City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. We would like to call to order our Riverdale City Council meeting for Tuesday, September 15, 2026. Please let the record show that all members of the City Council are present with Councilor Stevens joining us from the audience tonight. We also have members of the public as well as members of the city staff with us. We welcome you all here tonight. Councilor Arnold will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, and then I will offer our invocation.

Everyone 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 liberty and justice for all. Our Father in Heaven, we are grateful that we can meet here tonight in this City Council meeting. We are grateful for the opportunity that each of us has to serve our residents and our constituents, and we ask that that would help us tonight as we try to serve them and make decisions that will be the most beneficial for them, and it would also be in accordance with thy will. We're grateful for the circumstances in which we meet and the great abundance and blessings that we all enjoy as well as the freedom that we have in this country and we are grateful for those that help to protect us. Our first responders here in Riverdale and throughout the county as well as the military that protects us as well and we would Ask a special blessing on them and all our city workers that they might have that protection and be able to perform their jobs each day to the best of their abilities and then safely return home to their families at night. We're grateful once again for all of our many blessings and offer this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

Okay, we now have a time for public comment. This is an opportunity to address the City Council regarding any concerns or ideas that you might have. Generally, this is time for items that are not on the agenda. No action will be taken during the public comment. If you do approach the microphone, please try to limit your comments to three minutes. State your name and the city in which you reside, and we'll go from there.

Good evening. Brandon knows me. That's probably the only one. But my name is Larry Parks. I reside in Roy. I own property in Riverdale. And I've been a realtor for 30-plus years in Weber and Davis County primarily. So I'm a member of the... Wasatch Front, the Northern Wasatch Association of Realtors. And we're doing a symposium. And I'm here to invite city officials to join us next Thursday at 2 p.m. And it's a blueprint series. It's a case study in housing solutions. And I'll leave some of these flyers for you all. It's 2 o'clock to 3.30 on the 24th. and to be a young person or trying to own a home in today's market is rather difficult, so we're pulling together different cities and different... You know, it's a blueprint series, which means there's people that are finding ways to make affordable housing a little more available than most places. So... I'll just leave this here for you, and Brandon, it sounds like, is going to be there, and you guys can just all carpool over. But we'd love to have you there. And there's a little QR code for you to go ahead and let us know that you're coming.

Thank you, Larry, for the personal invitation. That's very nice.

Thank you.

SEEING NO ONE ELSE, WE'LL MOVE ON TO PRESENTATIONS AND REPORTS. FOR THE MAYOR'S REPORT, I JUST HAVE ONE THING. I AM ON THE WEAVER COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, AND AS PART OF THAT, WE GET TO MAKE A DECISION ON WHERE SOME OF THE COUNTY SPENDS ITS SALES TAX MONEY THAT IT COLLECTS FOR TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS. AND SO LAST THURSDAY, I WENT ON A BUS TOUR OF 15 PROJECTS IN THE COUNTY AND LOOKED AT DIFFERENT ROWS AND projects that could use some finances. This is the same thing that funded a roundabout on 1050 West. And so I always push the city staff to try and get in on these projects so that we can get some money because the county's handed it out. I think they have about $17 million to hand out this year. I think they had about $55 or $60 million worth of requests. And you can imagine some of the roads out west with no curb and gutter and just need to be widened, and there's a lot of need. But anyway, we looked at Parker Drive and a possible 11-foot asphalt trail on the west side and some curb and gutter and stuff so that it would be pedestrian-friendly and they'd be able to ride bikes or walk along it. That far side's kind of tough out there. That was one we looked at. And so I met Mr. Brooks and Mr. Douglas and then our engineer, Mr. Todd Friedman, for these projects. And so we would stop in our van and look at them. And then the other one is over on Freeway Park Drive right by Cherry Creek. The whole Freeway Park Drive has been redone, but there's a little section right there by the bad intersection. It's not to fix the bad intersection, but it's at least to kind of put some sidewalk in there and kind of finish that dirt section and stuff. Anyway, it was good. Hopefully we can get those scored well and maybe pick up a little bit of that money to help us with some of those projects. That's all I have. So city administration report, Mr. Brooks.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll turn that off. Department reports are in your packet. Any questions on anything that might have been in any of them? Moving on, I always like to point out the fiscal year to date on the total combined sales tax. That's my favorite chart. If you look at that, In comparison to the last five years, including this year, we're ahead of 23. That was our highest. We continue to maintain our position there. So that's always a good sign. That's one of those that we look to often just to make sure that we're maintaining a good pace with that. And we are above 23, which was our highest of the last five years, not including this year. Other than that, I have our employee recognitions. Karen Dilley, she's not here, but just by way of recognition, it's not an anniversary year for her, but she does have 27 years. Karen's been out there in Rich's building forever, does a great job. She's always willing to fill in and help us out when we need. We did have Officer Edminster. He has an anniversary for five years. We have a little plaque and stuff we'll give to you that you can pass on to him since he's not here. The others are – they all have various numbers of years in there. The staffing authorization, if you looked at that, we have had a couple of losses, a little bit of changes in – Community services, they have them fairly regularly. Building also. And another one in fire, I believe. We're short on one of those. Did you get it all done? That's all good? Okay. So other than that, staffing looks good and we continue. Cody's been in interviews the last two days to replace Angel. Angel left. I don't know if you know that. Our IT specialist guy, he's gone now. So Cody's carrying all those duties, including our All of our stuff that Cody does or that Angel does, Cody's getting to do all of it. So he's been busy lately. But those interviews that some of them were yesterday, I believe, and they have some more tomorrow. But they had a couple of good candidates. So we hope to have that field really soon. It's kind of one of those unique positions where that was Chris's old one that they do just a jack of all trades. They do a little bit of everything. But we've shifted a lot of the IT stuff over onto that. So you don't just find people like that. They're kind of... We create things around here by our own doing, and it's not easy to feel sometimes. But Cody, I talked to him just this afternoon, and it sounded really positive that we got some good candidates, so. Other than that, community development report. I'll turn some time over to Brandon and just update you on a couple of those. Yeah, thanks.

The list is in your packet. You're familiar with most of these folks. We did get a submission from Pink Box Donuts for the DRC, which they're proposing to go into the Arby's, the vacant Arby's. So that'll be an interesting new refresh, totally different than what we have, but I think in line with maybe some things like Dave's Hot Chicken. And The cabin is actually doing some work. It may not look like it. I know we get a lot of questions about that. But those folks were in the office this week to try to further along some of their permitting. So it's a little bit slower than I think what they anticipated, but they are moving along with that renovation.

