Town Council - Regular Meeting

Y'all set? Okay. Five o'clock somewhere. Welcome to the Springdale Town Council regular meeting. Today is Wednesday, April 8th, 2026. We are at the Canyon Community Center in Springdale, Utah. With us from the town, we have Kendall Sagers, Nyall Connelly, Tom Danzy, and Robin Ro. And on the DAS from council, we have Pat Campbell, Randy Eton, Barbara Bruno, Jack Burns, and Kyla Topam. and the time is 5:00. We'll start by reciting the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge algiance 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. I'll next entertain a motion to approve the regular meeting agenda. I would like to amend the agenda to strike item four, Natalie Brit's presentation from Zion Forever. Thank you. Which which one was that, Kyla? I'm sorry. Uh number four, the presentation from Zion Forever. Got it. Thank you. She cannot make it and may be here next month instead. Do we have a second on the motion? I'll second.

Motion by Kyla, second by Randy. Kyla. Oh, who are we starting with? You start Pat. Randy Barbry. Jack I Kyla I Okay, and we'll start with any general announcements. Uh yeah, I think Ryan is going to make a few announcements on behalf of the town.

Yes, I've got quite a few things. April's kind of a busy month for us. So, after uh talking about it for a long time, uh it's now April. So, we have Zion Chalk and Earthfest coming up. That'll be held on April 18th and 19th. And that's a Saturday, Sunday. And we want to make sure that we're as clear as possible. This is going to be held here at the town field for the first time in the last few years. It's being held down at um the Zion Canyon Village at the entrance to the park. Not this year. It's going to be here. So, don't go there. Um both days, uh the event will start at 10 a.m. and end at 8:00 p.m. Uh it will feature chalk art, live entertainment, food, a beer garden, and we'll have vendors, both educational and commercial vendors. So, it's it's the same as years past. It's always a good time. We are still looking for volunteers. So, if anybody is interested in volunteering, uh they can reach out to Robin Sanders and we'll we'll put you to work. So, um this next one, this is on behalf of the park. So, I wrote it down so I didn't mess up. Jeff's back there. He probably smacked me or something. So, so on April 20th, Zion National Park will host Navy Day as part of the America 250 anniversary and as an outreach effort led by the Navy Office of Community Outreach. As part of this, the Navy Brass Band will be performing at the OC Tanner Amphitheater on Monday, April 20th at 6 PM. This concert is for all ages and is completely free to attend. And then as an addition to that, the following day on Tuesday, April 21st, that same Navy brass band will be performing down at the Town Plaza located at 680 Zion Park Boulevard. This performance will also be free and will also begin at 6 PM. And just worth noting, there will be no event parking at this time for the performance of the plaza. So, take your bike or walk or whatever. Uh, and then last, uh, as part of the America 250 anniversary, the town will be hosting country singer Eric Dodge for a free community concert just here at the town park out by the gazebo. Uh, that will be held on Friday, April 24th. It will start at 6 PM and there will be

a food truck. So, it should be a lot of fun. So, if you have people in town, bring them out. Be a good time. So, any questions for me? Okay, thanks Ryan. Any other announcements?

Lisa, um I wanted to let make sure everyone know that in conjunction with excuse me with Earth Day, the Z Arts will be doing the Wild and Scenic Film Festival on Friday night at 700 p.m. for a featurelength film. Um, I think it's American Southwest. And then there'll be on a Saturday at 11:00 and Saturday at 7 o'clock will be shorts, two hours of shorts of each, you know, time period. This is being supported by the town rap tax. So, we very much appreciate it. We want to make sure you guys come. It's uh I've already seen some of the films and they're fabulous. So, please if you if you need to know the schedule, it is out on the zarts.org our website. Thank you.

And the location, Lisa. Oh, thank you very much. It's at the Bubble Berry this time. So, you can bike or ride there, maybe find a parking spot downtown um but um for all three times. And Z Arts is also looking for a few volunteers to help us at the event during those times. Um so, if anybody wants to help us out with just getting people there, that would be great. Thank you so much. Thank you. And not to compete with Lisa's request for volunteers, I know that Robin Sanders is still looking for volunteers for the Chalkfest with u parking and stuff like that. Right. Okay. Okay. Any other announcements?

Okay. Superintendent Bradybot, do you want to give us an update on Z National Park? Good afternoon. Uh to build on on Ryan's announcement relative to Navy Day, there will be um some activities in the park as well. All of them will be at the human history uh museum area. Um starting at 10:00 a.m. there will be a formal flag raising u including sailors from the historic ship the USS Constitution. And there will be a flag lowering at 300 p.m. And in between there will be several other activities going on. We'll have some sailors from the USS Utah here as well as well as a rear admiral from the Pacific Fleet. So looking forward to those events. Watch our social media pages. That's where we'll have all the activities listed. Um busy busy out there as you see. And uh um

at least there are no bikes there. I was counting the bikes as I drove over. I you know did you see any real bikes or were they most real? Yeah. No. Okay.

No. Lots of lots of folks out um enjoying the the area. Um, building on from March when we were up uh over 8% compared to uh March of 2025 or February 2025, sorry. Uh March was also very busy. We were up uh 15% compared to March of 2025. And uh year to date through March 31st, we're up uh 10.9%. Obviously, that's carrying into to April, so we'll see how that goes going forward. Um a few other things of note. Uh the pedestrian entrance at Springdale um was the busiest that it's ever been in five the last five years at least. um up 23.4%. Um so a lot of people uh coming in through the pedestrian entrance using the shuttle system and and those sorts of things. Backcountry campers actually doubled between uh March last year and March this year. Again, the weather's been super. Uh so folks have been getting out and camping and those kinds of things. Um just a few other notes. Um continuing to wrap up the construction project in South Campground. A few uh things yet to clean up. Probably won't open till uh miday uh to the public, but um trying to get everything uh finished off. So happy to answer any questions folks may have.

I have a question about Navy Day. Is admission free on Navy Day? Um, with your park entrance fee, of course. Okay. The events are free, but yes. Um, so you pay to get in the park, but the events are free. Yeah. And all of those events are open to the public, I presume. They are at the Human History Museum. Yep. Okay. Can you say what's the parking spot? Um, we're encouraging the use of your bicycle and your uh walking on the Paruse Trail to get there. Parking is a challenge. Thank you. Okay. Thanks.

Are there any questions or comments about the council reports?

Okay. Our next item is presentation by Nancy Cousins and Ava Pakora regarding Zion Canyon Fiber Optics. I think they are both with Kimley Horn. Is that correct? Okay. Thank you for letting us be with you this evening. I'm I'm Nancy. This is Ava. And you'll hear a little bit from both of us. Just wanted to give you a highlevel overview of this project and that it's coming. We have yet to choose a contractor. That bids closed on Monday or Tuesday this week. So, give us another week or so and we will have a contractor. Once we have a contractor, then we will have a schedule that will be able to come back and tell you when construction is going to start. Um, we have worked with the park through all of the environmental clearance. Everything is good and ready to go as far as the design elements and we've been able to factor in a lot of specific things for the communities along the corridor to help the construction be as easy and simple as possible. even though we're going to be with you all summer. So, with that, I'll turn some time over to Ava.

Yeah.

So, this is just a general project area map. Um, it spans from just a little bit west of Hurricane over to the Mount Carmel Junction. And you'll see that there are several gaps between the actual highlighted work zones um between the towns. Those are where there's actually existing fiber conduit. So part of the mission of this project is to just fill in the gaps between um these areas along SR9 and the Mount Carmel Highway. So we'll start a little bit west of Hurricane. Um there's a UD do maintenance facility um located there. We'll pause once we cross SR7 and then we'll pick up just a little bit east of Virgin and heading into Rockville Springdale and then the south entrance of the park. Um, we'll finish the project by exiting out the east entrance um along SR9 and we'll hook up to another UD do maintenance facility that's located um on along US89 um just south of Mount Mount Carbell Junction.

Ava, can you back up just a little bit and talk about what the project is? I think I think some of us know and some of us don't what the purpose is. So, it's um the fiber installation project. It's part of a broader UD do initiative to bring fiber optic connectivity to rural parts of the state. Um the fiber that will be installed will be supporting intelligent transportation systems devices. So traffic cameras, um emergency management systems. So for UD do Yes. Okay. Yes.

And this is just a little highlighted piece of the work that will be going on in Rockville and Springdale as well. Um, I want to take a minute just to talk about specifically what types of work you'll be anticipating to see once we arrive in Springdale. We'll be limiting our work zones um to 1500 ft, which is a little hard to visualize, but that's roughly the equivalent of just over four football fields, if that gives you an idea. Um, we'll also be um remaining in the shoulder um as much as we can. Um, but when we do have work in the roadways, we'll have flaggers staffing and directing traffic out on site. Um, we'll also be having mobile equipment that is kind of moving along the roadway. It's not going to be stationary. So, kind of a recurring um, theme of our outreach that we've done actually to a lot of the businesses in this area today has been, you know, you won't see equipment parked outside your business for, you know, hours um, or for days at a time rather. You only really see them outside of your business for hours. So, it's going to be moving very fast as we progress into the park and then back along SAR 9. And then I'm actually going to play a short video here. Um, this was a result of collaboration between God Central Communications Department um and the park. Uh, we just wanted to nail down our messaging about what the impacts and benefits of the project would be, what people could expect to see. So without further ado,

UD do presents our future runs on fiber. Amid towering canyons shaped by the Virgin River, State Route 9 and the Zion Mount Carmel Highway connect iconic landscapes with millions of visitors and link together thousands of full-time residents in nearby communities to meet growing connectivity needs and prepare for future demand. U DOT in partnership with the National Park Service in South Central Communications is installing over 50 miles of high-speed fiber optic cable along State Route 9 and the Zion Mount Carmel Highway. This project strengthens

it looks like our quality of life. Any questions so far? Yes. A quick question and maybe you said that so I might have missed it but when will this start? Uh so we don't have an exact construction start date yet. We're anticipating May early June. Okay. And you this your notes say you anticipate completing December. Yes. End of end of December. December 31st.

All right. So you will be May, early June, etc. You you realize that's going to be Yes. Absolutely. High volume traffic. Not that it isn't right now, but this is relatively unusual for it to be this crazy, but Right. Right. And and we'll we'll touch on that. We have our next section is just about the construction notifications that we'll be deploying. Um and I'll talk a little bit more about some of the outreach work that we've been doing in the town today um to get people in the loop about what's coming.

Maybe if you could just mention the fund source and and when it ends which kind of is driving Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So um due to um some unanticipated delays with the government shutdown and the um environmental assessment getting passed um that kind of pushed our construction timeline back a little bit. Not sure. So if I could I'm trying I mean we've already got some fiber optic in Springdale. So did you say you're going to fill in the voids areas?

Yes. So um the I can go back to the project area map too. Um but you'll see kind of some of the gaps between the areas that we're doing in Hurricane Rockville Springdale. Um, so we're installing I like to liken it to a backbone of conduit and fiber optic cables and then um it's up to kind of the internet service providers to connect into that and further provide that connection to locations. But this is being done for UD do specifically for their own use and then they'll my understanding is that they'll lease the conduit to other providers as well. But this is not for residents. This is for UD do and they own the road. So all right they get to do it. Okay. Oops. But I mean it is going up Zion Canyon, right?

