City Council - workshop

Welcome, it's Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026. The time is 5.30 p.m. The Tooele City Council and the Redevelopment Agency of Tooele City are meeting in a work meeting. This meeting is being held at Tooele City Hall in the Council Chambers located at 90 North Main Street in Tooele, Utah. We're also streaming this electronically on the Tooele City YouTube channel. We will start with the roll call. Councilman Gossett? Present. Councilman Hanson? Present. Councilman McCall?

Present.

And Councilman Brady, and I'm present. And Councilwoman Gochis has asked to be excused tonight. Item three is the Mayor's Report.

Thank you, Council. I have a couple of things tonight. First of all, Councilman McCall and I attended the change of command today for... the West Desert Test Range at Degway Proving Ground, so we would like to welcome Lieutenant Colonel Player to that. It's been managed by a civilian for the last 15 years, so it's moving back into military leadership. I mean, he sounds like a great guy. We also received a donation from the Mini Squeezes Lemonade Stand. Some kids who have a lemonade stand every year, and they decide they use the money to buy school clothes, but they donate half to a cause. So they just donated $437 to our animal shelter. So I'd like to thank them for their efforts and their donation. And then I would like to just remind everybody about our 9-11 block. It's the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy, and the fire department is hosting their annual walk on September 12th at 8 a.m., so I would invite you all to come join me in that walk. Our driving range is repaired, so that's an exciting thing, and I think we're still going to have some good weather for golf for the next little bit. I would like to thank our Public Works and Streets Department, we had the water leak on 700 South that caused a little sinkhole, and it was all fixed the same day. So the crews got right out there and got a fixed emergency repair, so it's looking good. And then the last thing I would just like to say is I received an awesome text from somebody who lives in my neighborhood who said, for the first time ever, she was able to complete all of her school clothes shopping for her children in Tooele without going to Salt Lake. So that is pretty exciting news for Tooele, for our sales tax, and all of that. So pretty exciting. That's all I have to report tonight. Thanks.

Thank you. We'll move on to item four, the council member's report. We'll start with Councilman McCall.

As the mayor mentioned, I attended the change of command, not change of command, the appointment of the new West Desert Test Center commander. And that was interesting. I had to get better at writing down all the events that I attended, but I did attend some more, and I didn't write them down, so I was gone. That concludes my report.

Thank you. Councilman Hanson? It was fun to see the kids raise the money for the lemonade stand. Myself and Chairman Brady were there at the mayor's office when they showed up, and that was way cool that they did something like that. That was fun to see them attended some planning commission meetings and had lots of good discussion at them. Me and Councilman Gossett met with some Republican Party people last night and talked about data centers and other things like that that are happening in the county. They had some thoughts about that. I do have to say about the shopping thing, it just made me think of my wife and shopping because it's like her favorite sport. And so I'm not sure if I'm saving money or not because she doesn't drive to Salt Lake herself. And so now she goes shopping every day in Tooele, which she doesn't have to go to Salt Lake either, I don't think.

At least we're collecting your money.

That's right. My tax money is going to Tooele. Anyway, that's my report.

Thank you. Councilman Gossett. Well, Councilman Hanson, your wife came to my store, and she spent some money, so I appreciated it. Yeah, we had a meeting with the GOP and talked about data centers, and it seems to be a hot topic with everybody, so it was kind of good to have that discussion and learn a little bit more. And like Dave, I had it written down, what I did. And I cannot figure out where I wrote it. So I know I attended some other things, planning the commission, of course, and everything like that. But I am drawing a blank.

OK. That's all right. I feel the same way about my report. So I know, I think it was last week, the North Tooele Special Service District had their truth in taxation. That was approved. by them and then just the weekly staff meeting that I attend there's always a lot of great things going on in the community and shopping is just one of the great things and there's always a lot of behind the scene meetings things that take place and thank you to the staff for all that you do We will move on to our discussion items. Our first discussion item is a discussion on a sewer bond. This is presented by Jason Burningham with LRB Public Finance Advisors.