That's it. Just by way of some construction projects, Sean's not here. You would have seen the roundabout over there by Allen's house. I believe it's just open to the north-south traffic, but it's getting close. We're making improvements. That'll be wrapped up fairly soon. And the same thing with the roundabout up on the west bench by Allen's. America first. All these are finally getting to the point where we can look at them and say, we're close. We about got it done. So that'll be nice to have all that traffic running through there freely. So, and they look good. It's weird. I drove over there by the one by Alan's house and it's just like, it's a completely different look, man. It just feels different. It's crazy because they pulled that curb out to slow that traffic and kind of regulate that, and it just feels completely different. And then we cut that road off, and if you get a chance, if you haven't been over there, go take a look at it. It's kind of crazy, but I think it'll be nice when it's all done. We won't have a lot of that. The centerpiece is done, but there is water and... and uh power to that so we'll be doing up a bunch of things there but uh that a lot of that probably won't be this year where we get so late in the year most that'll probably be springtime stuff but uh looking good there's there's a bunch of talk on facebook and stuff about what's going in there and we we had talked about a committee putting together a citizen committee to possibly doing that so i don't know if we're doing it that way or Brandon's been spearheading some stuff on that. We're kind of feeling that out, seeing where it's going to go. But it'll be nice when it gets done. I think everybody will be happy with it.

That's one of those projects that you have to go down there and look at it and go, just calm down, let's see how it works, because that big teardrop coming out of the dead-end road is like, okay, they wasted some space here. Why? Yeah. Well, we'll see how it works.

Yeah. We'll be good. But they're getting close. That one especially. That'll be done really quick.

I figure Sean just needed a place to plow snow, so.

And that's all I had, Mayor.

One other construction project, they swung the beams onto the 4,400 south bridges, and so it was closed all weekend, but you can kind of get a sense, finally, of what they're about to do. You know, they built these platforms outside the other bridges, and they've built big platforms that they're going to slide them onto. It's going to be pretty neat. I'd get over there and look at that if you can. They've got the cement... beams across now it's really starting to come together still says every update they send me says uh fall 2026 so we'll see if they pull this off but um it's common you can kind of see what they're going to do and then one other kind of funny thing about uh angel's job so uh one of the it guys that works at my uh midtown with me um He lives in Riverdale, and he must always just be looking at jobs. And he's like, hey, I was looking at that IT job. There's some weird responsibilities with that. Social media and the newsletter. And he's like, I don't want to do any of that stuff. I was like, yeah, we kind of combine things in Riverdale. So it was just funny. It is a unique position, so hopefully we get the right person in there. Angel quit right before, well, he left. I'm sure he gave his notice, but right before newsletter time. So me and Cody have been emailing back and forth, and the draft is in my email folder, so we'll see what it looks like.

Yes, it's been interesting, too, to see where they're from. The applicants are a good wide variety. It's kind of surprising. So it must be a field that's somewhat open, and there's some interest in it. So that's good.

That's good. All right, thanks. We'll move on to consent items. Number one, consideration to approve the meeting minutes from the September 1st, 2026 council meeting. Any changes or corrections to those minutes? Seeing none, we would need a motion to approve.

So moved.

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. That's taken care of. Very good. Thanks. Action items. Number one, public hearing to receive public comment regarding the proposed annexation of Riverdale City into the Weber Fire District and the future delivery of fire suppression, emergency medical services, rescue services, ambulance transport, and related emergency services. So this is a public hearing. No decisions have been made, and we have spent a lot of time looking at it, but we want to make that clear that we are still in the decision-making phase of this project. And no decision will be made tonight, actually. It's just simply a time for the staff or residents or anyone to kind of voice their concerns and ask questions and find out the information that they want. We did have an open house previously that...

YOU KNOW, TRYING TO GET THE WORD OUT AS WELL.

AND SO HOPEFULLY THE PUBLIC FEELS LIKE THEY HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT ON THIS AND SHARE THEIR THOUGHTS ON IT. SO WITH THAT, I THINK HOW WE'LL HANDLE IT IS WE WILL OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING AND THEN MR. BROOKS IS GOING TO GIVE US JUST A LITTLE BIT OF INFORMATION ABOUT IT AND THEN WE'LL OPEN THE PUBLIC COMMENT. SO WE NEED A MOTION TO OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING. DO WE HAVE A SECOND?

I'LL SECOND.

ANY DISCUSSION ON THAT MOTION? All in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? Okay. So the public hearing is now open. We will have a little bit of background information from, uh, Mr. Brooks, I did fail to mention that we have both of our chiefs here. We have our Riverdale City Chief and the Weber Fire District Chief here, too. So if there's any questions, we can have them try to answer those. Okay, Mr. Brooks.

Thank you, Mayor. I apologize. I left all my notes on the public hearing upstairs, brought everything else down. No, it'll be all right. I can get through this. I've seen this a few times over the last few months. So I had originally prepared a separate PowerPoint for this. And as I got thinking about it more today, I thought I had also drafted up some questions that I would anticipate that citizens would ask us. And maybe some of you, a lot of these you've heard. uh... when you probably even heard some of the actors to it but uh... so what i change the power point is to say you know what i had forty questions here i'm just gonna go down to them we're gonna hit him and then if anybody from the public wants to follow up with any of those or uh... some that we don't hit uh... i think we've got most everything here in here that we would generally anticipate we would see and i'll just invite both chiefs i didn't i told them that i might call on them But they're welcome to jump in at any time because I'm sure I will get some things wrong as we go through this. And so just help me out and correct me on this. Like I said, in all of our discussions with everybody, I don't think there's anything new in here tonight that we're going to see from our discussions. So as we go through this, if you have any questions, if you just kind of take some notes as you're going through. And my intent is, you know, it's just like any public hearing. We're not going to really address a lot of these things, but at the end we'll try to, as staff, respond to any questions that you might have if I miss some stuff as we go through here. So as you see, the questions are not in order. I drafted up the roughly 40 questions. I don't remember exactly what there were. And then I went back through and I tried to categorize them and put them in related topics. So that's why you'll see they'll jump around here a little bit. One of the first things that I want to say, especially for the public, is, you know, why are we getting rid of our fire department? That's probably the first thing that people do ask us when they ask some questions. And this is not an easy decision. It hasn't been easy from the get-go. But we've been working on this thing probably, well, since I came in as the city administrator. If you all recall, one of the things that I mentioned there is 2030 is coming up. And this was four years ago. And now here we are at 2026. So those years have gone by fast. And, you know, we double that time period and we're going to be beyond the 2030, but A lot of the public doesn't understand the whole 2030 concept. I know the council does, and I don't mean to bore you with that, but we do want to make sure the public is informed on this. In the year 2030, we will lose roughly about $3 million out of our budget in just how the tax distribution occurs. Having seen that, we've been working on this for some time as to what are we going to do? How do we compensate for that? How do we make up $3 million when you have a $17 million budget? It's a pretty good hit, roughly 15%, 15 to 18. And so we started looking at all kinds of different options. And so when people say what's wrong with our fire department, that's the second question up there. There's nothing wrong with our fire department, nothing at all. And it has nothing to do with that. It's just that we have got to come up with a way to make up for that $3 million. And one of the ways that we saw was to – not not get rid of the fire department but but change it over put it in a different realm rather than it being riverdale's responsibility and so that's basically what it is nothing wrong with our fire department nothing wrong with the city one of the questions later on is is the city in trouble financially no we're not but come 2030 we potentially could be if we don't make some changes and so this is just one of those first steps and unfortunately um The fire department is one of those things that we looked at. Now, we looked at a lot of things. We looked at contracting that out with one of our bigger jurisdictions earlier on. We looked at forming our own district in the southern end of the county. We even approached Weaver Fire District really early on on this, and things just didn't work out. Everything was just weird. We just couldn't get it to where it was going to be worthwhile for us to do it. And when Chief Clark came in, we approached him again. And one of the things we've always said is we can't get rid of another question later on. We can't get rid of our fire department, the building itself. It's right in the middle of our park. And I know that was an issue last time when we looked at this. And they've been really good about working with us on that. And we'll hit each one of those one by one as I get to it. But it's just not an easy decision for anybody. And I don't want anybody getting blamed for this because that's not what it is. It's just a matter of the situation. And it just so happened. that we were fire district was set up a little bit differently, and they were more willing to take us on at this point. And I think as I look at this and I evaluate this thing, I don't think we even drop off. I think we probably even get better, and I'll talk about some of those areas where we're going to be stronger than what we are now, simply because of manpower. If you look at the way our situation is, and correct me on this, Chief, on the numbers, but as I understand, on an engine, the the required minimum in your standards is three for an engine. and two for an ambulance. So if our ambulance is called out at any given time, there goes two of our guys. So we are, and our staffs are generally five. And so if two of them are gone, we have the bare minimum. So we have the bare minimum on the ambulance, we have the bare minimum on an engine. That means that nobody can go on vacation or be sick because if we have any of that take place, we've either got to bring somebody in or we're shorter than what the standards require. So we can't make a lot of adjustments. I mean, yeah, we could come in and hire a whole lot more people. But then again, that's defeating the purpose. It just keeps getting – everything just keeps getting more expensive on all the options that we had. So when we looked at this stuff, we just thought it's hard for a small city. And if you Google this and you ask how many small cities in the United States of less than 10,000 people have a full-time fire department – You're not going to find very many. It's just a small number. And they're expensive, and we're seeing this. And not just that, but just the expenses, not just in labor but in equipment, and we'll address those a little bit later too and talk about those in a little bit more depth. So as far as just fixing our own department, yeah, you know, we could – and one of the other questions is can we hire more firefighters? Well, that's not going to get us out of the 3 million hole that we're going to be in. So we're really stuck between a rock and a hard spot on this whole thing. And, again, is it financial trouble? I mean, it is potentially, but it's not like anybody did anything wrong. It was just how the – The tax structure was set up, and now the state's going to pull that back. And when that gets pulled back, then we just automatically lose that money, and there's nothing else we can do. Now, having said that, and it's not specifically related to this, we're also working on the extension of that, maybe some changes and things on that. We just had a meeting with the other whole harmless cities who are affected by this. Just recently.