Yes. Yes. And but they want the fiber and the they don't have it in the park. So,

but this is being driven by UD do and um federal funds that were available to do this kind of project. So, nationwide there are a lot of fiber projects taking place and this is to provide the backbone. So, we're getting your basic trunk line in and then that last mile connectivity will be up to individual communities and residents and businesses. Whatever um businesses are uh a available in your area to do that last mile connection, you will get to have that choice. So, UD do's job is to get that initial backbone structure in throughout the whole corridor. And it benefits UDOT for a lot of reasons. um that IT networking system uh traffic signals, messaging boards. It'll also benefit buses and uh safety transportation type things and ambulances thing things like that that we need to have in place. So the whole purpose is that this big long trunkline corridor and the the federal funds that are available to do to do this expire at the end of the year. So there are a lot of fiber projects taking place all over the state. Um so as I mentioned, we've already been doing a lot of inperson outreach today with business owners, letting them know um what will be coming up in May, um potentially early June. But once construction starts, we fully intend to make uh full use of our website, email, and hotline. Um, we'll be pushing out weekly updates through our email address to folks that are signed up for our email list and then also reposting those on our website. Our hotline is available for residents, businesses, um, visitors of the area to contact 247. Um, a member of the public involvement team will be answering that hotline and and getting

information for any questions that people may have. Um this is just an example of one of the handouts that we've deployed um in our outreach. But once we have that for construction start date with a contractor signed on. We'll be sending out another mailer. It'll be going to kind of the entire city limits of Springdale, Rockville, the entire length of the uh project area um to let them know this work will be starting um you know May 10th, 15th, you know, what have you once we have that date set in stone. You mentioned that the project is like it's a moving project. So, does that mean you don't really have to open up holes in the ground or are you pulling through?

We'll still be trenching. Um, so Nancy could speak to the filling process a little bit in more in detail than I could, but um,

there are several procedures that we're going to have in place and once we have the contractor on board because of our tight schedule, we anticipate that they could have multiple crews working all at the same time. So, we likely will have someone in Hurricane, we may have someone here, we may have another crew in the park. One of the uh ways that they can do the trench quickly, it's like a giant wheel and that wheel comes in, it digs a trench, it vacuums out that trench at the same time. The fiber lays in right behind it and then concrete goes on top of that. So, the moving operation can happen really quick, especially with that with that kind of equipment. And the contractor will need to have a a close batch plant. Right now, the closest one is down in Hurricane and the type of concrete we need to use, the high early rapid set concrete, it won't make it that far. Um, so they will be approaching different areas to lease land for them to put a batch plant and that will be up to the contractor to negotiate. Once we know where those locations are, we'll share that with you as well. But they will be mixing and batching on site so that we can get out of your way as quick as possible.

Do you expect this to be a a daylight only or are you going to be working 24? They have permission to work day, night, weekend. Okay.

We won't know exactly how they're going to do that until we get their schedule. And again, once we have that, we will let you know well in advance of of what's going to take place. there's give and take of um how to work best with the with the park and so there's some specific limitations of when and where we will be in the park for both the bridges and the tunnels. So one of the things that we have been able to coordinate is doing a a a shutdown to protect the the bats nesting. So that will take place during a during a full shutdown just to help protect the endangered species that are up there. So all of those things have been factored in to when and where and how it all fits into the timeline. And once we have that secured, part of our job is to come back and let you know what that looks like from now and and through the end of the year.

You had mentioned earlier today that um one lane traffic would remain open. I'm trying to help us realize really what this is going to start to look like in Springdale. Um especially with all of the traffic that we're you're everyone's going to have to deal with. And and you had mentioned that it would be helpful if the town could share some information such as parking park uh parking meter data to help um inform expectations. That will help a lot because it is going to be congested and even though it's moving operations, when you've got equipment in one place, we're going to have to take single single lanes around it wherever they're working. So, there will be delays and that'll be part of our job to message as everywhere we can anticipate delays as you're driving through SR9. Um, but knowing where those hot spots are is going to be really helpful for us to get the contractor on board to watch out for those areas and make sure we're thinking ahead of the best ways to utilize them. We with all the businesses we've been talking to today, there's street parking. There are so many things that are going to have to shift when the crews are coming through a certain area. And I think people will get frustrated because they're going to see barrels and they're not going to see anything, but we can't let anybody park there because it's going to come through. So, we're trying to think ahead how to say that message. Um there there's going to be some learning curves and some

good luck frustration as we go, but we're going to do our best to be in front of it wherever we can. and your input of things that you might see that we don't. That's invaluable to us. How long do you anticipate the Spring Dell only section to take? Do you have a feel for that?

Yeah, it to echo Nancy, once we have a contractor kind of on deck, we'll be able to we'll be attending um all of their weekly kind of look ahead meetings and so they can look at their schedule or we can look at their schedule up to three weeks in advance. Um, so it's just a matter too of what number of crews we'll have working at the same time, um, time of year, what's going on in other sections of the project, but all those factors will filter into exactly how long. Okay. We'll look forward to hearing more as it goes in. Yeah, absolutely. Will it also affect the sidewalks and the road? Because you said concrete, so it's going under the side.

Yes. Okay. We know that there are areas where we're going to be able to utilize your trail system on the side of the road for some of the trenching. Some will be on the shoulder of the road. I know you do worked with I'm not sure who at the city to try to preserve your beautiful new asphalt as much as possible and not have to dig things up again. So, you're going to see sometimes we're going to be on one side of the road, not particularly in Springdale. I think we'll all be on the east side of the road for what we're doing here, but we're trying to move the design to protect as much of the area as possible and disturb the least amount possible.

It really does seem like nighttime operations are probably going to be best as much as possible. Yeah. helpful for everybody involved, I think.

Yeah. And and correct me if I'm wrong, too, but um nighttime operations will we plan to make full utilization of when we are especially working in the Mount Carmel tunnel um just to minimize those environmental impacts, but we can also plan some work just outside and uh on the other side of that tunnel while we do that work as well. And I I think I think we all have concerns on when we see how quickly traffic backs up. know where to go.

Yeah. Real bad real fast.

Yes. So, we're we're working closely and we've already had a couple of meetings with um UD do roads to recreation. Um so, we've been working with them closely to communicate where exactly the work will be taking place. Um, our plan currently is once we get inside of the park, we'll be working very closely and we already have with the park to message those impacts, those larger scale um, traffic shifts that are going to be taking place. But outside of the park, Roads to Recreation is going to kind of be our main go-to point of contact um, as far as how we message where traffic impacts will be happening. Um, we'll also be when our contractor is uh, signed on, we'll also be working with a traffic management app. It's called One Network. Um, so our public involvement staff is trained and briefed in how to uh kind of put up those updates. It's a traffic management software um that will work directly with the contractor to implement. Um they'll be able to kind of onsite label where the closures will be um in real time. So that's another just tool that people will have to use to learn more about what the traffic impacts will be. trying to reach every driver and visitor is really a challenge. So, we have put together a a large database of uh all throughout the Salt Lake Valley and southern Utah. Every recreation outlet, every fishing group, guide, every recreation business that we can find, we are adding them to our list, as well as Convention and Visitors Bureau. every outlet that we can think of to get the message out in advance. We're trying to do that. And then we're relying on all of our partners once we have social media or an update. Please share that broadly with everyone that you can think of because

if we can really plant the seed that it is going to be impactful this summer, I don't know if it'll help or not. It's it sounds to me like you've you've covered as many bases as you can. Yeah. Probably gone above and beyond. And in my estimation, coming from places where this kind of thing happens all the time, this is the price of doing business. Yeah. And I think we're just going to have to grin and bear it. Thank you. And yes, we have, but we may have missed something. So feel free to share.

Any additional questions? things we can speak to. Okay, sounds like we're good and we'll look forward to hearing more. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you guys all so much. We'll we'll leave some of these info cards for you, too.

Okay, that'd be great. Thanks again. And the next item on the agenda is community comments. Um, if you have a comment, please step up to the microphone, state your name, and we'll time the comments for three minutes. So, um, we will not be taking questions. We've made a change in our policy and it's too much it's too much like deliberating to be answering questions. So, if you have questions, we look forward to answering those one-on-one outside of the meeting or you're welcome to contact staff, but you're welcome to make any comments you'd like. Now, looks like there are none. We'll go to the consent agenda. entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda which includes a review of the monthly purchasing report minutes of January 28th and February 11th, 2026 proclamation 2026-1 a proclamation designating April 24th 2026 as Arbor Day in the town of Springdale. Proclamation 2026-02, a proclamation designating April 13 to April 20th, 2006 as Dark Sky Week in the town of Springdale. Proclamation 2026-3 proclaiming April 2026 as National Child Abuse Prevention Month in Springdale, Utah. And proclamation 2026-04, proclaiming April 20th, 2026 as Navy Day. I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second. Motion by Jack and second by Pat. Pat I. Randy. Ira. I. Jack. I. Hila. I. Okay. Our next item is an legislative item. It's ordinance 2026-11. An ordinance enacting the Utah Community Clean Energy Program in the town of Springdale. And I think this will be a joint presentation by Tom Dany and Randy Eton. And Kyla is on the committee also. That's correct. And and my portion of this presentation is saying Randy and Kyla are going to be the presentation. So go ahead.

Okay. All right. We've got some slides uh that the Utah Renewable Communities put together. There's a lot of information in these slides. And as we go through these slides, you're you might have some questions. I would suggest that you wait till the end because some of the questions you might come up with could be answered by some of the bit later slides. So if we can go through it, if you can kind of remember your questions, if your memor is better than me, write them down if you're like me. Uh and then we'll try to answer them at the end. Okay. So the Utah communities renewable communities is an organization of 19 different communities that have come together to um to address a statute passed by the state in 2019 which allows these community to come together with our local uh provider which is Rocky Mountain Power and uh create renewable energy. So that in those 19 communities uh we will put it we will contract with renewable developers to create enough energy so that all the energy in Springdale will be coming from renewable sources. Uh so uh this has kind of jumped uh to different names and in 2024 the legislature decided that they like the name community clean energy program. Uh so that's what it is. We still I will

still be talking about maybe the renewable the Utah renewable community program. They're sort of interchangeable, but that is what the state legislature 2024 came up with. Uh we will be um hopefully approving an ordinance tonight and that ordinance name and number is the ordinance number is 2026-11. It's an ordinance of the town of Springdale enacting title and chapter seven, title eight and chapter seven to the Springdale town code community clean energy program. So this these slides hopefully will uh educate everybody on that program, answers questions that you might have about that program. Uh Kylie and I have been uh on all of the meetings. We uh Springdale I decided early on there were three different committees that we set up with the uh with the Utah Renewable Communities. Uh one was a program design, one was low income, and the other one was communications. I kind of felt like the best input I could have and we could have was be in the program design. So, we've been attending all the program design except and also all the the board meetings which are once a month. The program design meetings are twice a month.

Except that's pretty recent. We were meeting weekly for a while because I feel like you deserve that credit. Yeah, we for seven years every week.