Good evening, members of the council and mayor and others. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Jason Burningham, as mentioned. I'm with LRB Public Finance Advisors, principal and owner. The purpose tonight, I think, in this work session is to provide some background. I prepared a slide presentation to just quickly go through this. Feel free, as we go through this, if there are any questions, don't hesitate to just raise your hand and let's see if we can address it at that point. For your consideration this evening, we've got the plan of finance for the sewer improvements that the city has been working on for some time that would be expansion to the wastewater treatment facility and some other upgrades to that facility. We're going to talk about a resolution, which is what will be before you this evening, and I'm going to go into just a little bit of detail on that, as well as identifying some next steps, so steps that we would take from this point to put forth our effort to get these financed so that you've got the project to move forward. If we can advance that, thank you. You're so good. So really the requested action for you to consider tonight is adopting a parameters resolution. That's one component of it. But in that parameters resolution is authorizing the notice of intent to issue bonds. And that's a statutory required requirement. Notice that goes Published on the Utah public notice website. It's also published on your website and it starts a 30-day contest period so it gives opportunity for residents and others to voice Their thoughts suggestions commentary as it relates to the bond issue and Importantly, this resolution tonight also will set a public hearing, which is contemplated now to be held on your next meeting, September 16th, I believe, wherein you would field public comment and provide an opportunity for the public to really comment and, I guess, again, provide their input relative to this project. I wanted to summarize, however, that tonight's actions do not lock in final interest rates, nor do they necessarily confirm what the bond size, maturity schedule or any of those specifics. This is merely an introductory, initiatory element that you would go through in order to issue bonds. I ALSO FAILED TO OR NEGLECTED TO RECOGNIZE BRANDON JOHNSON WITH FARNSWORTH AND JOHNSON. HE'S BOND COUNSEL ON THIS TRANSACTION AND HE'LL BE WORKING CLOSELY WITH LEGAL COUNSEL MATT AND HIS GROUP AS WE MOVE THIS FORWARD. IF WE CAN ADVANCE THE SLIDE. THANK YOU. So we often get questions on, well, what does this resolution really do, or what doesn't it do? So I kind of put this together just as a quick summary of what it does do. It sets the maximum parameters under which, if the city elects to move forward and issue bonds, it's the parameters under which you have to maintain or your issuance has to be within those parameters. So it can't go above them. That's more of just some guideposts that we would set out. It also, importantly, delegates authority in order to complete the sell of the bonds. And typically and historically, that's been done in TWLAA's form of government through the mayor's authorization or Mayor Pro Tem with advice from us as the financial advisor and your finance director, Shannon Wimmer. Um, it also authorizes, I mentioned that notice of intent that goes in the paper and also the public hearing. Um, and it allows us, uh, to really proceed towards, uh, getting this project completed. What it doesn't do. And, uh, I think this is an important distinction is it doesn't approve the final pricing tonight, which means it doesn't issue any bonds. It simply provides a not to exceed maximum amount, a not to exceed maximum time over which the bonds may mature, and maximum interest rate and those types of things. I think it's also important for the public to recognize that this doesn't create a general obligation. This is not a property tax pledge. This is a utility revenue bond. And so the net revenues of the sewer system are what ultimately are pledged for this financing. And that's how the bonds are secured. There are some other nuances, but potentially, depending on where the bond rating is when we receive it, we may or may not apply for bond insurance, which is a credit enhancement. But based on our current thoughts of where the credit of the city is, and in particular the sewer utility, we think that... your standalone credit rating is probably going to be more beneficial than even what a municipal bond insurer could provide. So if we can go to the next, thank you. I'm sure this will be provided in more detail, but I wanted to provide an estimate of the total cost of this project, just under $17 million. As you know, the city has been collecting specifically for this type of expansion, impact fees. And so new development activity has been paying a portion of this. So even though the total amount of this project is almost 17 million, there