City Council - Regular Meeting

Very good. We also have members of our planning commission with us tonight and members of the city staff. We have asked Councilor Anderson if he would lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with

Thank you, Councillor Anderson. I've asked Mr. Brooks if he would offer our invocation tonight.

Our dear Father in heaven, we humbly bow our heads before thee this evening and express our appreciation and gratitude unto thee for the many blessings that thou hast blessed us with. Father, we thank thee for this great country that we live in, the freedoms we enjoy, and especially we're grateful for the opportunity to be here and to represent the city of Riverdale and to express to thee our appreciation for the many blessings we receive therein. We thank thee, Father, for the opportunity we have to meet here this night and to share of our time and our expertise in helping promote the city. And we call upon you at this time to please bless those who serve in these capacities that they might be inspired and mindful of the needs of the residents and to say and do those things which they should do to help us promote and prosper as we have in the past. Again, Father, we thank you for all that thou hast blessed us with, and we do so in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. We now have a time for public comment. This is an opportunity to address the city council regarding your concerns or ideas. No action will be taken during the public comment. Please try to limit your comments to three minutes. Seeing no public comment, we'll move on to presentations and reports. Mayor's report. I don't really have anything for this meeting this week. So we'll move on to the city administration report. Mr. Brooks.

Thank you, Mayor. The department head's reports are in your packets. I have some of them here tonight. We had some scheduling issues with a couple of the others, but we also have at least one of them that's available by phone tonight, Stacy Como, our HR representative. She's not a department head, but we may need her later on in one of our items that we have on the agenda. But do you have any questions on anything that's in any of the reports? If not, we will move on. Our anniversaries for this month, we don't have any on a celebration anniversary, but we have a couple of them here we probably should at least recognize just because of their years of service. Dean Gallegos with the Fire Department, 31 years. So Matt, tell him congratulations, and we appreciate everything that Dean does. He's been around for a long time. Norm Farrell, 28 years, so recognize him as well. We have some other individuals on there with not quite as many years as Dean. Norm, but we appreciate all they do. They're both very valuable to us in their capacities. Staffing authorization. I needed to update that. Actually, Chief Hennessey got me some very recent information just this afternoon. So one of those shows that the fire department is down one, and my understanding is that's been filled. And he'll be starting in about two weeks, is that what it looks like? New firefighter, as I understand, so... I know they've been working hard on that. So we are getting to the point where we are fairly well staffed. So that's always good news. Community Development Report. Brandon, I'll turn a little bit of time over to you if you want to touch on that. Yeah, thank you.

Appreciate it. Everyone who attended the El Pollo Loco eight-year anniversary celebration, we were treated to some tortillas and chicken. It was pretty yummy. Also new on the list is the Slick City development. That's where the old Bed Bath and Beyond used to be. So that's under construction. That's an indoor slide park. So that'll be a nice addition right next door to Chuck E. Cheese. EOS is under construction, or EOS I think is the correct name. And Northrop Grumman, the mayor and I went to a Northrop Grumman groundbreaking for a brand new building that they're building on the Riverdale Innovation Center. So it was a good time. All the bigwigs were there, and they touted Roy about 12 times. Little did they know it was actually Riverdale, so we were there.

Governor talked about having little Roy, having Northrop Grumman. Yeah, Innovation Center.

That's it. And that's all I had as part of my report.

Do we have a development review committee report, Councilor Richter? We do, we do.

We had a development review meeting, it's about a month ago, so it's been a little while, but this is a summary for the canola protein bowls and salads, so it's a business moving in or proposing to move in where the old subway was there on Riverdale Road. You can see the The summary there in your packet, but there's some elevations as well. I think of note there, they're looking to remove and update that building instead of those rounded facades that they kind of have on it, square it up, make it look more modern, much more appropriate. They're going to add on the backside of that a walk-in refrigerated freezer area, so it is going to extend the building to the west a little bit, but still stays within the footprint or that drive-through that they kind of have coming around there. The only other thing of note, their drive-through has a true walk-out. The business promotes itself as a very pet-friendly thing, so they kind of want their employees to go out and interact with customers that maybe have pets in the car and things like that. But it looks like it's going to be potentially a nice addition or change to additional fast food that we have here in the area. I think that was the only thing I had from about a month ago. I don't know if there's many updates, Mr. Cooper. That's correct.

Councillor Stevens.

I have a question for Mr. Cooper. Now you're on. You talked about the The Northrop Grumman building and the semantics of Roy or Riverdale, why do we care? Does it bring us any tax base? Does it bring us any franchise tax income from phone lines? I see it as a so what? What do we care if it's semantics of Roy or Riverdale?

Do you want an answer? Yeah. I can give you one, but I don't know how good it is.

I mean, is our design committee going to be going over the building? Is our planning commission going to be going over? It doesn't. I agree. I don't see what it matters, but if you want to enlighten me, please.

I agree with you in that sense, and I think when Mayor Searle and Roger, I think, backed off of that and didn't pursue that any further, and that was their exact logic at that time. My one concern that I have, and it's weak, but when you look at taking property by an adverse possession type thing, one of those things is you hold yourself open and you use it for that purpose. And my concern is I just wouldn't want to give that up ever again. whether we get anything from it or not, just because cities don't generally give up land and I wouldn't want that be used as an argument against us from a legal perspective. It would be weak anyway, but I wouldn't want to let them use that as their excuse to say, well, now that's part of Roy because I don't think it's not part of Roy and we're not going to give it up unless we had to. I don't know why we would. I mean you wouldn't – I don't think it would ever change. But if it ever did and that ceased to exist or it lost its status or something like that, then I don't want that just given to Roy for any reason. So it's minor and it's weak, but I still think that we would still maintain that it's Riverdale whether they like it or not.

Have we filed any formal legal challenges? No, we haven't done anything. Did you send an email saying, hey, Governor, you got it wrong?