Can we ask questions through this presentation?

I don't really care if something comes up or if you wanted to save until the end. You're welcome to jump in.

Can I bring up two things you just mentioned? Absolutely. The second one. On Q39 we're going to hire more firefighters. Maybe the chiefs can address. The concept of a volunteer quote unquote volunteer fire firefighters as opposed to professional or people that are hired part-time full-time because we have a city next to us Washington Terrace that quote-unquote has a volunteer fire department and then the second question meaning meaning could we use that as a stopgap can we work with volunteer firemen and the professional like we have. I mean, we have professional firefighters which are trained, have standards, and are here full time as opposed to somebody who's just called out when there's an issue. Now, the other one is the mutual aid. Right. And that's kind of where we have an agreement that If Roy has an issue, we help them and West Haven helps them, quote, unquote. Or South Ogden, you know, we kind of help each other. Do we sign on? Is that renewed every year? Is there money involved in that mutual aid? Is there money exchanged from the bigger to the littler?

There's no money exchanged in those agreements. I don't know what they vary, three to five years roughly, Matt. I don't know if you want to give more detail on that.

Because in my perspective, we could go really cheap and take advantage of other municipalities.

Well, and when you bring up one of those jurisdictions, I don't want to call them out, but that's kind of what they do. Yes, I know. Because they rely on everybody around them. We do not do that. I mean, we still take all the help we can get. Everybody does. That's the nice thing about the police and fire departments is they help each other. quite often. And then I also want you to address the part-time issue because I know we had issues with that.

Part-time and volunteer.

Right.

So second question first, when it comes to the mutual aid, to enter one of those agreements, you have to be able to reciprocate. So for the longest time, Washington Terrace was not able to be part of that mutual aid because they did not staff. They had volunteers that were basically unreliable. They've since upped their staffing. They have three on duty, 24 hours of part-time staff. So now they're able to... sign into these mutual aid agreements. So you have to put into the pot to be able to take out of it, if that makes sense. Your first question when it comes to volunteers, we do have a small resident base of 10,000, but I mean, as you know, our commercial is pretty extensive. And you asking volunteers to be able to do that. The volunteers, I'm quite familiar with how they run, say, up in Cache Valley. And they work up there because they have a low call volume. But when you're seeing a lot of calls at night, I mean, you're asking volunteers that work full time careers. at other professions, and now they're staying at the fire station or they're coming back at night and then they're getting up and going to the regular jobs, it taxes them. And it gets to the point where they're just too busy and they just don't want to volunteer anymore. Riverdale has progressed from that. They were a volunteer, and then we went to a part-time, and then we started with a couple full-timers and have just since grown as the needs increase. The call volume increased, the needs of the organization, the needs of the city has got us to the point where we can justify the full-time people that we need. There was talk a few years ago about going back and trying to do like a citizens academy and trying to get citizens involved in doing that. But a lot of issues with that when it comes down to it is trying to keep everybody at the same level. When you have... Guys there, 48 hours, they just eat, breathe fire and EMS, and that's the service that provides to you. When you have the volunteers that show up, it's kind of their second thing. It's more of their hobby, and they do the best they can with what they have, but it's that service level that I think the city of Riverdale requires to be of them. So the part-time... was working really good for Riverdale for a lot of years. But kind of as the economy shifts and everything, we employed a lot at Riverdale. In fact, it was quite unique. We had a lot of highly recognized firefighters that were chiefs of other departments, captains and engineers, and they would work part-time at Riverdale because they wanted a second job, you know, a second income, and they would work shifts and they were just – Lack of a better word, plug and play. They knew what they were doing. They had the experience. It takes a lot of time to develop these guys and gals, but it got to the point where their own organizations that they work full-time were struggling to keep staffing up as well. Overtime opportunities came up. And if you're going to get paid time and a half versus a part-time wage, they default to the time and a half. So our part-time staffing was just dwindling. For the longest time, we were authorized to have 25 part-timers, and we were sitting right around 11, 12 for quite a few years, and we could never bring it up to the 25. So it's just kind of a system that's being outdated. As we grow, the volunteer goes away, and so does the part-time.

Chief, I had one other question, just since you're up here. Our staffing and our training, somehow that plays into the insurance rates that our businesses are able to get. Is there something to do with that? Can you explain that real quick?

Yeah, there's an ISO rating, an insurance rating, and depending on how many training hours all the guys have, there's a lot of factors that go into it. What type of apparatus, how many people you have on duty, the training hours, your hydrants, your water situation, all that comes into play. And if you have a good ISO rating, then your insurance premiums are down. It'll reduce them.