Yeah. So, seven. Yeah. So, we've earned our money. All right. Next slide, please. Okay, so this is kind of an outline of what I'm going to go through. The rest of the slides are going to cover this. Uh what is a community clean energy program? Uh PSC is a public service commission. We had to get this program approved by them and we did. Um and it was a combination of Rocky Mountain Power and us presenting that program to the PSC. Uh I'll talk about the uh anticipated timeline uh the program ordinance. Uh we'll discuss that and then um we will as a council discuss and whether this is the right thing for Springdale to do there. As this says there are 19 communities involved in this. Uh this statute was passed in 2019. Originally 23 communities expressed an interest in doing in being part of this program. Uh and then when it came time to adopt the utility agreement, uh there were only 18 communities that stayed in it. And the statute read that the program was going to close at a certain time and then in 2024 they decided to open it up again. So one more community midvail joined. Next slide. All right. It's it is a brand new program. Uh, it's giving Utah's ability to choose clean energy, clean, reliable, and affordable energy through our electricity provider. This is Rocky

Mountain Power. It is a partnership between Rocky Mountain Power and the Utah Renewable Community and we have been working together with them all seven years. We've been having uh frequent meetings with them. uh to to get this program put together. Uh we finally felt like we had the program right. We uh we took it to the public service commission on in March and on March 4th they approved it the program. Um, so the way this program works is in all these 19 communities, what we decide to do was have an opt out program. What happens is once we sign this ordinance, every resident and business in the community is automatically going to be opt into this program. And I will talk about you will have opportunities to opt out. Uh I'll talk about that. But that's an important part of this is uh everybody in these communities once each community signs this final ordinance will be opted in to the program automatically. Um so clean energy uh Utah is I mean the whole country probably but Utah specifically is uh their their energy needs are growing and Rocky Mountain Py has a portfolio now that's a combination of fossil fuel uh power stations and renewable sources. uh renewable sources could be solar, it could be wind, could be hydro, uh there

are a number of new renewable sources, but uh the um their portfolio uh and I will talk a little bit later about what that is, but it's a combination of those two things, fossil and renewable. Next slide. Okay. So, uh our goal is uh to develop clean energy uh and still keep the program accessible to our residents and businesses. And we need to build enough resources, renewable resources, so that we can cover our part of the energy uh that is not uh being covered by renewable sources that Rocky Mountain Power already has in their in their program. So when you look at this graph and you look over at year number one, year number one is going to be 2027. That's when the program um starts when rateayers are going to start seeing uh a charge on their bill for this. So in year one, we're we're basically looking at uh this the the portfolio that Rocky Mountain Power now has. Uh you can see the traditional sources there are again fossil plants, coal fired, oil, gas, that sort of thing. Uh the renewable u in the grid, that's approximately what they have right now. And then we're going to add this little bit of renewable and we're going to increase as you can see in the green we're going to

be increasing uh because we won't the whole idea is that the the rate uh the extra charge that we are going to be uh charging all of our customers is going to help us pay uh for these developers to build these uh renewable plants, whether they're solar, wind, whatever. And because our program will be new in 2027, we're only going to be uh collecting a certain amount that uh it will be indicative of the amount of renewable that we will be able to bring online that year. And then, as you can see, we will be increasing each year, we'll be increasing the amount of renewable energy. we will be adding to this. Uh the goal is by year four, which is 2030, that we will have uh in Springdale and in all the 19 communities that are part of this program, uh we will be putting enough uh renewable in the system to cover our energy that's not already covered by what Rocky Mountain Power has in their system already.

Can I can I clarify two things, R? Um, even though the amount of energy that we are going to be procuring is going to increase, the bill will not increase. The rate on that we pay as residents is not going to increase. It's going to stay stable at $4. If anything, we might see it go down after a while. Yeah. And we'll get there. But but you said something that kind of increase it doesn't increase the bill.

It doesn't That's a good point. That's a good clarification. increasing the um the what what resources we can um get. And then the second thing that I don't want people to be mistaken about is there are not solar or wind farms coming to Springdale. These these uh resources are not located in Springdale.

Yeah, they probably generally won't be in any of these 19 communities. They will be on the west desert uh places like that where solar and wind were where where there's land available where there's um sun and wind available. Okay, next slide. Okay, so right now Rocky Mountain Power does have some re has some renewable energy uh options. Uh one of them is blue sky. Uh and blue sky allows participants to voluntarily contribute $1.95 per 100 kilowatt hour block uh to support renewable energy. And the way they do this is uh that goes to grants to help organization offset the cost for rooftop solar. Uh, and it also funds the purchase of renewable energy credits. Now, wrecks are something that are I don't want to get into that because that's very complicated and they could be buying these wrecks from Missouri or some other state. Uh, but that's what Blue Sky does. Subscribed solar is another renewable option that Rocky Mountain Power has right now and it's specifically for one 20 megawatt solar farm in southern Utah. Uh and right now the Pacific participation is capped in that. Um so if you're somebody who wants to do renewable, who wants to support this, what can you do? Well, you do what I did back in 2013. I bought solar panels and I got I got on their program at that point. But for a lot of people, that's

very uh financially prohibitive to do. Even if you want to if you want to uh support renewable, it's it's expensive to go down that route. Um, so what this program does, it allows you for a very small price to support renewable energy. And and I'll talk more about the price. Uh, we're going to get to that in one of the other slides so you'll have some idea what that is. Okay, next slide. Okay, this is kind of the process that we've been going through as uh as as this got started. Number one was uh the Utah State Legislature in 2019 passing this uh program, this statute that allows communities to get together with with Rocky Mountain Power and put some sort of program together. Uh, a good friend of mine used to live around here. Um, Julie Hancock, sorry. Uh, she she called me and told me about this program and I went, "Wow." And I looked at it and uh, I thought this was perfect for Springdale. So I brought it to the council in December of 2019 and uh the council decided this was a good idea. So we passed a resolution in 2019 signaling that we wanted to be part of this program. So that's how we kind of got into this and how it got started for us. Um so that was item number two. Uh then we got to uh the point where we were signing a

governance agreement and the utility agreements and this was another serious step to take and uh there obviously was some time involved in this and you know as we know uh councils change personnel and uh it's very possible of these uh 23 communities ities and the five communities of those 23 that originally didn't want to be a part of this. Uh the council might have changed or they might have looked at a little bit more, gotten feedback and those communities did not sign the governance agreement and the utility agreement. We did uh we signed the utility agreement in 2021, I believe. May May 12th, 2021.

Thank you.

I did tell you that number. I just couldn't remember that date. So 2029, we signed the utility agreement saying, "Yep, Springdale wants to be part of this." Uh, and then the uh URC I'm just going to because that's easier than Utah renewable communities for me. URC uh then sat down and really started going through uh the detail of uh figuring out how this program is going to work. And anybody that's ever dealt with the utility before knows that there is a lot of crossing te's and dotting eyes and commas and semicolons and exclamation parts points involved. So, uh, it was it was a lot of work, but finally we both URC and Rocky Mountain Powerire both felt like we had a good program that we could bring back to public uh, utility commission or public service commission, excuse me. So we finally in March uh we brought it to or we uh excuse me in it in 2025 we we filed it with the RMP or excuse me file RMP and us filed it with the public service commission and they of course uh went through a lot of rigma roll but finally on March March 4th, uh the public service commission uh signed and approved the agreement and that started a clock.

Each of the 19 communities now have 90 days or by June 2nd in which they finally they have to approve this final ordinance. Uh we're we could be the very if we pass this tonight, we'll be the first community uh to pass this ordinance. Others are scheduled some of them this month, some of them next month. Uh but we could be the first one to pass this. So that's where we are at step number seven right now. Next slide, please. Okay, that's kind of what I've been saying. Um, they approved the order on March 4th. It went through all the details of how this program is going to work. It set a rate uh of how much is going to be charged to both residents and non-residents. I'll talk about that in a few minutes. Uh and um so we are at the point right now where um we have um as the Utah renewable communities, our part of this was to go out and uh create an RFP be to get um developers to bid for this program to be to supply energy for this program. Next slide. So, here's a timeline. I've kind of been talking about ordinance adoption. Um

we've got we've got some bids. uh we've gone through a process of weaning those bids down to us and Rocky Mountain Power. Uh so uh the impleation date that they're talking about here right now, all of us, as I said, are going to be opted into this program. Uh probably starting November 2nd, all of us as residents in these communities are going to bill get a bill from Rocky Mountain Power and it's going to say uh this URC program uh is starting going to be starting up at in the first of next year. Uh it's going to cost this much extra for you. uh if you don't want to do it, you can opt out. And at that point, you can opt out for free. So, you're going to get a notice on your November uh bill. You're going to get a notice on your December bill from Rocky Mountain Power. Two notices that uh let everybody give everybody a the possibility to opt out if they don't want to be part of this program. and there will be no uh termination charge. In addition to that, once the uh January 1, your next bill then will have the rate on it and your next bill will include that rate. And so for the four months after that, if you start um and you're paying this and you decide, you know, I'm just not

comfortable with this, then you can still opt out for free. After that four months, you can opt out, but there's a termination fee, and we'll talk about that. Okay, next slide. Here's the meat of it. What's this going to cost? So, uh, the public service commission has decided that they want a flat rate for residential customers in these 19 communities. And that flat rate is going to be $4 a month above your normal fee. And what what is that? How do they get that $4? Well, $3.88 of that goes toward the program, goes toward uh getting renewable sources, uh uh solar power, wind power, whatever, whatever we decide. 12 cents of that is a sir charge for the lowincome customers. And what's that mean? So in all of our communities, there are certain people that are part of heat or or here

it's heat and help

heat and help to lowincome for utility customers that help them with their bills to be able to pay their bills. We don't want those lowincome customers to have an additional $4 on their bill. So what we have said and what the public service commission has said is that all the eligible customers uh who are not in one of these lowinccome programs, you will help pay their bill so that they don't see any income or any increase in their bill. So they can be part of this program for nothing. And we want we want the more people we can we want in this program. Okay, next slide. And this just talks about who the low-income uh people are and what what programs they might be in and how they qualify to be low income. And if they're not in one of those programs right now, you can, as Skyla said, you can apply directly to Rock Mount Bower uh and their health program and get into it. Next slide. All right. How about businesses, non-residential customers? This is what they're going to be paying. Um, less than a cent a kilowatt hour uh plus well actually more than a cent a cent plus 069. So that they put their low income in. And and this this is just gives kind of

an an example scenario what that means for a business. A medium office building using uh 6880 kilowatts uh per month. Um without their program their bill would normally be 84739. With the program they would have to pay an extra $42 for the pro for being in the program. And that's approximately a 5% increase in what they're paying right now. Next slide. Now, I'm going to I'm going to talk a little bit and it's not quite on this um but I want to talk a little bit about this program rate. um Rocky Mountain Power and uh the Public Service Commission and the Utah Renewable Communities recognize that as that one slide showed with we're going to build up be building up resources uh that at some point we will have all the resources we need. So, we don't need a lot of money in the program rate uh to get more resources because we got them. We still will need some money to keep the program running. Um so, this is what the P public service commission's order said. I want to read this. While further program rates may diverge from those under Rocky Mount Vampire's proposed proposal contingent under Rock on later determinations regarding resource valuation and changes to other underlying program. This is the