No, for those exact reasons, I don't know why it makes a difference at this point. I'm looking at it further down the road at some point in time, and I don't think we're there.

Because it comes across as just sour grapes, that's all.

Well, I don't know if it's sour grapes. I think it was a bad move on our part, but it is what it is. It's done at this point.

Well, I mean, I can see needing to – Doing it in an echo chamber in your peers, so to speak, doesn't get it done. You kind of have to stomp your foot and let other people know.

Yeah.

Anyway.

I like to call it out when I can because it's true, one. And two, Riverdale City provides 100% of our property tax and 100% of our sales tax that is generated at that site. So indeed, we may not have a tangible... I'm sorry.

Property tax? Uh-huh.

Even though it's a federal installation? It's not. It's... Falcon Hill has been... It's Falcon Hill. It's EUL. It's MITA. And so we participate with 100% of our sales tax and property tax. So we may not have a direct role in the programmatic elements of it. I do sit on the... development review committee for Mida, which essentially looks at all the development, the development review committee. It looks at all the development that's happening at Mida. But we contribute. Actually, I think we're the highest contributor out of all the contributors for that property.

I'm sorry, when you say contributor, we receive or we pay?

We pay, contribute our property tax and sales tax.

Or the development of that. And what do we get in return?

Well, I think you could speak to the tangible and intangible benefits of having the installation so near to Riverdale City all day long.

And we don't get, okay, the franchise tax we charge for every phone line. Do we get anything from that? That's a Cody question.

And the tax rates are actually at Riverdale tax rates. They're not at Roy's tax rates. So they get the extra local option sales tax. That's charged up there.

For any sales tax, is there a coffee shop, anything? I'm not sure. Are any small businesses registered with Riverdale that are up there? Okay. I don't think they have.

No, it's a different process, but everything you see on the front side of Falcon Hill, some of those things are contributing. Not all of them, but some of them.

And what's the term on it? Is it a 30-year term on not getting the sales tax?

No, I think it's longer because they changed it after the initial legislation. It was bumped up, so it might be 40.

So in 40 years, we can look forward to some revenue.

They'll probably just renew it. And that's the beauty of MITA, right? And you understand that more than ever lately.

All right. And just for the record, I mean, you're entitled to your opinion about not caring whether it's located in Riverdale or not. In my opinion, it's kind of a big deal that Northrop Grumman is located in Riverdale. And... They're one of our largest employers. It's a feather in our cap as far as I'm concerned. And I've let the Roy Mayor know that I'm not super happy that it's called the Roy Innovation Center and that if I ever get the chance, we might try to rectify that. And so I don't know what it would take and if there would be any benefit to it. But as far as I'm concerned, Northrop Grumman is in Riverdale.

I think that could cause a certain amount of confusion because of having worked on base for many, many years. It's, it was Southgate, Westgate and Roy gate. And those were the geographical areas. Now, many years ago, uh, probably Cody can remember when they had the North gate, which was up, uh, 1150. Um, There was a gate there. It's been sealed and never to be opened, but... Never say never. Yeah. I know there's some talk on there, but I've heard that many times. But the point of it is geographically... it's sectioned off by the name of the gate. And, and that's my opinion. Why? And if you say Northrop Grumman in Riverdale, I think that's going to cause a certain amount of confusion.

All right. Um, thank you for that, Mr. Cooper. Do we have any idea when slick city might, do we have any sort of timeline on them? Uh, Are they progressing?

They're progressing. Yeah, we've done a number of inspections. They're doing some signage work now. We've approved that sign. So they're moving as far as they're – or as quickly as their construction pace is taking them.

I had a mayor reach out from another city that would like to book a Christmas party there.

I think we're well on track for Christmas. For Christmas. Yeah, based on what I see.

I'll let her know. Yeah. All right. So we'll move on to the consent items. Number one, consideration to approve the meeting minutes from the July 7th, 2026 council meeting and the July 21st council meeting. Is there any changes or corrections to any of these minutes? Seeing none, we would need a motion to approve the consent items.

So moved.

We have a motion. We have a second.

I'll second.

Okay. Any discussion on that motion? All in favor say yes.

Yes.

Any opposed? All right. The consent items are approved. We'll move on to action items number one. Consideration of Resolution 2026-33, approving a real estate purchase contract and reimbursement agreement between Riverdale City and the Davis and Weber Counties Canal Company for the sale of approximately 5.91 acres. Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, Mayor.

Michelle, do you mind putting up that map, please?

So this is a simple transaction before you today, but this property does have a long history. Some of you may recall back in 2007, there was a property exchange and development agreement between Riverdale City and Kent Hill, wherein he essentially acquired from us the yellow and the green property. And then subsequently, he was successful in creating and recording an eight lot subdivision on that property, just the yellow and the green there. In 2024, Mr. Hill and the city worked out a real estate purchase contract when the city purchased that property back from him. And so that area, both in the blue, yellow and green, is all owned by Riverdale City now. If you recall, that transaction was predicated by the fact that we wanted to sell a portion of it to – Could you put that up to your mouth, please? We would want to sell a portion of that property to the Davis and Weaver Canal Company, Davis and Weaver County's Canal Company. And so that's what is before you tonight. So that transaction has been worked out. We have been successful in recording a residential plat that indicates, do you mind scrolling down and flipping that, Michelle? Is that possible? So we vacated the eight-lot subdivision that was recorded by Mr. Hill. We've received approval by the Planning Commission, this three-lot subdivision. So lot one. is part of the transaction as well as a lot that is adjacent to this outside of the subdivision that we've owned since 2007 when that land transaction took place with Mr. Hill. And so you'll see in the packet that the purchase price is $186,197. So that's the price that has been agreed upon. minus up to $3,500, which was the price to do this plat work that JUB Engineering has done. So there's two documents for approval tonight, the purchase and sale agreement and the reimbursement agreement that essentially contemplates that reimbursement. So that would be a reduction of the sales proceeds. So essentially, based on what that actual cost is, we'd get closer to probably $183,000. Okay. That's the 30,000-foot view. Any questions?