Okay, any other questions for the chief? Thanks, chief.

And I would just add in follow-up to that. I mean, it's still – and Cody's going to help us out here a little bit when we get to the financial part of that. But whether we're doing part-time or we're doing full-time people, it still costs us money. And equipment still costs us money. And if we're looking at trying to reduce some of our expenses in the city, it's not helping us, whether we're doing part-time or full-time or whatever. And that part-time just got to be a nightmare. Matt came in on that but when Chief Shawley was here I know he struggled and struggled and struggled it just got to where it was almost impossible to get it going and to keep it going so anything further on any of that stuff? All right. Is it really just about money? Honestly, it's a big part of it because, like I said a couple of times here, we've got to come up with money. We've got to find ways to save. And, yeah, the money does come into play on a lot of it. But I think that's an advantage too, not necessarily the money, but one of the big advantages that I see with the fire district is exactly that, is they have people. They have bodies. And if we, you know, not that anybody in our department would ever do this, speaking of our chief over there, but somebody goes up and decides to take a week off and go up and hunt Bambi, we need people to cover, and we just don't have them. We have to pull from outside, whereas with the fire district, they have... multiple stations they'll have more you know if we in riverdale or roy come on that they can pull they can move people around to where they need them at that time you know where the where the emphasis is whether it's night day or whatever they have those options we don't have that and so i think that's a huge bonus just for us if nothing else that one right there is a big one so um yeah it is money and we'll get into the financing of that and things later on but How much money will the city actually save? These next three questions are kind of related. Will my property taxes go up and why would we join a district? Now, I may have misspoke on this about raising taxes. Let me address that one because I don't want to put Chief Clark in a bad position, but I can't come in here and say they're never going to raise taxes. That's just not realistic, especially when they're bringing in two new cities. I mean, it's going to happen. It's going to have to happen because it's expensive. Whether it's police or fire, there's a lot of costs that come along with these. they're trying to do it as as you know effectively as they can without killing anybody but it is going to cost money at some point in time and there's going to be some some taxes that are raised it's just it's just the nature of the beast but it wouldn't matter if it was riverdale or the fire district it's going to happen i mean we still got to buy new equipment we still got to hire guys all that stuff costs money whether it's riverdale or whether it's them doing it so Yeah, that's going to happen, and we're trying to keep it as low as we possibly can. But as far as the actual financing part of that, how much we'll save in taxes and stuff, Cody, you want to just take a couple minutes and address those issues?

Sure. So as we've talked before, like based upon what we've looked at and what we've talked to the state and the fire district about in general, we think we'll save approximately a million dollars. However, some of that will change depending on what their tax rate ends up being and our tax rate and, and all those things. And so until like an official agreement's made and everything's finalized, we don't know exactly what that will be. There is some state laws that govern the, these transactions when a jurisdiction is spun off like this and we've talked about that in the past and so ultimately we'll have to work through the process with the the fire district and with the state of utah and with weaver county to determine what all those will be but we anticipate that the property taxes will largely stay the same that the what assessment the the district assesses, the city will reduce their assessment by that same amount or very close. And that's kind of it in a nutshell, unless anybody has any questions.

All right, moving on. Again, this one's just a no-brainer. Can they keep raising them? The fire district is actually a taxing entity, so they have that authority to do that. We'll get into how the operation of that works and the representation we'll have on that. So, yeah, I mean, over the years, it's no different than your school district or sewer district, any of them. They all have that same taxing authority. And if we join the fire district, they have that same authority to do so. And Cody mentioned that we, the anticipation is that we will lower our levy enough to compensate for how much is going to go up through the fire district, if it even does. I mean, we don't know again until we get those final numbers. And what happens with the money that the city saves, I think I've kind of explained that. There won't be, I mean, that's just going to go towards our 2030 shortfall. And we're still not going to meet that full amount. So we're still going to be looking for other things besides just the fire department being changed. Will our fire station close? The short and simple answer is I think I'm relatively safe in saying no, that's not going to happen right now. And I don't think even in the near future that's anticipated. I think the location of our fire station is pretty crucial and will be very important to us. the fire district, because now they cover the whole western side of the county, assuming they take us and Roy in. They already do Uintah. And so we sit right in that path. And so our location is almost ideal. Plus, given the number of businesses and stuff that we have here, I doubt I can see that happening in the near future. I mean, that's, again, going to be up to them somewhere down the road, but I wouldn't anticipate that that would be. Is that a fair response to you? Yeah. Now, who will come when I call 911 and will response times be faster? I might turn that over to Chief. Would you mind just addressing both of those?

Yeah, so initially who will call when I call 911? It's going to be the same people out of the same station. They'll be the first into Riverdale City when I call 911 now or then it will be the same. Now, if they're out on a call, then it reverts to the next closest, and we'll send in an ambulance or an engine or whatever we need to send in. Response times will probably stay the same. They could improve a little bit, but where you have people, full-time people in the stations right now, your response times that you are currently getting are really good. Industry standard-wise, they're really good, and I would not expect those to change at all.

Okay. So basically what I see is the only thing that's going to be different really is the name that's going to be on the side of that fire truck when it pulls up in front of your house. Rather than say in Riverdale City, I'd say Weber Fire District. There was another question here too. Yeah, can you handle these two as well, Chief? I mean it's just kind of process on how these things go.

So in the case of a couple of ambulance calls, and we have that happen on one incident, Riverdale Road. has a couple accidents every now and then, and sometimes we have to send multiple ambulances out to it. We can handle that, and we can send those. We have the resources for it. We also have agreements with surrounding cities to send in the closest unit to get there quick. During a big structure fire, again, it would be very similar. I think one thing that we can really add is right now you get one of the best fire chiefs in the country coming out, which is a big deal. But we also offer battalion chiefs. You're going to get at least one battalion chief, if not two. And then we have a fire chief and two deputy chiefs. We can come out on bigger incidents and provide more of that leadership. But, yeah, we do. Right now we work in response modes and stacks, and we would have those same stacks. Nothing would change with those. So you would still see the same response that you're getting now.

