City Council - Regular Meeting

You hear anything from Councilor Anderson? Yeah, he's outside. He's out there?

What's the number on the end of the password? 303? See if I remember now. Pass it on the message. Okay, Michelle, you're good.

All right, we'd like to call to order our Riverdale City Council meeting for Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. Please let the record show that all members of the city council are present, as well as members of the public and members of the city staff. We welcome all of you tonight. We have asked Councillor Hanson if she would lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand. Can I repeat the Pledge of Allegiance with you?

Thank you, Councilor Hanson. We have asked Councilor Richter if he would offer our invocation.

Our Eternal Father in Heaven, we're grateful for the opportunity we have together this evening to discuss the... needs of the city and those things that are going on. We ask that thy spirit will be with us. We might be prompted and guided to do those things that will bless the lives of the citizens and those who come to visit this wonderful city. We're grateful for our stewardship and opportunities here and ask that thy spirit continue to be with us so we may make wise decisions that bless the lives of all. We are grateful for our first responders and those who do so much to keep us safe. We ask that thy spirit and protection be with them at all times. And we pray for these things and do so in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Councilor Richter. All right, we now have a time for public comment. This is a time to address the city council regarding your concerns or ideas. No action will be taken during the public comment period. If you do approach the microphone, please state your name and your city of residence and try to limit your comments to approximately three minutes.

Hi, my name's Rod Turner, and I live here in Riverdale. Just a question for you. I wondered if anybody could tell me what's happening south of Home Depot on 1050 West on the east side of the street. Mr. Cooper, you want to answer that?

Yes, sir. That's a recently approved project. It'll have three retail buildings, so probably five or six new retailers.

Do we know who they are yet or anything?

Not yet.

All right. Thanks. That's all I got. Thank you.

Thanks, Rod.

All right, seeing no other public comment, we'll move on to presentations and reports. There's no items for the mayor's report tonight. Any reports from the city council on their assignments? And to the councilor Richter, I think we have a special line for you after that. No other reports, okay. We'll move on to item number three, development review committee report. Councilor Richter.

Thank you. So just here to report from the Development Review Committee. Again, this is a committee that's just been assigned to review upcoming projects and elements that are coming into the city and try to provide to the council an element of oversight, just a high-level review. So when those projects or if those projects ever come to the council for review, you've at least had some exposure to them. Obviously, those that may come may have changes, so nothing that we're seeing here is in stone or is a formal proposer at this time. So I just want to provide an overview. Three projects to go over real quick. The first one is what they call the Hilston Town, which is the development that's just going to be just off Riverdale Road behind the, well, you know where I'm talking about, the town homes up in that area. Just a brief overview on that, and I don't know, Michelle, if you have the ability to pull that up at all. I guess I'm on page seven. So essentially what we're looking at here is, it's down just here, you can see that map. Yeah, so this is just an overview that they provided. Listening to the council on a number of these, the Development Review Committee looked at the fencing to provide a barrier between those that might be parking in the commercial area down below against that. So they're well aware of that and are looking to provide some fencing. There is an elevation change here, pretty significant, from the parking lot to where those townhomes would stop. So that's also another... think beneficial element that will stop you know individuals from parking down there that that are moving up towards those homes. But they are looking at some engineered material to do some split rail fencing. We talked about the wrought iron that was often brought up by the council here. And although that's available, they thought these are kind of a craftsman style element. And so they wanted to maintain a little bit of that style and design there. However, recognizing the council's strong desire that we do the best we can to make sure that there are no No ability to park down below or utilize that commercial parking below to access the properties. Up above there, we talked a lot about the elements that often come up. Is there sufficient room for fire equipment and that? And it said that that's been reviewed and sufficient spacing. The ability to exit. this development into that commercial parking lot, one of the questions was whether or not we could utilize the lower road there that would go right out onto 550. Again, there's a significant elevation change there. And so that's the reason that it kind of dead ends off that side. be used as well to push snow and different things there. There was a discussion on, as you can see, these are back-loaded units. And so there was discussion from the committee about making sure that any air conditioning or other units are appropriately spaced so that they didn't turn into just flat open concrete area with a bunch of individual air conditioning units and things like that. And so they're working to minimize those elements. Other discussion points related to, if you look over on the left side there, the parking stalls identified as number 19 on 550 West, those are pulled in straight. And the recommendation from that committee was to make those so that they better flowed with the road there and didn't create potential traffic challenges or at least additional traffic challenges there. Other elements of discussion were the amenities. I know that's always a concern from the council here. The amenities that are proposed are to blend well with the natural wooded area, so you're going to have some paths and different things that are going up. up there and so all of the play areas or recreational areas will be themed along those kind of the wooded kind of background. There was additional discussion about some of the trails that are behind these elements here and the suggestion from the committee to perhaps look at whether or not those would tie into, what is it, 300? I believe up above there to see if there's some opportunity to provide some additional benefit for the community that that trail area would go back up in that area. recognizing that perhaps if the developer is able to do a good portion of that, or we could tap into perhaps some RDA funding that might be available, and the council could look at that. So with that, that's a high-level overview. Any questions off the top that I'm happy to try to respond? Again, this is not a formal proposal, and it may look different when it comes back.

Councilor Arnold.

What are the, over where it says 550 West, there's like some sort of, is it gonna be, is that water? I mean, there's a little space right in there from, Yeah, right there.

Right in there. Is that retention area? I believe that was identified as retention area.

The retention area is over to the right.

There also is retention area there.

There's actually three or four locations. A little bit of a wetland, I think. So the triangle piece across 550 will have land drain retention. So the water that's in the hillside now will go to that triangular space as well as that squiggly space where the mouse is. The... The engineered pond right there on 500 West at the west side, that'll have stormwater, so that'll be the runoff. So they'll manage water in different ways.

Do they know how many springs are in that area? Do they have an idea of?

Yeah, I think they've even been surprised. In fact, that little spot right there, there's a pretty heavy flowing stream year-round right there. And that's some of the studies that they've done. And they've even had to tweak this a little bit because they're well aware there's a lot of water in there.

And we have the capacity to get it to the river from there to across Riverdale Road and all that?

The water. Just goes into the storm drain? The hillside water is currently tied into the UDOT system, so they're going to look to continue using that. The engineered pond for storm water will be essentially detention.

Okay.

I'm sorry, retention. My bad.

I kind of knew what you meant with whatever E or D. Yeah. All right.

Before I move on?

Okay. Yeah, the next page just shows kind of an elevation view of the proposed craftsman style design that they're looking at, three, four, and five unit elements there. The next project was Dave's Hot Chicken Remodel. This will not be one that will come to the council for any review or approval as it's just an existing business and there's no change. In that, they're going to just do a remodel on that. There are a few photos on that. Michelle, that's probably what page? Where are we? There we are. Yep, there we are. So they're looking to provide a graphic on the outside. This is the existing Krispy Kreme. facility that's moving out and they're looking to redesign that. The DRC Council did request to see the final graphic. They've indicated that they try to incorporate local local elements, so whether it's from Riverdale or the northern area here, to try to theme that so that it matches and is somewhat consistent with the city and the area in which it, so we're waiting for those final graphics. It's actually a paint, they have local artists, as I understand it, that will come and actually paint the building, and those local artists are the ones that present the the design for it. But other than that, no significant changes to the outside building or the site, I should say, certainly in the building.

Will it be that bold of a color scheme?

It is bold. It is incredibly bold. And if you look online, you can see other of this theme, and they're identical in theming. The visual element is a little different for each one, but it is incredibly eye-catching. Is that the right term?

It's bold.

It's bold. The outside areas there, the seating area, I think they had some LED lighting and some different things to try to highlight that. They are looking perhaps as early as fall to be able to complete this and be available. Questions or thoughts?

Yeah, Councilor Arnold.

Back in the day, Riverdale had certain standards, and that's why we lost Costco. years ago and then Les Schwab came in and they were the first one to come in that actually painted their building. So we don't have any standards like that in Riverdale.

I think this does comply and I think we'll defer to

Right. So we retained in the new development review committee the ability to approve just facade proposals like this through a vote of the committee. That was part of the original design review committee kind of purpose. And so that is retained. with the Development Review Committee. So they actually took a vote on this as a committee, approved it, but we don't have any hard and fast standards that we can go down and say yes comply, no comply, yes comply. That's something that we're looking to revise in our proposed Title 10 revisions.

With the exception of the sign sizes and things like that, those are still there.

So any business in Riverdale could come in and do basically anything they wanted

This was contingent upon us reviewing or the committee reviewing the graphic and the final design. So at this point, I don't think there's been any final thumbs up or thumbs down. We were looking for that final graphic to come back. And so there was some contingent.

But yes, any exterior work that a business would do in terms of changing the colors or materials of a facade would need to go through the development review committee. And they have a subjective vote. So they could say, no, we don't like this. And, and our ordinance doesn't require them to cite any standard because there isn't any, it's just that they have full discretion.

I don't see how that would fly in court.

Wouldn't it?

I mean, if you say no to her, say yes to this and somebody else comes in with something else and we say, no, I don't like the pink, whatever. And I mean, they say, okay, we're going to go to court, and then pretty soon we have a pink something.

That's why we're doing updates.

Okay.

Thank you with that.

I think the final review relates to the CarMax proposal. They identified and provided a – a site plan or a proposed site plan here. A lot of discussion on this one. They have, I think, probably the largest elements that we talked about were the expansion area and detention area on that side. As you can see, that's a fairly large area in a prominent location there. It is identified as for possible expansion, although there is no plans at this time from CarMax to expand or go any larger at this point. The location and the way in which the building is angled, I probably should step back a little bit on this, it's consistent with their corporate identity, so the styling of the building, and there are some elevations in there, but the styling of the building is consistent with other CarMax dealerships, so it's kind of a brown split rock, split stone type rock, and then it has... There we go. white facade with the bright blue car mag. So that's consistent with kind of their corporate identity, the way they did it. The way they've laid that out or proposed to lay this out, there was some question about is there a better way to do it and make better use of the facility or the piece of ground. They are very attracted to the visibility from Riverdale Road, so that's where they want to put their stock for sale. So that's why you see it's laid out the way it is. The backside of the... dealership there will be walled in. So there is the same material that's, that's made from the building will be a solid wall all the way around. So you're not going to see the back of house things with you know, repairs and, and, elements going on there. The road that comes off of 700, so you kind of see that road that goes around the expansion and detention area, is designed to accommodate offloading of vehicles, so there'll be no offloading of vehicles on the roads. That'll happen in the back of house. Customer parking is indicated there by CE parking, so that's where individuals would park. Potential customers enter the facility there on the southwest side, kind of coming in, and then through the building into the um, inventory area. There's no direct access to the inventory from, from the street or just walking off the street. So again, a lot of discussion on the, on the landscaping portion of, of the expansion and detention to make sure that they were being water wise and, and it was going to be able to be maintained properly so that it looked good, uh, and, and would be able to be maintained well into the future. Um, any other questions on, on that one? Again, this is just a proposal, um, could see changes as it comes over. There was some discussion on the elevated side of Riverdale Road coming down and looking down on top of the building, and did they want to perhaps take advantage of that upper area to do any type of signage and look at that, but we'll see what they come back with. They took that under advisement.

Okay. Councilor Arnold.

Sorry. What's going on with that alleyway between Garf's storage area and CarMax's? Is there going to be a weed patch? They didn't address that. Mr. Cooper, did they?

Not sure what you're referring to as an alleyway.

The big alleyway? Yeah, in between what on the east side of the site.

So that's Garf property. That's all paved. So the property line matches up with the CarMax property line, and they have a fence and landscaping on that side. This is just an old aerial.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

And then perhaps, I guess my final question is, as we look at these, what elements, are there any elements from the council you would like me or the representative there to focus on, ask questions about elements that you're going to want to see prior to

any final site reviews councilman um on the first one definitely you're addressing the the parking issue and i would hope that we would reach out to those businesses that are there and say hey this is what we're thinking about doing up here do you have any input of what's gone there so that they have some input there um the second one you know i'm i'm not a fan of having the city be you know painted whatever yeah and i'm and i i firmly believe that we let somebody come in with something we're going to lose all uh control of what's going on because you know dave's hot chicken is going to be the precedent and then anybody that wants to paint anything on there i mean not anything obviously but as we go through Riverdale and we're the Tijuana of the North Wasatch Front, you know? Everybody been to Tijuana? Absolutely. So like, I mean, I just, you know, for, for a long time, uh, Riverdale required infused block and that's why we lost Costco. So, you know, I definitely agree that we should be able to paint things, but we get a little crazy and then you never know how crazy somebody can get.

I think, I think it was, it was universally, uh, indicated that that was a very bold. very bold, but we'll be looking forward to seeing the final graphics and seeing how they break in the local elements and if it makes more sense.

I know Trader Joe's did that inside and it looks pretty nice.

And they do the same thing.

Even if we have a standard and put it in there that the murals are some local something, something, some sort of parameters that we don't get. You know, too wild and too crazy.

I think we kind of indicated to him that we had a little bit of a hard time with the look. In fact, we were looking up other locations to see if we could find something that looked different, you know. But that was their branding, you know what I mean? And it was kind of like, I don't know.

Your point is well taken. Main store is in Tijuana. That's their first store. Yeah.

It was shared by the whole committee. That was very bold. And there was concern. Yeah, absolutely.

So, Mayor, if I may, I would just respond to that by saying that you all make the rules. So if this is a rule that you don't like, then I encourage you to pay close attention to the proposals that we're making at the time when we bring that to you so that you can get the rules that you feel like are necessary to control some of that into the new code.

I wanted to say let's get on that. Yep, we're on it. Later this year.

Mayor.

Yes, council. I just had one, like with CarMax, where you're coming over the viaduct there, making sure that you don't have AC equipment and keeping as much hidden for roof line and anything on top of the building so that that's

Absolutely. Michelle, if you would scroll down to the elevation again. They did indicate, and you can see some of the shielding on the roof that is going to hide some of that equipment. Having said that, you're coming off that elevated element, so you're probably going to see the membrane of the roof and some of that. So that certainly was an intention here. But, yeah, that elevated view does create challenges for that, for sure. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Yeah, thank you. That's a big presentation. Okay, item number four, legislative update. Mr. Brooks, we've been anxiously awaiting this. Oh, for the legislative update?

Oh, yeah.

I've got an even bigger one before I give that.

Rowan Lawrence Rickenbaugh decided to show up Friday morning at 1 a.m., my 14th grandson, so I'm going to make that a report. Then I had to get back here to get a packer ready, so it was a long night for us. Congratulations. Mom and baby are doing well. It sounds like a football name, and that's what I tell all my kids. I really don't care what it is, but make it sound good. That sounds like a middle linebacker, so... On the legislative update, Bart requests this every year. A little bit different. I've played with this the last couple of years. I use two things generally. I use the Utah Prosecutors Conference. That's the one that I listen to, and he listens to that as well when I'm down in those St. George conferences. That's going to emphasize and focus more on police kind of stuff. So when you see that's really heavy with that conversation, That's why. And then I'll mix that. Like last year, I took that one along with the Utah League of Cities and Towns and then had Chad mix those two and then spill something out. I couldn't find the League of Cities and Towns this year when I was getting ready, and so I just went straight with the UPC one. But if you're interested in getting the full version of that, because this is just a summary, I have that full version. Just let me know. I'll send that to you. But it's so long. You saw how long this is, and the full version is probably twice that size. So I don't know if there's anything that jumps out at you, but I know Bar likes to read those things. So that's in there for that reason. So any questions on that at all?

Oh, there was one that, oh, the signaling before going into roundabouts. What a relief that that is taken out of the law.

Yeah, there's a couple of interesting ones this year. I mean, sometimes they do some good stuff down there.

One of our fine officers pulled my daughter over for that by champion. And I don't know how you're supposed to get your signal on and off fast enough. It just doesn't work. So I'm glad to see they removed that. But anyway. Any questions for Mr. Brooks about the legislative update? We appreciate you putting that together. There's a lot of information there. Any questions? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to consent items. Number one, consideration to approve the meeting minutes from our May 5th, 2026 council meeting. Are there any changes or corrections to those minutes? Seeing none, we would need a motion to approve. So moved. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion on that motion? All in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? All right. Those minutes are approved. We'll move on to action items. Number one, discussion regarding and selection of a mayor pro tem. This is something that should have happened at the first year with our newly elected mayor. And so we need to take care of that now. Our ordinance says that we will do that. So... This is something that the council asked to have on there. So, anyway, do we have any discussion or nominations for a mayor pro tem?

Councilor Arnold. Do we need to have a mayor pro tem? Or can you assign somebody? Because the way it works, the way it has worked, is whenever you can't be there. Right. You have assigned me in the past to conduct in your stead or... And it's been, in all the time you've been mayor, it's been twice that I've conducted the meeting. And then the one with Young, taking over the Larry H. Miller. So in five years, five and a half years or whatever, it's been three times. And so if we don't have a mayor pro tem and you just say, Hey, I'm not going to be here, would I'll assign somebody to conduct a meeting and you can rotate it through anybody. However you want to handle it as the mayor.

That's a good question. I'll take that if you want, Mayor. Yeah. It's ironic that we just looked at this today, so it's pretty fresh on my mind. It's kind of interesting for something as simple as that. So we checked both the state code and our council rules and procedures. Both of those said it's a may. It's not required that you do it with a six-member council. And then right at the last second, I thought, I better check our code. And I checked our code, and our code mandates it, and it says that the council does that. So we would have to do it. Yep. It's a shall.

Well, and can we – I mean, I would throw this out there that we table it for now and then bring it to the council to change it to allow the mayor to do a – so we mirror state code that it's a may instead of a shall.

That's a council decision because it would be an amendment, so we'd even have to do an ordinance to do that, but it's up to you guys.