Any plans for those two remaining lots?

Yes, so those have been designed to be residential lots that can be built on. There are some challenges. They're big lots. The 3R is a big lot, but it's mostly hillside, but they're buildable. So we intend to get those appraised for market value and then just put them on the market for sale. And again, this was all consistent with what the council approved when we purchased the property from Mr. Hill.

Any other questions for Mr. Cooper? Seeing none, a motion would be in order.

I would move to approve Resolution 2026-33, approving the sale of certain real property within the Peacock Ridge Estate Subdivision, Davis and Weber Counties Canal Company, approving a related reimbursement agreement and authorizing the execution of the documents necessary to complete the transaction.

Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Motion to second. Any discussion on this motion? Ms. Merrigan, will you please poll the council?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. All right. That passes unanimously. Very good. Thank you. We'll move on to action item number two, Riverdale Fire Department, Weber Fire District update and discussion. Mr. Brooks.

Thank you. We are scheduled to meet with the fire district tomorrow, in fact, 10 o'clock. Did you remember that, Mayor, at their place? We've continued to progress and proceed with that. Again, knowing that no decision has been made, but we're to the point now where we've got to sit down, and that's what the purpose of this meeting is, is we've got to sit down and negotiate some of the finalities on numbers, the building, all that kind of stuff. I included a sheet there with you with the packet that Michelle sent out yesterday. I don't necessarily want answers back from that. What I need is some guidance from the council. as to how we approach these final negotiations. So where are your priorities? What's do's and don'ts and whatnot? Obviously, the building is a big one. That's always been a big one from the very start. We've maintained the position that we didn't want to give up the building. I'm assuming that the council is still in agreement with that. That's the plan that we were planning on going in with that, given the fact that it's in our park. I don't think that's ever an option that Riverdale wants to consider. Obviously, if you guys disagree, then we could take a different approach. But our thought was just to look at a lease on that, and those are some of the terms. I just need some direction on this rather than us just going into staff. We beat this thing to death. We've gone over all their questions. We've responded. now we've just got to go in and start giving some final answers. So I just need some direction from the council as to how you want us to approach that. So I included that sheet there that had way more things on there. I don't want direct answers from that. That was just to kind of give you some ideas of some things that if you've got some real hang-ups on one or two of those things, if you want us to take a hard-line stand on that, then now would be a good time to let us know that. so that we can go in when we negotiate with these guys tomorrow that we have a position to stand on or not stand on. Any discussions in regards to any of those items? If we start with the building, I think that's the easiest one. Are we in agreement with that, that that's not an option to sell the building?

I think the last municipality that went to the fire district was Uintah about six years ago, seven years ago.

That's correct.

Did they give up their building? I don't remember. I wasn't involved.

I'm not exactly sure what they're doing. UNO is a little bit different because they were a volunteer department, so things were done a little bit differently. But we actually even spoke with Roy today because they had their meeting with the district today, and they've got two buildings that they're dealing with. Again, their buildings are in different conditions than ours. Our building right now is in pretty good shape. We just did the roof. I mean, everything in regards to the building is in good shape. And I think the district is going to be – they're going to like our building. They like the location. We already know that. The condition of it is excellent. It's just a matter of whether or not we want to sell it. I just don't think that that would be a wise idea. I know when we talked to the district previously, when Larry Hansen looked at this 10 years ago or however long it was, That was the number one thing coming right out of the gate is that that wasn't an option. And that was kind of the breaking point because the district at that time was insisting on that and Larry was insisting that we wouldn't do it. The district no longer is taking that position. They would like to use it, but it's a matter of whether we lease it, lease it to them for a dollar, whatever we end up doing. We just need to know. But I would assume the sale is not... To me, it would be a deal breaker, I would think. I just don't know how we could do that in the middle of our park.

Okay, I'm with you on this one. You don't sell real estate. You just don't. I don't know. I have a hard time with it. But the next two steps down the line, and this is more rhetorical than it is a specific question. In one of my meetings i i meet with other mayors and councils from other municipalities and it's and it's interesting that other are looking at the fire district as much the same way we have and are and roy and and so now i'm not saying specifically but I don't know if Roy and – I'm sorry, if Washington Terrace and South Ogden – I mean we tried to – with Shawley tried to maybe do a fire district a few years ago. But it's – I see things as dynamic. They're not immediate but they're dynamic. You know, is the whole county going to be in a fire district maybe, or fire districts plural, except for Ogden City? I could easily see that just because of the economics. And to that extent, I think we need to keep that real estate for latitude because I could see us – this is just me – going to a different fire district if a south side Weber County fire district does materialize in the future. I don't know. I think that's plausible, but in the next five, 10 years. And having that asset would be significant.

I agree, and I don't know, you know, it's hard to predict that. I've been really pleased with the district at this point. Our dealings with them have just been excellent, and who knows what will happen. I mean, there may come a time and a need for maybe even a bigger station, and then they'd have to look elsewhere, which wouldn't include our piece of property, and that piece of property, we could use that in so many different ways, but right there in the middle of your park, you just don't want to give that up. That's just not really an option, but... And they're agreeable to all kinds of things. We've discussed whether we lease it or purchase, all that kind of stuff. And they've been good. They haven't pushed back at all on this. I don't know. Anybody else got comments or feelings on that as far as the building goes?

I'm supportive as well of retaining that property, obviously. And as far as a lease agreement, obviously we're not looking to make any money off this fire district. We don't want to lease that for anything. Is there anything we can do to help offset the maintenance of that building, though, in the lease?