Okay. One other thing, too, that I'd just make a point of that I'm a little bit more familiar with, but another advantage we're going to have is we will have paramedics within our unit now because the fire district has paramedics. Right now, as Riverdale stands, we are EMTA, an advanced unit. which is one step below that. And I'm assuming they'll probably get all those guys bumped up and certified to become paramedics. So it's going to be a huge advantage to us. Right now we have to wait for either them to come or it's Roy, I think, that's assigned to us at this point. But assuming they become part of that, now it's going to be part of our whole unit. So we may even have paramedics at some point in time that will be closer that are actually going to be stationed right here in Riverdale. So I think that's a huge bonus and a big benefit to us on that. Fire inspections, this is a good one because I do want to hit that. Right now we have one part-time individual who's doing a lot of these things. That will all change with the fire district because they will have a whole team. And so I think our service in that area is going to get stronger too. Paul Flagg is going to go to the fire district, but he will be joining their people that they have. And then they'll be accepting those responsibilities and carrying on. So here's another benefit that I think Riverdale gets better by joining the fire district. Are our firefighters going to lose their jobs? This is one of the biggest questions and concerns that we had as administration and staff. It's one of the first questions we asked Chief Clark is what happens here. And I think the simple answer is no, none of them are losing their jobs. And there's some follow-up questions on that too. Are they going to have to start over again? No. To the credit of the fire department, Weber Fire Department, is they're transferring pretty much everything straight across that we can. So some of these other questions is their leave, sick leave, comp time, all that kind of stuff. All that's going to transfer straight across. So we will not – none of our guys are losing jobs unless they chose to – like we have a retirement or something like that, but it would be their choice. They are going to have options to go over to the fire district and not really lose anything. Now, we do have a couple little hiccups in there because – There's a couple sections where Riverdale's policy is different than the fire district's is. And so before we finalize all this, we will be coming back into you to see what you want to do as far as payouts or buyouts on some of those sections that are different than what theirs are. So we can't just expect them to assume all that stuff. We'll be sending money and stuff over to them to cover those kind of things. But our employees, the bottom line is they shouldn't be affected much at all. In fact, again, here's another thing that I think is an advantage is right now we don't have a lot of change and turnover in our department because it is so small. And so a lot of these younger guys that are coming in, I mean – they may never get an opportunity to become a chief or battalion chief or anything else. Whereas with the fire district, all that stuff is opened up to them. In fact, as I understand, they've got some things going on right now that they've already reached out to our guys and given them the opportunity to apply for some of those positions. So these are things that just wouldn't happen in Riverdale. And so huge benefit and bonus to our guys on that. Are firefighters going to be sent elsewhere? Again, a lot of that's going to depend upon them and what they want to do, and obviously the district is going to determine that. But I think, again, the plan right now is we're going to have pretty much most of the same guys that we currently have until some of those start choosing to go other places and things like that. We'll still be seeing a lot of the same faces. Is that a fair statement, Chief?

Yeah, a lot of them are going to stay, but we'll do some movement. But a lot of them will move over the years, especially some of the younger ones as they promote and have to move to different areas for promotions. Some of them may just want to go to different areas to try something different. But you'll see that movement around, you know, really to their benefit to move around a little bit more.

And one of the questions I didn't put in there is the heavy rescue, and that's probably a little bit of a concern. And my understanding is they want to keep that here as well. And so our guys are already trained in a lot of those heavy rescue things, but it will open up other opportunities for even other guys that are in the fire district to potentially come in here. Why don't we give the building to the district? I kind of addressed that one. That's just one of those things. I just don't know how we ever could. And they haven't even asked for it, to be honest with you. But I figured the question might come up, so they threw it in there. Are they going to pay? All these things are in negotiations right now. Yeah, there's probably going to be something, but it's not going to be a lot. One of the things that's a little bit different, since I talked to you last time and got some guidance on equipment and stuff, that we hadn't really even thought about some of these things, but... Our equipment is not in really good shape, to be honest with you. Our backup stuff, I don't think they're even going to use because it's... That poor ambulance out there that we have for backup, they've been band-aiding that thing for years. And it's just to the point where I don't even think they're going to keep that. Our primary stuff will continue to be used. And so even though we own that, I mean, we've got to look at that, that our residents are still going to keep benefiting from the nicer equipment that we have. So it's not like we're giving up a whole lot. they will continue to use that until the useful life is no longer there. One of the things that I've noticed since I've been in this position is fire equipment is extremely expensive when you buy it I mean we're talking what two million for a ladder a million for an engine another three or five hundred thousand for an ambulance and then they don't go that long it doesn't seem like you know they're out there for 10 15 years and then you try to turn around and sell them at that point and the value on them just bottoms out And so there's not a lot of value in our stuff is kind of what I'm saying out there. And so, yeah, they're going to continue to use the stuff that they can that's useful and beneficial. But you also got to remember that when they take over our area, city, they need equipment. And the worst thing that could do is if we pulled everything back and then sold it or whatever, then they're going to have to go out and buy new stuff. Well, somebody's got to pay for that, and that's going to be on the Riverdale residents. So we really need to let them take advantage of what they can. It's going to take some time for them to get adjusted to the new cities and stuff like that, and there will be some changes and there will be new equipment coming in. But at least right now, our residents are still using their stuff. It's just a different agency or at least the title is different and who's driving it. But other than that, it's still pretty much the same. There's no differences on that. So, no, we're not giving anything away. Realistically, we're not going to – we are pulling a few things back. I mean all these things are in negotiations and stuff right now, but – I don't anticipate there's going to be big financial changes between the two because it's still going to be used and it's going to be used by our citizens who paid for this. By the time that is done, that stuff's going to be worthless. Not worthless, but it's not going to be worth very much.

So realistically, that's not going to be much of an issue there either.

Who will be in charge? This is one of the things I wanted to talk about because some people are concerned about that. So this is not like the Weber Fire District. Some of these questions make them sound like they're bad guys here, and that's not what I was trying to do. They're just the agency that's running that, but they are controlled by a board, and this board is all, I think they're all mayors, aren't they, on the board? Or are some of them not?

Yeah, so we have four that are elected at large for unincorporated Weber County, and then all of our cities appoint, and right now, All of our cities except for one have their mayors on our board. Huntsville has a former mayor on our board. Okay. I thought there was a couple of different ones.

So in essence, our mayor will be on that board as well, and it's that board that controls, just like you guys as the council. They're the ones who make the decisions. So even if Chief Clark goes in there and says, I need to do a tax increase, it's up to that board. It's not Chief Clark's decision here. That board's got to be able to sign off on that and say that that's okay before that ever happens.

How does that work in reverse? At our council meetings, We have city staff people here to answer questions and for accountability issues. We have police and fire who are always here to answer questions and respond to issues concerning the board, if you will, for the city. Will the district have a person here to our meetings?

That's one of the things that I wanted to put into, not necessarily saying exactly what meetings they'll be there, but there will be some accountability, whether it's Chief Clark or somebody else that comes in occasionally, just to keep you guys updated on stuff like that. So, yeah, I mean, we'll have some accountability. And then the mayor will be able to give you updates that are board updates. But, yeah, we'll get something. There will be a report given to the council to keep you guys informed on how things are going. A lot of these things are still – I have two agreements on my desk right now that are pretty much in final form that we're ready to move forward on and some of that stuff will be included and there's a couple other forms that I want to look at and that's one of the things I want to put in there just so we have some means of – asking the chief a question or whoever his representative is at that point so does that answer your question part i don't think it's going to be the same that we have now you know matt's really good chief shawley was really good about being here but we will get him here on occasions i think is that fair to say chief yeah so um right now i have seven cities in the county that

we work with we'll have nine at that point so it would be hard to be to every council meeting but we would be here when you needed us and then um like mr brooks stated there would be somebody from your city council that comes to all of our board meetings and could give reports back but anything anytime the city needed us we're always there to take care of it but every yeah every city councilman would be tough

So we lose local control. Absolute control, I'd say yes. Full control, no. I mean, we're still going to have input. We're still going to have say. You've got to remember all these mayors are in the same boat that Mayor Mitchell is going to be in. They're concerned about raising their citizens' taxes and whatnot. Are we providing protection as efficiently as we want to? So they're not – They're not the enemy is what I'm saying. We're all on this same team. We're just trying to make it work for everybody. What if we were fired, decides to move everything out of Riverdale? Again, they are a taxing entity. They are separate. They can choose to do that. I don't, again, see that happening, at least not anytime in the near future. So that one's not really a major concern as well. These start getting a little bit trickier, but I figured there would be somebody having these questions in their mind. What if it doesn't work and can we get out of the district later? You can, but it's difficult. It's just like it's a little easier to get into the district than to get out, mainly because we would be starting all over again. And it would be outrageously expensive once all of our stuff is expired as far as usefulness, as far as equipment and stuff goes. And then you're going to come back and rehire all these people. So as far as there being a legal way, yeah, there is a legal way of doing it. A financial way, that's a different story. That would be a tough, tough one. So, I mean, that is a risk you always take. But again, it's not just you. I mean, all the other cities that are going to be having issues or problems are going to be in the same boat as we are. And I don't see that board going against their citizens just like our own. So I think we're relatively safe in both of those as well.