important one. No evidence in the records suggests that the program rates are likely to meaningfully increase from the initial rates, the $4 that's approved by this order. Instead, under Rock Mountain P's proposal, they would decrease rather significantly after the first two and I would add maybe three years depending on what we had to do for resources. So we have one of the costs that or one of the things that we've done as a um the URC has done we hired two entities to kind of help us with one was a law firm to help us through the intricacies of getting this thing drawn up. The other one is was called uh energy strategies is that and these are the guys that got down with the nuts and bolts and said this is what your program is going to cost. This is how much per month it's probably going to cost to do and and to get these resources. This is what you're going to cost. So when energy resources kind of ran through the numbers of uh and and you know these these rates are kind of determined on one of the things that uh that energy strategies found uh with similar programs is they said we think that you can expect an 80% residential um

participation

participation thank you looking for the word participation in this program 20% won't for one reason or the other um and there was like a 5% or something five it was a small p smaller percentage of businesses and in industry that would be stay in this program but um so energy strategies then took those numbers and took the the four dollars and kind of figure out, okay, by two years, maybe three at the most, uh we will be done for the majority of this. And that $4, they say, will probably go down to 25 cents a month to stay in this program. Uh public service commission is not saying that uh officially. I'm not saying that's exactly where they're going to happen. I'm just telling you that's what our consultant when they looked at everything that's what they thought that residents would be looking at after two maybe three years of dropping down to that kind of thing. So if you want to support renewable energy, you know, I put solar panels on. I paid thousands of dollars to put solar panels on because I was committed to new renewable energy. It would cost most of the other people in Springdale. Uh, if you want to stay in this program 150 bucks to be part of this program, I think that is a a small amount to to do what we can to offset climate change. Next slide. So, I've gone over this once the opt out. Um, two months, first two months billing

cycles, November, December, you can opt out for nothing. The four months once the bills start coming in with the rate increase on them, you'll have four billing cycles, uh, where you still can opt out and not have a charge. After that, uh, the cancel to cancel, there will be a $30 termination fee for residential customers. And the termination fee for businesses kind of depend on on their rate schedule. What if you move or what if a new customer comes in? uh you know, you're not going to get if you move, you're not going to get a termination fee. Okay, next slide. Okay. Our ordinance, as I said, is each community has to has to pass this ordinance and and we have one on the books tonight. And what we're going to be discussing and what we want to pass is ordinance 2026-11. Um, and hopefully the other communities will have theirs by June 2nd. Next slide. Uh I talked about uh our attorney. The attorney we've been using Dodge Russell and something we started out with uh I can't remember Dodge's first name but he was very experienced in uh energy related matters. and then his uh one of his

um partners, Phil Russell, has been the one that we've been working with on this. The URC has been working with and and he's handled all the drafting of the ordinance. Uh and all the different municipal attorneys have have looked over these ordinance. Our attorney was on one of the meetings when we finally had an ordinance uh that was sort of finalized. They looked over the ordinance. They've approved it. It's gone through them. Uh they're fine with us uh doing this tonight. Okay, next slide. So, this is just kind of the details of the ordinance. So, the you know, anybody that's looked at ordinances before, um it it This ordinance has a bunch of whereases and these whereases it tells you all this tells you about HP411 that the states passed in 2019 which allowed us to come together and do this. Uh it told the different things steps that we had to do to stay in this. the utility agreement which we we passed uh in 2021 and um and then some other details about what we feel that this program is doing for the community's health, safety and welfare. Certainly the environmental stewardship aspect of this of this program should be pretty obvious. Next slide. The one u thing that uh first thing I'll point out on this is some of the details

in exhibit 8 of this ordinance says that all customers in Springdale are eligible for this except people on schedule 135 which is me. That's the, you know, and other people in Springdale, but that's uh that's the net metering. So, I think people have heard of net metering. That's what schedule 135 is. It's the net metering program. As I said, I I um I put my first panels on in 2013 and I added some more uh couple years ago. Again, the ordinance kind of goes through these details of what I've been talking about. Um, and I'm not sure that there's uh anything else that we have to talk about in this one. Okay, next slide. But here's some more details just in case you didn't get them all. So we have signed the utility agreement. Um, we have by state statute, we not only had to uh we our communities set up a fund and paid for a fund to to hire our attorneys to to hire energy strategies to do some work with Rocky Mountain Power. But we also by state statute when Rocky Mountain Power sends out these two notices to customers, we have to all the communities have to

pay for that. This is something we haven't paid yet. We've paid the other cost already, but we will have to pay approximately uh 900 a little under $970. Uh so sometime this year we probably will uh get build for that since those notices will go out in January and December and maybe they'll they'll send a bill for that at the end of the year. But um we the amount that uh each community is pay paying into this is dependent on the number of customers that they have. So we we are contributing a very small percentage of the money that's going to these different things. The original $700,000 uh for our attorneys and energy strategies and other like I said we paid $942 I think was our part of it. So that's already been paid. Okay, next slide. Okay, uh we are in Rocky Mountain Power Service District. uh our community options for supporting clean energy. I've talked about that. There's blue sky. Uh there's subscribed solar which is been um is not open anymore. Uh there is uh getting on the net metering program which costs thousands of dollars

to do. Just as an example, I put $15,000 into this uh for my panels and I don't have a very big house. Um so this is a very cheap option for our residents to support renewable energy and clean energy and and and that's what this program is all about. It's allowing everybody to to be a part of this and we feel like this program is the best choice for our communities to be part of um providing renewable energy and and um just looking at our general plan looking at in general this community I think has always been because uh Jeff's little organization surrounds us on three sides. We've always been, I think, a community that's been very um oriented to the park and and their philosophy on resource protection. And I just think that we have uh this is something that really aligns with with what we've done with our general plan and what most of our residents feel. Next slide. Okay, this is the getting down to it. This is our our choice tonight whether we we pass this ordinance. Um it's going to sign our our residents and businesses. Um, it'll allow them to be part of a renewable energy program.

U, we've got until June 2nd to do it. Uh, I think it's would be good to get it done tonight. And, um, next slide. That's the organization that we're part of. Now, all those questions you had. You answered all of them. No, I have some. I know. I knew. No, you didn't. Jack and Pat questions or is it coming from the community? How

either one either one, but we I would start with Yeah. with the council. I think it's probably the best way to start. Fire away. Jack, rock, paper, scissors. We'll go first. You

go for it. Five things. What if you RMP estimates 80% initial participation? What if it drops below that? How far down does it go before the program collapses? If that even happens. In other words, say 80% of the people do sign on, but in a year only 50% are on, or more people opt out of it, pay that 30 bucks and opt out. What happens then? Do do the rates go up for the people that are in the program?

No. The the public service commission has said this is the rate. So the rates do not go up. It means what it means possibly is that the pro it will take us longer to uh get the amount of renewable energy that we need to satisfy 100%. So if initially only this is crazy but initially only 20% of the people sign up it's going to be the rates we saw here. Yeah but the reality is I mean if 20% of all the communities sign up the program won't work

and the public service commission would probably and and URC would probably pull a plug on the program. Also in the slides it talked about we get the first notice in the bill in November and the next notice the bill in December but the ordinance currently shows that there's 15 days between the first and second notice. So how does that how does that reconcile? Well, I think yeah, I'm not sure why the ordinance says 15 days because first it's when your bill comes out. Uh, where'd you see that?

It's in 872 C 1 and2 in the ordinance. You see it up here. Can you pull the ordinance up? section 87-2

should be at yeah the beginning of this where what page is it on let's start with oh down into that into the exhibit you said the first op opt out notice shall in all material respects Uh, no. That's not the right one. Tom, go down one. Is that Is that Is that 872 or 871? Uh, go up. 872. Okay. This talks about the first update. I see what you're talking about. Paragraph. The second notice is 15 days after the first updated notice. Separate from the bill. At least 15 days. Separate from the bill.

It says it's separate from the standard monthly bill. They get one in the bill in November, one in the bill in November, one in December, and you get other notices that are 15 days apart. I mean, I'm sure the notice I think well, first of all, it says to each eligible customer within Spring at least 15 days after the first notice was provided or at least seven days before the customer, but it specifically says second. So that

but these notices are separate from the bills. They're not tied to the bills. They specifically say separate from standard monthly bills. So they go out as a standalone item 15 days apart. Sounds like at least 15 days apart. I'm at least. Yeah. At least at least. Right. At least 15 days. And so also you will everybody will receive a mailer even if they only do electronic billing. Everybody will receive a paper and that's part of the $970 that we're going to be paying for

and then additional notice will be sent to you in your preferred method. If so if you prefer paper you're going to get another paper and if you prefer electronic then it will be electronic. Is there a specific reason why schedule 135 is out? Like why you can't do it? Is it just

because I think what they did is they looked at how much money that people have uh spent on this and that's why and and I don't um I heard some talk about eventually they might let schedule 135 in but at this point no and I think this is going to be listed as schedule 100 is what this will what you'll see on your bill schedule 100. My last question is, is the town keeping track of who's in and who's out? Will we know why Pat Campbell was in or Pat Campbell opted out in February?

I I don't know that we will uh individual I doubt it because we don't send the bills out. Rocky Mountain Power does. Absolutely. So your your bill we don't we might be able to call Rocky Mountain Power and say how many people Okay. uh from Springdale are in and how many are you know what kind of participation but at this point concerned about what the how we verify our participation.

Yeah. And uh I'm I'm assuming we will be able to call Rocky Mountain Power and just say you know I would I would say probably after the you know once it starts in 2027 uh we would wait until that four months is up because people can still opt out without a termination charge and and at that point I think everybody will be sort of committed to the program and at that point it we could get a hold of Rocky Mountain Power and ask And I think the URC would do that. I mean, I don't I don't see the town specifically doing that. Maybe we could or maybe we couldn't,

but I do think that URC is invested enough to kind of know, okay, we've done all this leg work. where did the cards fall and uh giving us that data uh because I imagine that we're going to be aboard for quite a while as we make decisions about resources that we're obtaining and power purchase agreements and all that good stuff. Maybe if the opt-in is too low, they'd open it up to schedule 135. Who knows? But Jack, you had some questions.

Yeah, I think u Pat covered my questions. Good job, Pat. You know, I think my one um I know that this is is not the first time we've heard this. I think the biggest hit on this will be for business owners. And I think the only question I've got is um u do we really feel like we've given adequate notice to residents that by passing this ordinance, if you're not paying attention, you know, we just increased your power bill. Well, but we're not increasing. We're Well, I guess we are. We are. You know, Jack.

No, I'm just asking that question.