are $5 million of impact fees that have already been collected, which will be Using towards this so it's almost kind of like your equity investment into this that leaves 11.7 Almost seven two million dollars there of which we are proposing to finance a paramount of bonds of eleven point one million dollars The difference there is there's some issuance premium. The market will pay a little more in order to get the bonds at attractive rates. So again, this shows you really what our plan of finance is right now. So even though you'll notice in the resolution that we have maximum of 14 million, we really don't anticipate that we would use or need that capacity. So that's just more of a OUTLIER OF, YOU KNOW, IF PROJECT COSTS CAME IN HIGHER OR WE DECIDED NOT TO PUT IN AS MUCH IMPACT FEES AND MORE DEBT FINANCE, THAT WOULD GIVE US SOME FLEXIBILITY THERE. THANKS. SO, AGAIN, I THINK THIS IS JUST A SUMMARY OF WHAT ARE THE PARAMETERS VERSUS WHAT OUR CURRENT PLANNING IS. SO I'VE ALREADY MENTIONED THE NOT TO EXCEED 14 MILLION, AND OUR EXPECTED SALE IS ABOUT 11 MILLION AND CHANGE. Our not to exceed maximum maturity is 25 years, but right now we're running all of the debt schedules based on a 20-year amortization. The coupon rate is a not to exceed 5.5%. Right now our current interest rate that we're anticipating is about 4.5% on a 20-year basis. And then the purchase price, the premium structure is what we expect, but we put a minimum of 98% of par. So when we offer these bonds to the market, we're in essence saying a good bid, a bad bid would be less than 98%. You'd have to at least give us 98 cents on the dollar to purchase these. We expect we're gonna get more like 102, 103%. So just a reminder of the security of these bonds, we're talking about sewer revenue bonds, not general obligation bonds. So it's simply the sewer system revenues, which would be the rates, impact fees, connection fees, other revenues that would come to the system, less your operational and maintenance expenses. That is really what's deemed net revenues that are pledged. And so that's your security pledge that bondholders then have a direct interest in and then they compare that to the bond debt service that we would have. So net revenues are what are used here. We've used it before. That's how the original treatment facility was financed. It's what we've done for most of the water improvements as well on our water revenue pledge. So this is a very traditional utility type of a structure. You can't read any of this, but this is kind of a compilation of what the financial metrics look like for the city. What I've kind of blown up on the, I guess it would be your right as you're looking at it, is a debt service coverage. This is really what bondholders, investors, rating agencies are looking at. Even if you take out impact fees, and you've had a fairly steady receipt of impact fees, but even if you completely strip that out, you'd have 2.23 times coverage. And so a good rating area, at least in terms of this metric, would be 1.6 times or higher. So at 2.23 times, we're thinking that's a very... Very solid credit obviously speaks to the financial planning of the city. So we'll get into more detail as we visit with the rating agencies and others, but that's a great metric. That's why we're very excited for this to go to the market. So this is, I think the last element is just where are we in terms of the calendar? Tonight being that resolution, starting tomorrow we begin that 30 day contest period. We've got flexibility right now. This is kind of a date, September 14th through let's say the end of September would be the rating presentation and receiving that rating back. The 16th is scheduled, and that's a firm date. That would be the public hearing. And then we expect to receive the rating if we met with them on the 14th, then by the 25th. If that gets pushed out a couple of weeks, then that rating receipt would also be pushed out. And then right now we're contemplating pricing the bonds on October 7th and closing on October 15th. recognizing two weeks here or there of some flexibility if we need a little longer process. But that's the intent and this resolution that you'd be considering tonight is what puts all of this in motion. So that's where we would hope to lead this. So next steps we're going to final the draft finalize the draft bond documents We're in the process of preparing all the rating materials of which the city will then present that information to Standard & Poor's Moody's Fitch and We hold the public hearing, which will be under your direction on the 16th, and then receive that rating, conduct the bond sale, and then deliver the bond proceeds so that project can be constructed. So with that, I'm here and available and be happy to answer any questions if you have them. I know I covered a lot of information in a brief period of time, but I hope you wouldn't hesitate if you had any questions.