Why are we doing this so fast?

We're really not. This has been ongoing for some time, as I've been saying. I think the general public hasn't seen as much about it because we did our open house and now we're doing this meeting here tonight. Very little attendance on any of those. I don't know if people are really concerned. We put this in everything we could, online, the newsletter, the whole thing. So this isn't that fast. It's just our hope is to have this done by mid-year. And so... We don't have a lot of time to do it, and so we've got to get moving because all these agreements and stuff need to be signed, sealed, and delivered way before November and December. So that's the plan on that. Is it already a done deal? Nothing is a done deal until this council signs off on it as far as Riverdale goes. So until we bring those final documents in, it's easy for me to say no, it's not a done deal. um why didn't we let the public decide and can we vote on that again it's the same questions there's legal ways of doing it and there's um other ways and voting's not one that you generally would it's not something that's generally taken to the public first this is usually done on an administrative level i guess if somebody was really really upset and wanted to challenge that they they ultimately could and if there's anybody in the public here that has questions and wants to talk to me about that i'd be more than happy to sit down with you but I don't anticipate that being a real issue there either. But I figured there might be questions. Same thing with protesting. If anybody speaks tonight after I get done, that's not considered a legal protest. I can help you with that, too, if that's something anybody wants to address further. I don't want to beat everybody's night up discussing those things. Should we trust Weber Fire District? Again, I don't even look at it as a trust issue. I mean, we work together with these guys all the time now. This is nothing new. They come in and help us. We go and help them when and if we're called. And as far as breaking promises, there's really no such thing as promises. The only thing that we have is what we have in writing. And so that's why those documents are so important and we're putting so much time into it. I think that a lot of that's more paranoia than anything. I just don't see any of this stuff happening, to be honest with you. The fire district has just been more than wonderful to work with through this whole process, almost surprising. I don't know why. It's just that I didn't expect it to be as easy as it has been, the whole transition and everything. and just how willing they've been to work with us. One of my concerns, and I know this is stupid, but to me it's a big deal, and I think to the council it's a big deal. All these little things we do, like our Santa run and the kids that we water down during the end of school. There's just all those little things. When I went to Chief Clark and I said, are these even possibilities? He said, just make me a list. And so we're working on that, compiling that with everything. But that's how the whole operation has been through this whole process. They've been nothing but good to work with us and inviting. And like I said, the meeting, when their board decided to look at us and to make that official, at least that part, that step, I was in that meeting that night. And they were so excited to have Riverdale as part of their agency and I was out in Hooper just a couple of weeks ago at their tomato days and there was the, some of the fire guys were serving out there. I had said something to him, just kind of joking that I had some conversations with your boss lately. They're kind of looking at me. Who are you? And I said, I'm, I'm with Riverdale. They just kind of lit up. They were all excited thinking that they're going to get all these new people on board. And, um, I think it's just been a good arrangement thus far. I think it's a good move for us in so many different ways. And I'm not seeing many negatives to be honest with you, but, um, That is the conclusion of my questions. Do you have any follow-ups or some additions to those?

Mr. Stevens, we'll start with you. This is more towards the fire district personnel chief. What's your end game to incorporate the whole county into a fire district? I'm just curious. I mean, is it bigger? Does it make it more efficient, more cost-effective? Do you want... where typically you've kind of been more the rural unincorporated? Do you want neighborhoods? What is the objective of the fire district in bringing new municipalities on board? Is it more is better, or is it we're good, or what is it?

So there's several questions there. I'll try to get through all of them. There's really not an end game for us. We didn't approach Riverdale City and Royce City and ask you to annex to us. You approached us. And as a special district, that's what we do. We provide fire and EMS service. That's all we do. Now, as municipalities approach us, I feel and our board feels it's our obligation to listen to you and to give you an opportunity to annex. It is better to have more people. It's an economy of scale. We can spread expensive assets out like Mr. Brooks was talking about. Ladder trucks are $2 million plus a piece. Engines, we're just buying one right now, $1.14 million dollars. Ambulances are over $400,000. Brush trucks are about $150,000, $200,000. It's expensive. And we have a lot of smaller cities. We have Far West, Merritt Slaterville, Hooper, Uinta, Huntsville. These are towns that wouldn't be able to afford a fire department on their own. But by banding together in a special district, they're able to afford that and have that service and have that immediate response. We don't really have any dreams of bringing the whole county in. We'll take whatever city we can. We've had rural areas. We do ski resorts. We do mountainous areas. We do kind of everything. So we're excited to come in here and work in Riverdale. We've had some areas that are similar to it. If another city come and asked us to annex, we would definitely entertain it, but we're not seeking anybody to annex, and we never have. So I don't know if that got all your questions. Did I miss something?

Well, no, a few years ago, the north part of Weber County, North Ogden, I think Pleasant View, three or four municipalities created their own fire district. And so, you know, and again, why they did that, I don't know. I would be interested, you know, and I look at Salt Lake County where they have a big fire district. And so I was just wondering what point is... enough is what point is diversity good? Those four up in whatever it's up in North Weber County, you know, they're kind of, there's a lot of similarities between their, in their fire district that they created. And so I'm just curious as to what, where the Weber fire district can go. Can it get bigger? Can it assimilate more?

Yeah, well, Weber Fire District will get bigger. And if you look around, the growth is in our area. The county is growing like crazy. The west side is growing. So we will grow 100%. Northview Fire District is what you're talking about, and it incorporates the three cities, North Ogden, Pleasant View, and Harrisville. And they started a fire district for the same reason that the county did back in 1981, and it's to give an opportunity for smaller cities to band together and provide a good fire service. And that's what we started in 1936. As the county fire department in 1981, they turned us into a special service district. So as far as that goes, we could get as big as we need to be for the area. The goal is not to get really large. The goal is not to have the most fire stations or the most ladder trucks or anything like that we're just in this to provide service um our uh mission is to care prepare and respond that's what we focus on that's what we want to do um everything we do we drive towards that for whoever wants to to join us so and chief you guys do west haven too right yeah we do west haven yeah you've got uh i mean 21st street's pretty pretty big commercial area

You know, you've got like the Flying J and the Motel 6, all that's West Haven, isn't it?