It's a It's a good question and it's one of the reasons that we have made an attempt uh and what I've made an attempt at every meeting. I've we've got a a report on this on where we are on this and uh I couldn't really fill much in because we were still kind of putting the program together and until uh for instance as far as a program rate until the public service commission said on March 4th of this year that this is going to be the program rate and they decide because we we heard uh we were hearing from energy strategy ies that would probably be somewhere between$2 to5 and and but we or two to 7. We didn't know where it was going to fall in there. Public service commission said flat rate $4 until you have enough reserve built up and have paid for enough to get this program going. And I I think you know if we put this out in the town newsletter, we have it on the website. Um then I think you know we

well and and yeah and I think that um what should we should be doing with maybe the town newsletter every time is just putting a little blurb in there and giving a link to the URC website because that has a lot of detail and a lot of good information on it. This is this is a lot of information but there's a lot more on there. Uh so that in my op I I hear you and it's it's what we are challenged by with everything that we do is trying to get the information out to the residents that hey we're passing an ordinance tonight and uh I I don't other than putting big red signs up and shooting fireworks off and

I I like the number of opportunity you have I think termination fee is more than reasonable if you miss you know don't get the memo um so yeah and the lowinccome option that that doesn't charge I think I think there's every opportunity for someone who just can't do this to not do this but and yeah

the uh the other thing that I think was on there but uh for the low income customers you know maybe uh you know there a couple ers into the program and they read something they don't all of a sudden they don't like renewable energy they can opt out without a termination fee. Um, so that's that's really for the people who u, you know, have been there's a lot of work I guess for Rocky Mountain Power to take people there's work to put them into the program and there's work to take them out and that's what that $30 covers. There's good questions. I mean, it's important and and you all have any questions, please ask.

Yeah. If any of you out there want to ask questions, follow the same procedure. Yeah. If anybody has a question about this program, looks like not. So, do we want to discuss or do we feel ready to make a motion? I will just add that, you know, kind of to your concerns, Jack, if we if we say no to the program, then nobody has the opportunity. There's no individual choice. If we make the choice tonight to say no, the only way anybody gets individual choices if we say yes.

That's a good point. And inevitably, but there will be the people who are caught off guard because their bill is on autopay or or however it works for individual house individual households. Um, and it is a shame that we've been working on this program for so long and it's coming out of t at a time where everybody's feeling tight, you know, and like and everything is increasing, right? That's really unfortunate. But we do know just within the last couple months that, you know, gas prices are going up. Fuel is an issue. This is a way for us as a community to say, well, we have sunshine and we have wind and we're willing to put forth a little bit of investment to maybe um gain some reliable, sustainable choices that aren't dependent on the ups and downs of coal and fuel prices. Um and and so for those few reasons, I beside the point that I've been working with Randy on this for quite a while, um I'm supportive of the program and wish that it were free, but it's not. And that's just the way the good things are. We have to put forth a little bit of investment in hopes that we do get that 80% uh or maybe more. um you know as a as the group of communities we're 25% give or take a little bit of the grid's capacity or you know we're 25% of the users that's a chunk that's a

for the state you mean for the state for the state yeah we're we're a considerable amount of energy and people who are getting together who are saying this is important to us um So I think signing on is sending a message to uh the people who you know with project gigawatt and all of the things that are kind of happening in our state uh sending a message that people want clean reliable energy and I think Springdale is uniquely positioned to kind of support that endeavor.

Yeah. And I we are a very small player in this whole thing. It's Salt Lake, Salt Lake County, Ogden, uh Park City, Moab, Summit County. You know, we're we're a small little player in all this. And and we are the only community in southern Utah that signed up for this program, which I'm uh I'm pretty proud of us for making that step. I think that's a that's a huge uh step. So, I very much want us to be a part of this and to pass this ordinance tonight. The thing about it is is nobody's in a headlock to decide. No. No. No.

You don't want to do it, you don't do it. If you want to do it, you do it. If you kind of lady you want out, you can get out. If you want to get in later, you can get in. I mean, this is not Nobody's being pressured to do anything. The only concern I had, and you answered that question, is notice. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. I should change the banner of the sign. And Kylo mentioned that this will go out by a US mail. Yeah. Not just an email that you might miss. So I feel comfortable passing this resolution. Does anyone want to make the motion? I would like to. Really? Yeah. Because I brought this damn program after all this motion.

Please. I move we approve ordinance 202611 an ordinance exacting uh enacting title 8 chapter 7 to the springdale town code community clean energy program and direct the mayor to sign can I add some findings yes

um that our town general plan has several um supporting lines that I will mention. Um, public and municipal, I'm sorry, municipal and public services. The general goal states that either directly or through partnerships, the town will ensure excellence in utilities such as power. Then we have sub goal D. Encourage the implementation of renewable energy and conservation use reduction and the practice of sustainability in power utilities which is supported by D1. It says the town will adopt policies and participate in programs that promote the use and development of renewable and sustainable alternative resources as solar such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Um, and then our natural and cultural resources general goal talks about the natural resources in and around Springdale, such as the dark night sky, clean air and water, um, will be protected and conserved, will be healthy and will enhance the quality and life or the quality of life and of residents and visitors.

Accepted those. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Motion by Randy, second by Kyla appropriately. I Randy I. Barbara I. Jack I. Kyla I. Okay. After all that work, you finally get to put it to rest. No, I don't. And we're first. We have a lot more meetings and we have a lot more to do. But this is this is awesome. Good. Next item is invasive species removal project Utah conservation corps services agreement and this is Kindle.

Yes, thank you. So the town is continuing the work on the invasive species removal project removing invasive Russian olive and Tammer trees from the Virgin River wershed in Springdale and Trees Ranch. Most of the work has been accomplished in the 2025 season. The specialized services agreement will allow the Utah Conservation Corpse, the UCCC crews to perform five weeks of treatment, retreatment, and reveation in Springdale and Trees Ranch. The UCCC charges $5,750 per week for a technical treatment crew and $5,500 per week for a non-technical crew. The total for five weeks of treatment is $28,250. Funding for this project is coming through the landscape scale restoration grant from the US forest service that Springdale was subawwarded in 2024. The town attorney has reviewed the agreement and he has approved the form. So staff recommends that town council approve the specialized services agreement with UCCC and authorize the mayor to sign the document.

Questions for Kendall? Yeah, a question. I noticed that u there was matching fund contributions from trees ranch property and from the nature conservancy and some other partners. Is the springdale is the town uh have any financial input into this other than getting the grant and your time for doing that? Um yes. So the that 28,000.

So So the 28,000 it's it's easiest to think of this as as the project as a whole and not the specifics of the 28,000. So the the project as a whole, the grant is about a $69,000 project. Um so we we that's that's the total bucket of funds. Of that $69,000. um the uh state forestry, fire, and state land. We we we were awarded 50% of that in in grant funding. So $300,000 of that, the forestry, fire, and state lands took $60,000 for their administration of the grant. They the forestry, fire, and state lands is actually the grant recipient. As Kendall mentioned, we are the sub recipient. So right off the top, Forestry, Fire and State Lands took 60,000. That means that we have $240,000 in cash from the grant, but we also have to match that grant 5050. So, we need to provide about $300,000 in matching funds. Those are coming um from Trees Ranch, who's um providing about $150,000 in matching funds. The Nature Conservancy, which is providing about $20,000, well, not about exactly $20,000 in matching funds. Um the town of Springdale has committed $10,000 in cash matching funds. The remainder of the match comes from um soft match. So that is the town's labor that we put in on the on the um grant. Um Lisa Zumpt is here and she's she's our our volunteer started as our council representative on this grant and now is our volunteer head volunteer on the grant and her time counts as match. Um and another big chunk comes from the Hurricane Valley Fire Protection District. They're the ones that are helping us dispose of the slash piles through chipping and burning. All that goes towards the grant matching funds as well. So, this $28,000 comes out of that bigger, larger project

where we have all this cash. Um, and and so that's where that money comes from. That is matched as a whole by these other sources I've talked about. So, we don't really need to worry about how is this particular $28,000 being matched because it's all part of the larger project. Does that make sense? And it's all funded. It's all fully funded. Correct. I have a question for you, Kinder. You said that the majority of the work has been completed. So, does that imply there's still some work that will be completed? Yes, there's some parcels within the Springdale town that needs to be completed.

Yeah. I just wanted to mention I noticed um down at the river park the other day where they where they did work on the east end of it or I mean the I guess the north end. Is that right? Up river where they had to came back and gather up the scattered material. There's Russian olive from that point up to Canyon Springs. So anyway, yeah, there's definitely still some pockets. There's a little bit of tamarisk in the drywash up above Anastasia, but I think you I think we've reported all of that to you. That's what remains.

Yes. So, having the UCCC crews come back and take care of all of that and then also do some retreatment on some of the sprouts that have come up in Springdale and Trees Ranch is is why we need them to come back out. Any other questions? You want to make a motion? Motion ready. Okay. Um I move to approve the specialized service agreement with Utah Conservation Corps in regards to invasive species and direct the mayor to sign. Second. Motion by Kylo, second by Jack Pat. I Randy. Barbara I. Jack I. Kyla I.

Okay. Next item is review and possible selection of bike Utah as a partner with the town of Springdale for community engagement services regarding trails in Springdale. Contact is Ryan Gooler and I see that Stamp Pleasure is here um may be participating as well.

Thank you, mayor. Sorry. Um so, uh as the staff report Okay, sorry. Let me know when I'm ready to go. As the staff report says, back in 2025, we were awarded an outdoor recreation planning assistance grant for $20,000 from the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation. Um, as part of our application, uh, we were very specific that we wanted this funding to cover two phases of this effort. the first phase to be really healthy, robust community engagement process, public involvement to help us understand um the feelings surrounding our current trail network and the community's appetite for the potential for more trails in town. Um and then once that phase was completed, that would help guide us um into the next phase of master planning and planning of specific trail projects. Um and so we issued the RFP and we were lucky to receive three proposals. All three submissions were from very qualified applicants. Uh very impressive. Um and so uh we had our work cut out for us. Um and one thing I did want to note because this was an RFP. Uh we were not in a situation where we were forced to take the low bid. We were able to take other things into account. Obviously cost wasn't one of those things, but it gave us some flexibility. Um so that differs from other projects like the river park another example where we are you know we are forced to take the low bid. Uh this was not that situation. So um we had our group gathered together which included myself, Tom Dansancy, um council member Burns, council member Eton and Robert George our street supervisor and we spent roughly two hours deliberating and going back and forth on the pros and cons of each applicant. Um eventually we landed on Bike Utah. Uh we felt good about that as a group and um so our recommendation is that the council approve the partnership with bike Utah for community

engagement services for this effort. I will note that as of right now there is no contract. There is no agreement. That is not what we're here for today. Um that will come later. Once or assuming this gets approved by the council bike Utah will then draft or start drafting a contract which will then come to the council for approval probably in the April 22nd meeting. Um and so attached to the staff report were the uh was the RFP and the uh application submitted by by bike Utah. Later I sent both uh other the other two applications to the council as well for the review. But yeah, welcome any any questions.

That was helpful to see the others too. It would have been a tough decision. They were all three really good. There were three really good choices. And this is probably a stupid question. I'll just say it is a stupid question. So, Bike Utah works on multi-use trails, not just bike trails. I mean, these trails are multi-use, right? That we're not talking about a trail plan for bikes. Yeah, correct. They they Yeah. And if you look at the jobs they've done, they've done work for the Utah Lake Authority. They've done a trails master plan for Eagle Mountain. So, they I think people see the name Bike Utah and think, "Okay, this is Bike Trails." But they do more than that.