Well, and that's part of the discussions we'll have. I mean, you know, Cody and Stacy and myself have worked on this the last couple weeks. Our thought was just to... lease that just a minimal if we just went a dollar it's a lot more of a headache for Cody because we have to worry about all these budget things and reporting things but if we released or leased it just for a dollar amount but then put the burden on them as far as them taking care of it rather than us that was kind of where we're leaning and Is say, OK, we'll lease this to you for a year. We even thought about going even a short term lease initially, maybe a three or four, three to five years just to make sure everything was going smoothly. And then at that point, maybe look at something, maybe a little bit more long term, which, you know, is pretty good legal practice in my mind. I like going with shorter ones just for those reasons. But then turning a burden over them to take care of it. I mean, the building's in good shape. They shouldn't have some major issues with that for some time. So I don't think it's fair for us to carry all the burden. And if we're only going to lease it for a dollar, then we need to almost expect them to step up if there's some major repairs that's going to have to fall on them. rent it to them for a greater amount, and then we cover some of that stuff. So these are all part of the things we've got to negotiate as long as we get some steering and some directions on what you guys are comfortable with.

That's consistent with what I'm thinking, so I appreciate that.

And I was thinking along the same lines. Who's going to be maintaining the building? Is that going to be a burden on us? Um, where they're using it, I think that that only makes sense that they make the necessary repairs and upgrades to, to meet what their demands are as well as not leaving that as a burden for us.

Yeah.

But you brought up the short term lease. I'm favorable to that because one never knows what's going to happen in a short period of time. And if you set yourself for a 10 or 15 or 20 year lease, you've lost your wiggle room.

Right.

And I think the shorter-term leases would be something I would be more agreeable to.

Well, that's the direction we've been going on that. So unless I hear some major objections, we'll continue down that path, at least in regards to the building. The other big items is the equipment. Well, this one's a tough one. It's, you know, in talking with Roy and even talking with them is what do we do? It appears their position, the district's position is to, they want to take our really good stuff. our most recent equipment, which this all makes sense. This is not a surprise. But they're not all that interested in our backups because they already have backups. So they don't need more backups. They can pull them from another station. So our thoughts were we'll let them take however you decide to do that. our good stuff, but then anything beyond that. And I think this is almost something that we need to do legally too. And that's why I'm kind of taking this position is if it's not something they're going to use or that they want, then we need to keep that and go through our usual processes of how we surplus stuff. And that would be everything that they're not going to use because it really should be, at least in my opinion, it shouldn't be turned over to them to use or to get rid of or whatever they need to do because that was purchased by our residents. Even though our residents are still going to be a part of that, I think for safety's sakes, from a legal perspective, we need to jump through our usual processes. And then we're still going to – there's going to be some things come up probably with employees that we're going to have to buy out certain things. So there is going to be a little bit of a cost to us. So the more money we can get back on some of that used stuff. the better that we could put towards those other expenses, the miscellaneous things. So that was kind of the position that we've taken as staff at this point is just, yeah, we'll let them take whatever, you know, the newer things, the engine, and at least probably the newer ambulance, they probably would. I don't think they'd take the second. We haven't finalized any of that, but that's where it's looking like we're going. So thoughts or feelings on the equipment, what do you want to negotiate as far as price goes or do you want a price put on it? That's kind of where we're at. What I don't want to have happen is we get so far down the road and we make decisions and then bring that back into you, which, by the way, anything will be brought back into you before it's finalized. But at this point, I don't want to get so far down the road and then have to come back and say this is what we've got on the table and then you not like it. That's why I'm looking for a little bit of direction here.

thoughts or feelings on the equipment or cody you want to chime in here anytime you got no so steve's got it so all like of our primary like engine primary ambulance brush track those things they wanted but the secondary units and kind of the admin vehicles we were intending on keeping and going through the normal surplus channels

Yes, just to restate what I think I'm hearing. You're talking about doing a fair market value on all of this stuff, the first right to the district. If they want to purchase that equipment and or vehicle from us, there you go. Anything that's surplus, we would go through a normal process.

So originally we talked to them about that. What they want is us just to give them those primary apparatuses. And so, and it's really hard, like Matt might have a better idea on value, like looking at those, like our Rosenbauer, our newest engine, we bought that in I think 2017 or 2018, and we paid like 648,000. I don't know what one of those would cost today. Like I tried to look at their website, but it's really hard. They don't put pricing anywhere. I would assume it's probably about a million dollars. So what's that worth? Somewhere between a couple hundred thousand and a half million probably. So that's the biggest one for sure. But they would like us to give them all those. And we can write it however you want or whatever you think. Like if you want it back when it's done, if you want the surplus. I mean, it's kind of a double-edged sword, right? Like in one way, that's value that's going out the door from Riverdale. And on the other side of things, like that apparatus is still going to be stationed at the same station and available to the residents, right? to provide that service. So what do you guys think on those things?

That's a little bit more challenging. Obviously, that's an asset from the city, and I hate to just have it disappear on that. Citizens paid for that. So having said that, I know this has been a very amicable process to begin in, and certainly don't want to create undue tension, but I think, again, speaking for myself, there's some value there, and I would just look for a fair, equitable exchange of property there. Again, giving a lot of discretion to you guys as you work through that. You're in the nuts and the weeds of that. Yeah, just totally giving away those items seems a little difficult for me, so for what it's worth.

Spencer Stevens. Okay, real quick, what's the advertised scale for a timeline for the engine? How many years?

So usually I believe we keep that for 10 years, and then it goes into backup status, and then we get a new one.

So we're approaching the end of its life cycle as a front line.

So, yeah, 10 to 15 years on your engine, 10 years on the ambulance.

Okay, so we're, now the ladder truck I've heard bantered about that that's, that ladder's going to need to be replaced. It's about 1.8 mil. And is that going to be the ladder going to be or is that surplus to us?

We don't have one currently. So that was going to be an addition. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that last part. We don't have one currently. That was going to be an addition. Like we were going to need to buy one to purchase.