Yeah, we have all that up into there.

And you have a big residential in West Haven, so you have a little bit of experience with more dense.

Yeah, we have good experience. We probably have more industrial in our area than any other city in the county. We have a lot of industrial areas. Yeah. We have kind of served every type of area except for, I mean, Salt Lake City's obviously not represented here, but every kind of area that's in here we've served and we have experience serving.

Councilor Hanson, do you have a question?

Yeah, and this may be more for the staff just because I haven't heard it addressed yet. So currently, from what I understand, our fire department handles all of the annual fire hydrant inspections and exercising to help us maintain what we need to for our insurance and to help the water department. And then they also provide some snow plowing. Have we... Have we made up a plan or how will that work? Will the fire district assist with the fire hydrant inspections? Will that fall on the water department? Is there a plan for that?

We've had those discussions, but we haven't finalized that. We're still working on those things. I don't know about the plowing because that's kind of a unique thing.

It's not going to be a problem with snow plowing. We've already figured it out. Okay.

And same thing with the hydrants. That's something that we'll be working with him on as well.

Oh, you're going to do that too? The new guy's going to plow.

I've got my studio.

Yeah.

If you need it.

Any other questions? Was that a complete answer?

It does. I know the fire hydrant thing can be a big impact on a small water department where our public works guys are, you know, multi. They help with everything, and we don't have super dedicated staff. That can be a big one to make sure we're meeting those insurance requirements. So I was just...

And it's the same thing with the business inspections. I mean, this is going to be a big jump for them to pick up Riverdale because we've got a few businesses here. And how they divide that up, like currently Matt has his crews going into thirds and they divide those up every year and go through it. I assume something similar to that will continue.

Yeah, they do company inspections. They do about 360 is what they do, divided amongst three shifts. And in regard to the water I work, you know, we work closely with Sean Douglas and the Public Works. So like on a year that we had this year, we did not flow any hydrants for testing because that's just not... you know, water responsible in a time like this. But we do go out and do visual inspections of them. And I think that's just the Weaver Fire District. I think they just work closely with their water departments because they have multiple and kind of just work with them on that.

So I assume it would be quite similar.

Some years we flow every hydrant. We've got the water. We want to make sure they're, you know, in working with Public Works, they want to report of anything that's damaged, and we want to make sure they're working. So that's why we're out there doing it, just so they can maintain, you know, a state of readiness. But on years like this year, then we just do a visual. So I suspect that'll kind of be business as usual. And it is dependent. You have cities like Ogden City, their water department doesn't want their fire department there. flowing them because they have a fragile system, so They just do a visual so I think it just be close relationships and working So I can tell you we have 36

There are 32 water companies that we work with right now. We're always willing to help out flow hydrants. We're happy to. We don't do them ourselves because we don't own the hydrant. And so we would be happy to work with your water departments to flow those as much as they want to flow them. Our firefighters go out and at least check the caps. We put oil on to make sure they get on and off food-based oil. We do that every year. We clear around hydrants. We go around and make sure that they're ready for us if we need them. We do that anyway. And so, you know, we're happy to do that, and we've always done that.

Great.

Oh, and so you're an ISO 3, right?

Yes.

So we're also an ISO 3, so we're dedicated to making sure those ISO scores are good for insurance.

Thanks.

I think one of the things that we really haven't addressed a little bit, but the economies of scale that Chief Clark's talked about, the main economy of scale that I appreciate with this thing happening like this is safety for our guys, your guys. As we've had Riverdale Fire Department, there's been a lot of times that we've ran our guys thin and hopefully going to the district. So, so my biggest thing, I mean, it's great that we're saving money and everything, but to create a safer environment for our public safety guys is why I'm a hundred percent into this one.

Okay. Councilor Richter. Just like to reflect my appreciation for, I know we've had a number of meetings on this. So thanks to the, to again, our, Fire Chief and staff and the district as well for answering all the questions you have over these many months. And I think for me, it's given me a level of confidence in not only the plan moving forward, but that our citizens are going to be well taken care of. And I'm grateful for that. So I appreciate the responsiveness that you've given us over the last number of months we've been talking about this.

Okay. I just want to echo their thoughts. Those of us up here are all residents, and so the decision we make affects us. It's going to affect our taxes. It's going to affect our response times, and so I appreciate the fire district. I've been really surprised, just like Mr. Brooks, that every question we've asked, it's been almost too easy. It's kind of scary how easy it's been, but they've i've talked to the other mayors and they love the fire district they have no complaints they get great service great treatment and so so i'm really comfortable with it so with that mr brooks you're all done i am there my thought was open open that up the public comment portion of our public hearing uh so if you do decide to come up and speak just come up to the microphone state your name for the record and your city of residence would be nice as well and uh Then go ahead and try to limit your comments to about three minutes. And we probably won't answer any questions, but we'll jot them down. And then at the end of the public hearing, if we're able to answer those questions completely and thoroughly, we will try to answer those. Okay. Seeing none. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you received anything online, or is there any way to notify you if something comes in? I just wanted to double-check. I do know we've got a couple people, but there's, I think, only three, and one of them is Cody. They're online. Okay.

It will be recorded, so hopefully the residents can watch it later. I think we've done a pretty thorough job of explaining what we're doing. If there are no public comments, that would conclude our public hearing, and we would need a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Do we have a motion? Do we have a second? Second.

A SECOND.

MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION ON THAT MOTION? IS THERE SOMETHING WHERE WE HAVE TO POLL THE COUNCIL ON CLOSING A PUBLIC HEARING OR IS IT JUST, NO, REGULAR VOTE? ALL IN FAVOR SAY YES.

YES.

ANY OPPOSED? OKAY, THE PUBLIC HEARING IS CLOSED. Very good. Thank you. Thanks for everybody that came and for everybody willing to comment and answer questions. We'll move on to item number two, consideration of Ordinance 1013, amending the Riverdale City Code 109B-2, permitted uses by removing cluster subdivisions as a permitted use in the R110, R18, R16, and R14.5 residential zones, repealing Chapter 23 cluster subdivisions, and updating the existing reference to a planned residential unit development, PRUD, to the city's current planned development terminology under Chapter 22. Mr. Cooper. That's a long one.