Okay. That's not a stupid question. It was we we talked about that in our in our meeting. So Ryan, most of the the operative RFP language is about I'm going to read this directly. Community outreach and and planning input, but not the actual physical or technical design of the trails. Correct. Yeah. So we're not asking Bike Utah to design this. We're asking them go out to the community, find out if we want it. Yep. Yep. This first phase is strictly community engage. So it's intended to move like a future trails plan forward. That that's Yeah. If that happens. Yep. Exactly.

So when I read the the the public face of Bike Utah, I didn't get the sense that they had a whole lot of expertise when it comes to non-paved trails. So are we expecting them to do hiking trails or just bike trails? All trails. That's paved trails, natural surface trails, different user groups, all the entire trail network. So, when I read their their website and went through some of the documents, I didn't see a whole lot of expertise in in non-paved trail work. Do they have it? You know, that's we only saw we saw the same things you saw in the application. We didn't do any follow-up. We felt that

So, how how do you think again? I'm I'm just curious, how would a company or a group that doesn't have experience in what hiking trails do or how they should be calculated, where they go, what what they consist of. If they have no experience doing that, then how do we expect them to ask questions of the community if they don't know what kind of questions they're going to ask? I mean the example I use is I had a 1971 Barracuda years ago before the became right. If I were to ask people tell me um tell me about how this car works or tell me about what I should do to keep the car maintained, you'd ask people that knew something about cars, right? So tell me what Bike Utah has in their background that that that will enable them to ask the right questions. And I'm I'm certain they can. I'm just curious.

Yeah. So, that's a great question and Randy and Jack, feel free to jump in if you feel the need. But me looking at it, I looked at their experience working with you uh Moab and the safe streets and roads program, the off streetet trails master plan with Eagle Mountain. I talked about the Utah Lake Recreation Access Plan. So, it is I think their experience is more broad than just pave trails for bikes. I think that that especially with the Utah Lake Recreation Access Plan, you look go through and read it. I feel like it's a little more encompassing than just paved trails. Um, you know, there were pros and cons to each applicant. You know, we there were certain things that maybe they weren't as strong as as another applicant. We looked at it holistically. Um, and and to be frank, cost was a big factor.

Mainly, we're focused on a company that can tell us whether people want trails or not. Basically, not designing these things. Gauge the community's interest in more trails. that that was very clear. We were we were just looking for um the survey, not a not an organization that could design uh the trails master plan or trails. It's just we want community outreach for this. Yeah. Any other questions for Ryan?

A group that looked over the RFP and maybe maybe you do or don't need a group. That's my first question. Will you need a group to direct bike Utah or is that going to be just you, you and Jack? We have an internal trails team and then we've also got council member Eton and council member Burns who are the liaison for each of those departments. Okay. So they'll stay involved in the project. You guys you guys will continue to work like as a group. There's multiple of you. Correct. Yes. Helping Bike Utah set up. Yes, they will be working very closely with staff. Okay, cool. That will happen pretty quickly. It's a short time.

We'd like we'd like it to start as soon as we can. And as I mentioned, the contract has not been they've not begun drafting the contract. That is something that will come to you guys for final approval. So, if if Utah were to come back, say we approve this, and they come back and say, "Yes, you know, 80% of the people here in town want trails, we don't necessarily have to use them to do that, right?" No. No, they don't. Not at all. I don't Again, I don't want to speak out of term, but That's it. That that will be Logan Simpson. Yeah, that would be a different Yeah, correct. And that was very clear in the RFP. This was strictly for community engagement. If we wanted to move forward with the master plan, we could we could put it out again. We could do it internally. We have a lot of options.

We were trying to make real good use of this $20,000 we got and get our money's worth with that and not have to really step outside of that. Again, and you might want to mention that the $20,000 uh can also be applied towards creating a master plan. Correct. Yeah. In addition to then that's why the price did make a big difference because we had a pretty big saving $22,000 to do that in the future. We got I mean Yeah. So that saves us gives us an extra $12,000 if we want to put that towards a We ready with motion?

Um, so we're we're making a motion just to enter in a project agreement. Um, I don't know the wording, not an agreement, but just yeah, selecting bike Utah as of the partner with the town of Springdale. The contract will come. Okay. I moved to uh uh Hire Bike Utah as the consultant for the Springdale Trails Community Engagement. Um and direct the mayor to sign. I'll second. Sorry, at this point there's nothing to sign. There's no sign that will come.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be in the next month. I I still second. Okay. Okay. So, we've got a motion by Jack and a second by Kyla. And I Randy. Barbara I. Jack. I. Kyla. I. Next item is review and possible approval of an independent contractor agreement for the Zen Regional Cooperative Coordinator position. And Tom, this is yours.

Thank you, mayor. This is a contract that we have entered into um about the last four or five years. Um it funds the ZRC coordinator position. The ZRC or Zion Regional Collaborative, as the council is aware, is a group that does regional planning and coordination throughout the Zion region. It provides an excellent opportunity for the town to network with our regional partners, to uh work on issues of shared interest, to communicate across jurisdictional boundaries um and to help promote projects that improve and enhance the quality of life in Springdale and the other uh communities in the region. So, it's a really valuable organization that the town's been part participating in for a number of years. The ZRC coordinator um is is really crucial to the successful operation of that group. The ZRC coordinator um manages meetings, coordinates meetings, um provides all the administrative support for the group um as well as maintains um relationships with important regional partners and facilitates conversations. And so it's a a pretty critical role. So that's why we've felt really strongly about funding this position for the past four or five years. Um unfortunately in in the last few years, the town or excuse me, the ZRC has lost some of our funding partners for this position. Um we are working on on solutions to to be creative with the funding that we do have left to make this a viable position. And we're fortunate that the incumbent in this position, Emily Freriedman, is is very willing to work on creative solutions with us. So this this proposed agreement that's before the council tonight is very similar to agreements that have been proposed in the past, except for the total amount of compensation to the ZRC coordinator is significantly lower than what it's been in the past. Springdale's contribution

remains the same um as do the contributions of our other other funding partners. In fact, um, Iron County has increased their participation. Um, but other communities have or excuse me, other funding partners have dropped out and so the total compensation is less than what we've been able to offer in the past. In order to compensate for that, we've adjusted the scope of work of what the coordinator um, offers or what the services that she will be providing. Um, and we've also coordinated with one of our our local ZRC champions, Patty Weiss, who was a former council member in Leverkin. She's no longer a council member, but is willing to pick up a lot of the slack on a volunteer basis for what um Emily used to provide under her expanded scope with a with a larger sum. So, that's what this agreement does. Um and uh just ask that if the council wants to support the this position to have the mayor sign this and once all the other communities have signed we'll have a complete um agreement so the ZRC can continue to function. Any questions? I I do want to note that the two entities that are no longer funding this position are still participating in our ZRC workshops and um they're just not on the steering committee and also that there are a lot of groups beyond the funding partners that participate. So, it's a good opportunity for us to find out what they're doing in Kain County, what they're doing in Iron County, um all the municipalities in Washington County. It's a It's a good group and we, as you see from my council reports, learn a lot about what's going on outside of Springdale. We also just completed the quarter management plan to um extend and renew the scenic byway scenic byway um SR9 and still working on the Guadal Guadalupe Trail had NEPA and we have a lot of great projects going on but it would be very difficult to do this relying on just the members that are on

council in various communities because we have too much on our plate to be planning meetings and making the arrangements that Emily makes. We're lucky to have her. The grant funding, doesn't she secure quite a bit of grant? She does. She's gotten us a lot of grant money. She's amazing. She's one of those people that uh ZRC has come a long way and much of it is due to her credit for all the work she does in the background for us. So, she's pretty amazing. She is amazing. Questions? You want to make a motion?

I move to approve the independent contractor agreement for the Zion regional collaborative coordinator position with Emily Freriedman um with the uh the town of Springdale committing $11,680 towards that and direct the mayor to sign. I'll second motion by Jack, second by Kyla Pat. I Randy, Barbara, Jack, Kyla. I

Okay. Next item of business is discussion of a potential blanket allowance to disturb the anis Anisi plateau conservation easement by trimming native vegetation for the purpose of wildfire mitigation and possible ratification of prior approval of fire mitigation work already completed. And this is Tom Dany. And I do want to disclose that I live on the Anastasia plateau, but that won't impact my position on this and I'll make the same mistier. We have a slip up. And I live over the hill from Man.

Yeah, you're you're as much as you're just about there. We've already mowed our side.

Thank you, mayor. Um, as the council is aware, there's been a recent emphasis on wildfire preparedness and wildfire mitigation. Um, and a lot of that is is being brought on by um a state mandate to adopt the wildland urban interface code. In fact, we had originally intended for the council to be acting on that tonight. Um, I let the council know why why we didn't do that tonight in a separate email, but that will be coming to you um shortly. Um but one of the one of the uh results of all that emphasis that's been put on wildfire preparedness and wildfire mitigation um is that uh many homeowners want to be proactive in protecting their properties and taking steps necessary to to ensure their homes are fires safe. Um, also insurance companies are taking note of the wildfire hazard and are um, in many cases mandating homeowners to uh, proactively do some uh, wildfire mitigation in terms of vis vegetation treatment around their homes in Onazi Plateau. That can present a problem because in order to do some of this wildfire mitigation that requires treating vegetation or modifying vegetation which is in the conservation easement. The conservation easement obviously is established to protect the conservation values of the property which include the native vegetation. And um so there's kind of a a baseline don't touch anything in the conservation easement uh uh directive in the easement itself. However, the easement does provide some exemptions to that. The easement does provide some allowances for dis disturbance in the conservation easement. Um, and some of those allowances are to uh the conservation easement allows the right of homeowners to maintain native vegetation in the

conservation and also to remove hazardous flora or hazardous vegetation from the conservation easement. And so there is there is some allowance in the conservation easement to that would support um treating or or modifying vegetation in the conservation easement in the past. Uh but but the conservation easement also requires the town council to or a homeowner to give notice to the town coun or to the town the town

to the town of that proposed action and then for the town to approve that. In the past, we have had the town council be the approval body for that action. However, there's nothing in the conservation easement that requires the council to to provide that action. The conservation easement just says the town needs to be notice needs to be provided to the town and then the town needs to give that approval. Doesn't specifically require the council to do that because this is a significant issue. The conservation easement is so important. In the past, our practice has been for to have the town council give that authorization, but that again that's not legally required. Um, so a couple of things that are are pertinent to this with all that background, a couple of things that are pertinent to this request. Uh there will likely be a number of properties, perhaps the majority of properties in Anastasia Plateau that will need to do some type of wildfire mitigation by modifying fuels around the property in the conservation easement to comply with wildland urban interface code requirements or to preserve and or to preserve their insurance. If each one of them come before you individually to make such a request, it could be very cumbersome. Um, it could take a lot of of of time and it could be difficult for these homeowners that oftentimes have very short timelines imposed on them to to do this mitigation. Um, for instance, an insurance company could say you've got 60 days, 30 days to do this modification, otherwise we're going to cancel your insurance. That doesn't give them a lot of time to provide the required notice. Um, so the home the Anastasia Plateau homeowners association has suggested that you could grant a blanket authorization for property owners in Onazi Plateau to to do that um preventative wildfire mitig mitigation by treating vegetation in the home in the conservation easement. If you want if you choose to do that in the staff report there are some recommended conditions that I would recommend you attach to such an approval. Um all that work all the work needs to be done by a