All it would have to do is table it because if – I mean, literally what happens is Braden's going hunting or something and he's not going to be here. He'd just say, hey, can you conduct a meeting? And literally it's been three times in five and a half years. And so if we tabled this, brought an amendment, did a may, then he can select anybody he wants in. I kind of like having a mayor pro tem myself.

Um, and I don't know, then, then I don't have to decide who to call or who to do whatever, you know, um, it makes it super easy to just have like a, and, and even though it's been infrequent, like, uh, I don't think most of you know this, but like three weeks ago, I ended up in the hospital, like suddenly through the ER, like, and was there for a week and like, was not doing very good. And like, it was nice that there was a mayor pro tem i told steve if i die just to put alan in charge like so anyway as i was texting him i i don't know i like having a mayor pro tem i just do i think i think it's good i think it's common and uh glad you're here yeah yeah me too so is my family anyway um i i like having it so if you don't mind i'd prefer to just have a mayor pro tem You okay with that?

I'm fine.

But if the council wants to table it and have me just pick people randomly, I'll do whatever you guys want.

No, I like the argument. I mean, it makes sense. It's happened infrequently. So in those scenarios, it probably could happen that way. But if you were incapacitated for any amount of time, it would be nice to have some continuity there.

So I'm supportive of that.

Okay.

Do we have anyone that would like to nominate someone to be the mayor pro tem?

It is a two-year appointment, too, by the way. You do it from, it's election year, so every election year we have to do this again. So it's technically two years before we have another municipal election. Councillor Hanson, sorry.

I'd like to nominate Councillor Stephens.

Okay. I respectfully decline. Okay. Any other nominations?

Nominate Councillor Arnold.

Okay, we have a nomination for Councillor Arnold. Do we have a second?

I'll second that.

Nomination is second. Ms. Maragoni, will you please poll the council?

I'd like a comment.

Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely, a comment on the motion. I don't think that's a good choice for a variety of reasons. Would you like to state any? You don't have to.

I don't think he has the temperament for it.

Okay. Okay. Any other comments on the motion?

Okay.

Ms. Maragoni, please poll the council.

Councillor Stevens?

No.

Councillor Arnold?

Yes.

Sorry. Councillor Hudson? No. Councillor Richter?

Yes.

Councillor Anderson?

Yes. Okay. That passes on a split vote, three to two. Thank you. That's taken care of for two years, which is interesting, which actually probably only like 18 months, I guess, right?

Really, Mr. Brook?

Yeah, no. And thank you to Councillor Stephens for bringing that up two weeks ago. It was kind of on my mind at that point, too. But I thought it was taken care of. All right, number two, consideration of Ordinance 1009, approving a text amendment to Title 10 of the Riverdale City Code for the classification of a new and unlisted business use. Mr. Cooper?

Yes, Mayor.

Assuming, right? Yes, thank you. Are you taking these?

Okay. And if I may, let me talk about 1, 2, and 3 because they're all related. So let me explain kind of how this is set up. So... Item number one, we'll be looking at Ordinance 1009, as the mayor mentioned. This is the establishment of the new and unlisted business use process. So this is just an amendment to the code to establish the process. That red line proposal is in your packet and I'll go over just some of those high points in just a moment. Number two is actually if you were to approve that process and adopt that ordinance, it becomes effective immediately based on the language in the ordinance. And that allows us to move on to item number two, which is the consideration of an application for a new or unlisted business. So that is now you considering a proposal for a business use that we don't have listed in the community. And I'll explain that in just a moment. You're not approving a specific project, and I'll repeat that probably a couple of times, but you are approving a use that would be potentially permitted or conditional in the zone that you determine. And if that's a decision that you make, then you would move on to item number three, which is the ordinance that establishes that. So does that make sense? So two and three are separated. One is the process that facilitates it. Any questions about that?

Are we referring, you're saying one, two, and three, but the agenda says two, three, and four.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm on the original. It's two, three, and four, probably. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so with that, let's go to item two, then, the consideration of ordinance 1009, which is the process. So the process is mandated to us by the state under Utah State Code 102507. It was a Cal Musselman bill a couple of years ago. And essentially, it allows the... the cities to have a process that will designate or classify a business that is either new to the city or unlisted currently. And it's really just as simple as a two-step process. So if you wouldn't mind, Michelle, bringing up the red lines. Council, if you want to look in your packet on I'm not sure which page, but it's the red line code section. So as typical, there's a purpose that's established at Sites 10-2507. There's an authority. So in this case, the question was asked to the Planning Commission. They reviewed this because it is a Title X text amendment, technically a land use text amendment. So we did have a public hearing. The Planning Commission does forward to you a positive recommendation for this. But the question was asked to them who the land use authority would be in terms of step one. I've listed the community development director. They thought that was a good idea, so they're recommending that to you. There's an application made to the city. It comes to the director. The director is to determine if the use that's being proposed is closely aligned to an existing use on the books in any other zone that might be established in the city. And if you look under paragraph two, there's a number of criteria that I would use to determine if that proposed use would align is the term that the state code uses. if it aligns with anything that we would generally have. If it does, then there's a determination of an existing use, and that proposed use would have applied to it the same regulations that existing use is regulated under. Does that make sense? So it just kind of folds in under a similar use. If in the event that I determine that there is no alignment with an existing use, then I would refer it to the council, and then the council would make that decision. That referral would come to you within 60 days from the original application, so there's a timeline to that. That's in paragraph four. And it would be up to you to determine if the proposed use would be classified as a new or unlisted business use or not. there's nothing in state code that says you have to say yes or no to a proposed business just like it applies to any zoning regulation. It's fully at the discretion of the of the council or the legislative body as it's written. I would always recommend that you have findings for whatever decision that you make. That's always good form, but it's up to you. And then essentially in 1036, once that classification is made, you would determine what zoning district it would apply to and that would immediately take effect and you would instruct me and my staff to amend the zoning code and the maps to reflect that decision. So that's the process as part of item number two and ordinance 10-00, is it nine? Yeah, 10-009. Any questions about the process? It's pretty perfunctory because it is a mandate. If you look at 10-2507, the ordinance that I'm proposing is essentially the same language pulled from their statute. It is 10-3 of our zoning code, which is a reserved code, so it's actually a brand new code. There is no strikethrough or revision to existing code because we don't have anything like this. Okay.

Any questions for Mr. Cooper? Council Arnold?

I would move to approve Ordinance 1009, approving a text amendment to Title 10 of Riverdale City Code for the classification of new and unlisted business uses as stated within the packet and directive through Utah code.

OK. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Ms. Maragoni, please poll the council.

Councillor Stevens?

No.

Councillor Hanson? Yes. Councillor Arnold? Yes. Councillor Richter? Yes. Councillor Anderson?

Yes. Okay, that passes with four in favor and one opposed. Item number three, Mr. Cooper.

Yeah, so thank you for that. As I mentioned in the ordinance itself, the adoption puts the ordinance into effect immediately. So now we can move on to a proposal of a new or unlisted business use classification. So after a few remarks, I'll invite Mr. Dr. Nesbitt up. He has some information about the actual proposed use that is driving this decision tonight. And I'll have some information after that. So I'll explain it. He'll give you some detailed information. And then I'll talk to you a little bit more about that process. So again, there is the two-step process. So Dr. Nesbitt is proposing to have a bar use in the existing Ruby River Steakhouse facility associated with... restaurant use as well and he'll describe the difference between those the bar use is what is not Classified in our current zoning code. We have no allowance for a bar use in our zoning code and so as I looked at how to classify that and how it might align with an existing use because there is nothing that allows the the sole serving of alcohol, we have restaurants and we have some other things associated with that, then I have determined that there is nothing that would be similar to the proposed bar use. And so therefore, that's why we're proposing it to you all tonight. A bar is different than a restaurant, and I'll go into those details after Dr. Nisbet has a few words. There is a specific difference, and that's really how we're proposing this to you in terms of how the state couches the difference between a bar and a restaurant. There are a number of... that we can get into in just a few minutes. But before I get into my information, why don't we invite Dr. Nesbitt, come on up to the mic, please, and introduce yourself and anyone with you. And then if you'll just take a moment to talk with the council about your proposal.

Yeah, actually, thanks for having me here. And by the way, I'm glad you guys figured out how to use that land behind my property. I looked at buying it three different times with sizzling platter and stuff, and you could go fishing on that. So anyway, once you get taken care of and you've got the pond, that's great. So Ebenezers is what I'd like to call it, but we built that initially as a nice place to go and then sort of socialize, except being a busy obstetrician, it didn't work for me, so we leased it out to Ruby River, which has gone on for years. But it's really unfortunate that we're talking about it being a bar what we want to do. has nothing to do with being a bar however that's an essential part of the whole thing because alcohol will be served and it becomes a bar if you walk around we got an adult entertainment venue that's going to be fun you can first of all with the dance floor and a stage you can have different actors and people come in and put on performances that people can watch. All along there's going to be food, but the primary goal of the food is that we can do it just like the fast food restaurants you have all along Riverdale Road. I want the food prices to be the same cost as two meals. when you go through Wendy's. And the reason is because I want people to be able to do stuff. So what's going to be in there? Well, there's going to be a lot of stuff in there. First of all, we've got pool tables. We're not going to be really charging for them, but you can play pool while you're talking. Okay, you're going to have drinks. But if you don't drink alcohol... It can be tab, except they don't make it anymore, so don't spill it on the pool table, please. But you can have whatever drinks you want. Because they serve alcohol doesn't mean you're excluded from the venue. The last thing I want to do is own a bar and a motorcycle gang. It's not about me. I'm 71 years old. I want to make this work. I've been offered quite a bit to bulldoze it down, and that's tragic. So what I'm trying to do is turn it around and make it a fun location. There's going to be a nice high-end restaurant. Yes, it's going to serve good steaks. It's going to be amazing steaks because I'm a meat lover. That's why the first one was that. But that's a restaurant. It'll be a little bit more expensive. It'll more be along the Park City venue cost. That's a third of it. But the rest of it is for everybody that can afford to go there. There's a back patio. You've got a venue inside. You go around. The brewery equipment, I'm going to remove, and that's where the mechanical bulls are going to go. And Counselor Stevens is going to challenge me on, I'll put him down one row. You can go 20 settings. He can be one below me. But when we open it, I'd like to challenge him to a mechanical bull contest. It's going to be padded, so when you fall, you'll be okay. But the whole thing is, is in that confined area, we can pad everything and it can be safe. I've been an obstetrician all my life. I totally understand liability. There's no way I want to have the liability of alcohol and mechanical bulls if it's not well taken care of. So you can count on, we've got everything in the process that we're going to pay attention to alcohol consumption. But you guys got to realize, alcohol is an essential ingredient to make a nice venue work. If you don't have any alcohol, you can't make it work. So the whole point is, is it needs to be a controlled, nice environment for adults where they can go and besides getting a meal, they can do something and they can hang out, they can talk. And at other times when it's not busy, we can have gatherings, get togethers where you can talk, you can work together. It's not a bar. That's a misconception. Calling it a honky tonk is because it's a log cabin and we're going to have mechanical bulls. But it's going to be fun. I can guarantee that. And we've got more space for other good ideas. So inside where the mechanical bulls is, we've got to come up with something else. but I'm counting on all you guys contributing and coming up with ideas. I'm willing to put together the finances and backing it, knowing that I could sell the property for a lot more money. That building needs to be saved. It's an iconic building. It's gorgeous. It needs to get fixed up, and there's no question we can make it work, and it's good for the community. Any questions? I know you're not going to challenge me, but I'll challenge you. Anybody else will do it.

Any questions for Dr. Nesbitt? Okay. Well, there you go. I do have some questions, Mr. Cooper, about exactly what we're doing. I mean, I know you explained it, but... Can you explain what we're doing on these two items again, exactly how we're handling these two? Is there an action on this item?

So item three is just consideration of the proposed unclassified use of a bar. And I'll explain why we're choosing that language in a minute. And then we talked about this. because you have the option to say yes or no to that proposed use. If you say no, there's no reason to go on to the next item because that ordinance is the ordinance to approve the use. So if you decide that a bar use is not something that you wish to approve at this time, then you can skip that next step.

So we're actually approving their bar use.

No, I'll explain that. A bar. A bar, yep. A bar use. So because we're talking about uses, and uses are allowed, either permitted or conditional in zones, that's what the process that you just adopted allows you to do. We don't have a permitted or conditional bar use anywhere in the city. Dr. Nesbitt has a unique business model, but based on what we understand from his proposal he is looking at um essentially having the ability to have just a drink and walk around and so under the state law that's classified as a bar that's an oversimplification but essentially they distinguish um specifically between a restaurant license and a bar license and generally uh the the the food is a major difference, and the idea of being able to just go there to have a drink is really what designates a bar license. And so despite all of the other things that might be part of this establishment, he will be required to obtain a bar license, and therefore we need to designate a use that is a bar, if that's something that is going to take place. So just keep that in mind, that your decision tonight is... creating, if approved, creating a bar use which would allow bars, either conditionally or permitted, in the zone that you designate. If it is to support Dr. Nesbitt's proposed project, it would be the C3, because that's where the Ruby River is located. So an action, so if you wanted to take that action, the ordinance describes the approval of a bar use in the C3, but you could amend or change that as you would like. So, Michelle, if you pull up the slide, let's talk about those designations, because these are the uses that are up for discussion tonight, as I mentioned, the slide, the different terms. Yeah, there we go. Counselor Arnold wanted a slide show, so here it is. One more, please. Okay. So Title 32B is the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act. It's pretty complicated. I'll probably look to Michelle to help with some of this as well. But essentially, those are the four terms that will be that are under discussion tonight. So that bar establishment license, is that a license that gives a facility to essentially serve just alcohol, beyond beer? An on-premise beer retailer is somewhat of a tavern, so those two terms are interchanged. There's usually an entertainment venue associated with one of those, but a tavern and on-premise beer retailer are solely just beer. So you wouldn't be able to serve liquor or mixed drinks or anything like that. So again, the bar establishment is full liquor, disconnected whatsoever from food. There can be entertainment. There can be a dance hall venue. There can be mechanical bulls. There could be a band type of a thing. But really the establishment of that license is the idea of just serving the alcohol independent of anything else. The full-service restaurant is what we're used to, and you see these in local consent applications when we get a new restaurant that might serve alcohol on-premise. It's a different license. It is associated with the serving of food. There has to really be a primary focus of the restaurant to be able to get that license, and liquor and alcohol are a secondary license. focus of the establishment. And so those two really are the difference. We do have full service restaurant licenses in the city, but because they're associated with food, a bar license really doesn't align with that because you can just have alcohol and nothing else under a bar license. They are regulated by the state under a quantity number. So in the statute, they determine based on a math equation how many licenses they'll give out. They've been very liberal with those in the last couple of years. So there are licenses to obtain. We do have in Weber County 34 currently licensed licenses. facilities that just have a bar establishment license most of them are in the 84401 zip code so that would be largely Ogden there are some in 84405 zip code so they're generally in proximity of Riverdale City that those 34 establishments I can go on and on about all of this, but really the proposal in front of you, although Dr. Nesbitt's application is the impetus behind why we're talking about this, the decision tonight is whether or not a bar is a use that is something that you would want to either permit or conditionally permit in the city. So I'll stop there and turn it back to you, Mayor.

So the next item would be deciding what zone it goes in. But this item decides if it's permitted or conditional or not.

Right. So the ordinance reads that it would be conditionally permitted and in the C3 zone. You can amend that ordinance as you wish based on this discussion.

But item number three, they just have to approve the application to establish a bar of use? Is that what we're looking at now? Any other questions for Mr. Cooper? Councilor Richter.

Yeah, maybe. So listening to the presentation, I understand this is not what we would normally consider a traditional bar setting. Perhaps I better speak for myself. What I would consider a traditional bar setting, I'm concerned about the unintended consequences, I guess, more than anything. So I can see a unique usage here, but opening this, if you wouldn't mind, just this What potential unintended consequences? We're opening this up for additional businesses of this type, I'm assuming.

Right, so Dr. Nesbitt's proposed project is the impetus behind the discussion, but your decision of a bar use would be similar to any other type of use that would apply to the entire zone. So if you decided that a bar use is acceptable and you approved it just as a permitted use, then that would allow any normal bar that you're probably used to to establish in the zone that you designate, let's say the C3 zone. So a permitted use would not come before the council for really anything unless there is a new construction or something like that. It could go into an existing building just under a state license. And a city license, you would have a local consent. So you would have the ability to say yes or no to the actual license application in the future, but it would be considered a permitted use. What about a conditional use? Conditional use would be different. So you could establish conditions specific to this type of a use. So a couple of examples of that are retail specialty tobacco shops. They're a conditional use. They're limited to a certain population number, one per 9,000 people. So we have one in the city, and then there's some conditions that we can impose based on reasonably anticipated detrimental effects of that use. So for instance, in the In the example of a smoke shop, we could limit hours to not be into the nighttime hours, but to remain in the evening hours. That's an example. So you could not permit them at all, bars. You could permit them as a right, just any bar in whatever zone you felt is appropriate, or you can permit them conditionally.

Councilor Hanson.

And as the conditional use, like you're using the example, are we allowed to set the limit on how many in the city? Or we can do that?

Conditional uses are governed by the state in general. But in terms of this particular use, like we have done with temporary seasonal sales uses or retail specialty tobacco shops, you can set specific conditions to those.

Councilor Richter.

But if a business were to come in and propose, obviously this isn't a true proposal, but if somebody come into the Dave's Hot Chicken, right, and wanted to make that a bar at some point, not making any changes, would that come back to the council or would that be a permitted use, assuming we approve this in that area?

So if you permitted bars as just a regular permitted use, the only thing that you would see would be the local consent for the bar establishment license.

And, Councilor Richter, this is before your time, but with, like, especially smoke shops, it's a conditional use. And so the council, as part of the condition said, we only allow one. I think it used to be one per 5,000, but is it one per 9,000? Is that what it is for sure right now? The council set this in place, one per 9,000. Okay. Until we reach 18,000, they can't open a second one anywhere. So I don't know. Conditional gives you a lot more.