In addition to the engine that we have. Correct. So the engine we have does have a ladder, but it's not a real high ladder.

Correct. And it's like a Swiss Army knife.

It's an engine with aerial capabilities, but not a ladder truck. Okay. We were looking with the ladder truck, we were looking at something over 100 feet to be able to meet those three-story needs and such. Yeah, and usually when we hit the 10 years on these engines, I mean, they get worked. Every time they come out of the building, for the most part, they're, you know, screaming down the road. So they get worked. The pumps tend to fail on. We've just seen about 10, 15 years.

Do you have any radioactive type of equipment on either the engine or the ambulance that devalues it, makes it hard to dispose? Okay. Okay, so the engine that we have, it's approaching the end of its life cycle.

So they rent And we'll keep you up here for just a second.

What's the possibility of taking the asset value and because it's benefiting the city to keep it in the city and But we're losing control and possession. What's the possibility of considering maybe a 20, 25% amount that they would pay for that in order to acquire that?

this point because we're that's why we're negotiating it so i mean if that's the position you want us to take i do know in our discussions with roy um they've got a brand new i don't know if that's an engine or ladder and they're turning that over i mean they're in a little bit different situation as far as equipment goes they've also got two ambulances on order which the district's going to take that over, just take those contracts. So it just depends. I mean, I'm sure if it was a value, they would work with us on it, but we just haven't gotten there. It's just a matter of how much you want back for it. And how do we look at that? I mean, is it a district asset or is it a Riverdale asset? I mean, it was a Riverdale asset, but from here on it's not going to be, so...

Well, with accounting, you're carrying it at a depreciated value.

Right.

Right. So whatever that depreciated value is, recoup a portion of it, but then say, here.

Councilor Hanson.

I think another consideration could be if we are going to just hand over equipment, something about restricting the next time they do a tax increase on our residents. maybe a trade-off of, yeah, here you go, but we expect you to wait this long, or I don't know, something tied to protecting the residents and their property tax rate, if that's a possibility somehow.

I see the value of that, Annie, to you and to Riverdale, and I don't know how much they would be willing to do that. I mean, because they're It involves so many other things and other cities. And so that one's probably going to be, I would think, if I was on their side, a little bit hard to agree to that because they just don't know. And even adding Riverdale and Roy both is kind of one of those unknowns. Everybody's kind of going, including them, like what are we going to do at this point and how much more are we going to have to go up? Are we going to stay where we're at? Are we going to go down?

They have done it before. This isn't the first time they've been through it.

Yeah, like I said, anything's on the table at this point. That's why we just got to know. I mean, they may push back really hard on that one. They may not. I don't know.

I think in all our negotiations, as we've talked to them, every time we've said, and you'll buy our equipment, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not sure they're expecting a complete handover, and I'm not sure that we shouldn't at least try to get a little bit of money for it. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's expecting a lot from us to just hand over that equipment.

Yeah, and some of our discussions, I mean, we've talked so much, and I don't want to burden this and take up too much time, but we even talked about maybe even trading some of that for any offsets that we might have. On the next item we're going to talk about as far as personnel goes, I mean, that could be something, too, that we could throw out there as a bargaining chip or something. If they absorb so much in personnel costs, would you give us credit for any equipment you take or something like that? I mean, there's so many things we could look at that I think they might be more open to that, too. I don't know.

Councilor Stephens. Anyway, if you want my two cents, it's... Start the negotiation that you want a certain percentage, and if you get nothing, then so be it. That's just me.

Well, I think that's fair. I mean, we're not going in there to give away the farm. That's never been our intent, but we also want to make sure it works, and so we've got to get a good deal for all of us. You know, again, it might be one of those kiss your sister kind of things that nobody's happy with, but it is what it is kind of thing, so...

Okay.

And I just don't want to lose equipment in negotiations. I want to make sure we have everything at Riverdale that we need to maintain the service. So if that comes through negotiations and reduction and now we'll take this, but we're not going to take this and it's going to reduce service, I'll have a concern with that.

Yeah. I have full faith that we'll get it right on that. You have a next item, though, on this?

Well, I did want to just briefly touch upon personnel. Cody, you want to hit that one really quick? I mean, just because there are some benefits in different things.

So I think we've talked about in the past that like we've talked to the Weber Fire District, like we've met with them multiple times. Stacy and I have met with them. So it's our intention that all the employees will transfer over and become Weber Fire District employees, and we're trying to safeguard those and their tenure and those things as well. They're a URS employer. We've looked at their benefits. We've met with all the employees individually, kind of talked to them about their benefits versus ours. Most of those things are pretty close. One of the things that Weber Fire District has brought up is here, I can't remember if it was the last meeting or the meeting before, you reviewed our – personnel policy. So we have like compensated absences. So that's one of the liabilities we potentially have is those compensated absences of the employees. So they're asking us to fund that as part of this too, so that those employees can have those lead balances when they move over. So they're not starting over as like a brand new employee. And so there is some financial costs associated with that. And so how we've looked at it so far in the negotiations is the same as what the policy dictates. So if that employee was to leave, kind of the same way. But we wanted to get your consensus on that too.

So you're saying you want to pay them out before they transfer over or they're going to do a lateral transfer of hours?

Kind of both. What we've discussed internally some is like a little bit of both. Like give the employees the option that if they wanted to be paid out for part of it, they could. But in general, that those hours just transfer over to Weaver Fire. And our policies aren't the same. Even Roy's policies are different. We'd try and make a round peg fit in a square hole, if you will. We'd follow our policies and then work with Weber Fire that they'd honor what we transferred so that if an employee worked there six months and was like, hey, I'm going to leave, that they'd get paid out for any value that went over associated with that employee.

The cost wasn't astronomical. It's a couple hundred thousand dollars.

