as my son's gone through flying and training and, I mean, I look at my electrical license and I look at what I do and what, when I renew my contractor license, have you done this? Have you done that? Have you been convicted of this? I mean, and then I think about what he's done to get his licenses and certifications. Anybody that's dumb enough to put that in jeopardy by doing something stupid like playing on runways and that, it's like, I just have a hard time. It's a different group of people than anybody. Like when I go do an Airbnb in Hawaii or Vegas or somewhere like that, it's like, you know, I just, it's a different group of people. The pilots I've met, I mean, when I flew down to Chandler and stayed there, I mean, the way I look at how that airport operates, and it's a small airport, not a big airport at Chandler. I'm way bigger than Morgan, but it's just a different group of people. And, you know, because when I think Airbnb, I think the college kids and spring break. That's what we think is a massive party. And I just... Our pilots, I see what they go through and what they do to get that. I just, I can't get there. I just can't see them risking million dollar airplanes and certifications to do something dumb. Again, that's just me.

Do you have anything? Can I go? You can go.

Yeah, any questions, just throw them at me. Thanks, Kate. Thanks.

So I guess the question is, Garrett, is what does our code say? Is it legal?

Chair, may I speak? Yes, you may. You know, I'm giving this as feedback, not as an attack either. The difficulty with the two-edged sword is it cuts both ways. And when you're talking about your integrity, feeling attacked, things of that nature, I guess I just wanted to point out before you attack or put something on the agenda. So the way that I read this, it kind of comes as an attack. I think Janelle felt attacked too. So I just hope that we share that respect for each other and hold ourselves to the same standard we're requiring of other people. I guess I can speak to the code. I took notes on each of Commissioner's comments that I can respond to as well. But I think maybe a general question that I would have for the commission, Chair Wilson, this is your item, but what, I guess, what do you see my roles and responsibility are as the county attorney? And does, well, I can come back to that, but what do you see my role being? And then also, I think I'm getting an idea of what you're asking me to do here, and I can follow up on that one after I talk about the code itself, but what do you see my responsibilities as being?

Just offering any legal advice that would prohibit this and tell us an exact code that prohibits it.

Just my general responsibilities, though. Like, am I offering that advice to anyone who walks in my door, to every resident, every business owner? I mean, where are my priorities?

Well, you're the county attorney, so to our residents.

Yes, to a degree, but I can't, like every boundary dispute, I can't represent the residents. I guess I'm just trying to explain where my statutory obligations are.

Well, I can read your, I printed out your, I'm going to read you what it says. My duties.

You don't have to. I'm just asking, what's your understanding? Because I think we could have.

So I think you sit on here to give legal counsel to the commission. If we're going to make a detrimental move, you would raise a flag and say, I think if you do this, it would be detrimental or put us in legal problems. although we have the ability to say whatever we want. We can decide whatever we want, and that's what I see your role is, to share with us anything that would potentially create a legality for us.

I see your role as protecting the county, and you're also protecting the commissioners as well. But I also see our role as working together as a team to protect the county, and not have contention in between us that causes contention in the county as well.

Were you going down the line? Well, I don't know.

I thought that Commissioner Newton was going to. You were just saying not every resident, potentially.

Yeah, I mean, my comment was you're certainly not obligated to defend or protect every resident. That's not how it works. there's some obligation in terms of criminal defense, or not defense, but criminal prosecution, right, which is protecting the county and our residents in one form or another, and then certainly providing the guidance and advice to the county commission to keep the county from getting into legal trouble. But ultimately, I don't see it as, hey, everybody that comes and knocks on the county attorney's door gets free legal advice. And I don't think anybody else in the county should see it that way either.

So here's what it says. Enforcing open meetings acts, managing executive sessions, vetting ordinances and resolutions, approving contracts and agreements, weighing the legal risks, and blocking illegal claims. That's a short summary of it.