And that follows with like the cash stores? Yeah. Cash. I think we can only have two. Yeah.

And the council never really sees conditional use permits. The planning commission does for new buildings. But for existing buildings, it's a staff review and approval. So the council would never see a conditional use permit application for anything. But they do make the rules for the conditions. But you can make the rules. There are general guidelines, as I mentioned, that we can require mitigating steps for any reasonably identified detrimental effect, but the council can establish your own set of conditions based on a particular use, as we've said. Councillor Anderson first.

This question seems obvious, the answer seems obvious. But with, and I'm referring to Dr. Nesbitt and his proposal. So if we were to propose that or to approve that, and based on the favorable presentation that he's provided as far as that it's more upscale, there's no governance if he decided to sell that later to some other party. that wanted a bar or as qualified as a bar to step in that may not have the same standard that he has. There's nothing that we would probably end up with liabilities if we were not to continue with that extension of that use.

Right, so Dr. Nesbitt has proposed and presented to you one example of a bar. There are many, many examples, good and bad. A conditional use permit is applied to the property and it runs with the land. So if you approved a bar use conditionally and there was a conditional use permit applied to that property with land, different conditions that you establish tonight based on the use, then those would run with the land as well. But if you decide to approve bars conditionally and establish some rules governing that use, then that would apply to every bar everywhere, including one that would change hands. All right.

Thank you.

Councillor Hanson.

I like the idea of the conditional use. I mean, this area, right now it's a great location for this type of a project. And we've been talking about getting more entertainment venues in Riverdale. So I like a lot of things about it, but I do like the idea of having those guardrails on it with a conditional use permit. Do you see any concerns about Because if we were looking at conditional uses similar to some of the other ones where maybe we wouldn't want daycares or other things within so many miles, right now it's kind of in a perfect location, right, by all that commercial, by the river and the rail yard. But then we know with those townhouses coming in, do you foresee any concerns with, if the bar were to exchange hands and become more of just a bar bar, any concerns with having residential that close?

So the steakhouse is located in the C3 zone. So the map behind me, the purple is the C3 zone. So if a bar was permitted either conditionally or normally, it would be allowed in all of the purple. The state already limits a location of a bar establishment license within 600 feet of community assets like a park, a school, a church. but not residential. A retail specialty smoke shop limits it to residential, but bars don't. So it would be... It would be difficult to regulate in that large of an area unless you applied some kind of population standard to it or distance standard or both. I mean, it could really be anything. And it wouldn't preclude site-specific and use-specific conditions that staff would be able to impose based on the specific population or application because our ordinance already allows that. So yours are general, say the one per 9,000. that could be something very easily imposed at the ordinance level that would still allow us to say things like, well, your new proposed use is close to, like you said, residential, and so we would want to limit your hours or limit, you know, certain things that might be reasonably identified detrimental impact. So those two things can work in tandem. Does that make sense?

Council Arnold. I'd like to hear from Casey your thoughts on the establishment and what you've seen in the past and what you would see in the future, us yes, us saying no.

You just turned it off.

All right. So it's kind of a double-edged sword. Anytime you have a bar, there's going to be some consequences that come with that bar, depending on the type of bar that it is. And so on the other side of it, there's an entertainment value that could come in if it's done right. It could be a nice place for adults to go and hang out. But you have to look at both sides. And so you guys have a tough decision on your hands of what you want to allow in your community. But if you're asking me what are some of the pros and cons of it, The cons are you will have more individuals intoxicated that will be in the area. Now, do you have that with Chili's? Sure. There's other businesses in our city where alcohol is served. You may have more of a concentrated effort to consume alcohol at a designated bar than you would at Chili's. And so that's something you have to consider. There's obviously... the the value of just having entertainment and bringing people into the city that i think you guys have to consider but there's there's for every decision made there's a ripple effect and some of the ripples are good and some of them are difficult whatever decision you guys come up decide to do like we will we will make it work you know we will keep the community safe but there are some of those undesired consequences that could come along with some desired ones And so I don't know if that answers your question. I mean, if you have something more direct I could speak to.

I would specifically like if you have... I'm totally against it because from what I've seen in the past, I don't want to deal with this. Gotcha. But if you're like, you know, you're on the fence and we'll deal with whatever the situation is, I mean, that's... Gotcha.

So more of a personal position.

As the chief of police of Riverdale City, what would you like to see or not see?

Well, I mean, as the chief, I don't want a lot of bars in our city. So if you were to approve a bar, I would suggest that you take a conditional use approach and limit it to one per 9,000 or not approve any at all. I don't want a lot of bars in our city. If you ask my personal position, I'd be strongly against a lot of bars in Riverdale City. I don't think it's a good thing for the community. If you were to make an exemption for one, then I would strongly encourage you guys to make as many conditions as possible to ensure that we don't have a lot of bars, extra bars coming in, and that however that bar is ran, that it's ran to the safest it can be by the conditions that we impose. So if it does change from Dr. Nesbitt or whoever, that those conditions follow them to ensure that those conditions are going to be at the highest level to maintain safety. But as far as a bar, I mean, personally, yeah, we're going to have issues that could arise. Now, I'm not sure about this bar. Every bar is different. Some bars are a nightmare. Some bars the police never get called to. But that's where I think the conditions have to be imposed to maintain safety in order to where if it does switch hands, that we've done, the council has done everything within their power to basically mitigate any of those factors. And I think that the city would probably have some suggestions if it was approved that would mitigate some of those things. But does that make sense? Is that a fair statement? Any other questions or comments? So I'm kind of torn. I would say if you do, you've got to limit how many I do. I would not suggest a lot of bars. There will be some positive, but there will be some effects that come from a big, strong proponent of bars, personally.

Yeah, I don't like the idea of our cops going in there and breaking up bar fights. I can tell you that right now. Like, I know these guys too well. Is there security, like, Can we stipulate that they have to have their own security? Or what's the process on these bars usually? Do you have an identity for Brandon or?

So Brandon talked to me a little bit. We've talked about this, about if you guys were to take action of what we would recommend to mitigate some of these things. One of the first ones he talked about was limiting how many bars can be within our city so we don't have them popping up left and right. Second thing would be, what is the maximum capacity? Let's limit the capacity if it's approved so we don't have excess number of people in there. Let's put a condition on there that they have to have security for X amount of people. So if there's 300 people in there, they need to have X amount of security guards. Things of that nature. Parking. Let's limit the capacity so we don't have cars parked on Riverdale Road. Let's make sure the parking is adequate for what the bar could handle so we don't have 3,000 people in there. Brandon advised me he had researched some of the different ordinances across the state that gave the police chief the power to shut the bar down. So in the event there was an issue, we could just go in, say, hey, you're shut down, temporarily suspend their license, so we can figure out how to mitigate these circumstances or revoke the license. And I think that's important if it was allowed, because if there ever was an incident, the best thing to do is to get everybody to go home. If they're still serving alcohol, we're not going to be able to take care of the problem. So those are just some suggestions of things that if you guys chose to take action and approve a bar that we would have to, you know, review and get creative with to make sure that those are imposed and that they stay with the use of that bar. Well said.

Exactly right. Thanks.

But I would strongly, strongly suggest if you take action, Conditional use, lots of conditions to make sure we make it safe. And if you don't, then you don't. But anything else I can let you have? Any other questions, just let me know.

I think Dr. Nesbitt wants to comment a little bit.

Actually, it's just,

Yeah, the people online can't hear it if it's not on the mic, so thank you.

Something I forgot to mention, but I agree with the chief 100%. We've already invested considerably in the crowd control and the problem. If anybody remembers when we opened up Ebeneezer's, it was a disaster. Too many people came in. I never want that to happen again. We plan to monitor it. We've invested in a computer program called Toast that actually identifies the person by facial recognition. It communicates with all the other bars, and we're not going to allow admittance to those who are a problem. We're also developing a technique to add up the number of drinks that someone's drinking. Serving pitchers and things like that is hard to keep track of who's drank too much. There's no way that I want a bar. That's why it's unfortunate we have to discuss that. I want a venue that we've got a community get together place that we can enjoy each other at a price people can afford. Now the upper end restaurant will help pay the bills. I'm planning to sell the food at roughly the cost. But if you don't drink alcohol, you can certainly buy other drinks. If you drink alcohol, you get that. We plan to monitor it, but you cannot have a fun venue where you walk around, talk to people, and carry a drink within the state of Utah, not calling it a bar. So unfortunately, it is a bar designation, but that isn't the concept we want. If I don't get the bar, I'm going to be a lot better off because it gets bulldozed. And the venue that they want to do is another car lot. Now, do you guys want to sell more cars and sell the most cars in Utah? It's good for property tax, but it's not good for the locals as far as other additional stuff. Look at your whole Riverdale Road. You've got really an iconic building. It's going to be tragic to tear it down. If we can't get a multiple use for that, it's not economically viable. And so it's dumb for me to sit there on a piece of property and lose a lot of money. But it would be sad to have firewood. We're controlling it, and we've got a lot of things in control. But you've got to realize, it has to have a designation of bar. I don't care how you restrict it, because it's not a bar. It's a venue. It's where people meet. It's a place to have fun. It's going to happen to have alcohol, but they're also going to have Coke. By the way, we're not carrying Pepsi. I'm sorry. Anyway, that's it.

Solved it for me. Councillor Arnold.

So I'm really in favor of this. I think it's a fun concept. I've had people call me and say they're really excited that one young lady that called me is really excited about line dancing and all that kind of stuff, and she doesn't drink at all. She doesn't like to go down to... What's the one on 21st Street down by Flying J? Outlaw. Yeah, the Outlaw. So the upper class kind of thing concept is wonderful. But I would like to table it tonight and, you know, get some pencils rolling on, you know, the conditions that we're talking about. Give Chief Warren the police power to to shut it down if it gets out of control kind of thing and one per 9,000 and really put a decent, I don't know if we call it a piece of legislation together quickly, you know, like on the next meeting or something like that where we say, you know, if this happens, it's gonna be with these conditions, You know, I think it's in a great spot, actually, for, you know, I mean, somebody right up the hill might, I don't know how the music gets loud outside or something, but, you know, I was concerned about that with Hardy-Davidson when they had some of their events, and they've been actually really fun when they do their events. I, I would like to, so at this time I'll, I'll make a motion to table this tonight and, um, put it on the meeting agenda for next, uh, our next meeting and hopefully have the conditions, um, put in place that we can actually address it.

Okay. There's a motion to have a motion to table. We have a second. I'll second that. I have a second. OK. Any discussion on that motion? Councillor Anderson first.

I'd like to have us enlist our own input and provide that to Mr. Cooper so that we have collective ideas as to what we would like to see happen so that we're driving this instead of relying on other people to do that. So I'd like to add that as part of the stipulation in what we're doing here in Table 6.

As well as the staff? As well as the staff, yeah. I would agree to that.

Okay. So we'll have a motion and a second, and we had some discussion. Councilor Hanson, do you have further discussion?

I don't think we got a chance to ask if we were to approve it tonight based off of what you've put on the conditional use status in this existing, what would be the process on establishing the conditional uses? If we pass it as is, do we miss out on that opportunity to help set those conditions? I mean, what's the recommendation, I guess?

Good question. Thank you for asking that. So if you pull up the ordinance, the second to the last whereas... I'll just read it. It says, whereas the city council finds that establishing a bar use as a conditional use within the C3 zone will allow future proposals to be evaluated on a site-specific basis and permit the city to impose reasonable conditions necessary to mitigate reasonably anticipated detrimental effects associated with individual establishments. So that covers the general use. You could tonight, in addition to this idea of tabling it, you could tonight... amend your motion to include in the ordinance the things that we've discussed and any more that you might have on your mind tonight. I don't know if we took another week, if we would have additional conditions that we would place on the ordinance side of things outside of what we've talked about. So a density restriction, a max capacity, parking restrictions, security requirements, and the ability for the chief of police to pull the license. So those are the things that we researched and came up with. They could easily be added to your motion on the ordinance and then we could redraft that and maybe bring it back to you. That's just another option. Either way, we're gonna probably take another week. Steve, I'm looking for you. So either way, it might take another week. It could give you folks some more time to weigh in, which I heard is what your desire was, Councilor Anderson. So we're fine either way.

Chief Warren has a comment.

I would propose that we meet an hour before we do a pre-meeting. This is probably a good situation where I feel like a good discussion with staff and council would be in order before we have the official meeting. Two weeks. In two weeks, yeah, just the hour before that.

We can have a draft ordinance ready at that time, and then we could, if there's additional feedback that requires us to amend the ordinance, we can hurry and get that amended. Is that okay? Yeah.

Even a half hour might work, but yeah. Sure, two hours. It's still a good idea to have a little work session. OK, so we have a motion and a second. We've had some discussion. Any further discussion? So the motion is to table. Ms. Marigold, will you please poll the council?

Councilor Anderson?

Yes.

Councilor Stephens?

No.

Councilor Hanson? Yes. Councilor Arnold? Yes. Councilor Richter? Yes.

All right, so that motion gets tabled with four in favor of tabling and one opposed.

Can I say that? I am excited, though. I like fancy food, and I like to place a hangout, so I'm excited about it.

I think we made a lot of progress tonight.

And I love Coke. Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola, yes. Yes, no. I think we're on the right path. I think we're headed in the right direction, so that was a good discussion. And the council brought up a lot of very good points, as always, so. All right, we'll move on to item number five, Stringtown Master Planning Process Update and Finance Tools Discussion. Mr. Cooper.

Okay, thank you. So we have Mr. Chris Hupp here. He's our consultant with SOMUS. You've met him before on a number of occasions. We'll ask him to come up in just a moment. We have a presentation by him. We also have our part of the consulting team, our finance group. So part of tonight's discussion is twofold. Well, really threefold. We'd like to update you on the progress of the plan, and that information's been in your packet, so hopefully you've had a chance to look at that in detail. So Chris will come up and give you a presentation on the progress of our planning efforts, where the plan sits, a little bit of a density look. It's a max density. It's not the density we'll end with, because I think we'll peel back as we refine the plan. But we wanted to do a study that looked at what our capacity was in terms of max density. And then after that, we'll have Benj. And is Susie going to make it? No. OK. So we'll have some folks from the finance part of the team talk to you about the tools that are going to be necessary. to pull off this grandiose plan. And there's a lot of them. And we've allotted about 45 minutes for this discussion. So I hope that's OK. If you want to cut us off early, because I know we have more items on the agenda, that's fine. Just signal your appetite at any given time, and we'll cut it short. But the idea is to hear about the project. And then the third part is to give feedback to us as staff if there's any direction that you see that you want to change or especially with the finance tools. There's a lot of finance tools that will require city participation. You'll hear things like PIDs and CRAs and bonds and things like that. There's not a certain recommendation, but these are all financing tools that are likely going to need to be employed. And again, they have some participation and potential risk to the city. What I'd like to hear is if any one of those is completely off the table, because that will change things in terms of how we approach this project. So please think of that as you hear the presentations. If there's anything that you absolutely do not want to do as a consensus, not individuals, but I need a consensus from the council. then we'll adapt to that. So with that, I'll turn it over to Chris, and feel free to interrupt.

Council Arnold. I was just wondering if you wanted to excuse Stacy for she can go get some work done. We're 45 minutes in.