Are there any questions or comments?

I think the only thing I'm trying to remember is what was getting the bond. It's at the sewer plant, but what are we building or what are we doing? Oh, the project itself. What's the project, yeah. That would be a Nathan thing, I think, rather than you. Might Nathan to come up on that. You remind me what that project is. I'm sure we've talked about it, but...

Just call me Daddy Warbucks, right? Sorry. So this is going to be playing for our biosolids greenhouse upgrade with our two new turners and heated floors. It's going to be the majority of the project. We've got other things that we need to get done down there as well. And then there's two sewer lines that need to be at my On the right track. Thank you. So those are the main projects that are gonna be done. So, okay, all right, so a few and the UV I mean, sorry the UV Disinfection building will be upgraded as well. So there's a few projects. Yeah, we're gonna be getting quite a bit of stuff done everything you need. Yep. Okay. Well, I mean For now

I would just add to that that you know the the city has compiled a capital facilities plan and so over the next several years this is you know a few of several projects that will be financed but based on the on the finance plan this bond issue would finance you know some big projects but the rest of it would be anticipated to be pay-as-you-go not debt financed it would just come out of you know, capital reserves and net revenues that would help pay for those future capital improvements.

Okay. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you. That was a good presentation.

Well, thank you. Good luck. Thanks.

All right. Our next discussion item is a discussion on the history of the IS Industrial Service Zoning District and possible amendments to the industrial, light industrial, and industrial service zoning districts regarding land uses permitted within each zone. Presented by Andrew Agard, the Community Development Director.

Thank you, Council. You probably recall that a few weeks ago I did a presentation and presented some findings on the various uses that are included in our industrial zoning districts. We have three of them. We have the industrial, we have the light industrial, and we have the industrial service. The industrial zone is the heavy industrial zone that is primarily the PID area. There's also some more industrial located north of SR 112 on the west side of the city. The light industrial, of course, is our lighter industrial area, and the industrial service It's kind of a hybrid between the two zones. In our last meeting, we weren't entirely sure as to how the industrial zone came about. And so I was tasked with doing a little research in regards to the legislative intent behind the industrial service zone, and I wanted to present the findings to you and get your feedback as to how you'd like to proceed. The ordinance creating the industrial service zone was approved in October 7th 2020 in conjunction with the zoning map amendment of 130 acres of property to the industrial service zone The intent was to create a zone that permitted land uses of intensity between the light industrial and the industrial service zoning district the the catalyst behind this was there was a gentleman who wanted to do a use of in the area up near the North Point Medical Center. And the use that he wanted to do was permissible in the industrial zone, but not in the light industrial zone. And the council at the time did not want to rezone the property to industrial. And they did not want to rezone the property to the light industrial because the light industrial zone permits light manufacturing and assembly. So at that time, the city council decided, well, let's look at doing a zone that kind of falls in between the two of them. And that's where the industrial service zone was created. Now, the only difference currently between the light industrial zone and the industrial service zone is that use right there, light manufacturing and assembly. Now, light manufacturing and assembly is a very broad industrial use. You can do a lot of stuff under that category. Hopefully you can read that if not I'll just read really quick the first part of it a light manufacturing and assembly is an establishment engaged in the manufacturer predominantly from previously prepared materials of finished products or parts including processing fabrication assembly treatment and packaging of such products and incidental storage sales and distribution That covers a lot of stuff And I believe the council's intent at that time was they wanted to keep this manufacturing out of certain parts of the city. And so they ratified the industrial service zone to just cover specific uses and keep this vague use out of there. So that's what I found out in regards to reading the minutes and so forth. And thanks to Shiloh for getting those for me. She found that information for me. So back to the, what should we do? I need the council's direction here on this. Number one, we could look at eliminating the industrial service zone. That would require probably a city-initiated zoning map amendment to the light industrial zone. It wouldn't be any detrimental impact to those properties that currently have the IS zone because actually they're getting that now the light manufacturing. So it would be a benefit to them. The other option is to leave the IS zone and the situation as it is. The IS zone doesn't really cause us any problems, other than maybe a little bit of confusion when people ask for the difference between the two zones. But really, it doesn't have any detrimental impacts on us. And the other option would be to continue to attempt to separate the uses. That one's a little problematic for me as staff because there's no baseline that I can use to judge medium industrial versus light industrial. So it'd be kind of arbitrary in regards to choosing uses that could go in the light industrial versus uses that go in the industrial service. However, I am happy to try to do that if that's the direction the city council would like to go. So at this point, I'm just looking for some direction from the council, and how do you want me to proceed? Happy to answer any questions you might have for it.

Are there any questions or comments? I guess my question is, what brought it up?

We didn't really understand what the purpose of the industrial service zone was, because it's so similar to the light industrial.

We were here, and I remember there was something... that we thought could be a certain place, but it wasn't allowed.

Yeah, I can't remember what the business was, not the name of the business, but what type of business.

Yeah, we were here. We were newer at the time. I believe it was that industrial, that Empire Storage. Okay.

I just remember there was a pretty good discussion about we didn't want it, like you had said, to be an industrial area, but we still felt like the business itself was fine. And I think that's why we ended up changing it or creating a zone is because we wanted that business in Tooele. not necessarily rezoning everything.

Yeah, it was that Empire Storage Facility on the north end. That was the catalyst. Once you had established the industrial service, you went through a very large zoning and map amendment, and you took maybe 70 acres on the north end, and you took about 70 acres out on 1200 West, and you rezoned those portions to industrial service. But it was based upon that storage facility. That's what got you thinking.