trained professional, a licensed arborist or or some other tree professional that is knowledgeable not only about how to appropriately trim trees but also is knowledgeable in what the requirements of the wildland urban interface code are. Um, another uh proposed requirement um is that the uh the only work the only vegetation that can be modified is the vegetation that would need to be modified for compliance with wildland urban interface code requirements. So, this isn't a blanket, oh yeah, go out and and take out all the trees you want in the conservation easement. It's no, only those trees that really need to be modified for WOOI code compliance can be can be treated. And the third requirement is that instead of coming to you as a council for approval 60 days in advance, the property owner would just need to come to the community development department and say, "Here's my plan. Here are the trees that I want to modify with a with a sketch plan of sufficient um detail that the community development department knows what trees are going to be modified and can um do a a kind of a truth check to make sure that that that's realistic for WOI code compliance." So those are the those are the that's one item tonight. The other item is that um there have been instances where vegetation has already property owners have already gone out and trimmed vegetation for wooi code compliance in Anastasia plateau and in at least one of well in in only one of those instances property owner came to me and for full disclosure um council member Burns I I think it's important to to note that that this was you that that came to uh came to me and said hey I'm in jeopardy of losing my insurance I need to do this right Now, uh, otherwise my insurance is going to cancel my my my insurance. Um, I I met with with the property owner, Council Member Burns, as well as the, uh, representatives from the homeowners association, looked at the conservation easement, looked at at

the reality of of Council Member Burns situation, and as town manager said, this is this qual qualifies as an emergency as as defined in the conservation easement that provides an allowance for exemption from the 60-day notice requirement. and as town manager approved that request. So that the the second part of this is um again whereas town council approval is not a requirement um if you feel that approval was appropriate you could ratify that approval so that we are consistent with previous approvals for the conservation easement that the town council approves that and we're not setting a precedent that this is a town manager approval but this remains a town council approval.

That's a lot of talking. I apologize. Now it's time for you to talk. I I want to clarify that this is only trees in the easement. I I think I mentioned to you I had a tree removed today that was on my property that the um that Dave Harmon recommended that we take out. Do we need to notify you of those? Should I have notified you of those? I did notify you of that.

You did notify me and I I confirmed that you had planted the requisite two replacement plants which you had. Nice work. Um, so there is no process in the code that requires a property owner to notify the town if they are removing vegetation. There is however a requirement that if vegetation is removed, you need to replace it at a 2:1 ratio. So it would be nice for homeowners that that are removing vegetation on their properties to notify us saying, "Hey, I'm taking these trees out and here are where my replacement plants are going." That would be great. There's nothing in the code that requires it.

Okay. And so what if trees have to be removed um in the conservation ement? So that's that. Yeah. I mean are we still at the two to one? No. Or are we? Well, the the code says yes. Are we even in Okay. Yes. I thought that was just in conjunction with projects. It it doesn't differentiate between a between a a juniper tree on a private I mean the conservation easement is privately held property, right? But it doesn't it doesn't differentiate between um a homeowner's lot and and the conservation. It says if a native vegetation is removed, you need to replace it at a 2 to1 ratio. That's

with the same type tree though because if if junipers are a problem, do we really want to plant more junipers? So So yes, of the same or similar species. This is this is a a discussion that I think um the planning commission has already identified as as something they want to work on.

Um recognizing that we we we have a potential uh clash of competing goals. One is we want to preserve native vegetation. We want to preserve the community character. We want to place an emphasis on natural features. And the other goal, we want to make sure that we protect people from wildfire. And and what changes to the land use code are necessary so that we can continue to to to support both of those goals. And that may be one of the changes. Are we going to continue to require two trees of the same or similar species to be planted? Are we going to get rid of that requirement? Are we going to modify that requirement? I think that's something the planning commission's already identified as a work item.

Okay. So, they'll answer that question. I think that's a very good thing to do because it, you know, from from what Dave Harmon, the wildland fire chief, told me, junipers are much more flammable than say ponderosa or other decid and deciduous trees, he said, are not a real concern. Although we would want to make sure they're indigenous deciduous trees. I mean, that's Yeah. And again, these are all things, policy considerations that I I I think the the commission would want to consider.

Yes, we want them to be fires safe and firewise and mayor, yes, we want them to be consistent with the community character, and so we're not planting things that are completely foreign or or out of place in Springdale. And so what that looks like, um I I think allowing the planning commission to hash that out and bring a recommendation to you would be a good idea. So, what our issue tonight is to consider a blanket approval for removing trees that are a problem under WOOI with getting permission from the community development department rather than having to come to council and ratifying the action you took in an emergency to allow some trees to be trimmed. Correct.

Okay. And not really discussing that uh if you do this not discussing the replacement tonight. We're not discussing that, right? Well, you you you can discuss it, but you can't take any action on it, right? Um that's that's a that's in code. That's an ordinance change. It has to go through the ordinance revision process. So, we might as well not discuss that. We might as well just discuss what we can act on tonight. Yeah. Knowing that I mean planning commission is going to work on it and

Right. they'll look at it from all angles and then we'll get to see it. Um Tom, I did have a question about your the three conditions or I guess um in the three conditions WOOI is mentioned and that you know if WOOI code requires it is the insurance always going to comply with WOOI or could the insurance be asking people to do things that are beyond what the wild land inter urban interface would require? That's a great question and we we had a really good presentation last night from um fire marshal John Hennessy in Damarind Valley um who's who's an expert in these situations and and he said yes wooi is one thing um and oftentimes insurance companies will want above and beyond what WOOI requires. Um, and his his and for those council members who were who were there last night, you can correct me if if I'm misstating him. His his recommendation was stick with WOOI because WOOI is is defensible. WOOI is what the adopted code is. Um, and and sometimes you can even use WOOI to push back on insurance companies, but he that that's if I heard him correctly last night, that was his recommendation.

I wouldn't want to open this up too much. And I like I like the idea that they the the remover would still need permission from the town. I don't think council needs to get involved, but we've got a great board now and we have an arborist who happens to be our president, but you know, we've got to think about what would happen if somebody decided to use that excuse just to start taking some things out. We don't want that to happen.

And I completely agree with that. Like I I I have real concerns that like the knee drip reaction is just to take it all out, right? Like if if junipers are a problem, let's just take them all out. But what I do see is that with the conditions that specifically mentioned WOOI, if Jack were in the same situation after we've passed this, he's still in an emergency situation that maybe his insurance company is asking him to do something above and beyond what the WOOI would say. and then he goes to community development and he's still gonna be told that maybe he can't do it unless I'm understanding misunderstanding the conditions. Like I want to make sure that we're we're minding the emergency situation where somebody's going to be losing insurance coverage because their insurance is asking for something we have not accommodated.

That's a that's a very good point. Uh this second finding only vegetation modification necessary for compliance with the WOI code defensible space requirements as you said insurance companies might come back and say no I want that one down too. Well and I mean I know you know at the Rose Cottage before WOOI was even mentioned I had an insurance company who said you've got a tree too close to the cottage. I mean, they're looking at what is a potential claim, and you know, they said you're going to have to address that tree,

but I don't want somebody to come to the town and say, "Oh, my insurance company said they'll cancel if I don't take that tree out." When that's not the case. Wooie is defendable. In those situations, we could address those individual situations. I think we are gonna have people using insurance companies as an excuse. I don't know. I I think we need to be careful here.

I agree. I completely agree because it is a loophole, but if we don't address it, we're leaving it to Tom doing these emergency things. And if we're okay with that, then maybe that's the procedure. But we're kind of with these conditions not addressing the emergency situation. Well, do we do we have a requirement that there's something in writing for both WOOI and insurance companies?

I mean, I would say you should be able to show documentation from your insurance company, but I will tell you from my recent experience, I requested the inspection report twice. They never sent it. The agent requested it from corporate. They didn't send it. They just sent me photos. So, how did But, but I had in writing the initial um email from them saying, "Here's where you failed." So, I mean, so you did have something in writing. Yeah. Yeah. And and I don't know that I honestly trust an insurance company to have the conservation easement in Oh, absolutely. They do. I guarantee.

Well, they won't. And they're looking for reasons to cancel people in certain areas. So, I think I think what Tom said that WOOI gives us something to push back on insurance companies with. But what I don't want to do, I I want to do some kind of a blanket approval. I I just don't want to go too far. I think we can we can step toward more liberal policy. I don't think we want to start with the liberal policy because I'm afraid of what could happen with the easement, frankly. I mean, it's why we all live there is because we we have this natural environment.

And I I think that's that's important. But why are we passing this ordinance? We're passing this ordinance so that our residents keep their homeowners insurance are able to uh keep their homeowners insurance. I'd say keep their homes

and and keep their well that we close what we're going to pass for them to keep their homes. that that's a um I think that's when we're really gonna I think this ordinance is more geared toward uh the um the homeowners insurance. That's the way I look at it now. Yes, it is something that we are doing because we have been aware made aware of this because we're going to have to pass a WOI code. Uh but what ultimately what's the goal? I think the goal is to help our um residents keep their homeowner insurance as as much as possible. Give them a way of being able to keep their homeowners insurance. So, I'm um you know, I think Kyler raises a really good point and and Jack has had some experience with this. Maybe we also add something to the effect that uh if somebody can come with a insurance company's inspection report that

it's not even that far. It just needs to be maybe documentation that says notification. However, the however the homeowner was notified that this particular thing is out of compliance and will result in loss of insurance.

I think if they can prove that then that's what they would bring to us right at a council meeting instead of meeting making them wait the 30 to 60 days to come to council and let us look at that same thing. Let's have them take it to staff. um and and just make I don't like I said I don't think the insurance company has the conservation easements uh best interest at heart right they're protecting themselves and in in the name of protecting you I don't always buy it but I also see that if we pass these three conditions as they are it does not address the actual emergency situation that we've been in my opinion Tom if you see it differently If you think the way it's written is fine, then maybe I there's not an issue.

I I think there is an issue and I think it's just a matter of how much um risk the council is is okay with. And when I say risk, that's by me the bad word because this isn't wildfire risk. This is risk of damage to the conservation easement, right? Um, you know, if an insurance company comes to a homeowner and says, "You have to clear cut everything within 150 ft of your of your house and there's 16 uh juniper trees in the conservation easement that come out and are are you okay with that?" That that that's that's kind of an extreme hyp, you know, hyperbolic situation that that may never come to pass, but it could. And would you would you be okay with that or not? The the um

Well, I was asked that. I mean, the one guy I I kept getting mixed messages. The one guy said, "You need to clear vegetation 100 feet from your house." I said, "I'm not going to do that. I'm going to look for a different carrier."