No. Okay. On that note, first off, Binge technically is not part of our team. He works for Piper Sandler. His mother is part of the team. But he is probably the smartest person I know in terms of finance. I'd love to have him on the team. He's phenomenal. But just a note there. Next slide. So this one probably looks a little bit familiar. This is what we went through in the Charette. We presented three different potential concepts as we met together, planning commission and city council. We went through this and refined it down to a preferred scenario. And you'll see a few items off to the sides as to what you all had said, this is what we'd like to see happen in this location. So we've established that through those Charette processes. There's those initial concepts that we looked at. The major thing that this body and Planning Commission was looking to accomplish with this area has already been discussed a little bit tonight, but that entertainment focused approach, positioning you as that organizational spine along the Weber. It also activates that riverfront, mixed use core, civic campus, and diverse housing opportunities throughout this location. And then the mobile home park that's already existing, which helps support for the moderate income housing, we have a color over the top of that. We're not proposing to touch that at this time. That said, next slide. And I'm going to shoot through these really quick. If you have a question, feel free to just stop me. As far as the transportation mobility, you'll notice that we have a few different crossings across the river to try and increase the redundancy. Right now we've got one main access point and then that other that's behind the public works that's more for emergency. So there are two routes today. One easy route. We're proposing to have two other bridge accesses across the river in the main core of the development and then a longer term play on that south side that would be an overpass over the highway towards the Hill Air Force Base generally. In addition to that, there's a major pedestrian crossing in the general plan that we worked on together. We had pushed it. It was originally in this location. We had moved it to the south because at that point we're like, well, let's pull it up closer to the park. With this development, you have a lot of residents that would want to cross at this location. It made sense to move it back up into the heart of this downtown area. So you'll notice that adjustment. We generally have a pretty tight block grid throughout this. It increases walkability. It increases the opportunity for vehicles and other modes of transportation to move around this site a little bit more easily. And there's some parking and other things involved with that as well. We also are potentially proposing a shared parking count in this where there's multiple users and larger surface parking lots. just so that people can park and then walk. We wanted to keep as much of that parking out of the core. There is parking in the core, but we wanted to keep as much of that out as possible just to make it a little bit more comfortable for pedestrians. And then those are the major points. There's obviously gonna be river crossings on those bridges, and then there's an additional pedestrian bridge that comes at the tighter point of the river in between those two northern axis points, just for added connection. And then next slide. You'll notice the major street sections we have here, these are the ones that we had created a while ago. These are a little bit prettier than the original ones that we had. They were just a 2D. These are starting to get a little isometric. In their view, the urban collector, based in how it would go, would give you a more traditional downtown-type feel where the parking is angled. There's an ample area for pedestrian seating, dining, and other things, as this body wanted. And then a collector with the planted median turnpockets and things of that nature. And then a little bit tighter local streets with parking on either side. Just so that that is available and we don't run into any concerns. Now that being said... WHEN WE WENT THROUGH THE PARKING, YOU'LL SEE THIS IN THE CONCEPT, WE MADE SURE THAT EACH UNIT HAD AT LEAST 2 TO 2.25 FOR MOST OF THE UNITS THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT JUST SO THAT THERE IS THE PARKING AVAILABILITY. AND THEN, OBVIOUSLY, JUST A BRIDGE CROSS SECTION. WE'VE WIDENED THE SIDEWALKS ON THE BRIDGE SO THAT YOU DON'T ESSENTIALLY HAVE A DAM BETWEEN BOTH SIDES OF YOUR DEVELOPMENT. THE NEXT SLIDE. Here, a little zoomed out, but here's the conceptual site plan. As Brandon had mentioned, this is a max unit. This is what we're looking for. You go big and then you can step it back as opposed to... Any other route. And this is just a tentative range. Again, this is conceptual. This is not exactly what's going to be built, but conceptual in nature. But you'll see 1,366 units throughout the whole area, and that includes existing entitlements. that sit inside this area. There's about 600 apartments that Bach was looking for, and you'll see that in two different buildings, and that's already entitled. We have some condos that fit on top of the commercial on that Main Street core, and then there's some pockets of other residential development, detached, attached, garden courts. Again, the products that we had talked about, we tried to infuse those products into this concept. You'll also notice total there's 456,000 square feet of non-residential users, 300,000 of commercial. There's the live work concept on the northwest side over by the wonderful and beautiful crab triado. That's sarcasm. But there's the live work over there. approximately 82,000 square feet of ground floor live work opportunity on that. And then 75,000 square feet of flex on that South side. which, again, would take access off of 84. And if that eventually becomes an interchange, that's why that would become viable. If it's not an interchange, then there's a little bit of difficulty to actually make that type of thing work, which what would end up happening is it would just be continual detached residential that continues to move south is how that area would sort of pan out. Next slide. We start to look at the open space network. That was a really big piece as far as what we had heard from this group. And you'll notice that we've tried to strategically put park spaces throughout the development as opposed to just clustering in one or two spots. We tried to make pockets along the river and then in other areas so that every residential unit is within, it's actually less than a quarter mile. It's quite close to every residential unit where there's some sort of a pocket park. or larger park area. And the whole eastern edge on the east side of the rail would be a larger regional facility that sort of blends with existing facility that's there, which is not Riverdale, but adjacent. Um, with that, there are the, the disc golf, there's a few holes that have been removed because they weren't, uh, yeah, we'll leave that off, but there's a few holes, but we're proposing that disc golf shift to the east side, uh, We would add trail heads and access points to that east side as well. There's also the idea of the stairs that we had talked about in those charrettes. I know it's been a little bit. And we have that. You'll sort of see that striped black and white piece. That's essentially what the stairs are. It's over 700 stairs from the number four up. So you'd have sort of that walk up to a sign that is visible from 84, I-15, the base, and throughout. So it would be a nice sort of iconic piece that was addressed in our previous charrettes. So there's a little bit of that. Any questions or anything up to this point? Trying to go quick because Ben's got a lot on the finance side. Okay. Okay. Here's a zoomed-in view of that core piece. As we had discussed, we talked about a few different concepts as to how we would address the river's frontage. So in this location where you see sort of that checkered board area, that would be a more urbanized water walk, like we were talking about the San Antonio, more dolled-up feel for the river. That's what we would do. Buildings would... orient towards the streets, orient towards the river. The way that we've designed this is to have these little pockets that come off the river and push people towards that, so the usage gets a little bit heightened in those locations. In addition to that, we would have that pedestrian first mixed-use core for this whole area. You can see there's a lot of connected paths that come through. just to try and make it a pedestrian-first environment. Next slide. We'll discuss a few of these gateway features and entry points to help people understand, okay, I've arrived, I'm in this location. Again, that traditional Main Street design feel with the one- to two-story potentially a little bit more depending upon what this group is interested in. But an enhanced riverfront along the Main Street block, articulated plaza and open spaces, and then structured parking. There is one structured parking location in this plan. Structured parking is expensive. Everybody knows that. So we tried to do most of it in surface, but... In one location, we do have sort of a wrap structure. It's mostly hidden by buildings. That's what the wrap means. But we do have that one facility, which parks a lot of the commercial on the east side of the river. And then just entertainment and boutique shopping anchored core. The next slide will get in a little bit more of that entertainment piece of it. But that east side, we'd have a lot of entertainment. And then that bigger white box on the right is essentially the size of a boondocks or a family fun center type facility. There's discussions about potentially having the water park move over or this just being a fun center in and of itself and the water park can stay. There's those options. Let's go to the next slide. On this one, Again, the condos on the Main Street, just to add some of that elevation so that you can feel sort of more traditional Main Street, family-centric entertainment in that box that I mentioned before. That size, again, is similar to... The boondock's just not that far from here. That building's a little bit larger than that. It's enough to fill the things that you would want for that type of a center to be developed. And then in that middle, you'll see the lighter tan and then the striped area towards the east side. That would be similar to the station park where they have that little... event area where people can actually gather and you have little concerts and things like that out in the park so that's essentially what that piece is this is designed sort of to mimic a runway so the the area running up towards the entertainment component would be sort of that runway feel and then there's a tower in there just for that thematic feel throughout that area and there's little pockets that come and flow in and out of of that commercial area Yeah, and then articulated entrances. Another piece of this that we had to consider is we would essentially establish a sound wall all the way along the rail. It's not cheap, but it would change the feel of that area. Did you say rail or wall? A wall along the rail, meaning like buffering the rail line from the development. just to try and damper or dampen the sound rather. And then next slide. Here's just some precedent images of what we had talked about before and the way that we're infusing them into this, the way that it would look here. Again, paying homage to the ideas that you wanted along that more urban part of the river. And then it transitions out to a more naturalized feel. similar to the way that it is now, a slope coming down the meandering trail through that area. And then a nicer urban core with a lot of outdoor opportunities for gathering, events, concerts, other things of that nature out in the park. Next slide. Generally, the land use framework looks like this. Again, paying homage to that earlier concept. The eight land use designate, well, we've got mixed residential, which is attached and detached. Mixed use, which is vertically mixed, meaning they're stacked on top of each other. The commercial pieces on the north side, which would have some of that rental design. for watercraft and other things along the river. And then some civic components, potentially civic components that was discussed. We're not showing it as such, but there's that opportunity. And then generally, there's quite a bit of open space throughout the plan. Next slide. As I had mentioned, the rental facility would be essentially utilizing the existing public works facility. It's already a warehouse, and there's a yard around it, and then there's a telecom. We'd leave the telecom alone because it's what it is, and it's quite large. But we would use the rest of that and then have a boat launch right south of that existing northern building. And then some boat parking and other things like that. Again, the live work units. We talk about the opportunity of public works. It doesn't sound like that's the thing that we would want in that location, but the opportunity was there. The idea is to make that actually a bike park, which would be sort of the BMX and pump track and other things like that. And then you still have trailhead access and a pond and other things to support. Then the steps to the development sign, moving the disc golf course, and then that flex industrial on the south side. Next slide. So getting into the brand, there's two options that we've essentially narrowed it down to as we have been working through this. The first is this flight line district with the tagline always in motion. There's sort of a Hill Air Force Base right there, and I don't care where you are in that area, you're probably going to hear them. So it makes a lot of sense to embrace that and make it a part of the culture of this area. And then there's some images, bright and then sort of a nicer industrial feel with lighting and other things of that nature, and then some nice... signage wayfinding sculptures and other things that you can interact with generally this is an innovative feel as far as the name that's sort of what it's invoking we're looking at that fight innovation movement civic pride and in a brighter color palette if we go to the next one high water along the river. It's a little bit more natural in feel. You get a lot of the wood tones and concrete, wood, water movement, more of the blues and greens throughout the development. But that's, again, paying homage to the river, ag, general recreation, and environmental stewardship. Those are the major differences between those two that we've narrowed it down to. Any ideas, feedback, thoughts about either of those brands or branding opportunities? Okay, we'll let you sit on those for a little bit. That is this presentation. If you don't have any questions, we're going to jump to Benj's part of it just to continue to move this one along. And he's online.

Thanks, Chris. I hope you can all hear me okay. I'm going to share my screen if that's allowed here. Yeah. Hopefully that's visible to you all. My name is Ben DeBecker. I work with a group called Piper Sandler. We're an investment bank that specifically focuses on funding infrastructure for development, at least in my office, throughout Utah or throughout the U.S., This is a presentation here that was put together by Zions Public Finance. I understand that we work closely with municipal advisors, particularly like Zions Public Finance, in order to help cities and developers come up with strategies for funding infrastructure and using the tools that are available in the state. So I'll try to do this in about seven to eight minutes here. Two approaches here. There are grants and legislative programs and then economic tools. and we'll discuss these. What we can send you this, you know, Zion can send you this present and just to go over these different grants, but there's a whole series of grants for different uses in Utah. Grants can sometimes be tricky in that they be limited in their size and their scope and some of them require a local match so that there is work that's required on both the municipal side as well as from the state entity. You have outdoor recreation grants, you have safe street grants, grants that are specific for water and conservation, community parks. Some of these grants, as you can see, range to a pretty substantial size. But there is a fair amount of competition for these grants, requires a lot of planning, requires sometimes the city to enter into or have taken actions in terms of various studies. This slide also shows you additional grants. These are trail grants mitigating invasive species, plant conservation. As you can see, quite a wide variety of grants. You can stack the grants on top of each other, use them for multiple different purposes. But certainly one way in which some communities will approach one of their problems or a couple of their problems in order to make a development more viable, more feasible, and typically grants are a portion of the overall financing story. Another key consideration that is newer in Utah based off of legislative actions last year is the State Housing Infrastructure Partnership. This is a $100 million revolving loan fund that the state has set up with the specific focus on providing for regional infrastructure focused around attainable owner-occupied housing. This doesn't mean that $100 million would be available for a specific project, but a piece of that could be if it meets the criteria of the state. These are very desirable rates. This is cheaper money for a development and can really make attainable housing more feasible because you've reduced the cost of financing. This next slide, I just want to talk about a few things of other funding sources.

This gets more into the

This is fairly rough here, but two categories, one being more developer-driven, meaning these tools, the public infrastructure district and the infrastructure financing district, there is no city financial liability. You've probably heard of PIDs or IFDs. The difference here is a PID is required to be established and created by the city. An IFD does not require city approval. And the IFD has a limited number of bond options as compared to the PID. It is more encompassing and thereby requires city council approval. PIDs have been in Utah now for about six years. The purpose of a PID is purely a financing tool. It is creating a district with 100% property owner approval on an area that becomes a separate standalone jurisdictional entity that is intended to issue bonds for infrastructure. That PID has no land use authority, has no ability to approve developments or anything like that whatsoever. Its sole ability is purely just a financing entity that can issue bonds for public infrastructure only within an area where you have 100% property owner approval. This is not something that's put on existing development. You would never get 100% property owner approval. This is for, typically for new developments, and is intended to encourage infrastructure, allow for cheaper infrastructure. In a private market right now, a developer would have to raise equity in order to put in the infrastructure, and that equity can be very expensive. It can cost the developer 18% to, say, 20%. That's the cost of that money to put in the infrastructure. This is why sometimes it's difficult for developers to put in parks up front,

or trails, or amenities, because it's expensive for that infrastructure.

This tool, the PID, allows the PID to access what's called the tax-exempt bond market. Because you're putting in public infrastructure, you're able to issue tax-exempt bonds. And those bonds are significantly cheaper than the private market. This is making that money now cost 6% or 7%, as opposed to 18% to 20%. Public infrastructure districts have been used in many places throughout Utah. So have infrastructure financing districts. These are, again, intended to support the initial infrastructure. They help with phasing of projects. They help with better amenities. The public infrastructure district allows you the option to impose a tax on the property. And that tax can only happen with city council approval. That tax is borne by the residents or the occupants or the users of that property only within that area. This is not a tax that is imposed citywide only within that specific property.

It's a way for making growth pay for growth.

That is a property tax, very similar to operates like a school district tax or a sewer district tax that is used to pay for infrastructure. Or there's the ability within PIDs and IFDs to do assessments, an assessment on a property that is removed before you get a certificate of occupancy for residential users. Then there's a second category here that's city-driven, backed by the city. On the PIDs and the IFD, there's no city financial liability. Debt issued within a PID or an IFD is not on the books of the city. does not impact the city's credit rating, and there's no requirement or no ability even for the city to pay those bonds. And in the event that the development is slow or doesn't materialize as anticipated, that is not the requirement of the city or of any other property owners. It is purely just that district. So it's making this standalone separate district that's responsible for its own finances. There are other city-driven that are backed by the city, meaning the city puts its faith in credit behind some of these tools. There's a special assessment area. You've probably heard of these in the past. These have been throughout Utah, many different names for assessment areas or districts, which these are supported and more operated by the city. There's tax increment, which you've heard in the acronyms over the years of CDA or RDA, CRA. Essentially, it's taking the new tax growth that occurs in an area and reinvesting those proceeds back into that area as opposed to those taxes going system-wide to the school district and city and county. It's more of a focus on putting them back in the area under the premise that this development would not occur but for reinvestment in this area. Tax increment can work well with a public infrastructure district in that you have a stream of revenue that's pledged or that's planned for the future that's going to come off of all these properties. and you want to monetize it or bring that up front, make that, instead of all that money coming over at the 20, 30 year period, it's pledging it so you can have that money up front in order to put in the infrastructure. That happens quite often with public infrastructure districts. The tax increment is pledged to them, and then they issue the bonds that the city doesn't, and the city's not on the hook for those bonds. And then there are other city-backed bonds. There are regular general obligation bonds, Or sales tax revenue bonds, you've probably seen some of these in different parts of your city over the years as you've grown and used these two tools, geobonds and sales tax revenue bonds, to grow and to put in infrastructure. Each of these on the bottom half of the page here, these can be impactful to the city's credit rating and can have liability to the city, depending upon what the tool is and how it's set up. Couple of quick examples of public infrastructure districts in Utah. I picked some that just the names make them more familiar. The Point of the Mountain development where the former prison site is in Salt Lake County, that is the public infrastructure district or public infrastructure district has been used to fund a lot of the infrastructure. That's a mixed use project. Downtown Daybreak has taken the tax increment that is pledged there through a CRA type program on HTRZ and use that to get funds up front in order to put in more of the infrastructure. Black Desert is the golf course in southern Utah. Ivins, also a kid. Deseret is a large residential development. Those bonds were recently funded in Grantsville and will allow for significant regional infrastructure increase to the sewer facility, water rights, quite a lot of activity happening there in Grantsville. Wolf Creek Resort, this is Weaver County, kind of more in the Pine View, Eden area. Deer Valley East, you've seen probably the rapid expansion of that area. South Salt Lake, the streetcar pit is what it's called, a mixed-use development. There have been more than 100-plus pits that have been created and issued debt These are some of the more well-known names, but they can be used for a variety of products, residential, industrial, mixed use. Certainly can be an option for funding these larger developments that have significant upfront costs and being able to fund it at a cheaper cost than what you would get in the private market. I think that's my eight minutes, maybe a few minutes more. Any questions?

I DON'T SEE ANY. THANKS BENJ.

OKAY. THAT'S ALL WE HAVE ON STRINGTOWN. BENJ MENTIONED ALL OF THOSE FINANCING TOOLS. HE'S HERE FOR ANY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS, BUT AGAIN, WE'RE LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK ON THE PLAN AND MOST SPECIFICALLY ON ANY OF THOSE FINANCING TOOLS THAT MIGHT BE OFF THE TABLE.

I think we need to hire a grant writer.

One of the considerations for grants is, as Benj mentioned, two things, grant matching and grant preparation. Both of those take money that are preplanned. A lot of grants come up all the time. Cycles vary based on different grants. More often than not, we find ourself ill-prepared in those two categories with the grant match that's previously been budgeted or identified or preparation documents, plans, and things that grants need in terms of just the application. So I think in terms of this project, there are a number of grants we've already identified. Some of those have been on that page. There have been others. that with the council's direction we could look at preparing for as upcoming grant cycles happen.

Comments from the council? Councilor Hanson.

I have a lot.

Good.

Okay. I don't have my thoughts very well organized yet, but I wanted to try to speak up a little earlier this time. I'm not sure I completely understand where we're at on the process of of Stringtown. Is it a full go-ahead? We're in the conceptual stage on the plan that's been presented and kind of looking at some different options for financing. I'm not sure I understand the timeline. Can we take it slow? Can we pause here while we think about these things? I guess that's the part I'm the most concerned about. Because I don't know if I am ready to keep moving forward at too quick of a pace at all at this point. And I will admit that I have some recent influences from my job that I have very big concerns on a few of those things that were mentioned based off of I don't want Riverdale to be the next Box Elder County when we deal with the legislature and their special made-up financing programs and committees. And I'm okay to say that publicly as a city council member. And I think that's a huge risk in getting involved in any of those types of programs now that I've seen what can happen and where you get left as a city and as political leaders of your city. So I think those are some real concerns. Obviously, the pits are something that we've seen a few. There are some benefits to it. I still would be cautious, and as a council member and my own background, I would want to see a lot of detail on that and the agreements to be sure that it is what was stated, that there are no real consequences to the city long term because although it sets it up as a separate district that doesn't mean politically in the end if things start to fall apart that the city isn't held you know doesn't stand there holding the ball and with residents asking what's going to happen so I am interested. There are a lot of things about Stringtown. I just feel like that's my biggest concern is how fast are we moving? Are we making big decisions now where we need to kind of look at it in smaller chunks, where we need to come to a bigger conclusion or decision on is this the conceptual plan that we want to move forward with and how do we want to break that down before we even start to consider the much more serious bigger implications of of financing options and starting to look into that um because even on some of those even though it puts the burden back on you know growth paying for growth how do then we attract people to live there? That they're already paying these high rates to maybe purchase something, but how do they afford it if on top of it they're paying an assessment into the PID? And if they don't completely understand it, they're still going to come back to the city council and be upset. about why are we paying these extra fees in these development areas and how do we attract the right businesses if there's this added cost to these businesses to move in there. And that's kind of what we're building this whole concept behind. And so I do have a lot of big concerns. I want to make sure for me that we're taking it at the pace that makes sense and that we're looking at this, and I think we are, as a pretty long-term project across a number of years. Yeah, I guess the biggest thing for me to you is where are we at and what is this pace? What is the speed of how we're going to be looking at things? And can we break it down into more manageable pieces so we really are on board before we start getting ourselves locked in on financing options and different things like that so that we're comfortable?