So if it was put into place in 2020, of that special district, how many applications have fallen into that since 2020? Just that one? I mean, is it being used, I guess?

Maybe three. The U-Haul facility falls into the industrial service. I think the... No, the paint store is in a general commercial. Probably just the U-Haul facility.

Would the U-Haul have been permitted in a light industrial, though?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, they're so similar in use, they're almost the same zone. That's why I brought it. I was attempting to separate the uses and create kind of a tangible difference between the two zoning districts, and it proved more difficult than I had anticipated to do that without being arbitrary. So I wanted to bring it to you and get your thoughts.

So typically it would just be the two, the light and then the?

Yeah, it would be the light industrial and the industrial service and the heavy industrial. The heavy industrial is sitting out there on its own. We don't want to. I don't want to mess around with that one. That one's fine. It's just the light industrial and industrial service.

So if we chose to remove the industrial service, we'd have to look at the map again and decide what that area becomes or does it automatically become a light industrial since we're kind of absorbing it into that?

We could proceed in that regard however you'd like. We could just do a blanket rezone and change it all to light industrial, but if you wanted to look at maybe doing regional commercial or some other heavier commercial zone, we could consider that as well. It's however the council would like to proceed.

There was a couple other businesses that I think it was like the towing yards that wanted to be up on our thing that couldn't be there because of the way we had things zoned and We've had two or three things like that happen. I just don't know if we did eliminate it, does it affect anything really? Or are we back here with the discussion to make it happen again? Well, I wouldn't want to put something in the light industrial that probably should be in the heavy industrial. I don't know what that goes, because it seemed like there were some issues with that, too. But maybe there wasn't. Maybe I'm thinking wrong. It felt like there was more than one applicator.

Yeah, it does. I can't remember the details.

I remember there was the thing with the wrecking yards on over in our industrial area over there. Yeah, yeah.

And there are some wrecking yards.

We had to change something for that, too, and I can't remember what it was exactly.

There are some towing yards on 1200 West where the industrial service does exist as well.

Yeah. I think they weren't allowed there without us changing something. They had to be in the industrial.

Yeah, if we don't have that, that's the perfect example, that towing yard. If we didn't have the industrial service, could a towing yard have gone in that area?

Not in a light industrial zone.

That's the one I remember more. I think as we start thinking about it, we were part of the storage unit too.

I remember that discussion.

Where would the towing fit in? Without that service district, would it be light or would it be industrial?

I think that's part of our discussion because I felt like they didn't have to be an industrial.

I don't know. It's not causing us any problems having it in place. I mean, it's just an extra zone that's very similar to the light industrial.

So it really has its own little special view that it can benefit, right?

It does because it prohibits that broad category of light manufacturing. So the intent was to have it focusing on service type uses.

I'm okay if we just keep it. I think I am too. It doesn't seem like it's creating a lot of confusion for applicants or your department. Maybe there will come another applicant who it serves with the purpose that we had intended, like a towing yard or something.

So that's my opinion. I'm happy to do that. We can always look at it in the future if we need to.

So there's no problem. Well, if it creates a problem, then we don't want it to be a problem either. And so if you had anything that was a problem, but it doesn't sound like you do. No, not really. Okay.

Okay. Everyone good with that?

Yeah.

Excellent. Thank you, counsel. Thank you. Our next discussion is a discussion on a proposed city code text amendment request by Perry Commercial to amend Tooele City Code 7-16A-3, residential special districts eligibility and size regarding the minimum land requirements necessary to qualify for a commercial special district and compliance with the land use map of the general plan presented by Andrew Agard, the community development director.