Yeah, on the civil side, right? And then I've got, of course, the criminal prosecution duties. And I guess the point I'm making there is, There's only so much time I can do and I wanna say I appreciate the commission because you've bolstered my office and you've seen how much we rely on Janet. We have Julia, Kim, Dana, we're doing great. We did have a deputy who resigned, which has thrown a lot back on me. So I'm not gonna sit up here and say that I handle everything perfectly and that I'm the most responsive person in the world. but there's also reasons why I'm not always responsive and I do have to prioritize. And so when I'm prosecuting cases and when I'm defending the county, those take precedence. Nowhere in my job description does it say subsidizing business owners by figuring out how to make their business work. That's not part of my role and responsibility. When I'm working and going through the code, yes, I can provide guidance. But when attorneys are mentioned and being consulted, then I have to approach it in a way that defends the county, because that's my priority. I'm not picking and choosing which residents I'm going to do free legal work for and make their project work. That's not my responsibility. And so what I see this, if I read it, it says discussion and decision on CUP for Buster's VRBO hanger. There is no CUP application for the VRBO hanger. That has yet to be filed. If it was discussion and decision on amending the code to allow his VRB CUP to be considered if he chooses to file one in the future I think that's there and then the specifically being held up by attorney with no letter or phone call to explain the reason I Mean that's that's attacking my integrity that I'm holding something up. That's assuming that there's some bad intent here I was told to me by the Planning Commission.

So yeah, you're right No, it was not because yes, it was it

Well, there must have been a misunderstanding because there's no CUP application to be held up.

There's a tenant improvement application, and it's being held up, and they said it was sitting on your desk.

So it was being held up on your desk. It's not being held up. it just may not be addressed. They submitted that tenant improvement a couple weeks ago. It goes back to the same conversation that we've been having. And most applications, they have to say, OK, I want a final decision. You have 45 days from that point. And once again, I'm not talking about prioritization. But I'm not going, you know, I have friends family i have other people in the community and and i would challenge anyone to find a time where i have held something up from a personal interest or even spoken favor when i had a conflict i i move aside and i let other people handle that the point i'm trying to make is i don't even know what's on your desk to tell you the truth well you can go look and see that there's a lot of things on i'm saying i don't even know why it made it to your desk

Why does it make it to your desk?

Because it involves the code. And if there's something illegal that's being requested and we approve that, I have to defend it. That is in what you read are my obligations.

And what is that code, Garrett? What is that code that is being...

Well, but here's the thing, is you say, you know, we want to talk about it. Like, if you have an issue, come talk about it. You called me. You said, why are you holding it up? I said, there's no CUP application. You said there was. We had a short conversation. You never asked me about what code. And so the point is, a two-edged sword cuts both ways. And if you want respect, you have to give it as well. So I will go into that code. And it's not just one code. It's multiple codes. Usually we think, okay, we're going to fix this. I mean, we had a town center code discussion earlier. Okay, we're going to fix this. Oh, now we pulled this string. Now there's other things we didn't think of. Can we fix it again? Every time you try to fix a code, you're pulling a string that has unintended consequences. So I guess with that being said, the on-point code is 155.350 short-term vacation rentals. And this isn't a shock. This has come up in multiple meetings. It's not like we're hiding the ball. We're just not saying yes after we've said no.

This is in the airport zone code, right? Yeah.

Well, actually, the airport zone is a commercial buffer zone. That's the underlying zone, and it does not allow residential uses at all. Short-term vacation rentals is defined as a residential unit or any portion of a residential unit that the owner of record or the lessee of the residential unit offers for occupancy for fewer than 30 consecutive days. so the point is there is no short-term rental in any commercial zone it's for residential zones it has to be a residential unit there are no residential units on the airport just a quick one so short-term rentals anything under 30 days so a hotel a motel

How does that, and this is just me, what is, because if I think of a rental and I go stay in a hotel and I'm there for three nights a week, whatever, how does that?