Yeah, good question. So let me see if I can unpack that. So from my approach and my perspective, I felt like we got direction from the council when we secured the grant from WFRC. And that grant allowed us to pursue the study of the master plan. So at the end of that process, which we hope will conclude by the end of this year, we would have a plan that would be implementable. And that doesn't just mean pictures on a page. It means a financing plan, a phasing plan, a policy plan, all of that kind of stuff. Where we're at today is just that first iterative concept that you've seen. So we had the charrette where we receive feedback from everybody. The design team has been working with additional feedback from myself and from the other property owners to get to this point. So your feedback at this stage from the concept part is very important because if there's things that you are uncomfortable with on the plan, we need to hear that input. And I fully understand it takes more than just 45 minutes in a meeting like this. So this was an introduction. So we're at a checkpoint where we need information from you all on the concept plan so that we can give further direction to the consultant team. The process really is why then how. So the concept plan folds those two things together, but they are separate things. The why is the land use and what is going to be built here and what it looks like and how we name it and those kinds of things. The how is the financing. And we have to consider those things together because if we get to the end of just a crayon exercise where we've got a really pretty plan and you all have zero appetite for any of those things that we mentioned, then the whole plan is dead. And so we have to consider Things like what we're talking about tonight as early as we are in the concepting so that we can build those strategies together. For instance, there's a very heavy lift when it comes to infrastructure. We know that. We've planned three bridges. Well, two more bridges and an overpass. So that has a significant financial cost to somebody. And it would be unrealistic to think that that wouldn't be the city, at least partly. So is that even an element of the plan that is worth drawing if there is no appetite to pursue financing for that in the form of a loan or a PID or a CRA or anything like that? So it can get complicated, but we're at a checkpoint where we need your feedback on all of these things together so that we know how to proceed. This only goes as fast as you all want it to. We're not ahead of any expectations, I don't think. And so we're happy to take that feedback, but we absolutely need it.

And if I could add, this is a big area. It's not like it's going to be built overnight. It's going to take time. So there will be pieces that need to happen. And as he was saying with the infrastructure, it's a heavy lift and who is going to be in charge of that lift and that's why getting that concept and having some sort of a unified approach from the city's aspect saying, this is what we want, Here's the phasing that we want it to happen. And maybe it's just this piece and this piece that we start in the next five years. I don't know, whatever that timing is. But in order to do that, a secondary bridge needs to come in to get more than 30 units or anything on the east side. And so there's pieces of this that can happen, and you dictate that to us. We'll adjust it however we need, but we just needed to get something in front of you so you can say – We're good with that or we're not good with this or we're good with it this way so that we can take that next step. Again, this is the concept. This is the pretty drawing that will guide this area going into the next 10, 20 years.

Well, and I'm just, what's the developer appetite? I know they were involved in the Charette. I know we've already got some things in place that mandate them to pay for a bridge, but this would shift all of that. And so are they, what is their appetite to buy into it? And, like, which parts of this, we end up with the infrastructure most likely, depending on what that contract shows on maintenance and ownership. But on these areas, wouldn't it be important to know, have we made decisions on, This is all going to be privately managed. This is going to be, or is it going to be managed by the city? How are we going to cover future maintenance if it is managed by the city of all of those areas that are going to need snow control or all of those different things? I don't know. Am I just getting way far ahead on that?

You might be, because all of those questions will be answered. But to be able to take the steps we're asking you today, they might be premature. But the first question you just mentioned, I think is a good one. So if you recall, the way that we structured this was we established an exclusive negotiation agreement that was administratively executed with all of the development partners that we could wrangle up. We asked some, they didn't want to participate. So that ENA document is the document that sets out this path, right? And I think we talked about that in one or two meetings. In that document, it identifies a more, well, it identifies the development agreement. And that development agreement is the target that we're trying to hit because it will have, in a contractual manner, all of the elements that we're talking about in terms of how to proceed with actual development. We can't write a development agreement until we know where the parties are. I kind of know where the developers are because I talk to them. This is your chance to say that's the direction we still want to go. And when we get to the negotiation of the actual development agreement, we'll make those things. There aren't any steps at this point that you take iteratively that are going to lock you into anything until we get to the development agreement. That's where we would be having a private relationship with a third party that will put us into a contractually obligated role. Until then, we're driving the bus. And that's a change that is new to the council, I think. Previously, development for the most part in Riverdale has been reactive to the private market. This is a development that we've proposed, that I've proposed to you that you drive. in partnership with a majority landowner. But the city owns just as much, in fact, more land than Bach Homes does. And the first question that I asked when we started this process is, or was, is the proposal that Bach has been entitled for sufficient or can we do better? And if we want to do better, what does that look like? We're still in that process of defining what is better. I think what I've heard is we've already decided that we can do better than what Bach originally entitled the question is what does that look like and right now we're at a point where we've delivered something to you that we think is pretty good we just need your feedback so we can take the next iterative step you want to go to the end and work backwards we're sneaking up to that development agreement where all of those questions will be answered and so we're doing deduction now um Let me give you an example. PIDs are, and Ben can jump in here. PIDs are, aside from the one default that has been the talk of legislative folks in the last six months, PIDs are very safe to the city, right? They're very useful, very effective, very safe for the city. They don't have the clause that a MITA or an inland port or those kinds of things. It's a, it's a, There's enabling legislation that allows cities and the public to do these kind of things. It's not an association like PID, or excuse me, MIDA, and Inland Port that controls things. So PIDs are very, very effective and very safe for the cities, and they're actually going to get more safe because of what the state auditor is likely going to impose on the contractual side of things, and Benj might know more about that. CRAs we're used to. We've done many, many of them, and those two things go together. So there are some things that I think are very low-hanging fruit. It's things like conduit bonds and the new ship that the state just initiated. That's a loan to municipalities only. It's a low-interest loan, but it is a loan nonetheless. Those are the kind of things that introduce way more risk than what we might be used to. So that's the feedback.

I appreciate it. I think I like a lot of the plan, if we're going to talk about that part. You know I don't like the park on the other side, and I don't want a pedestrian bridge. I just think that's a huge waste of money, and maybe it makes sense in this concept. It looks beautiful the way that it's tied in. I have a hard time believing that that would work out in that area. That's just my own opinion. I do like a lot of the concepts that are on there. I have no appetite for bonding or anything that would put any cost back on the city to pay back the state or... not to cause the city any trouble, but to have any obligations to the state at this point based on my own personal experiences.

So you're talking about the ship loan?

Yeah, I don't like it.

Any other thoughts around that? That's a good discussion starter. Thank you.

That's all, sorry. Councillor Arnold. That was a lot.

I agree with everything Annie said. I like the concepts. I think the choke point is the bridge. You know, and who was it before that had it. And that's been the choke point. This thing hasn't moved. an inch because of the bridge and everybody was saying that bridge is going to cost a million dollars to build back when they should have built it yeah yeah right and but it wasn't built so now it's that times five or six or more and and until we figure out who why or how somebody's going to build that bridge i think all of this is a moot point well we've introduced to you two more bridges Great. That's how many millions is that? More bridges. I mean, we, we got to pay for the bridges that are going in and that, and that choke point has been the bridge going across to start with. So the reason why it wasn't some cool, more bridges, we're going to have all these bridges going back and forth across the thing. It's like, who's going to pay for it?

The reason why the original bridge was not feasible was because the development density didn't support it. So the original thesis of this whole approach is to create a larger development footprint that then could facilitate the development of not just one bridge, but all the necessary infrastructure to bring about that development. And the proposal has been that it's a public-private partnership. So the city will have a cost element to this. The question is, what's the appetite for that? And right now we don't have a number, right, because that number is going to be based on the concept plan. The concept plan is driven by density and use, so we need feedback on that density and use before we can get to establishing any type of budget structure that might tell you how much it's going to be and then how do we divvy that out amongst the parties. So if any of those elements are not sitting right, that's the feedback we need because we're going down a – a direction that was established previously, and if it's changing, I totally understand. We just would like to know.

I just don't think there's enough answers to be able to make a decision on anything like that because the bridge itself is, like, we've got to get across the river to make this work. Riverdale purchased the land behind Sam's Club, which was a great... but it was the thought of getting a park, but they used all the money to buy the land that they were gonna have in a park, and they were like, hey, we're gonna have a great park back there, but then they used all the money to buy the land, and so we don't have a park. So if we don't have the money to build the bridge, or the bridge is, or partner with somebody to do the bridge in realistic terms, partnerships, I don't even know if there's anything to talk about.

We are in a partnership to build infrastructure for Stringtown. So the question is what is Stringtown? So the bridge is really irrelevant because there's now being proposed more bridges and a whole host of infrastructure that may cost as much or more than the bridge. So we have to, in my mind, and what I'm proposing is we identify the concept and the elements of the concept that we all can agree on, both the city and the landowners. Once we do that and we know what development tools are in our toolkit, so again, tonight I've asked which ones do we want to take out, not necessarily how are we going to use the ones that are available, but which ones are absolutely not in the toolbox, right? Then we can start to move towards that plan that you all are hoping to see, but we're very far away from in terms of the contract and the final master plan design. Councilor Anderson.

Some of these, as they were explained, the PID, the CRA, I think part of our problem is that we don't know the full mechanics as to how these function and how they work and how the payback is and what the responsibility is. And so even just a cursory look at this, the sales tax revenue bonds, With our sales tax situation such as it is, for me, just again not knowing the mechanics behind that, that would be a no-go for me because that's too much of a wild card for us to entertain right now. So if we're looking for specifics based on this list, that would be one. That's good feedback. That I would be inclined to shy away from. And Councillor Hanson also talked about bonding. You know, if grants are available, to me, that's the avenue that I would like to see us pursue. bonding that puts responsibility on the city because we're in that flux situation bonding is something that I'm I'm not inclined to entertain right now going a little into this we don't have a cost estimate

what this would even cost because we don't have a finalized concept so I and I think that's what he's getting at as well once we can solidify that that concept then we can say okay here's the here's the opportunities that are off the table here's ones that are on the table and now we know we have this concept is approximately how much is gonna cost for the developer, for the city, for whoever's involved there. Now we can pursue... Because we're going to do this thing, here's a grant that would do the open space. Here's a grant that would do the bridge. And there's some pieces that we can put together. But one of these pieces is to understand what's off the table, which it sounds like we're getting some of that, which is great. The other piece is... Now, concept-wise, it sounds like we're close. There's obviously some pieces that aren't maybe there yet. Let us know what those are so that we can refine that, get it to something that we're all comfortable with. And then we can say, okay, here's what it's going to cost. Here's a funding strategy that we as the consultant team can put together and then give you added detail. We don't want to give you detail about everything. You're like, ah, we don't want that. Like why give information about the ship if you're just like, we're not doing it. So that's like we don't want to just give it about everything. Let's refine it down, get the concept ironed out, then say we're not good with these. We are good with these. And then we can say here's approach A, here's approach B, here's approach C. And then here's details on what it's going to take to do that. What's the risk involved? Who's footing the bill for whatever it may be? But we'll know that once we have the concept ironed out, and then we can iron out the strategy as well.

Go ahead.

No, no.

I was looking at .

So I'm just wondering, are you saying, in my hearing you say, that maybe we're just too far along here. We're trying to get into the details that we don't need to be. So I think part of what we're struggling with here is the last time we really looked at this was the charrette. Right. Which has been months and months ago. And while I love the concept, for us and the council, this is the first we've seen it. Oh, I know. I know. So it's a big bite to take. I love where we're going. Obviously, there are elements that we could probably thumb wrestle over and decide what we like and what we don't. And the ask here is about the financing piece. Are we really at a point where we need to shut down certain elements of financing? Or are we... Because I agree with... many of the sentiments here, the last road we want to travel is additional bonding or obligations to the city because there's a lot of unknowns here. But having said that, it feels like you're going to build this as we go. So as we identify what the next steps are, what elements of this development project would be first, second, third, how it would phase, what the costs are, we don't know the questions even to ask. So I guess... How critical is it that we look at the financing elements that Mr. Cooper is talking about right now? Do we need to shut down and forego some of those?

Well, it sounds like we've already got a few that we've shut down because like, yeah, that's a no. That's exactly what we're more or less looking for. It's a funnel is what this process is. We're starting to funnel down to the things that we're good with. And okay, that's off the table. All right, let's keep moving a little bit further. Now that's off the table. Now we have a little bit more understanding. You took a few off. That's exactly. And I'm not looking for an exact, this is the concept that I want tonight because you are just looking at it. but start to mull over those and over the next week, send the comments to him, send the comments to me, and we can refine that concept out and work through it and say, okay, well, maybe this doesn't make sense or maybe it does. There is a pedestrian bridge that has been contemplated in the general plan and UTA, UDOT, it's on the regional plans where there is a bridge somewhere. If there's going to be a bridge somewhere, where does it go? So there's some of those conversations that have happened previously. It's intended to happen. What's the best solution for it? Is it on the far south side or is it right in the heart of it? I don't know. Or maybe it's like, well, maybe we don't need it anymore. That's a completely different discussion than what we've been having.

Mayor, for the sake of time, can I ask one question and make a suggestion? Yeah. I know this was a big packet tonight. How many of you have had more time beyond just this presentation to look at the information? So everyone's looked at it and had a chance? Okay. Maybe we ought to have an extended work session or another Charette type of a meeting that's smaller just with the council and staff, another dedicated meeting to look at the concept. I think we're all hearing bonding is a difficult thing. I anticipated that. I wanted to make sure it was on the list because it is a tool. But if it's not in our toolkit, then I think that's what I'm hearing. The others we don't need to understand or commit to now, but they're still on the table, at least until we decide for them not to be. But maybe we can table this conversation and just come back, focus on the concept with these financial tools in mind, and then we can start matching things up as we refine the concept together. With some more time.

Mayor?

Yeah.

Well, and I agree with what Councilor Richter was saying. Like, it depends on the timing, right? Right now, for us to even consider anything that would cost the city to pay out, it's hard for us to be like, that's a great idea. We're going to offload our fire department and sign up for a bond, or we're going to sign up for a ship loan that we're going to have to pay back. It just doesn't make sense for us to even pretend like we're going to consider that right now. But when you're talking about this kind of a size of a project, which we haven't really gotten into it, because like you said, you know, we have to finish the concept first and get there. If we're looking at a 20-year project, you know, who knows what in 15 years the situation will be. And not that necessarily the council then is going to want to bond and make residents pay for that, of course, but all of that kind of shifts and change, and so it's hard not to get caught up in the, how is this going to play out? But the timing right now, if that's what you're asking, we're, you know... For some of us that have really bad biases from trauma at work, it's hard not to bring that here. But then on top of it, like I said, with the sales tax situation, like the other council members said, how could we in good conscience even pretend like we would consider it? But long-term benefit to the city in 20 years, that could be a completely different situation. So I do like the idea of if we can break it down and somehow make it manageable for us to bite size like whoever just said that, that would be.

Yeah, the tools can change over time. PIDs and CRAs have long-term implications, and those decisions need to be made closer to the front end of the project. But absolutely, that can change with the other tools. So I think I'm actually getting what we were looking for in the different ways that you're saying it. I anticipated bonds would be no good, but... If we could meet together at another time that we can determine later to go over the concept a little bit more in depth and then with that discussion flesh out some of the financing tools, that would be great.

There's still a lot on the table, even with bonds out of there. I mean, the CRA seems like a great tool for that area.

And even the PIDs, right?

Yeah, the PIDs are okay. I mean, I sit on committees for WFRC and WACOG, Transportation Funding Committees, and the amount of money they give out blows my mind. Like, WACOG gives out $17 million a year to transportation projects. A year. You know, so that makes one of those bridges like, oh, okay, well, we'll take that and You know, we'll build one of the bridges. There's enough money out there. I don't know if it would qualify for the WACOC thing, but part of it or something. There is money coming out for transportation and for infrastructure.

If there is some information about discussions that have been had about legitimately with UTA, with UDOT, about pedestrian bridges, I mean, that would be good information for us to have up front about how serious they are, why they're looking for it, because then it does matter where we put it and where does it make the most sense. Okay.

And if I could just make one more point about the why and how sequence. That's very important. The how becomes much easier when we understand the why. And with the why becomes the what, right? So that's why I think understanding this concept and getting behind it and the reason why a pedestrian bridge is even necessary in the first place. How to build all that stuff, I think, collectively becomes easier to pursue. There's a lot of smart people in our corner. There's a lot of funding sources. But we have to be unified in the why and the what before anything. And then all this other stuff will fall into place.

Okay. Good discussion. Let's keep moving. All right. Number six. Oh, what's that?

Thanks, Benji. Thanks. He's gone.

All right. Okay. Number six, discussion and action. Possible action regarding a city administrator contract. May go into a closed session. I don't think we need a closed session unless these guys want it, but the stuff I was going to mention has already been kind of mentioned in Mr. Brooks' letter that he sent out. Hopefully you'll have a chance to read that. Do you want to start, Mr. Brooks, or do you want me to start?