So this item actually appears twice in your meetings tonight. It's also on the business meeting. This is an application that was submitted by Perry Commercial. They were the ones that requested this text amendment. It was going to be on a past agenda, but they actually withdrew the item from your agenda because they wanted to make an additional change. And so we made the additional change. We took it back to Planning Commission. It's here tonight on both your work session and your business meeting I wanted on your work session just so we could talk about a little bit more Let me explain exactly what is going on with this request In order to qualify for a commercial special district under the ordinance you have to meet three basic criteria number one you have to have a commercial land use designation on the subject property and So in our land use map, if it's not commercial, you have to go through the land use map amendment and change that to commercial in order to qualify for a commercial special district. You also have to have more than 50 acres, and the properties need to be contiguous and developable. So 50 acres altogether, commercial land use designation. Perry Commercial submitted a text amendment application and they have requested some changes in regards to the eligibility for a commercial special district. The first one relates to the land use map. What they are proposing is to combine the land use map amendment into the review process with a CSD. So when we review the CSD, we also review the land use map. What this does is it reduces the number of applications the applicant has to submit and also reduces the amount of fees that have to be paid. It also states in the ordinance that if the CSD is adopted by the City Council, the land use map would automatically be changed. to a regional or to a commercial designation. So obviously, on the flip side, if the CSD is denied, the land use map would not be changed. So that's the first part of their request. They just want to combine two applications into one. And then the second part is regarding the size and continuity of the properties. The blue language that you see there is the applicant's language. The green is some suggestions by the planning commission. So what it says is in the event the proposed size of the CSD is over 125 acres and each parcel being larger than 30 acres, the CSD does not need to be contiguous. And then it says if the CSD doesn't meet these qualifications, it would revert back to the original qualifications. You'll note as well that I striked out includes not more than three parcels. That's an error on my part. When I was putting the ordinance together, I did not remove that language. So in your business meeting, I'll bring this up again, but we'll want to make sure if the council is inclined to approve this to... Not include that language, but that's what's being requested. This is an aerial map showing why they're requesting it The CSD which is also on your business meeting agenda tonight Includes all of that property you see highlighted in red and they're not contiguous They are separate if they had to go through the standard process. They'd be doing four applications for each CSD plus four applications for the land-use map So that's the request. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those for you.

Okay, any questions or comments? So on that piece of property that's going on the west side going north and south, it doesn't have an acreage on that?

Oh, it's... I apologize for that. I should have had it on there. It's like 100 and... It's like 120 or something like that. Okay.

And all these are already zoned commercial?

No, they're not.

They're not? No. Okay, that's part of the change.

That will be on the CSD.

On the CSD to change them so they can be changed to commercial. Correct. And so they want all of these to be commercial lots? Yes, sir.

Okay. The wording that you had mentioned, I'm trying to find it in here. So it reverts back to the... If the proposed CSD does not meet these three criteria, the CSD must comply with the standard CSD qualification requirements. Right. So we're still keeping the standard CSD and then just adding this...

Additional wording yes, so someone were to come in with a CSD application for one property or let's say two properties that That did not go over 125 acres, then they would be subject to the 50 acre continuity requirement So this is just for properties that are much larger This was pretty much because of that 36 acre parcel, right?

It's because that would that wasn't large enough to be in it, but we're taking all the others and and

Yeah, the 36-acre parcel was not large enough to qualify for a CSD by itself. That's correct. And so they wanted to incorporate it with these other properties so that it would qualify.

I'm assuming that's better for your department if they don't have to review four different applications, right? It's just all in one. It is better, yes. And it sounds like it's better for the applicant as well. They're not paying multiple times.

And the land use map amendment fees... When we do a zoning map, there's a limit on the fee. The highest we can go with a zoning map is $6,000. And that stops at 50 acres. With a land use map, it does not stop at 50 acres. So when we calculated the fees for the land use map amendment, we were getting up to, I think it was like $23,000. So that's another reason why they submitted that application.

I'd rather have a developer put money into their development than just fees, right? That's a lot of money for them that they could be putting into infrastructure or things that benefit our community differently. Yes.

Okay, any other discussion? I'm good with it. I really am. Okay.

Well, I'll bring this back up again at your business meeting. Okay. Thank you, council. Appreciate it.

Item D is a water discussion regarding interior depletion. This is presented by Paul Hanson, the city engineer.