Hotels limit that as well. Well, hotels are allowed in commercial buffers. Same with motels. But that's not what this is.

But what I'm asking is, what's the difference between a short-term, I spend three nights at a hotel, versus three nights in an Airbnb?

That's my... Our short-term rental code defines it as a residential area. It has to go in a residential area. So this is not a motel or a hotel. So where does it fall?

But it's a short-term. I'm spending a short amount of time. And again, I... To me, if it's a hotel, it's a short-term, I'm renting the room for a short period of time.

And maybe I can go through all of the questions because I didn't interrupt anyone. And maybe I'd answer them as we go. Sorry, I apologize. No, I'm just saying it may address that because that's part of my notes as well. So number one, you've got the... just the short-term rental that is only allowed in residential, which the airport is not residential at all. So it's prohibited by that as a starting point. Now the commercial buffer, which does allow for bed and breakfast and hotels, and this goes to Commissioner Nickerson's comment that there's hotels on public airport. Well, a hotel isn't a residential use. A hotel and a VRBO are not apples to apples. Hotels have full-time staff, so do Airbnbs. A short-term rental is someone coming in. And so once again, I haven't been told about Arapahoe or Centennial. I can go look at that as well. But I've talked to a lot of different airports in a lot of places. I've talked to John Sweeney, who's with the Denver Airport, and he's a planner over there. And I mean, I've talked to a lot of people trying to figure this out, because once again, I've got to protect the county, make sure that we're not exposing to liability. And if we can, we can facilitate for our residents what they want to do. But at this point, there's nothing. The code outright prohibits it, which is a difference than it's permitted with a conditional use permit or something like that. um so so does he not have a conditional use permit he has a conditional use permit from 2022 which is very limited in its narrative and it's only for the first nine line hanger there's actually six potential hangers on commercial because it includes the nine line hanger from the 2022 lease So he has a CUP for those uses. He has not expanded the CUP yet. And that first CUP, it did not address habitation at all because habitation and commercial are also not apples to apples. There's very different conditions that are placed on habitation just for health, safety, welfare. And so just to distinguish, you know, having a hotel on an airport, if there was a hotel and it fit within that commercial buffer zone, there's a potential that it could be there. But an unmanned residential use for short-term rentals is not allowed. There were some, so Commissioner Blocker talked about understanding the VRBO for airplanes and I can give some background on that too. I'm the person who gave the idea to Buster trying to help him figure out how do I distinguish this from phase one? Because if you remember, when Buster was coming forward, phase one, people were very upset that they were on a list and they wanted to be the next one to have a hangar and Buster was given the monopoly, so to speak, of, okay, I'm getting the rest of the airport leased ground. And so part of that agreement back and forth, and once again, I'm looking back, I'm like, why am I subsidizing? I understand, but every time I'm spending on someone's pet project, I'm not. working for the residents as a whole. But I did. And I prepped for court at night and other times of the day. But I was working on getting that. And part of the agreement was, well, how do we distinguish what phase one does versus phase two? And so I said, well, why don't you do short-term storage, like a VRBO for planes? That's how we distinguished it. Now, I don't speak airport either, and Buster doesn't speak legal all the time, right? I mean, we've kind of had this discussion that what I said and understood and what he heard and understood are two different things. We've addressed that ad nauseum at the last meeting. That being said, that's where this whole idea came from. Buster never intended to do a VRBO for planes even at the airport until I brought it up as, okay, throw it in as one of the things we could put in the lease. So that that being said that it was the VRBO for the airplanes with the meeting of the minds at least with the drafter of the agreement To Commissioner blockers comment about liability that is a big issue and that's probably the last piece of the puzzle of these strings I've been pulling that I've tried to to put together in my draft letter that I've kind of been reading my notes from. But one of them is in talking to the Utah County Indemnity Pool president, Johnny Miller, he said that UCIP doesn't cover our airport at all. We have to contract that out with private providers because