I can do, if you'd like. Um, we met early yesterday morning when I say we, it was Stacy and Cody and myself and with Chief Hennessy. And we met with a couple of those fire crews yesterday and kind of went over that discussion. And as I left there, I went up 4,400 just because I wanted to get a view of everything and I see how they're opening that thing up, and I see the new bridge. I mean, you can see most of that stuff now. And then you turn onto the new road and went down past Tesla, and you see the America First stuff all coming together. I just thought to myself at that time, then I went down and looked at the playground and then over into Motorview and that kind of stuff, and I was thinking... Man, I don't think that even Larry Hansen would have visioned this. I mean, this is shocking. And it was beautiful up there. You see these big, wide roads that we didn't anticipate that were ever going to happen. And as I got thinking about that, this has been like moving targets, every one of those projects up there for the last four years or so. And it caused me to reflect a little bit. I mean, I'd already been thinking about this for a while when I was down in St. George meeting with a lot of the city managers and stuff, and we discussed some of these things. But... Four years ago, when I entered into this contract, I really didn't. I did mainly because a number of the city employees had been working with me for that year, you know, and we were without a city manager for different reasons or city administrator. But I didn't anticipate that I'd even stay on that long, to be honest with you. I mean, I'll just be frank with you. And when we initially talked about this, I mean, I threw a number out there, and even some of those guys said, you're crazy, you know, it's way too low. But at the time thinking, well, I'm only going to do this for a year or two anyway. I thought it'll be fine. I'm good with that. But it's kind of changed and it's evolved and suddenly I feel like I'm vested in these things and I want to see them through and see a lot of these things finished. And as the more I got thinking about it, I mean, this has taken up a lot of time. I mean, tons of time that I never even anticipated. And I'm okay with that. I don't mind doing it. But I also thought, you know, it needs to be fair. And I don't know how fair it is anymore. And that's why I brought this up to the mayor's attention and stuff. And so as I looked at these things a little deeper, I kind of felt like, you know, it's time to bring this back in because I don't think it's been fair to me. And not that it's anybody's fault. I'm not saying that. I'm not trying to be greedy or anything here. But I explained all that in my letter. And as I look at you know, we have a process in place that as a city administrator, I can, if somebody does exactly what I'm doing in any other position, I can take the salary of that position that's hanging out there and give them up to a third of that salary. And I'm not even close to that in my arrangement, in my situation. And so I thought, you know what, I just need to at least ask for it because I I want to be fair. I want to be fair to everybody, and I want you to be fair to me is kind of where I'm at. So I bring this up with that in mind. Again, I don't want to sound greedy or anything, but I do want to make this worth my while as well as your guys' while. I where I'm coming in, I don't know. I just would like to see some some changes made. The mayor and Cody and Stacey met and they came up with some ideas. And I'm actually OK with some of that as far as the concepts of that, because I don't want to be coming back in here every year and asking for changes and and more so. I've got some ideas in mind on what I'd like to see. I mean, a lot of that would be the proposal that the mayor and Cody and them came up with. But I do would like to discuss the salary idea. You know, if we looked at this, the biggest problem is coming up with a starting point on a salary because You know Stacy's got you know some of the formulas that she uses and I've spent a lot of time recently on on the state website looking at you know the salaries that people make and So I've got some things in mind But I didn't know where you guys were at and I wanted to discuss it and see what your thoughts were questions were Where we can? Arrive at some conclusions here. I've gone back and looked at some of the old city administrators contracts and it's been interesting to see those things evolve over the years to I'm looking at one of Larry's first ones. Even in that one, you know, his car a lot was more than what I'm getting, plus he gets paid mileage, and I don't get any of that right now. I mean, I'm getting a lesser amount, and I don't get paid mileage. It's just these kind of little things that have just kind of been rubbing on me. It's kind of like, you know, this isn't right, and it doesn't seem fair. So I would just like to put all that stuff behind us and get moving on and seeing where we can get with this. I don't know if you have questions for me or what my thoughts were beyond that or what your thoughts even are.

Are you looking for an entirely new contract?

Well, that was one of the points I was going to bring up. This contract that I'm in right now was the contract I think started with Larry. And it's been tweaked as it's gone along the way. And there's even problems with that. And at some point in time, we need to rewrite that contract. I mean, I went back through that again, my own, and looked at it. There's still references to a severance package and things like that, which I know we discussed in mine, and we didn't. I didn't ask for that at the point. I know Alan opposed that strongly, and I didn't ask for it. Like I said, I wasn't planning on staying in there a real long time anyway, so I wasn't even thinking about a severance package anymore. I'm not even saying that I'm asking for that now, but we do need to rewrite that contract at some point in time. I know you guys would probably feel a little uncomfortable. I think if we could reach some agreements on some of these major points. I wouldn't mind writing a contract and bringing it back in and letting you guys review it, you know, and kind of cleaning it up. Because the one that's in place is just not good, to be honest with you. And at some point in time, especially when I leave, I certainly want to rewrite another contract so that you've got something good to give to the person who's going to follow me or something at least better than what this is. I mean, there's some points that we need to discuss. One would be, you know, arriving at a salary or at least some, not necessarily a full salary, that's not what I'm asking for, but some compensation for that additional work that I'm doing. And a couple other things, a lot of the things that you guys covered, you know. We got to clean up the dates and stuff because there's confusion on that kind of stuff as to when it starts and things like that, which those aren't really big sticking points, but some sort of maybe a makeup provision on... I mean, the contract says right now that I'm entitled to certain things, that none of that's happened in four years. And the compensation hasn't increased in four years. It's still at what I consider to be a low point. And so I'm just asking that we bring that up to an amount that would be really in compliance with what our policy says, that anybody else in the city is entitled to. which would be a difference in the compensation and maybe a catch-up clause. And then I would like to have some renewals that are built into that, whether we just stuck with that COLA language that you guys had, both on the salary and the car allowance, just so it's more fluid and it's going to work and I don't have to keep bringing this in every four years or really every year or something like that. So... That's kind of where I'm at. I'm willing to discuss my thoughts on the compensation amount and where I would come down at and see where you guys are. But whatever you want to do, I don't really care. I'm open to discussions. Really, that's just kind of where I'm at.

So right now we're paying you $2,000 a month for the city administration portion. And it's been stuck there since the day we signed that four years ago.

Right. And if we followed the policy, it was 2002 that was officially signed. But it was almost another year if you count the time that I was filling in for Roger when he was sick. That was even before your time because that was under the previous mayor and in the time after Bill had left. So it's really been almost five years. But I wasn't getting compensated for that year.

Okay. Anyway, so it's been four years stuck at $2,000 a month.

Right. So if we were to take that, so if we followed that policy the way I interpret or I understand it, it basically says that I have the right to take whatever the city would be paying for that position. So let's say in this case, and I'll just round this off to a number that I think that would be in the ballpark, whether it's accurate or not. But at a base minimum for that position to be 150,000. Under that policy, as the city administrator, I could take 33% of that and give that to that person for doing those additional duties is basically what that policy says. And so it would be a third of that, so 50,000 if we were basing it on 150,000. So that would almost double that amount. So instead of being 2,000, it's going to be 4,000 or 4,000 and some change kind of thing. So that part would change. That's under the policy right now that we can do for anybody in the city. Now, it doesn't say that I could do it for the city administrator, which makes sense. And that's kind of why I'm coming into you guys, because you guys are the ones that have to decide that. But we can do that for anybody. And so I'm just asking, well, just treat me the same way on that part of it. The sticky point is where do we start that and what figure do we use? And when I throw out the 150, I pulled some stuff from Stacy earlier today. And it'll range. It's kind of hard to predict that, at least when you're looking at the state's website on wages and stuff. I mean, I look at the salaries of the city administrators and all around us and, you know, like Washington Terrace, he's up, and again, this is base salary. It's nothing else. There's no benefits or anything like that, but he's up around 179. South Ogden was even higher than that. He was 180-something. Roy was actually surprisingly lower than that. He was 100 and, I don't remember what he was, 160 roughly. And so even the 150 is low if you compare me just with the local ones around here. Now, I throw that out with some caveats because, you know, you don't know who's a city manager and who's an administrator. I think that's kind of just semantics on the words. We all do the same kind of things, but there could be differences there, and I don't want to pretend that there's not. And so that's where, when I came up with the $150,000, I'm thinking, well, if that's the starting base, and then I looked at that and said, if I got a third of that, then that would put me back at the $50,000. So it would basically double what I've been getting on that portion of the city administrator salary.

Thoughts or comments?

Councillor Hanson.

I think it would be helpful for us to know what the actual compensation currently is for both positions. And I personally, I think I would benefit from a closed session with just the council to see what everybody's temperature is, I think, before we really start talking about what we would want to change on it. And I think we would need, it would make sense for us to have outside council review any agreements to provide feedback on whether that's beneficial to the city or not.

Okay.

So I don't know if we can get the dollar amounts for both positions right now. We can, okay, that's great. And then you're also indicating that you'd like to go into a closed session with just the council?

I would, if there's support for it.

Okay, we would need a second for that. Do we want those numbers right now though?

Can I just comment on that? And it's a word of caution because, and Annie knows this, that closed sessions are only to talk about character and fitness of an individual. When you're dealing with a contract, that's not character and fitness. And so the provisions of the contract and things like that, I don't think qualify under a closed session. So I say that with a word of caution because I want it to be fair and I want it to be open. And it can't be just to go in there and complain and say, whatever, it's not fair. I mean, that should be done in an open public meeting.

No, I agree, and I agree that the purpose would be to talk about character and fitness and then talking about compensation outside. Outside, yeah.

And that I'm fine with. I don't have a problem with that. But we tend to do that, and I'm not saying you guys. Everybody I've ever seen that goes into closed sessions seem to wander, and they get into things that are illegal. You're not supposed to do those kind of things, so. But I don't care. I mean, if my character and fitness and whatever you want to talk about in those areas is a question, it's one of the reasons why I listed on that my letter to you all is just to show you that this is what I've done or been involved in or accomplished during my time here as the city administrator. And I think that does come into play for my character and fitness and what I'm able to do. I mean, I think that clearly plays into it. So that's one of the reasons why I provided that information for you.

Ms. Como, can you come up and share those numbers with us?

And I did ask Cody and Stacy to be here. I told them it was going to be a late night, but I knew that these things would come up for this reason, so.

So this is wage only. I didn't include benefits in this, but currently the city administrator salary is $211,700. I'm sorry, did I say city administrator? I meant city attorney.

You said attorney.

Oh, I did. Okay. $211,785.60. plus the $24,000 additional for the city administrator duties, so a total of $235,785.60. And again, that does not include benefits. That's wage only. What...

Do you have the amount? I mean, is 150 accurate for a city administrator? Or do we have like a previous, what our last payment on city administrator was?

So Bill was our last city administrator. And he was making $125,777.60. However, you do have to take into consideration that Bill didn't have a lot of experience, and so he was started at the lower end of the scale. He didn't even have as much experience as Steve has right now, so. And that, again, is wage only, no benefits included there.

And do you have information on the market analysis range? I do.

Sorry, I have a whole bunch of papers here.

I'm glad you're prepared, thank you.

Okay, so our current scale, so this would be our current fiscal year for the city attorney is 61.13 to 101.82. That's the current.

Those are hourly rates?

Those are hourly rates, yes, sorry. And then the city administrator scale hourly rates is 64.73 to 104.07. And what do we have currently budgeted for administrator? For the city administrator? We don't have anything budgeted for the city administrator other than the $2,000. Yeah, the $24,000. 33% of that's actually pretty low.

Yeah. It is low.

Ouch. No, I'm just... No, I know. I know that's what the policy says, but I get what you're saying about what we should be looking at.

Right, and the policy... And this is where I again ask you to be cautious about it. The policy is contemplating... It doesn't take into consideration. It specifically says if this person has a job, but they assume a whole other job, we're trying to compensate them for that. And so I think it's almost against policy to take my other salary and bring that in and say, well, he's making too much already. The idea is if he's going to do extra work, let's compensate him for it. That's the whole point. And so that's where I'm saying we need to figure out what the city administrator salary is, and then if you apply that policy to it, then you take a third of that. That's the way you can go up to. And that's what I'm asking. And so that's why I think it's important that we do establish what the city administrator thing would be, not so much what my current salary is.

Okay, any other questions for Ms. Como?

Yeah.

Yeah, Councillor Stephens.

Okay. When you do these comparables, how many of the cities you compare with have both an administrator and an attorney?

Off the top of my head, I don't know the answer to that.

Because I've been around long enough. There was a gentleman named Geilman. I think that was his name. And he was an attorney, and then he became a city manager. And he said, this was like almost 30 years ago, then he kind of said, I'll do both. It was right before Larry. Yeah. He said, I'll do both. And there was a compensation package. And because the question at that time was, well, if we've got a city manager and a city, I mean, do we need a city manager and a city attorney? And it's a philosophical question. And, you know, what is Clearfield? What is South Ogden? Do they have a city attorney or do they have it on retainer or somebody, you know, I don't know. And so I'm just thinking, do we need, and you're very valid of what you're saying. And it's not about you. It's just, philosophically, it's, Do we need an administrator? Okay. Do we need a full-time city attorney? I'm not convinced. And that's why I kind of ask, what do the other comparable cities do? I mean, do we need counsel? Absolutely. Do we need full-time? I don't know. I'm not sure. And so Are we looking at this backwards? Do we need a full-time administrator and a part-time attorney? It's a philosophical question.

Councillor Anderson.

I think that if we were looking at Uintah or some other smaller community, you've got a valid point. Riverdale's in a unique situation. where there are a lot of things that come across the plate on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. My opinion, the 24,000 is a screaming deal that the city's made out on. There needs to be some adjustment, in my opinion, because but but in the same breath if you have a city administrator and a city attorney you've then got two viewpoints and so to say that you know we're going to pay the going city administrator rate and the going city attorney rate both i think We're paying more than what one person can provide because two people can obviously provide more input that can become more synergistic for an outcome. But the $24,000, I think, is something that needs to be addressed.

Just to follow up, in comparables, and we had this discussion a year ago before you were here, Riverdale is not in the same league as U-N or Hooper, never was even comparable. A comparable to Riverdale would be Roy, South Ogden, Clearfield, North Ogden in the immediate area. And so because of the size, population, budget, and those sort of things. Now, is everything just like Riverdale? No. But they do have very comparable in scope. And that's where, when you look at comparables to other cities, those are the cities not Uintah. That was never, that's a joke to compare that. But anyway.

Thank you. You said we're not.

We're not. I know. It's easy to bring it up. It's a joke. But to compare, you do apples to apples, and that would be, like I said, Roy, South Ogden, Clearfield, North Ogden.

Councillor Richter, do you have something to say?

Just a quick, can you give me an estimate how much time you spend during your regular workday? Is it mostly attorney work, mostly city administrative work?

You know, I'd say now, especially recently, it's probably been 70-30, city administrator. But the city attorney is a tough one to predict because it's a hot and cold deal. Annie could say that. You know, there's times when I am extremely busy with legal stuff and other times when I'm not. The city administrator lately has been a lot. I mean, we got so many things going. And just like that meeting yesterday, that's not something I would have participated in as the city attorney. I certainly had to be there as a city administrator when we're talking about this fire stuff. The city attorney is not going to get involved in that until later on. I mean, I kind of am because we're already working on some legal documents, but. So that's probably what it is. I don't think it used to be that way. When I first came in even four years ago, it might have been about a 50-50, you know, legal work versus administrative. We've got so many things going on right now, and that's kind of part of what's spurred this is the administrator stuff has just gotten way busy. And to answer one of your questions, you know, and that's kind of why I looked at our neighbor. He's Our neighbors, you know, Mr. Hanson up there is the city administrator for Washington Terrace, I believe it was about 179 just for his salary. And that's no benefits. That's just his salary. And they have, I think they contract out their attorney stuff. In fact, I know they do. South Ogden has both a city administrator and an assistant administrator, and then they contract out their legal work. And they just brought somebody on who's pretty much full-time because they tried that about, I don't know, four or five years ago. And it just wasn't working for them. So they're bringing somebody on way more because the legal work's picking up and all of us are in that boat. Roy's got both a city administrator and assistant administrator and a city attorney. So they've got all of them. And both those two cities have help. It's not just one person doing all of the administrative duties. So that's why I'm saying this is a lot of work. And that's what's kind of hard is because when I You can't pick cities our size because they're just not comparable. And even bigger cities, I mean, Riverdale is a tough one to predict, man. It's just a weird anomaly, you know, because we have so many strange things going on with all the commercial development stuff, which does involve both those positions quite a bit, but especially the administrator.

May I make a comment? Sure. Come on up.

Thank you for letting me have a voice, and I hope to stay in my lane. But I'm not here to speak on compensation, but I will speak on value, the value that Mr. Brooks brings to the city. We've often asked employees to do more with less to preserve our culture, Approach 2030, some of the problems we have, and Mr. Brooks has met that head on. He was tasked with doing two jobs. I worked with him for 20 years. He's always been busy as the attorney. He's done a great job as the attorney. But as a city manager, he's been a great leader as well. And I've seen, I'm here often quite late. Matter of fact, I was here, came in last night, I'm not sure what time it was, probably 10 o'clock, and he was just leaving. That's often the case. He had the city attorney mastered. He could probably do it and sleep you so good. He took on this new challenge to help all the employees and the council and the residents, because that's what you've asked of us, is to do more with less. And he's done an amazing job. And so you have a difficult decision because we want to retain and keep him around as long as possible. But I'm here to speak of the value that he brings. And he's brought a lot of value to the city. He's got great relationships with the employees, I believe with the council and the mayor, all the surrounding cities. And I just want to comment on the great value he brings and Irregardless, I tease him all the time and tell him he needs to stick around as long as possible. He's a little bit older than me, but I think he's got a lot of life left in him. And again, like I said, I just want to tell you guys how much I appreciate him from the employee's perspective and the value that he brings to the city. And you guys will have to decide what's fair, but I just have a hard time keeping my mouth shut sometimes, so I apologize. But that's all I have. But thank you for letting me speak. I appreciate it, man. Thanks, Chief.