Thank you, council. We've had discussions in the past on water rights and discussions, but for the benefit of the public, I would like to give a little bit of background with your with your permission to help provide a little bit on this. Tooele City since 2006 has, well let me back up even further than that. Tooele City deals in water rights from a variety of uses and from a variety of sources. The State Division of Water Rights regulates water rights in terms of their diversion, their depletion, meaning the portion of the water that's not returned to the hydrologic system, and return flow, that water that either goes back into the groundwater or flows to a downstream user. And there are some examples that we've discussed with you, but irrigation is a good example where if I pump 100 acre feet of water, the state assumes that 55 acre feet of that water is gone. It's removed from the system either through evaporation or growth of the plant. It goes into the fruit. It goes into the product you're growing with remaining 45 acre foot going back into the system. Again, just basic information. State water rights policy also regulates the nature of use, the point of diversion, the place of use, and the timing of use. And whenever we change a water right from irrigation use, we change the timing of use. We don't tell people in a home, you can only shower April to October. We say, you can do it all year long. And we're thankful they shower all year long. But all of those items are changes that come into it. But the bottom line information to it is, what is the depletion? And there's a variety of sources of depletion that you can look at and just a few examples that are on your screen. and for the public to look at. As I mentioned, in 2006, Tula City filed with the Division of Water Rights a reclamation effluent permit that would allow them to use water from the reclamation plant in a reuse application. Irrigation is the source we're looking at. And that bulleted point reads that a condition of the state engineer approval is that you cannot enlarge either the diversion or the depletion of the underlying water rights. When this permit was filed, Tooele City was one of the first cities in the state that had a full use reclamation plant. We were the first operating one, if my memory serves me right. And in talking with the state engineer at that time, the state engineer said, because this is such a new use and because you are filling ponds that evaporate and doing other things, we recommend that you require 100% depletion in order to allow the water to be used a second time. So that is the policy that the state has followed and we've had subsequent discussions with the state engineer's office. With time, the state engineer's office has learned and Tula City has some additional information that allows us to consider backing off that 100% depletion requirement. One of those of many that you could consider is that the lakes are now full or are accounted for being full, which maximizes the evaporation. So we don't have to take as large a hit because of the 17 storage lakes at the golf course, but we still have other losses apply into it. Tula City Current Water Right Ordinance has two provisions related to interior use. One is that we require 0.25 acre feet of water per dwelling. That number used to be 0.45, but this council reduced that a couple of years ago based on information that the city had. The second provision was that the interior water rights, and this is the way the code reads, had to have a 100% depletion, and that's again for the reasons that we've talked about in general. The schematic represents how our water moves to our plant. Again, we're still a unique system to a city that uses lagoons or traditional treatment and releases their water off-site. The interior water goes through town, goes to the reclamation facility, goes into the reclamation storage, and then ultimately on to a reuse type application. What we're talking about with this reduction in depletion is, do we know better what that depletion is between those two red lines once we enter the plant and once we leave the water reclamation facilities? And basically, the depletion, we have that list that talked about different types of depletion, are limited to two or three primary items. One is the evaporation from the oxidation ditches, clarifiers, and ponds is still there. But there's also in that number two slit, I apologize, but we also lose water in the production of our biosolids through either evaporation, through the dryers, which was a project that was discussed with you earlier for an upcoming improvement, and as well as the offsite disposal of biosolids. Now, sometimes the city sends those biosolids in a wet form to the landfill. If we can dry them to a certain point to make them available to the public, we'll release them to the public. They still have varying degrees of water, but that water thankfully is not going back into the ground. It's water that's lost to the system as we talk about it. In looking at that loss, as best we can tell, we estimate that the depletion in the plant is about 5% of the water that comes through that process. We have the end use where we still need 55% for sod and lawns and uses that way. And keeping in mind that state mandate where they say you cannot enlarge either the diversion or depletion, you end up with a 60%. The 5% in that process, the 55% at the end being that 60%. So our proposal would be to change one word in that paragraph and it would be changing the number 100 to 60, depletion on that final point. We feel comfortable with that. We believe it still protects the city. It still allows us to use the reclamation plant for its intended use, but it's also beneficial to developers as we move forward and look and see what can happen. Now the next step would be that, because this is in Title VII, it would need to go back to the Planning Commission. It falls under their purview to review and to provide you a recommendation. It's our intent to take that to the next available Planning Commission meeting. It would be later in September potentially. Following that meeting, we'll bring it back to the City Council for your final consideration. There will be public hearings involved with that again because it's title 7 and that's why we can't just do it next Wednesday in the following it takes a little bit of time There's one item of consideration that you'll want to be taking or thinking about and it does not have to be decided tonight but with every ordinance like this the council is asked to establish an effective date for implementation and It's what happens with legislation. You say it becomes effective on this date. As I understand it, it is possible to backdate. But I don't know that that's essential or something you're thinking about doing. If you were to backdate, I wouldn't certainly do it any earlier than tonight. But again, you don't have to decide that tonight. That's something you can think about. And Matt may have additional information. If you've got questions on that, he can best answer that part. But that's basically what we're intending to do as we move it through the process and following up on the discussions we've had. Do you have any questions for me?