they're unwilling to, well, I think they're just unable to because the airports are so specialized and they have the different risk and liability. So I have emails and calls to, I believe her name is, yeah, Stephanie Salazar. And she had to put it up the chain because this isn't a typical thing. This isn't a common thing. She doesn't know. So she had to reach out to the airport people to see, is this something that could be covered? What does that coverage look like? So at the end of the day, if we have some sort of injury at the county airport, it ultimately falls to us. We have some insurance provisions that we require them to have, but as the owner, there's still premises liability, and we are on the hook. And so it's not just a split-second decision of, I like the idea, I'm going to do it. Okay, let's pull that thread. If we amend it and we allow short-term rentals in commercial, okay, we've allowed that in all commercial zones, except specifically live work where it's It's specifically prohibited in our code. And so it's not just a matter of, okay, let's change it to say a residential or commercial unit. Okay, we've got it. No, now we've pulled that string. We have to look at our use tables for zoning. Let's see. Okay, the CUP versus the lease. I think there's some confusion there because the CUP is a conditional use permit that allows certain land use activities to be done on a property where the lease is a legal agreement, a contract that says we're okay with you doing X, Y, Z. And so a lease does not grant you a CUP. That's a separate process that has to be followed. The lease says these are things that we're agreeing that you can do. but you still go through a CUP so that those things that have been agreed to be done can be managed. Any potential detrimental effects can be mitigated through that process. So we, I think we've kind of already talked about this. Like there's the private side of the airport and the commercial side of the airport. The zone is the same across the board though. So there's really no residential. Commissioner Fackrell, you brought up the lease and if the lease says that we can do it, then we can do it. And that's what I believe we hit for 35 minutes at the last meeting this came up, is section six of the agreement talks about complying with all laws in effect at the time the lease is executed. Now, if the law is changed after the lease is executed, they can take advantage of that change, but they're grandfathered in. So if we wanted to restrict it after the fact, they're grandfathered and they can have that same use. But if the law conflicts with the lease itself, then they agree that the law holds the the law is what supersedes the lease so if i'm contracting with someone to sell my drugs and they break the contract and i go to the courthouse to say they owe me x amount because i distributed this amount of drugs to them and they didn't pay me for it a court will not uphold that agreement because you can't they can't enforce an illegal agreement and so Even though it says aviator instead of aviation lodging. If it's illegal, it's not enforceable. So I guess to bring it back to the beginning and. You know I'm happy to answer questions, but. What are my roles and responsibilities? I'm going to prioritize based on that and. and moving someone's application forward, if that's not the priority on that list, and if moving this forward, and I was looking at this and I said, oh, we have a lot of liability here because we signed this agreement and we're on the hook for this, our taxpayers are gonna foot the bill because of my mistake, you bet that goes to the top of my priority list. But I have spoken with the USIP attorney as well, who specializes in land use. And he indicated, based upon our ordinances, what was in effect at the time, that there aren't arguments to be made, successful arguments to be made. So once again, I can apologize and say, yeah, if I was up to speed on everything that was on my desk, I probably could have been more proactive on this. but I have not done anything to the detriment of the county. And in fact, all of my research has been for the benefit of the county. And if a text amendment came forward to allow this to be on the airport without significant changes in some sort of insurance coverage, looking at the rest of our code, I would be recommending denial because who does it benefit? At the end of the day, I have to understand Who does this primarily benefit? Is it a good text amendment that applies across the board to all people? Is it spot zoning, spot ordinancing that only benefits the few? I've talked to you about those concepts a lot in the past, and I would, once again, recommend denial if it came. So those are my general thoughts, but if you have any questions, I can answer those as well. Questions?

Buster, do you want to take like two, three minutes and just share anything if you want? If you don't want to, you don't have to.