Okay, Council Arnold.

I want to say, so I've been around since 2010. You haven't been better than you have in the last four years. I don't think we need a city administrator and a city attorney. I don't think we need a city attorney who's a city administrator. I think we need a city administrator who's an attorney because we farm out so much of our legal work when it gets dicey. compensation with a number, and you have, you know, a zillion years of experience, which, you know, gets numbers on that. But, you know, I know somebody that's, I mean, legal, making about the money you are, and they're working their guts out. Like, they have no personal life. I don't think the city, personally, in my time around, I don't think the city has run any better than having you do this. There's been bumps in the road and all that kind of stuff, as it would be with anybody, but I think it's more value having your experience, not having the two heads, talking about various whatevers. And your paid counsel, when we have a city administrator, you literally are just waiting for the question or the task in the attorney. And I think I would like to keep it the same as it is, but focus on you being the city administrator. with your legal background. And then if we have to go outside for legal counsel, you know, compensation, I mean, I just mentioned this to Braden, you know, I don't think Riverdale has ever had to work within a budget. I mean, we have a budget, right? But as far as like, you know, like my personal life, if I want something, I go buy it. I don't have a budget. put it together and I think Riverdale's been operating like that for many, many years and to look at 2030 and one of the things that I'm going to ask in the comments at the end is the budget that we're going to approve next meeting or whatever is to have a statement from like Cody and you saying how is this budget gonna get us toward goals in 2030 because having the fire department move over We lose that many employees, we lose that much responsibility and all that kind of stuff, but it also creates more money for Riverdale to do more stuff. The fire department, or what it would be, the property tax that funds the district, won't fund our fire department. It's spread over multiple residents. And I just think, you know, with the numbers that Stacey talked about, you're in the, like your W-2 would have been like close to 240-ish. And I think that's really fair for Riverdale. I mean, we talk about Riverdale being a, you know, this, what is Riverdale? I mean, we're talking... we're gonna be in the 30 full-time employees kind of thing. And to have a business run like that, and it's kind of shocking how much people make in running a municipality. And I think your compensation is really fair. I think you should have a contract that basically says you're the administrator with a legal background and do the legal stuff. But I think it's been extremely fair. If you dissect it, Not really, but I don't think Riverdale needs a full-time attorney. We need an administrator with a legal background is my opinion. And I will say this again, the last four years that you have been the administrator has been my favorite of any administrator that I've worked with. been around, dealt with, whatever. It's been phenomenal. You've done a phenomenal job. And a lot of that is opportunity. I mean, Tesla coming in where Larry's dealing with buying some scrub piece of ground, trying to save where the power station is going and stuff like that. And then it falls into a Tesla dealership. It's kind of amazing. And America first bopping in and saying, hey, Kim, go build a building somewhere. you know picked riverdale kind of thing so i just think it's a i think you're fairly compensated for what you do if you need help you know i mean let's get you a what legal assistant secretary paralegal somebody but i think you're fairly compensated and and you do a great job thank you you want a nicer car is that what you're looking for

Any other comments? I'm not really sure where we're going to end up with this.

What is the action for today?

Well, it was discussion and action regarding city administrator contract. I don't know if we want to give him some guidance on what you would like to see him come back with or... The old contract was in the packet, but it has been discussed. It probably needs some work. But he probably needs some guidance if you're going to send him to the drawing board to draw some stuff up, especially with the compensation part of it. We've heard kind of the gamut of what... What might be fair or not fair? What might be approved by the council? Okay.

My guidance is drop a new contract as your primary position as the administrator and then use the – because you are. That's how you're viewed and how you're presented and introduced. And then – Do the city attorney thing as the, I don't know, would that hurt your ego to say I'm no longer the city, I'm city minister? Anyway, but I think that's where it needs to go from my perspective.

You've got to be a little careful because a third of 212 is a chunk of change.

So what? So a city attorney is paid more than an administrator? They actually are, yeah. That was why he kept the attorney.

They didn't used to be. At that time, we chose that. The administrator was 10% higher than the highest paid department head. What's that? At a certain point.

At a certain point, yeah.

It was John Geilman's contract. Was it originally John's? It is pretty bastardized at this point. Yeah, it's been beat up. I agree with that. It's pretty rough.

I'm not sure where we're at here. Can somebody explain something? I just need to know. I've got a lot of decisions to make here. In my contract, I still have that option to go back as the city attorney. That was one of the things that I requested. If you guys don't want me as the city administrator, then that may be an option I would exercise or explore some of my other options. I just need to know. I need to know where you guys are at. I mean, I look at this and go, okay, I've been doing one job, which they're pretty close. I mean, there would be some differences, but they're not that much. So I'm doing one full job, and I'm getting $24,000 for the other one. So if you took that out and just looked at the city administrator's salary, over those four years, I've probably saved Riverdale a million dollars by me doing all that. So when I come in and say I want a little bit more than that, I think that's a pretty light ask because I think that's just in fairness is what we should do. And then if we're following policy, policy gives us that option anywhere else to go up to a third of that salary. So I don't think that's a huge yes. But if that's just too much for you, then I'd just like to know, and we'll make decisions based on that.

Can I make a comment to that?

Yes, Councillor Hanson.

Looking back on, I think it was my first year that we, maybe it was my first year when you were made officially the city administrator. And I think you handled it right. I think, if I can say it because I wasn't here, so I think I have the right to say it because I wasn't involved. I think you were cheated. with the bill thing, to be honest. You know, you were with the city for all of that time. You knew the culture that was really beneficial to the employees. You got passed over when you, in my opinion, shouldn't have been passed over at that point in time. But I wasn't here to know the specifics of it. That's just my outside personal opinion without knowing the facts. And so I think when you entered in and suggested this agreement, I think it was because you were holding back a little bit, unsure of if the council did want you as the city administrator because of what had happened. And I agree. I think from what everyone's been saying, we for sure want you to be the city administrator. And even I would say back then when I voted on it, we wanted you to be the city administrator then, I know I did, to keep continuing, especially for the employees, that culture, to bring it back to a place where, you know, we weren't going to lose employees over them not wanting to come to work or not knowing what to expect. And And I think you've really worked hard to promote that and to rebuild that culture that kind of got shaken a little bit during that time. And so I do think that that's why you came forward with that agreement that way, so that you could default back if we started to hesitate and think you weren't doing a good job at it. But I think you've fulfilled the duties of the city administrator and everyone appears to agree with that. And we've never heard Mr. Arnold be that complimentary.

I agree. I'm kind of surprised, to be honest with you.

I think that's a pretty good indicator of where everybody else is at. And so that's the way that I see it. And I know that that was in there so you could hedge your bets just in case because of what happened. And in my opinion, it wasn't fair. I wasn't here, I guess. But I think we want you as the city administrator. And so what I would want is to see an updated agreement. Bring us what you want. Keeping in mind it sounds like everyone's leaning towards more of a focus on the city administrator versus you acting as the attorney and maybe if need be bringing in some additional legal help on a contracted basis to keep saving the city some money but I'd like to see what you're presenting of what are you asking for on all those little items that you kind of had already discussed and let us see it and answer, I guess, and provide it. But if you're concerned about not having confidence in the council supporting you as the city administrator, I think that that's been demonstrated. it's not that so you're saying i serve as the the city administrator and then do it nothing on legal stuff well i think so now we'll pay for that part of the position that have like a background in law or a background as a water worker right when we approach our job of course we're going to be using our knowledge and expertise in that job and there's just some sort of expectation of that without compensation versus you should be getting paid for the job that you're doing

right and so and I guess that's where I'm a little bit confused about so whether I did one or the other if I did the city administrator and now we're gonna pay somebody to come in and do the legal work when in reality I'm offering you right now if you even gave me a third of that salary I just continue to do all of it I mean I it's almost like we're we're we're gonna pay the same way either way it's just a matter do you want to I thought that meant that they're ready to forego having a full-time city attorney Right, but we're still going to have to contract something out, and so you're going to have to pay for that.

Just contracting out what we need help with.

Right. I mean, we typically contract out legal work. You review the things they go through, you write the things that are coming to us. I think Riverdale is in a position till 2030 that I think you've been fairly compensated. I think as a city attorney, you're overcompensated. As a city administrator, you're undercompensated. You've had a fair wage for the last four years, and just looking on this last year, and I'm guessing at the W2 at 240, that's a dang good job, and Riverdale's a dang good city, and it's worked really well. The compensation of how well it's worked has nothing to do with what you've done, your character is how you presented it. And I would move that we eliminate the city administrator position, or not city administrator, city attorney position. I would like to see the city administrator always be an attorney and function like this, because it has worked. far better than it is, but if you take Mr. Hanson's job at 179 or something, 173?

Oh, Tom Hanson's?

Yeah. And then add in a third, you're talking another 60, 70 grand above him. and and i just i just think you've been fairly compensated not i get the contract and the all the clauses within the contract and the wages 24 000 and all that kind of stuff but i just think you've been fairly compensated for that time and it's been and it's worked well it's worked well for the city it's worked well for you and you know and i i would hope that you know you're 53

I'm 53.

I'm older than that. I was just kidding. I have no idea. I would like to see you be the city administrator and city attorney in the same position at the same wage for the next year. Five years?

Or whatever your... Could we at least build something into it so his wage goes up? Because the $24,000 hasn't gone up since we put him into it.

The thing is, we do an 8% increase. And I know it's an 8% increase in the budget, and people get certain percentages of that because some of the other lower-paid people were brought up. The police, for example, I think got a big chunk of the 8% and things like that. But when we're talking about that kind of money... If you're the federal government, the responsibilities that you would have at that pay are huge, like massive, massive amounts of people, 400 people or more. Far more in the budgets, things like that. Less support group kind of thing, and it sucks for the federal government. I'm not saying they're doing it appropriately, I just think it's a really fair compensation for the job that it is.

Councillor Richter, you had something?

Yeah, just briefly. Mr. Brooks brings up a great point that the $24,000 stipend, which is basically what we're talking about here for that, is outdated and does need to be redone. So I like the concept of redoing this contract altogether. Now, where we come down at the overall compensation, I'm open to that discussion. And I think we need to make sure that you're treated fairly. I think it's... unanimous that everybody's grateful and appreciative of the job and the work that you're doing. So from my perspective, I think whatever that compensation total ends up being, I'm open to that. I want to make sure that you're being treated fairly, but it does need to be one compensation package that would get the incremental COLA increases and things like that, just to clean that up. Yeah, because I think a $24,000 stipend that goes off year is outdated and doesn't accurately reflect what you're doing now. Does that mean it's going to be an overall increase? I don't know where that comes out. But I'm looking for a – I think I wasn't here when that original contract was done, and I don't know necessarily what's behind it. I've heard stories, but I don't know. But I think it is outdated and does need to be redone. And frankly, to make sure that you're compensated appropriately, I think it's unanimous that we appreciate what you're doing here. So for what that's worth, I think it needs to be redone.

Okay. So is that kind of a consensus to just have them bring back a, you want to bring back a city administrator contract?

Just one contract. Just one contract. Just a proposal with everything you're suggesting.

Is it going to address the legal? Are we dissolving the city attorney position? What would you like to see in the contract? Is he supposed to do city attorney duties as needed, or is that just out the window? What's the guidance on that?

My suggestion, if I could, is what he proposed is... Pick one. And if you want to be city lawyer and then do a third of the other or vice versa, go with that. I mean, you're doing both. So, you know, some days, some weeks, some months, it's going to be 80-20, some, you know, 70-30, whatever. But pick one and then a third of the other. Okay. Is that what everybody says? Everybody kind of says that. Well, we've got a couple.

We've got two. Anybody else? We've got two people that think he should do that.

Before you get a third.

Go ahead.

Yeah. I definitely don't want that because if Steve says, well, I'm just going to be the city attorney and you guys can go hire another city administrator, we're going to be pumping 150 grand or whatever. whatever, 116 or whatever a bill would come in. And then we got a city administrator with no experience and all that kind of stuff. This is working. And you're compensated fairly. And if you want, $1,000 for a car, you want a Bentley or whatever it is. I think you get $600. $500.

$500.

$500 a month. And it's like if you need more money for a car, so you have a payment in insurance, and I don't know if you get gas money. You don't get mileage, so you don't get gas money. But you're fairly compensated. for this position and I think this position works really well with the city administrator with a legal background. You've proven it, it works well and you're making, granted you're doing more than these other cities you're talking about. Maybe they should follow this model more than than they are but i think you're fairly compensated i think put a number on what you think's fair of what you've been doing and that you'll be willing to do this for the next x amount of years until you want to retire and then cody will have to budget the world because when you do retire it's going to be a big old chunk of chains well that's what i thought i was doing that's why i said you know we'll go with the one salary and give me 50 grand more and

clean up these other little things, and I'm good to go.

So you think you should be making $260,000, $270,000 to do this job?

I'm just following that policy that's in place.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, you're going to pay double benefits for – and we're not factoring – you're factoring in one of the benefits, but you hire somebody else, and that's probably another – I don't know what – Stacy's another $70,000, $80,000 in benefits on that other salary as well. You're getting – you're not having to pay any of those, so – It's okay. I mean, if that's what you want to do, I just need to know. And I'd prefer a decision tonight. But if not, then I can clean up the contract. But I just kind of need some guidance here.

I'm more for I don't think that we are paying him appropriately. I think that The position with what he's doing, yes, I agree with you in principle as far as having a city administrator with an attorney's background. But if we were to have both, we'd be paying more for those two salaries. And so I feel like the 24,000, again, is outdated. and that we need to bring us a proposal as to what you think is fair and let us work to meet in the middle.

So he's wanting to add another $26,000 onto the $24,000. Is that what we all kind of worry about? That's what, in principle, if I got the numbers right.

It would be $50,000 total.

Yeah, just do it. Bring the numbers in. We'll vote on it. It's before us tonight. Now let's vote on it.

Well, he has to bring back a contract for us, right, to review?

Well, I mean, I need the main details, and then the contract's kind of, we can do that any time, but if we got the main details of it, and... Yeah. I mean, that's the gist of it.

Mr. Gardner, can you come to the microphone?

Sure. Okay.

I don't know if I want to or not, but sure.

Well, part of it, I think, too. Do you want more money, too? No. Well, sure. Sure. But, no, like part of it, too, we do have the budget next week or in two weeks, and that's part of the reason Steve wants an answer is we need to fix this in the budget as well. So if you guys are going to do something, it would sure be nice if we had an answer tonight so that we can get that fixed in the budget so we don't have to turn around two weeks later and already do a budget amendment. And so I think what he's looking for is an answer of like the detail, not the specifics of the contract, but the numeric values so that we can budget and then he can build the contract around it. And it would help me and help him and help all of us to get everything done once without having to do it multiple times in the next couple weeks.

If this was Harrisville, what would you say?

Harrisville I don't do anything with Harrisville or live in Harrisville or anything so I have no idea you can do whatever you want so like I've talked to Steve about it a lot I think if you I've looked at what and I know several other cities too for what he's proposing well let me back up first I don't think all attorneys are going to make an excellent city administrator I think it's more about the person not about their background And I think that's why Steve does a good job is because it's Steve, not because he's an attorney. Now, is there some crossover? For sure. But I know other city administrators that are great city administrators that used to be accountants or used to be police chiefs that they just understand and they're good leaders. I think that's what makes Steve a good person and a good fit here is his leadership and not so much. I mean, yes, we get a bang for the buck. But if we just look at those things independently, if he's saying he wants 50 grand plus what he makes as the city attorney, we're not going to be able to pull that off with a contracted city attorney with the amount of stuff that we have here. So it's going to be cheaper paying him that and his salary. than just paying him as the city administrator and going out and contracting, in my opinion. Now, we could advertise that, and we could find a city attorney for $30,000, and it might be cheaper, but that's probably not the city attorney or contract attorney that we want. So in my opinion, I think what he's proposing is still a good deal for the city. And so, yeah, if it was far west, I'd probably say, yeah, it looks like a pretty good deal. We're getting quite a bit of bang for our buck. And that's what we try to do around here is we try to – we ask a lot of our people, but we try to compensate them fairly, and it's still a good deal for the city in most cases. So that would be my suggestion, and it'd sure be nice if we knew tonight so I can fix the budget once.

If it's city policy to do one-third of that, then I'm comfortable staying within policy because I think that's the safe harbor. I think it's terrible policy to try to create jobs based on people. Mr. Brooks is excellent. We probably wouldn't see another Mr. Brooks, so trying to build a policy based on people is a terrible idea. But if we can stay within policy, looking at the city attorney thing and one-third of that for the administrator portion, Even acknowledging the comments that have been made about the overall compensation, I think staying within policy is always a safer harbor for me. If that's where we are, then I'm comfortable with it.

Councillor Stevens.

Is it one-third or up to one-third?

It's up to one-third is how it's phrased.

Okay. That's good to know. Thank you.

So if Councilor Arnold wanted to horse trade a little bit and knock it down to $45,000.

I'm not trying to do that. In any form or fashion. So one of the number one comments that we get, and I shouldn't say we, number one comment that I've gotten over the years is we talk about money. We talk about Riverdale. Riverdale has all this money. And I've had city administrator makes in Riverdale. It's one of the highest paid positions in the state. And it's like, You're done. Your arguments are done with the way Riverdale spends money, the things that we do. The number one thing is that W-2. And is it fair? It's a fair contract. Your idea for the 24,000, that was your idea. You came forward with it. And how it was worded probably isn't good. But the 240 is just fair. I mean, it's a fair wage. 20 grand a month. for what you do is fair. It's just.

He's talking about my city attorney.