In the past, when a long-term tenured person retired, it was fairly substantial. And I guess, is that a payment into URS, or is that just a check for buying out their unused sick leave?

It's kind of both. It depends on what the employee wants to do with it, and it depends on the hours they have available and how long they've worked here, what they have. Some people, when they retire, there's nothing there. Other employees, there's a significant amount. Yeah, yeah. So it depends on who they are. But that's kind of the last thing that... we were fire districts ask us about. And so that's where, in my mind, it's a little hard to give them a free lease and equipment for free and then end up paying them some. But if we look at it from the long-term perspective, this is providing a solution for the city too. And so we just wanted to get your perspective on that as we negotiate these things so that we know when we bring the contract back that we're kind of on the same page as you guys.

I think my heartburn with it is I know it's been really hard to hire public safety officers on police and fire. And a really lot of agencies have been onboarding people with time. And so for us to pay it out and them not willing to just take the risk of it. Like if they had to hire someone, I mean, I guess if they're not following that policy, if they're able to hire people more than other people, I guess that makes sense. But I've just seen a lot of agencies that are having to onboard people with time already because they're doing the lateral transfers from wherever they're moving from. And so that's kind of the sticking point for me is I guess if they're not having that struggle with hiring, but how do we know if that's the case?

Yeah, and it's kind of a double-edged sword too because, like, in one way, just like the equipment, like Matt's saying, like, hey, he wants to make sure that we have the equipment there. Like, we probably want to make sure we have the people there too. So we probably don't want them. That they're taken care of. Right.

They told us that they were.

Right. So we don't want all of them to be like, okay, well, never mind. Like I'm leaving and we might have to pay out some of that anyways. So it's kind of this. So it's what we've looked at it so far is just following the policy. But we wanted to make sure you guys were good with that.

Which policy? Because there's a few.

just the employee Paul, the hours and the agreements that I believe it's in section 10.

So you're talking about paying out, not using sick time. You're talking about paying out vacation time.

Yeah.

And percentages based off of how long they've worked here.

Yep. Exactly. And the policy, and then they don't offer comp time. So we would have to pay out their comp time at their last pay period, which is probably the end of December.

So, so are you saying right now, Weber's not willing to take any of it? the fire district? They don't want to take the liability of any time?

Just on their own without us paying them? Well, I think they're planning on us transferring that. What we transfer over, I mean, they're not going to just assume our debts, so we would have to pick that up.

Or trade it for equipment.

Well, that's something we've proposed. We haven't even bounced that off of them yet.

Are you saying that that's negotiable?

Everything is at this point. That's why we're coming to you.

That's not one that you've actually broached the topic on.

We've talked to them about it, but the buck stops with you guys. Until you guys say, hey, we kind of need your guidance. Because we're like, we don't know if the council will go for this. And they're like, well, this is what we'd like.

The other thing to remember, too, and I know because Cody is the money guy here and he worries a lot more about that than I do. Not that I don't, but... We have a full year's budget in the budget now for these guys, and we're probably only going to be looking at half of it that's going to be burned up by the time they switch over. So we do have a little bit of wiggle room in there that was budgeted for. So we have some money and some funds, and hopefully it covers all that. But we'd still have to probably do some tweaks here and there, and there's always going to be the weird things you don't see coming. But it's going to cost us money. This just isn't going to happen for free. But in the long run, it's going to save us money. So this first year will be very unique in where we end up at the end. But from here on out, it'll be a big bonus to the city itself, to Riverdale.

Council Ricker, you said there's some differences in policy between what Riverdale City does and the district. Can you outline those? I mean, is there caps on that or?

Yeah, and I don't. Stacy's better at that. So we can call her if we need to. Like, I think ours, like we don't cap our sick leave, but you can only get paid out up to a thousand hours. And it depends on how many years you work there. I believe their cap's like 500 hours. So there's differences like that. And Roy, their policy's different than both of ours, and they're going through this similar thing. And when we talked to their city administrator earlier, they're moving forward with this too. And... So, and like Steve said, it would be covered in the budget. Some of it is like a liability. So like our financials are weird because we're government, right? And so like we're on the modified cash basis. So a lot of that's not in our annual, like our monthly financial reports, but it is an accrued liability. So in theory, we have money set aside for it in our full accrual financial statements. So I don't know. It's kind of a cost of operating. But in my mind, it's a little hard them asking for like a $0 lease or a $1 lease and then wanting all of our equipment and still wanting us to pay to fund this. But it's kind of up to you guys on what you want to, what guidance you want to give us.

You negotiate a really hard deal and then we can tweak it from there.

Councillor Anderson. Could we have Stacy provide us just kind of a forecast of what that looks like so that we can see that and then maybe give you – but you're meeting tomorrow, right? Right.

But like I said – I don't think any of us want our employees to be hamstringed by this. Exactly.

No, no. They're doing us a massive favor by going – by being such team players.

We want them to be taken care of. And so it's just hard. I do – I don't know. We want them to be taken care of, but we need to negotiate a good deal, really.

So by taking care of, do you mean like following the policy? You want us to make sure that like they would have what they'd have if they were from here? Is that kind of what you're thinking?

I think they should have time off when they move over, when they've worked here for so long. And the tenure thing is a really big deal. And I mean, I doubt that, I'm guessing Weber Fire District isn't going to want to take their comp time and that we'll pay that out directly to the employees.

Yeah, that one for sure.

And so that's part of it too. You want them to have hours so that they're comfortable and safe when they move over, but also, you know, that they're not, I don't know what, I just lost my train of thought. But yeah, that they're made whole on those things that we need to pay out to them and that it goes to them directly so that they actually receive the benefit of it rather than it getting lost once we hand it over to the fire district. but that is hard. Yeah. Like the $1 lease and the equipment. And I get that it's older equipment. We were already looking at it on the capital plan to replace it, but there's gotta be some trade off in there somewhere.