For my fellow citizens, too, because I did not mean lifetime aviator, not a developer. It's been claimed I was a developer on Facebook. I'm not. So I too am learning this process and I appreciate everybody's efforts. It was not my intent to generate angst. For five years I worked with the county to help develop and improve the land. My family's put extra money into the hangars, trying to raise the bar, landscaping, We live there. We're certainly not looking to make enemies. And I appreciate everybody's efforts to do the right thing. And if I'm wrong, I too will say, well, let's talk about a different plan. But in my research, I cannot find it. I too have talked to John Sweeney at the FAA. And I've got cards here if anybody wants. I did not know this mole hill was going to become a mountain. I apologize. It was not my intent. But I have to, and there's a lot on Attorney Smith's plate, running or advising the legal aspects of the county. So I appreciate that. And I, too, running a business, understand task saturation and misunderstanding. So first off, in April of 25, I have the time stamp from the YouTube video, which can be watched. where the CUP, which I have on my phone, is general in nature, and it was part of the then applications for two leases. And it basically just approves the aviation, commercial aviation endeavors that I was trying to get there, and Forest Service relocating being one of them. But in the April 25, Commissioner Fackrell asked Attorney Smith about The VRBO concept, again, not college kids, I think accurately estimated by Commissioner Nickerson. And on that YouTube video, Attorney Smith says it's covered by the CUP. So it's new to me that I have to apply for a new CUP, but I was relying on that YouTube evidentiary clip, and I have that. Also, I, too, got legal advice, and Section 6 does say what Attorney Smith said about precedent, both that the... The lease does say short-term aviator, which Merriam-Webster's dictionary is a person, not an object like an airplane, lodging rental. So that was in there. This lease, by the way, for my fellow citizens that were not obviously part of all this, and again, I apologize for all the time this has taken, not my intention. This lease was edited in public at a meeting with Microsoft review up on a screen and the 12 comma approved uses were reviewed and Commissioner Fackrell asked about this VRBO thing and I explained that it was, quote, in the YouTube, sleeping with your plane. So, again, misunderstandings, I'm not sure, and it happens, and I acknowledge it. It's part of our human existence together, so no hurt feelings on my part there. All I'm asking for, but Section 6 does say about grandfathering in future laws, but it also says, or... Any other decree from a governing authority contradicts, contravenes, or otherwise conflicts with the terms of this lease, either directly or indirectly, this lease shall control. So that was what my lawyer pointed out. Just getting counsel. I'm not saying, I'm just trying to get educated everywhere I look. I've talked to John Sweeney. I've talked to the largest airport organization in the world. Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association just today, their legal department, they too can find no reason. I've talked to UDOT airport director, the airport authority for UDOT, aviation division there, Craig Eide, He too says he sees nothing as far as other claims about living on a, whether it be residential or there's other examples. I'm an aerial firefighter. There is a hotel. You can book at the, it's a choice hotel. Not the residents, but at Santa Maria Airport in California, of all places, where you walk out the lobby onto the tarmac to jump on your air tanker. So there are precedents. I'm happy to provide my research as well. I appreciate everybody's... Looking out for the best for the county. I think, too, like the airport manager said, this would be a great deal. I did not solicit the idea, but I do appreciate the idea, and I, too, am available for questions. But I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if I was wrong. I've been researching a lot. I've looked at federal, state, local. I've read the county ordinances. I've read the airport overlay zone. I'm not seeing it, so... I see where there's a separate ordinance that was quoted tonight for in general, you know, the VRBO concept. But I believe, perhaps ignorantly, naively, that the airport overlay zone is its own zone. So to take a rule from some other zone and apply it to it, I didn't either connect those, I'm not sure, so I'm not a lawyer. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'm happy to say it. So thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