And and and so you were successful in pushing back on that. A different homeowner may say, "Oh my goodness, this is what my insurance carrier is telling me." and and not have that ability or or or that desire to push back and they come to the town and say, "I got to clear cut everything within 100 feet. I got to take out all these trees." Would the council be okay with that? If so, then yes, we we could add in something about documentation within the insurance company. If not, then we leave that out and we're in the situation that you that you described where we are potentially not addressing all of the emergency situations. I I don't think there's an there's a a perfect solution either way. This is one of those challenging

Well, we know what WOOI is trying to do. WOOI is trying to protect our homes and protect the state and and all those things. Insurance companies don't necessarily have our best interests in mind. They're trying to protect themselves. I just I think there's a lot of room between giving blanket approval for WOOI compliance and giving blanket approval for someone because they their insurance company wants them to do something. I I think that's a that's a big stretch.

Well, maybe that maybe that falls outside of the blanket approval. You know, that's when it does kick in the 30 60day notification. Well, we could we could keep keep it outside the blanket approval, but give someone give the community development uh department authority to look at these emergencies on a case-byase basis and make a decision and hold them harmless from the decision. We could do something like that, couldn't we?

You Yes, you could. Another thing that you could do is is to say we are going this If if someone has a a threat of cancellation of their homeowners insurance, we're not going to require the full 60-day notice and we're going to expedite their review to get on a town council meeting. Yeah. And Yes. And that way you retain that approval authority and you make sure that you get to review all these difficult situations rather than putting the onus on staff. and and that too could be something that that a homeowner could use to push back against a an insurance company. So,

I mean, I I I guess I'll just use my experience though was like I asked them to wait until the HOA had their meeting on the 14th. They said, "No, we're not going to wait." Then they came to me um after that and they said, "If we don't have a response from you by the 7th, we're going to cancel your policy." And so they kind of set their own time frame, you know, and I I I said, you know, can I have some wiggle room? They said no, you know. So,

well, I don't I don't think the council necessarily makes better decisions on these things than the community development department anyway. I don't I don't know that I think we have to make that decision. But I think that there ought to be a higher standard of proof when someone says they're in danger of losing insurance and than if it's a if it's a WOOI thing because WOOI thing we can look at we we can see we know what we says right it's standard it's written maybe we don't understand it but we can sure try we don't like it

and we don't like it but insurance I mean there's different brands it's arbitrary yeah they can there's different inspectors. It's it's very um it's all over the place. So, I think that yeah, how can we can retain some control uh but still allow for people to to make action quickly when they need to. and someone I know who lives in the middle of hurricane and not in an area like ours was dropped by the same insurance company. They're sometimes they want they tell you to do drastic things just because they want to drop you. And so I don't I don't want everybody to start raising the whole conservation easement because insurance companies are trying to get you to to find a new carrier and that's a possibility. So, is community development comfortable with making the decisions when it comes to insurance companies?

I think we welcome to your new job. Yeah. Thank one. Um I I I think we could become comfortable. Um I think if we had some parameters to work with and um you know set up a a process for ourselves I think it is something that we could do if we define the process. You know I know with residential DDRs unless there's something different or controversial you approve those but if they're if they're tricky you go to planning commission. We could have it set up something like that. Yeah. I I I I think it's something we could do if we established a process.

I think you're more expert at this stuff than we are. And I I don't want to I don't want to slow down the process, but I don't want to give a blanket approval for just everything. Yeah, I I think we could definitely have kind of

Jeff Jeff has something to say. He might know something about fire. standards are national and were developed by you know state and federal agencies. Um one suggestion might be to go to state uh insurance commission office and see if they've wrestled with this question of wooi and private property. Um, it would seem like this has come up before, maybe not relative to the conservation easement, but um, it might be worth checking with the insurance commission. Thank you.

Yeah, my insurance agent said they are being absolutely bombarded with questions about this. So what if we were to grant this blanket approval for WOOI code and ask Nile to check with the insurance commission and come back with a recommendation on insurance um company requests andor planning commission. I mean, if he gets an answer that it's like, well, now we need to craft a whole new

I think either way they're crafting a whole new thing. But so, so I'm comfortable granting the blanket approval to comply with WOOI code. I personally, and I may be outvoted, but I'm not in I'm not comfortable granting permission because somebody says they're going to lose their insurance if they don't do something.

Yeah. And in the meantime, I mean, could could we at least in the meantime say that the 60-day 60-day notice isn't required that they if they need to come, you know, they need to get on the agenda next. Like that way this the process is still in place. It's still coming to us. Um separate issue though, right? The 60-day thing would have to be a separate issue than this. Yes. Yeah. But it it really So this wouldn't have solved the problem that Jack had. Well, you're talking about though um uh someone being threatened to lose their insurance outside of trying to meet the blue standard. Right. Yeah, I agree with that.

Right. So, it wouldn't have solved. But I'll say again that you know when we talk about making people come to us, are we really more expert than community development? So, I'm saying like as a quick band-aid while community development is figuring out what a good policy would be for insurance issues because Tom, am I right in thinking in order for somebody to do work in the conservation easement right now, they need to give us 60 days notice. That's correct. Uh, let me It might be 30. There's Yeah, here it says 30. There's a 30-day. That's right. And then we have to we have to act on it in 60 days. 60 days.

That's Yeah, that's what it is. They They have to give us 30 days and then we have to act on it in 60 days. Thank you.

I I don't know. I mean, I guess if Tom has the ability as the manager to make and and then ask come come back to us and ask us to ratify. Maybe that's just the way it's going to have to be until we can figure out this middle ground since the we're in just a tight spot. there are going to be emergencies and I'm not willing to let insurance companies just run rough shot over that land. So if if it's an insurance issue and they have to come to council, that does add an extra layer of caution, if you will, even though we're no more expert than than Nile, but at least it does add an extra layer of caution and makes the homeowner think about whether it makes sense for them to pursue it or just pursue a new insurance company.

Yeah. Anything that comes from us is is going to go through staff. And you know, I think with a recommendation with a recommendation. Yeah.

And staff would I don't think staff's going to come to us with somebody say so. They're going to want something some kind of proof that, you know, some kind of notice from the insurance company. So, I think it seems like we're kind of landing on it feels to me like we're kind of landing on giving the blanket approval for WOOI code, but still requiring that someone who's just complying with an insurance company request and not not meeting WOOI code goes to community development who then brings it to us. But we wave the the 30-day period. Is that what we're saying? I mean, are we going to have a special meeting? Is that what we're saying?

Well, you you could say that. Or the part of the problem with the 30-day period is like if um say somebody came in a week and a half before your meeting and said, "Oh my goodness, I'm in this problem." Well, absent the 30-day notice period, we could put that on your agenda. no problem. But the 30-day notice period says, "Oh, well, you're going to have to wait until the next month's agenda." Oh, okay. So, that that's the advantage of waving the 30-day period. Okay.

Obviously, if somebody comes in the day after your meeting and says, "I just got this notice and I'm going to lose my my insurance in two weeks." Waving the 30-day notice period doesn't do anything because they're not going to you're not going to have another meeting. So in that case, you could also um have a discussion as a council on your your appetite for special meetings as well as involve the clerk in that discussion. You were getting daggers. I think as long as they're after April 21st, she doesn't care. Yeah. I What What do How do we feel about having a special meeting in a case like that? I'm okay with that personally.

Anytime someone has an issue with their insurance company on the conservation easement, I I I think these are going to be rare instances because we we keep on referencing Jack Jack's instance was an insurance issue, but it was also a Wii code issue. Everything that Jack did was was a WOOI code requirement. And I I think most of the time, again, I could be wrong, I could be out, you know, but I think most of the time, the solution that satisfies WOOI hopefully will also satisfy the insurance. And in those instances that are not, I think a large portion of them, if you wave the 30-day notice period, could be accommodated in your next regularly scheduled meeting. Right?

I think it's going to be an outlier where somebody comes to you and says, "I've got this issue. It's It's in excess of WOOI and it doesn't fit your regular meeting schedule. I think those are going to be outliers. I do too. So, do we feel ready to to run a motion? Do that. Great.

Tom, I pre-app. The training you gave us many years ago about keeping this brief ain't going to happen. Town council has reviewed the request to treat juniper trees in the Anastasia Plateau conservation easement based upon the following findings. The wildland urban interface code WOOI requires property owners to provide defensible space around structures on their property. In many cases, native vegetation in the CE is also within the defensible space area associated with structures on individual lots required by the WOOI code. The conservation easement allows property owners to conduct certain activities in the CE which could have an impact on the conservation value of the property but only after notice and approval from the town. Specifically, sections 4.1B and 4.1C of the conservation easement allow owners to maintain native vegetation and to remove hazardous flora from the conservation easement property. To comply with the Wooi code defensible space requirements, many of the property owners on the Anastasia Plateau will need to modify native vegetation in the CE. It would be cumbersome and inefficient for each of these property owners to make individual requests to modify native vegetation in the CE near their homes for the purpose of compliance with the buoy code defensible space. And finally, a we find that a blanket approval for the homeowners to perform defensible space vegetation modification in the conservation easement is the most efficient way to accomplish this. As such, the town council approves the request with the following conditions. All vegetation modification must be performed by a licensed arborist or other qualified tree professional who has been briefed on the Wooi code defensible space requirements. Only vegetation modification necessary for compliance with the WOI code defensible

space requirements is allowed. No other impact modification removal or destruction of vegetation whether deliberate or incidental is permitted. And prior to modifating modifying any vegetation in the conservation easement, a property owner must first submit a sketch of the proposed vegetation modification to the community development department. The sketch plan must be of sufficient detail, clarity, and accuracy for the community development department staff to determine which specific vegetation is proposed to be modified and whether such modification is necessary for WOOI code defensible space compliance. And further, the town council hereby approves and ratifies the town manager's prior early authorization of emergency vegetation modification undertaken to preserve a homeowners insurance coverage and authorizes the mayor to sign.

Do we want to add something about waving the 30-day notice for I think I think we should. I think we should. Yeah. Somebody have some language for that? Um,

it's is that I was just looking at the staff report. I'm going to Would you like Oh, wait a minute. Is allowed by section five. Tom, do you have recommended language? I think Ry's got it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So 5.1 of the conservation easement requires a uh homeowner to advise the town to give the town a 30-day notice and we will wave that 30-day notice. Is that sufficient? Does that do it in in cases of in cases of

that that don't fall under the blanket approval because the um the requirements are imposed by an insurance carrier in excess of way code requirements. You still want that to come to the town council, but you're waving the 30-day notice period as allowed by section 5.1 of the conservation easement. You accept that. Accept that. Okay. And I have one bud. Would we want to add on the sketch the distance from the home to you know because that's what's to meet the WOOI standard. It really is based on distance. I think that's the intent of the sketch isn't well my concern though as somebody who just wants to get rid of a bunch of vegetation

that that's a good idea. It should be scaled or or have distances marked on it so you so that we can confirm that this is a WOOI code requirement. I think that's implied in sufficient detail, but it it doesn't it is always a good idea to tell it what sufficient is, right? What is sufficient? So, how about if we add sketch plan with with with measurements with dimensions to scale. Yeah. Okay. Accepted. Okay. So, do we have a second? A second. Got a motion by pad and a second by Randy. I Barbara I. Is there any general discussion before we adjourn? Entertain a motion to adjurnn. I move we adjourn. Second.

Motion by Randy, second by Jack. And I Barbara I. Jack. I I. I thought this was supposed to be a quick I tried