Yeah.

And make sure they're okay.

Yeah. And that's where hopefully some of those like admin vehicles and secondary vehicles, like they're not going to be worth a ton of money, but that is some money that will come back into the city to help offset some of these things.

And when you keep mentioning the policy, like I, I, I wonder if you are – are you indicating that they're not going to be made whole somehow if we follow the policy, then they could still lose some things? Because that has never been my intention. I want them to fill this as seamless as possible. I don't want them to lose a dime as they move to there. So if we have to modify a policy or if we have to do something to make sure that they are 100% covered and that there's absolutely no – No ill effects from this. I don't want them to have any ill effects as they move across. I kind of don't care what it takes, to be honest. It's a one-time deal. It's going to save us literally a million dollars next year. Let's just make these guys get across that bridge as easily as they can.

That's my opinion.

And I worry when you keep bringing up, do we follow our policy, that that's kind of like, well, the council said we're going to follow the policy, and so sorry, couple of guys. And I don't know if this is what you're really getting at, but sorry, you couple of folks. The council gave us direction to follow the policy, so you're losing out on just a little bit of stuff. That was never my intention for these guys. I want them 100% seamless, just like they never. And I figure it's a pretty small money amount. I mean, we're already spending whatever the big part of it is. If it's a couple of 10 grand more to get them over that bridge, that's my opinion. But the council holds the first strings and gets to make the final decision.

Negotiate. Just negotiate and come back. You have a lot of latitude. You've just heard us talk about it. Now, without seeing hard numbers on the personnel part, it's hard to say, yes, this, no, that. Put it all together, offset this with that, and just go and negotiate. That's just me.

And we got a pretty good idea on that. Most of that stuff is, I think, relatively clean. There's a couple of little weird ones that we got to deal with. But if that's the consensus of the council, we can come up with a solution one way or another, as long as we know.

Okay. Does everybody kind of agree with that? The council, they're okay?

And most of the other stuff's minor. Those are the three big areas that I was concerned about that I think are going to be most impacting. And like I said, all this will come back to you, hopefully through written agreements, and all this will be documented before anything's finalized.

The only other things I had written down were parking lot use, that there's no restrictions for the park or for the city.

All that we've talked about. We got a pretty good proposal that parking won't change a whole lot because it primarily is theirs. We did find out from Roy today they had made a request to use a gym, and it might even be easier for us to do that than Roy. Do you guys use the gym now? Yeah.

No, we've got a little one in the station. Every once in a while we'll go to the rec center.

But those are the kind of things that we would negotiate in there because that's kind of a no-brainer. It's not a big deal for us.

And I know it's kind of a non-issue with the contract, but looking forward for the city, it is the loss of our EOC, and so that's going to be an issue at some point.

And I've already been working on that too. That'll be up and going. It'll have a different face on, but it'll work. I've got a good idea, hopefully, on that one.

Okay. Good discussion.

Okay. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Done. Okay. Item number eight, upcoming events. We have a list of upcoming events. We do have that senior picnic on Friday. Hopefully you can make it to that. And then we have the other ones that are outlined there. We'll move on to the comments section of our meeting. Number one, city council, any comments for this meeting? None. Okay. City staff, any comments for this meeting?

The one thing I would mention, it was in your packet, there's a NIMS 402 for elected officials. I don't know how many of you saw that in there. This is kind of an upcoming event plus a comment. I received a call from Tom Hanson up in the terrace after the election. The little incident with the – I shouldn't say little. It was a big deal. The fire up there in the terrace, they thought it would be wise for all of us to get together. So he scheduled that for the fifth Tuesday in next month, and we would like to invite all of you to come to that, which, by the way, is why – Chief Warren was late tonight. They were up in the terrace getting recognized for that, which we're going to do, but we'll have to do it next meeting because half my guys were up there. So just our involvement in that fire up there was pretty impressive, to be honest with you. Both our fire and our police guys played an instrumental role in that deal. It could have been way worse if we wouldn't have had our guys up there. But anyway, getting back to the NIMS things, the last Tuesday of next month, And that's being scheduled up at the terrace there. If you can make that, they would appreciate our participation in that.

Do you need an RSVP?

If you would, that would be good. Just so I can kind of keep track of that, that would be nice. But thank you.

Anybody else? Okay. I did have a little request. We had another fire that was actually in Riverdale, and I was wondering if the chief could come up and just give us a little rundown of what happened and how we handled that.

Yeah, it's been a busy summer. So I-84 has kept us pretty busy, and that's where we believe this fire started from, coming over I-84. Something off the road was either dragging or malfunctioning, but it caused four separate fires off the off-ramp on I-84 to get on Riverdale Road, which is right behind the America 1st. credit union. Our initial dispatch came in as a grass fire on I-84 and so we sent units down there, immediately pulled out of the station and saw a big black header and figured we better go behind the America First building because that's our priority, you know, protecting that. Send an engine up there. Got there and definitely could see the fire headed up the hill, and it was just licking the back of the building when we got there. So we got an engine set up, and, you know, we sent an engine there. We sent a brush truck down low. Had a full response. Had neighbor agencies from South Ogden. We were fire, Roy. We even had out of the Wildland Station, the Uinta Station, the warden, Weber County Fire Warden show up, and he took the division down on the freeway and ran that scene while I ran the upper scene. And we were able to get it knocked down and did some great work. We had law enforcement was there. They were helping with the evacuations. They were helping pull hose lines. just doing anything we needed and, you know, just working seamlessly, which is pretty awesome. I even got a call from Norm saying he shifted water and was able to up our pressure because we were using, you know, an amount over there and needed a little increase in the water pressure. But there's, I went and met afterwards with the emergency team over there at America First and just did a debriefing on them and, you know, an after action review on it. And This, I thought it was a little bit longer, but they informed me. When I was back there, when we used to do our company inspections back there, I noticed that there was no defensible space. It was just, you know, urban interface, you know, and it looks nice, but it's hazardous in this time of year. And it was right up to the building. And last year they decided that they were going to put a little walk space back there and kind of beautify it with some zero scape and that little defensible space that they put in. it, it saved the building. It bought us enough time to where we could get back there and get some hoses deployed and, and able to get it knocked down. We had a couple of water trucks from, excuse me, Layton and Granite that showed up there too, right before us. And they were spraying it down as quick as they could. And, And made a really good knockdown and definitely saved the building. We went up on the ladder. We laddered the building two separate times, just double-checking for hot spots, making no extension. It was too filled with smoke, and they sent their employees home after that. But after that, we restored it. And in the after action I had with them, we walked through, and there was no damage aside from where we just cut the UDOT's gate to access the fire down there. Sent units down for the next three days just to evaluate it. Because with high temperatures in the evening and, you know, no moisture recovery we're having in the evenings, these things burn through the night and they'll kick back up the next day, which they were three days later still putting out hot spots on that same fire. Did a lot of Sawyer work and got it knocked down. Took a lot of work, but, yeah, it was a good save and commend the good relationships we have with, you know, our public works and obviously our police as well for getting it taken care of.