Just a couple of clarifications, if I can. yes sure so a hotel is a commercial use and so i know that all the examples of other airports using hotels that's not what we're talking about here this is short-term rental which is a residential use um the part that he quoted in section six he forgot Very important word. It says to the extent any future law ordinance rule regulation blah blah blah this lease shall control so Your grandfathered in and if a future law comes in the lease controls because your grandfathered in but The preceding sentence says that you agree to be bound by all laws in effect at the time this lease is executed So I think that that one word needs to be acknowledged. I have also reviewed the YouTube video and I sent all of you commissioners basically a timestamp breakdown before the last meeting that this came up. And Commissioner Fackrell was asking a lot of questions. And yes, I did hear in the YouTube Buster say, pilots sleeping with their plane. but it was in the middle of a question where, as Chair Wilson said, you know, be recognized because sometimes we talk over each other and there were a lot of questions being gone and just know that had I heard that I think it would have been a different discussion that's all I can say but if you do go back and you timestamp and you watch that you'll see that a comments made here while a questions being asked and the comment was lost because we moved on with the discussion so other than that What are you asking me to do? I think that was the question I asked at the beginning. I don't have the authority to amend our code. That has to come from the planning commission or a resident submitting a code change. So that's not something that I can just automatically do. I will point out that we've had a short-term rental code amendment that's been sitting for over a year because we haven't sent it out for the survey. And so I don't know what the timeline is, but once again, we prioritize and we get to them as soon as we can. But yeah, I guess I'll defer to any direction. And if the direction falls within my duties, then I am open to doing that.

So I'm guessing this is going to take some further discussion is what I'm hearing.

Mr. Chair, based on what we see here in the code, it is pretty clear short-term rentals are within the residential area of the code. They're not in the commercial. If it's not listed in the code, it's not allowed. So the only way that this goes forward is that we adjust the code. That's the way I see it. And regardless of what FAA, sorry, agriculture on my brain, I'm still deferring. Regardless of what FAA or any other airport does, our local code, Morgan County code, does not support short-term rentals in a commercial zone currently. If that's something we want to talk about changing, we could certainly do that. And we could talk about whether that makes sense in multiple commercial zones or not. But To me, that's what the code says currently. If we don't like it, then we change the code.

Mr. Chair, question along the lines of what you're saying there. We have, and this is not, these are residential units within a commercial zone. already at canyon canyon view commercial because we put that into place last year so that way a business could go and build an apartment above for their employees or whoever it was so it's not short term no those are allowed because because it's allowed in the commercial use table that you'd have to add short-term rentals to the commercial use table in order to make it

allowed within any commercial zone.

Okay, so when you say that there's not allowed in the county in a commercial area, I'm just saying that's something we need to... The differentiator. Yeah, differentiator. We need to either change that code, like you say. We've got to change the code or just fix the code.

Or agree that it's fine the way it is, one or the other. Yeah.

Mr. Chairman. You bet. And this is something I was like, I've been trying to wrap my head around this for quite some time when it comes to the short-term rentals. So as I've kind of looked at it, it's like, so a short-term rental is in a residential area only. It's not considered a commercial venture, but yet we require a business license. So I'm like, we're, that is like the weirdest written code Like, we require you to go get a business license to run your business, but it's not a commercial use. And we only allow it in residential areas. I mean, and this has nothing to do, I know, with the airport. This is just kind of, I have a time to kind of bring it up. And I've talked to a few people in the county. I'm like, it just sounds weird to me that it's a residential use only. We require you a business license, but we don't allow it in a commercial area, but it's not a commercial use. And so that one is kind of, Chloe's giving me a look. And so, but that's my thing is.

Oh, you're asking for the floor? I am. Absolutely. Perfect.

I'm so grateful for all the curious questions that Vaughn asks. He comes in and talks to Penny and I about stuff like this all the time. I'm super grateful for Garrett backing us up when we talk about this code because if we approved every single business license that came in, you would have a lot of issues. Because most of them are not done educated. I don't know how else to word that. But this is what we have and this is what we go off of. And so if this was brought to me, to my desk as an application, I would say no, based off of that code. Because that's how I'm trained and that's what they teach us at UBLA, Utah Business License Association. We're supposed to say yes to businesses based off of the code. So we would say no.