Councillor Stevens. When you're talking about it, How is it common knowledge of what somebody makes? I think that's a rhetorical question, but I want somebody to respond. Stacey, how is it common knowledge of what somebody makes, like what was just said?

There's actually a web page that lists those.

And I think I know the web page, but how is it, is it by name or is it by position?

You can search it all kinds of ways, positions, cities, everything. And I'll tell you, I'm not near the highest paid city attorney in the state of Utah.

If that is actually true, what he just, what Arnold just said, if that's true, that a state representative said, if you can pull that up on public domain somewhere, that you're the city attorney and this is what you make, and if that's true, what he just said, and we're getting knocked for it, then change it to city administrator because, or put it administrator slash attorney. Can you do that? Or I've never seen it as by,

You can look. I mean, and some of those salaries are going to shock you, the ones who are really in the top five. Oh, I know. But you don't know. It's hard to read into that because some of those may have been a retirement and they're paying them out. So that salary might be higher that year than it would be following. John Geilman's a good example. If you go back and look at John's salaries there, he was consistently high in the whole state. I mean, like extremely high.

Can we put that in there since, again, if it's true that we're being knocked, then maybe we should put, okay, city administrator, can you put, I don't know.

I don't think there's a combo, is there? That's one of the problems with this is you choose one of the two.

There are a couple that are listed in there, but it's not overall.

Is there one for like a title like Godfather?

there's a lot of variables that play into that and that's why that one's hard to follow and that's where I said I couldn't come down with a an actual number that I can say hey this is it I felt safe with the 150 because I felt that that was in the range certainly and then if you took a third of that that's where it would be the 50,000 so if you take the 24 plus the 26 then I'm at the 50,000 so I'm following policy and following that

Is it wages or benefits? It does break it down.

Yeah, it does break it down. And look at how much more you pay for benefits there. And that's what I'm saying. In this whole proposal here, you're saving half of those by me doing both of them.

Because we're not paying two people health insurance.

Right. And some of those are huge. I think it was South Ogden's. It was almost $80,000 just in benefits.

How are the attorney wages?

From Matt Dixon.

If you click on the arrow next to wages, it'll sort up by the highest.

It usually adds in the benefits is how it defaults. So that's why it doesn't look like it's the highest. But once it adds in benefits, like .

200,000 in benefits.

Just for benefits? And probably be a retirement. Maybe.

Well, and some of those are state positions, too, so.

Yeah, those state guys, they get paid obscene amounts.

I mean, I would be surprised that somebody's calling us out based on that because I'm not going to be any different than anybody else. We make a lot of money. We have a doctorate degree and we have a professional degree, and you're going to pay for that. I mean, it just is.

Is there anything else anybody would like to see? Thank you, Mr. Cardin. That was pretty informative. Anybody want to make any kind of motion or Have any questions or comments?

Do we need to do it by motion? Do we need a motion?

It would be nice. It gives me a little more direction.

Just to give him some guidance to what Mr. Cardin especially, thanks for bringing that up about the budget. That's one of the main reasons we're here tonight.

Councillor Arnold. I will make a motion that the contract amount for the city administrator B, instead of $2,000 a month, is $5,000 a month, or $60,000 on top of the attorney's salary. For as long as you're here, no raises on that. No, I'm just kidding. It's $60,000. and that your car allowance goes to $750 a month and some other details that you can put in your contract that you can put that in, Cody can put it in his budget or whatever and then we'll ratify the contract in the future, at a future meeting, right?

Okay. Do we have a motion? Do we have a second? Going once.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? I didn't like that.

There's too much. Just write it, and then we can hash it. I didn't like all the minutiae.

Any other discussion?

It seems cleaner just to stick with what you originally said. I mean, just to follow the budget, or follow the policy. And that way it applies to you, but then, you know, to fix the contract so that that amount is adjusted when it's supposed to be adjusted with everybody else's, and I don't remember everything else you discussed that Alan said, but it seems cleaner just to say we're following the policy instead of making special arrangements just for one employee. The policy instead of making special arrangements just for one employee.

And I think we should change the policy. that do we give them one third for doing another job?

I mean, it says up to it. It doesn't say we have to, but.

And the thing is that when you, so you get a 5% raise, it's 5% of the 50,000, 5% of the, or the 60,000, 5% of the 218,000. It's a chunk of change to go up like that. Well, and I, do you want to? No more.

The one thing about it, if you read that policy, it's meant to be short term. So it's not made to go on forever. It's made for instances like when Matt stepped in for Chief Sholley for a short term. It actually did apply to Steve when Bill was gone. And when Roger was gone, we gave it to Steve. It was less than the 33%. But that's what the policy says is it's for a short term period. Um, so it doesn't go on forever. It's meant to like fill a gap until we can advertise and like hire a new fire chief or we can go on until the end of his contract. Yeah, but I think from talking to Steve, in a lot of ways, and you'd know better than I do, the contract can dictate it. So where we're under this policy, we're under the 33%, then the contract can specify the specifics. But this specifically talks about it being for like... So it says... I'm sorry, I'm a boring reader, but... I can read you the whole thing if you want. It says, in an effort to promote efficiency, productivity, and innovation and mutual beneficial business practices, the city administrator coordinating with department heads where necessary is authorized to award up to 33% of the budgeted monthly base pay of any vacant... Authorized position on an interim basis to any employee with an ass in parentheses who take up, let's see, with an ass in parentheses who take up, let's see, service objectives while at the same time foregoing. Or position postponing the hiring or replacing of an authorized position or the payments may be made on a monthly basis or at the discretion of the administration as a lump sum at the conclusion of a successful efforts. So it's meant to be like a stop gap while we have a short term vacancy. So that's where I think the contract fits.

And I agree, but there's some definitions in there. I mean, what's the successful efforts? The successful efforts at the end of this is that you would hire somebody. We haven't done that. I'm still doing it. And so, you know, what's interim? How do you define that? I mean, I'm still interim at this point. It's been four years.

Councillor Arnold. The one thing that I like about having the amount put in there, like $2,000 a month, is the talking point that we're able to use when we get in a situation. And I don't make anything up to come here and prove a point. The conversations that I've had where somebody makes that comment, it's really good to be able to say, well, we're paying an extra $2,000 a month on top of that pay to eliminate this position. It's really sharp. It's crisp of what we're doing to have this amount put in there to say this is what our talking point is. It's like, well, how much does Steve make? I don't know. We got... A 3% increase the last four times or whatever. I mean, it's just a, it gives you more than you asked for. And it's a nice crisp amount that gives us a talking point.

All right. Any other discussion on the motion? We do need to take a vote. Seeing no other discussion, Ms. Maragoni, please poll the council.

No.

Councilor Hanson. I don't know. I'm a little confused to be honest.

This is for Council Arnold's motion for 60,000 plus 750 car allowance.

I'm going to say no, just because I feel like that wasn't what was presented from Mr. Brooks. And that we can hopefully do another motion if it doesn't pass.

We can always do another motion.

But let's finish voting. Sorry, I shouldn't comment.

I need pizza. Let's see. Yeah, continue on.

Councilor Arnold?

Yes.

Councilor Richter?

No.

Councilor Anderson?

Yes. Okay, that motion fails three to two. Is there anyone else that would like to make a motion or any other comments or questions?

Will you say out loud again what you said before and then?

I'll tell you what I would have brought in if you want to hear that. I actually have some sheets here for you.

Oh, wow. That would help. Came prepared, huh? Why don't you give these to us a half hour ago?

So I'll just summarize this for you. So the increase would go up to the 50,000. And then the rest of this stuff is basically what Cody and the mayor had proposed to me earlier in the week. We talked about some kind of a makeup provision, which that's the one, everything that's highlighted is stuff that's a little bit different. The rest of that stuff is what the mayor and Cody brought. So for the four years where I didn't get paid Well, that's what they proposed, and I agree with it. It was just a matter of what yearly rate do you use for that, whether it's the old one, the $24,000. And that was kind of my point, is if we do a... a cola on that on twenty four thousand that's just peanuts it's i mean you're talking about four thousand dollars for four years worth of work and so that i was saying if we did that uh... the makeup provision on the fifty thousand that i would be fine with that i don't have an issue with it and and the other thing too is is the cola here is based upon the federal cola rate which is probably going to be lower every year than what our rate would be so like the judge for instance he gets the average raise every year that the city employees get. I'm not even asking for that. I'm asking for the federal rate of the COLA, which is going to be, what are you talking, Cody, 3% or something? I think it's averaged like 2.8 or something. So on the city administrator salary, it's only going to be a 2.8 raise every year, and then the car would be the same thing, a 2.8% raise on that. So it's not even a huge amount between all of that stuff there. You're still talking kind of peanuts, but I did want to get to the $50,000 on that salary range, which would be, if you're basing it on our $50,000 salary, is that 33%. And I still think that's low, but I'm good with that. But it's up to you guys what you want to do. I don't... I do think that the, and I know this is stupid, but what started this whole thing was the fact that I'm having to pay for my trips to St. George every year. And I'm going, you know, everybody else in the city gets reimbursement for that, but not me. And so, yeah, $500, which four years ago for a car was decent, but when I have to pay my trips and I go to St. George three or four times a year, that's not fair either. And so I was just asking, well, give me the mileage on top of my car allowance. And so that's kind of what this did is it sort of takes care of that, but it's just rather than give me the mileage, it's actually in a dollar amount. But that's where we'd be, basically a $26,000 increase on top of what it is, some provision for the years that I didn't get anything, and then just bump that car allowance up a little bit to cover my trips or give me the mileage. I don't really care, but that's where we were at. Alan's proposal there did that, maybe even a little bit more.

On the car part?

On the car part, certainly. And he was higher on the salary, which would have almost made up for the makeup provision. Almost exactly. It would be close to about the same thing because it was $10,000 to $12,000, and that's what he had proposed.

So we had discussed his car allowance going to $600 with the possibility of a 2.8%-ish raise each year.

Yeah, and both of those just so I don't have to keep coming back in to renew this. And it's not a huge amount. I mean, 2.8 is the federal accepted, right? Right, right.

And the bullet point above that, that was the $50,000 instead of the $24,000?

That's the salary range. That's when I said that on the salary range. I mean, that's where that would fit in is if we did a third right there, which would take it up to $50,000.

Can you speak to the bullet point on reserve the right to return to city attorney?

That was the clause that I asked. The one thing that I asked on that contract before was it gave me the option to go back to be the city attorney. And that, again, was the thought that if this didn't work out, I wanted to go back to that. but we didn't know how it was going to work out. I didn't know. You guys didn't know.

Did you still want, are you proposing that stay that remain in, in your new contract?

Well, I would still continue to do both. And so I would like to have that option. If something didn't work out for the city administrator, I'd still like that option to go back. If I had to, I don't, at this point in my career, don't anticipate that that's probably going to happen. I mean, I'd probably finish out where I'm at doing both because I don't, I don't have a ton of time left. I mean, I'm, I'm filing for Medicare this year, whether I want to or not, Alan. So that tells you how old I am. I am.

Nobody asked that.

I know you did. I'm volunteering that, and I can volunteer that. You won't get in trouble.

If you were gainfully employed, you don't have to file for Medicare.

If you're 65, yeah. But I still have to file for the Part A. You still have to. You're required to. The Part B I do not if I continue to work.

But your age is not a factor in our decision.

I understand that. You did not ask that. I volunteered that information. So, yeah, I mean, you know, realistically at this point, you know, where I said I'm vested, I really want to see you through 2030. Now, whether that just gets you up to the door or actually gets us through it. So, I mean, this isn't going to last forever. So I wouldn't. And that's why I wanted that in there, Mike, is if something didn't work out at the time. We just didn't know. We had no idea.

You guys didn't know and I didn't know. I'm just curious, you know, that it's perpetuating here in this contract.

No, it's nothing new. It's just I wanted to repeat that same language. I think that's the only clause that I wrote in that contract. And maybe Stacy wrote that. I don't know. One of us did.

Arnold, I think we're buying that clause.

You're buying that? You're paying more for it? Is that what you're saying?

We know how it worked out. We're giving you money. We're giving you more money, so we're taking that clause away.

You know what? I'd probably be fine with that. I don't really care.

You're not going back to the attorney.

And then the only legal part or language part, I just don't believe in auto renews. I think that's bad policy on elected officials' part for that. So I would say just set it for a term. Let's just say four years if you want it to be four years. And then if we have the termination clause in there, then there's an out for the council if they want an out or an out for you if you want an out.

We have yearly auto renews now, so you could easily get out of it. The only reason I like that is we all saw, I know Alan was here on Roger's deal, his contract expired. We didn't pick up on it for like two years or at least a year, and then we're in full panic mode at that point. And so I didn't want that to happen again. In fact, when I was down in St. George, I was almost in panic mode then thinking I couldn't remember what mine said. And so I had to pull my contract up, and I was just praying that mine hadn't expired just like Roger's because I'm thinking, now I've got to come in and beg Alan's forgiveness for that mistake.

Just kidding. Even though it's a one-year, though, it only comes up if someone remembers to bring it up. And if you're our attorney and our administrator, it's not in your benefit to bring it back up. And then you have a changing counsel. Why would they think to bring it up?

And I'm fine. That's not a deal-breaker for me.

And not that it couldn't be renewed beyond the four years. That's what I'm saying. Let's set it for more than a year because that's three years.

Well, it's going to get a lot more expensive in four years, so it's up to you guys, whatever you choose to do. If I come back in in four years, I'm going to ask for a whole lot more than $50,000.

That's right, because you don't care if you come and go. That's right. I think that's a bad deal. I still think my motion is better than all of this jargon. I think it's better. It locks us in that we can... I mean, sales is a big deal. People, just a quick story. We got a custodial contract at the, I think it was at the rec center, that the custodial company lost the contract and he went in and kind of made a fuss at the senior center and he called me and he said, hey, this is what's going on. And I said, do you know what your problem is? Your problem is you think you're a custodial contractor. And he goes, well, I am. And I said, no, your job is sales. You're screwing this up. And the thing is, if we have a plan that we can sell, without jargon that's super easy to understand and okay it gives you a little more money there's no raises i like the auto renewal it's just it just happens it's a set amount we can we can sell something to the people that look at riverdale and go why did you do that And then it's so clean that they understand it instead of we say, well, do you know what the COLA is? And they're like, no, I don't know what the COLA is. So, I mean, I just think having a nice clean contract is just really beneficial for what we're doing.

One vote.

That's what Steve taught me is you get one vote.

That's right.

Okay. I think Councillor Hanson's making notes. She's ready to make a motion.

I'm going to try. I don't know if I've got it all. So I guess every second's it. You guys will have to adjust it. So I'll make the motion that the city administrator compensation be raised to $50,000 in place of the $24,000. The vehicle allowance raised to $600. And then on the 50,000, the federal COLA every year. Sorry. That's what the first one. And then update the language to remove the clause to return the city attorney role with a four-year term with a review and renewal option. And everything else stays the same. If I got it all. But I might.

Can I? Well, go ahead. You need to handle it.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second.

I'll second that.

I have a motion to second. Any discussion on that motion?

Would you repeat that first part?

Yeah. So on the city administrator's salary, raise it to $50,000 in place of the $24,000 with an annual increase of the federal COLA.

Only on the 50,000. The COLA was on the other side of it.

Yeah.

The 50,000 was.

Well, that's not what's written here.

Oh, isn't it? Did I misunderstand that?

On the other one, he gets the normal increase like every other staff member.

I thought the COLA was on everything.

No, because nobody else gets COLAs, right? We do market analysis.

Yeah. Right.

So this would be the only COLA, and that's why it's federal, so you don't have to figure it out for everybody else.

On the 50 is what you're proposing?

On the 50. On just the city administrator part. And nothing changes on the city attorney when it still follows the same.

Right. Nothing. Okay. Yeah. I'll comment.

Okay. So is there other comments on the motion? We have a motion and a second. Any other comments? Councilor Arnold? Can Steve comment on what he was saying?

If I could just question it. So nothing on the makeup or nothing on the car? No change on that?

No, the car, it was an increase, right, by $100 a month? $100.

Right. To $600.

$600. Yeah. And then I might have missed the makeup part. What was the makeup part?

The argument was is that I had that gap of four years where I never got any increase, and so we had proposed a, what was it, a 20% on that, Cody? Maybe you can explain that better.

so we just added up the average colas for the last like five years and it came up to like or the last four years and then it looked like this year was going to be about the same so that was roughly 20 so that's where when the mayor and stacy and i were talking about that that's where we came up with the 20 what's the number what what's the actual number

Not the percentage.

Tell us the number so we can say the number. 9,600.

We just did 20% on the 24,000. 20% and 96,000. And that's where I highlighted what are you basing this on, the 24,000 or the 50,000? What are you basing it on?

Um, I didn't, that's why I highlighted it. So it was like, even if you shot in the middle, I wouldn't care. Just, I think it's just fair that I asked for something because I got zero compensation in, in addition to, for those four years. So you do whatever you want, Annie, I don't care.

So that would only be 4,800.

And that's why I thought if we did it on, and that's what I had expressed to the mayor, if we did it on the 2,400, it's pretty low. I mean, you're talking about. It's only 10%. Right.

It's small. 48 years, 10%.

24,000?

I would prefer it was on the 50,000.

24,000 times four years is 96,000. Well, the 20%, it was supposed to be a one-time. Over the whole four years, like it's a one-time.

Okay, what was the other number, 90-something? Over the whole four years.

Right, but if you have 24,000 for four years, that's 96,000.

Instead of the 24,000, what was the other number?

It was the 50? Is that what you're talking about?

20%.

That we would do the 20% off of.

Well, and that's what we had to decide. Do we do it on the 24,000 or do we do it on the 50 or do we do it on another number? Just throw in a number. I don't even care.

Five grand a month.

Something.

So 10,000 if it's off the 50, right?

That's like a one-time?

As a one-time bonus? Yeah. Stipenders. Something. Special gift.