Thanks chief. Yeah. So happy that, uh, couldn't have had a, you know, if you got to have a fire, um, no damage, no injuries like, uh, that was, that was textbooks. So, uh, glad you guys were able to get out there and take care of that. Um, the only other thing I had was, uh, just, just kind of a point of interest. Uh, Mr. Cooper does a great job of filling us in on what's coming to the city this month. I just finished writing my newsletter and I tried to do an update on all the businesses that are coming. And, uh, I think there's almost a dozen businesses coming in, and a lot of them are going into old buildings, which is good. We're sad that we lost businesses, but the fact that we refilled them so quickly is amazing, and it's a testament to Riverdale and our location and our staff, how good they work with the businesses. I was super surprised at how many new businesses are coming in. So we still got it. We're still the location where people want to be. And I'm excited that we're going to have about, like I said, about a dozen new businesses coming in. So that's really exciting. And with that, we would need a motion to adjourn. Oh, yeah. Oh, gee, come on up. Yeah.

I'll make this brief. I wanted to address some of the concerns that have been online in regards to our flock cameras. The mayor's been receiving a lot of feedback from the things that are going on across the country. And so he's reached out to me and he's extremely concerned that we are operating within state law and that we're not going to fall into any of those categories that you read about, whether it be online or on TV or whatnot. And so I just want to give you guys a brief overview of the history of Flock cameras and what we're doing to ensure you guys that they're not being misused and that they're there to help protect the public and victims of crime that may reside or be in Riverdale. Some of the things that you see on TV is that these cameras are just being used erroneously to search people's whereabouts. There's a state law that governs what we can use them for, and it's primarily for missing people, to investigate crimes, stolen vehicles, things of that nature. Anytime an officer wants to access that camera system, they have to put in a case number. They also need to put in the reason why they're searching. We have a complete audit log to determine that they're doing it appropriately and that it's not being misused. The second factor is there's been stuff out there about other agencies accessing these cameras. Traditionally, when they were set up, the idea was law enforcement shares information to keep everybody safe so we can work together to solve crime. With some of the problems and concerns that have arrived from residents across the country and within our state, of this information being out there too freely amongst other agencies. I took it upon myself probably three to six months ago to basically cut off any outside agencies so we don't share our information with anybody other than the Real-Time Crime Center, which is down here in downtown Ogden. that kind of oversees a lot of the different cameras. So we do give them access to ours, but we rely heavily upon them to do research to help us track criminals down to different things with their cameras and their technology through the crime center. And so the goal of these cameras has never been to infringe upon anybody's rights. It's to uphold their rights and protect victims from crime if they are a victim as a tool that we can use to hopefully locate and apprehend a suspect. We're not using them to track regular ordinary citizens. We're not using them to track literally anybody unless, of course, you commit a crime. Then we might put in a search to try to locate the suspect that way. So I don't want to get too much into the weeds, but I do know it's a hot topic. Some of you may have been questioned about it. And it's kind of growing online. And so I'm happy to answer questions personally. But I have been talking to the mayor. He's been extremely concerned, want to ensure that we're operating the way we should be in accordance with law and looking out for our residents. I just want to put that on the record. That's all I have.

and what I've been hearing, it's not so much with the municipality, it's with the company itself. Yes. The security of there. Are they communicating with you? Are they giving you any assurance? Give me some feedback.

Yeah, they're assuring us that, oh, it's 100% secure, it goes away. I mean, they're telling us all the right answers, and I haven't yet to see one specifically through FLOC. that is contrary. I know there's a lot of stuff that goes out there that it's with that company that they're disseminating this stuff to third parties. Uh, I, I haven't seen that personally. And so, um, and they assure us when we do this, that it's proprietary to us, right? They have it, but they're not sharing is what they've told me. Uh, that's part of the deal. And like I says, as a safeguard, I'll continue to reach out to them and let them know this is important to us. And it's mandatory. We can't have that information. If we're, paying for it to put it in our city to where it can be disseminated to private parties or anyone, the only purpose it should ever be used for is to investigate and solve crime and locate missing people.

Okay. Hey, thanks, Chief. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thanks for the clarification.

Okay.

Anything else? All right, with that, we need a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Motion. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor say yes.

Yes.

All right. We're adjourned. We're excited to have our planning commission here with us tonight. So we'll move into our next meeting, our joint work session. I think we'll kick that off. Mr. Cooper, are you going to kick that off for us?

Yeah, if you don't mind.

Yeah, let's do it.

Let me... Give the lay of the land to everyone. And again, thanks to the Planning Commission. We also have Chris Hupp, whom you know. He's with SOMUS. He's our consultant. So the idea behind tonight.