I don't think that was his question.

No, going off. No, and that's where it's like, no, thank you, Chloe. And I do. I enjoy coming in and talking to you guys and trying to make sense of things. Again, I read.

Did you not have an answer for his question?

I was trying to answer it. I guess the question is like, it's not considered a commercial use of VRBO. It's considered not commercial. It's residential.

There you go.

There you go. We require homeowners who have a business inside their home to get a home occupation permit, which also requires them to get a business license. I have one. Yep. The homes for short-term rentals are not being used commercially per se. There's no sale of merchandise, things like that. It is being used for a residential purpose. It's just they're renting it out. They're being taxed though.

Yeah, and that's why there's a business license, so we can track the tax.

They're being taxed. They're making money that's for profit. that not commercial venture and again I'm not trying to dispute or argue but if somebody is I mean you could go make a kid selling lemonade on the corner get a business license right I mean technically I know that there's some areas that have tried it and it's like that's mean but I'm just trying to make sense of this if I'm doing something for a profit I'm running a business and To me, that's a commercial. I would say I'm an electrician. I'm an electrical contractor. I'm running a business out of my home. It's not I have a storefront. business but i me personally i look at that as a commercial use that again that's just how i look at it i'm not saying that you're wrong i'm wrong anybody's wrong it's just in my mind if i'm thinking that i'm running a business that is a commercial venture whether it's in my house whether it's in the storefront whether it's at an airport i my mind says that you know it's a food truck It's a commercial, that's a commercial venture. That's just, that's how I look at it.

Perhaps a work session, because we're kind of beyond the action item, but I think those are good questions.

There was one other thing I wanted to bring up with regards to Buster Del Monte's conditional use permit. There are stipulations within that conditional use permit that he has not complied with so he is out of compliance with this CEP One of which is a water will serve letter. We do not have that on file I've reached out to the cottonwoods mutual water company. They couldn't find it either so with regards to the tenant improvement Yes, it is true anyway

But that may be something we can handle offline. Yes, I don't know why we're getting into that. There's a couple other stipulations that I think we're missing. But once again, that's not this discussion.

It has nothing to do with this conversation. Okay, so yes, I do think we need to have a work session because I think we need to give Buster some options as far as what are things that we can do to either, if none of this stuff is, because I don't know. What other businesses might he bring forward that he's going to go through a long time of doing this as well? So I'm just, I would be nervous to spend any more money down there if we want to change the airport to a different thing and sell the lots and go back to the other, I don't know, but we need to have a work session and talk about that, I think. So, okay, we'll move on. Okay, so this is me again, and I'm not sure why this is me.

I don't know why I put, I don't know either. Hold on, I'm trying to get to the page.

I know there's certain rules there. I read them, but I didn't understand them fully.

It's super easy. So the conversation happened. The applicant from the June 16th commission meeting regarding the PC zoning code text amendment sent an email to Kent Page in the planning and zoning office asking if one of the commissioners per the policies and procedures, would consider bringing back a motion to reconsider the PC zoning code text amendment. In order to do that, which would put it on a future commission meeting, so essentially in order to recall your vote, this is the procedure. So it has to be someone that voted in favor of whatever the outcome was, denial or approval. And it has to be someone that was a commissioner that voted at the time of the, yep, at the time of the vote. Motion? Yeah, at the time of the motion. So pretty much anyone except for

No, the only ones that could would be Commissioner Wilson, myself, or Commissioner Nickerson.

Okay.

Those are the only three that voted on the prevailing side. That's correct.

So I think that's why I put it under you, because in the email it sounded like you were open.

So I was open to revisiting that.

To bringing it back so that the commission can decide, make a vote to recall or not.

Correct.

Okay, there we go. I knew I had a reason at some point. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm still trying to find my package.

So do we need to do that? I know Mike was in

No, Mike was their opposition of that.

We've seen this twice already. And that's why I'm not interested in seeing it a third time.