Thank you for reading that. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mayor. This is pretty straightforward. It's in response to a meeting that we had in January of this year where you all considered a rezone request as well as a change to our future land use map. And that prompted some discussion and some concern. related to the cluster subdivision as a permitted use. And in that case, in January, it was the R16 zone. But in the case for tonight, it is all most of our residential zones, our smaller residential zones, R110 through R145. um following that meeting in january we had a subsequent meeting in february where you approved a temporary ordinance that basically put a moratorium on any cluster subdivision application so that staff could review that specific language in the code and determine how to address it and so in the in the process of doing that in that six month period we WE PROPOSED TO YOU AND YOU ADOPTED THE CHANGE TO THE PLANNED RESIDENTIAL UNIT DEVELOPMENT ORDINANCE WHICH IS NOW A PLAN DEVELOPMENT ORDINANCE. THAT ORDINANCE NOW GIVES THE COUNCIL MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY IN DETERMINING WHAT DEVELOPMENT LOOKS LIKE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. IT REALLY TAKES OVER AND and adds to the benefit of the cluster subdivision ordinance where the cluster subdivision would give the developer essentially an increase in density for the preservation of open space. So that benefit to the developer and that allowance to the city is retained in the planned development ordinance. So by getting rid of cluster subdivision and currently having on the books planned development, THE CITY LOSES NOTHING IN TERMS OF OUR FLEXIBILITY AND OUR ABILITY TO DRIVE A CERTAIN TYPE OF DEVELOPMENT. AND WE GET ALL THE OTHER BENEFITS OF THE PLANNED DEVELOPMENT. SO THAT'S A REALLY SHORT SYNOPSIS OF THAT. SO AFTER SOME REVIEW, MY PROPOSAL TO YOU TONIGHT IS TO DELETE THAT CLUSTER SUBDIVISION AS A PERMITTED USE IN CHAPTER 23. which is the 10-9-B-2, which is in the R-1-10, R-1-8, R-1-6, and R-1-4-5 zone, and then to repeal Chapter 23 in its entirety. So that would essentially wipe cluster subdivisions off the books in its entirety. And then to make one small revision in Chapter... to just recognize that the planned residential unit development terminology has changed to planned development. So that's a minor correction. So that's the proposal. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Councillor Stephens. Only once in my... I had to look this up to see what a cluster was. Anyway, at one point in my life, we did... My wife and I were around and operating in one of these communities that had it, and they're awful. And I am so glad that we, you know... The people who live there long-term... I mean, you can build it and sell it, unless you've actually lived with that... then you realize this is really not kind of, this is not a good thing. And it gets, because you really lose a lot of privacy, individuality, whatever you want to call it. I'm glad to see we're not even going to be dealing with that in the city.

Okay.

Do we have someone willing to make a motion? Councilor Arnold.

Move to approve Ordinance 1013, amending Riverdale City Code 109B2, permitted uses by removing cluster subdivisions as a permitted use in R110, R18, R16, and R145 residential zones, repealing Chapter 23 cluster subdivisions, and updating the existing reference to a planned residential unit development, PRUD, to the city's current planned development, PD, terminology under Chapter 22. Thank you. As stated within the packet.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

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

Councillor Stephens?

Yes.

Councillor Richter? Yes. Councillor Anderson?

Yes.

Councillor Arnold? Yes. Councillor Hanson? Yes.

Okay, great. That passes unanimously. I was informed by Mr. Brooks that we do not need to have the discussion of item number three, so that item will be removed from our agenda.

Can I just ask a quick question?

Sure.

Was that the Bomberger Railroad or was that the part by – that was in – Down in the woods here.

The property is just off the trail down in the woods. Is that the same? Right.

I didn't know which. Yeah. Thank you.

All right. Item H, upcoming events. We have the fire department open house, which they're all gone now. That's crazy. But that's always a super entertaining thing. And we appreciate them doing that every year. And then on the 29th, we have that NIMS training that some of you are going to attend. We will move on to the comments section of our agenda. Comments from the city council for this meeting. Councilor Richter.

Yeah, and I appreciate this. I didn't get a chance to put anything in the packet. However, I just did want to report briefly on some of the DRC meetings that we've had recently. So Mr. Cooper brought up pink box donuts. So, yeah, that has moved forward and got approval on moving forward. Kind of a... Unique design, but it's consistent with their branding and theme. So I think it'll be a Unanimously approved and and I think it'll be a nice addition to the city So looking forward to that also in front of the DRC over the last few weeks has been the new city HVAC as well as a plan zero Net zero residential units that are going and that's around that 1050 and Ritter Drive kind of in that area and 1500. 1500. Excuse me. Thank you. In that area. So they provided some elevation. That one will likely come back to the council because there will be some zoning and some different things that the council is going to have to look at at that point. But that one is moving forward there. There was the EOS property that you're seeing was the old R.C. Willies. Some updates on that. There will be three Units going in there with EOS being on the northernmost side of that facility. I haven't heard if there's any additional tenants that they're looking at, but I know they're working on that. But they're going to refresh that area there. Anything to add to those three? That's great. Did I miss anything?

Good job. And then I think there was some discussion on the Bank of America.

and that's going to be on Riverdale Road, about 1050, in that area there. Again, preliminary, and I suspect that will also come before the council at some point for some site improvements. Those are the most recent that have come up in the last few weeks, so unless the council has any additional questions for me.

And that DRC is tomorrow, right, Mr. Cooper? Yes. With the bank.

Oh, is that what it was? Two o'clock tomorrow. Thank you.

And I'm sorry, Councilor Richter. Like, we should just let us know. And we can put a little DRC report on the presentation.

And I normally do, and I didn't get it to you in time.

And even if you don't have anything fancy, just let us know to put it on there so I don't miss it. Because, yeah, I should have at least put it on there.

Can we just put a standard thing on there? And then that way you can just say, wouldn't hurt. Nothing this week?

I think that would be great. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. And sorry to have not gotten you on that. I knew you had some stuff. All good. Okay. Any other city council? Councilor Arnold.

I just wanted to make a second mention about the roundabout committee and stuff and the possibility of people looking at that. I think it will go over better if we have some residents in the area on it or something. I know Lori Fleming has been really involved in that.

So is her dad. He's down there inspecting it every day.

I don't know how much he cares about what's in there.

Yeah. He just wants to make sure they do it right.

It affects their life because they had a – when they redid that road right there, they put it too low, and it turned – every time it rained, it turned into a big lake in front of their house and stuff. Right. But as far as the aesthetics and what's in the middle of that roundabout, I know there's been a lot of chatter about that.

Yeah, we'll keep working on that. That was kind of the plan.

We'll see if there's a way to involve some people and we can get some input because I've had some too a little bit. And Mr. Cooper is well aware of it. He's had some ideas and stuff.

That's what I'm afraid of. No, they were good ideas. Probably be some pink donut shop in the middle.

And we were grateful that the public works stubbed that power and water into there because we want to have something really nice in there. And it's funny how the residents think that we would just forget them. You know, like, no, we're excited to put something cool in there. So I don't know if you saw, but they tagged the wrong guy on Facebook, some Brandon Mitchell guy. It was funny. Anyway... Okay. Any other comments from the council? Okay. Any comments from the city staff?

I do have one quick one. Tomorrow at 1130, for any of you who may be around and are interested, we're doing kind of the end of the season party. Chief Warren had a lot of extra burgers from all of these block parties that weren't going to get used, so they volunteered to go up. We'll meet up at the big pavilion in the big park up there and have hamburgers and lunch, and we'll cover some of the details, just update the employees. But you're all invited and welcome to come if you'd like. We'd love to see you. There's plenty of burgers. We've got to get rid of them. He doesn't want to store them all winter. So 1130.

Any other comments from city staff?

No.

I don't have any comments. So with that, we would need a motion to adjourn. So moved. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor say yes.

Yes.

We are adjourned. Thanks, Derek.

Appreciate it, buddy.