What would be the reason we'd backdate it?

Well, the question would be as if somebody provides their water rights tomorrow or if they provide their water rights next week. Would you want to consider making them aware? The other thing we could simply do is say, you know what, hold on to your water rights for a week or two or three. Let's see where the ordinance goes. At the end of the day, we want to do the right thing. We don't want to be punitive in any stretch, but that would be the only reason that councilmen

I think it's easiest to say today is the start, just because we've talked about it publicly. So you're backdating it to the day that it was public information, right?

Matt, is there any problem with that?

No. Where we would have to worry is if we were making more of an imposition on private vested property rights. This is the opposite. So we can do that without hurting anybody. In fact, this is a benefit to developers and other people who would submit these applications. to backdate it actually is beneficial and we're not impeding on anyone's right.

Backdating it would mean if you get an application from today until we officially approve it or vote on it, anyone in that window, right?

We could make them aware that it's a potential ordinance change

and talk to them about timing.

Again, this doesn't take effect until it comes back to you as a formal council action, but just for your thoughts and for discussion.

I have a question about, so earlier in the slide you had said we require 0.25 acre feet. If our depletion goes to 60%, do we require less?

You'd require more. So I left my calculator back on my desk, but instead of the 0.25, it would be a little bit more than that. It would be less than 0.3. but it would add just a little bit of additional diversion. And what that really means is that we leave that water in the ground. We're not asking people to use more water, but in terms of that bank account with the debit, no, you can't increase. We would actually account that water being left in the ground and not adversely expanding our water right.

Okay. So does that benefit the developer if they have to bring more water rights?

It benefits them in that they no longer have to provide 100% depletion. They only have to provide 60%. In other words, at 100% depletion, you'd have to go from 0.25 to 0.46 or something like that. So it does save the amount of water right that they have to provide to this city significantly.

Okay, are there any other questions, comments? We feel comfortable sending this through the process. I'll go to Planning Commission and then come back to us.

Okay.

Okay, pretty good. We'll move it forward. Thank you. Thanks, Paul.

Okay, our last discussion item is a discussion on proposed Broadway RDA presented by John Perez, the Economic Development Director.

Good evening, council. There should be, yeah, there you go, the map, it should be in your packet as well. So you'll see this kind of Broadway corridor area goes from Utah Avenue down to Vine Street and then two blocks east and west. It includes the museum area and it also includes the armory property right there at the southwest corner off of Vine. We, as you know, and Councilman McCall, he's on the RDA board, and then the mayor and I, we meet biweekly to discuss RDA priorities, and we've met with a developer, and he has requested that this be brought to your attention, and he specifically said, We're not looking for tax increment at this time, but it would be beneficial for his efforts and for developers for it to be deemed an RDA, if that makes sense. But I don't have any plans or anything else for you at the moment.

How were the boundaries decided?

That was what he requested. Okay. Yeah.

I just wondered on the Tula City property, then there's that building across.

Yeah.

Why that's not included? Because it seems like... Where?

Where are you talking about?

It's just north of the Armory Board.

Oh. That's not... I don't believe that's city property. The one on the west? I don't think it is. It's pretty plummy. Okay.

Can you include something that's not government property? Because all that other land isn't.

You could...

You could. Yeah, you can. Okay. Just knowing that building, I think that area could be utilized differently. Yeah. Okay, I'm just curious how they came up with the boundary.

And the developer wants it to be an RA to get some participation?

Not at this time. Not tax increment participation at this time.

But he hasn't started anything yet.

No. Right.

Council, they believe it will help them get some federal funding and some grant funding.

It makes it easier for certain grants. That's what I was wondering.

Not requesting tax increment financing ever, not just at this time.

Okay.

Ever.

But then if they do request that, it goes to the different entities too, right? Does it have to go to the school board and the county?

Yeah. But see, and I didn't say ever because, you know, who knows, right?

I'm saying ever. Yeah.

That's what was my concern because I agree I didn't really want it to happen.

Right, right.

But if it allows some other money, I wasn't sure why.

There are certain grants that can make it easier and that kind of thing. Okay, I'm okay with it then.

But this could be the only way this area ever gets developed, right? It's a challenging area to develop.

But so much potential.

It does have potential, yeah. Okay, any questions? Concerns, comments?

So the next step, we would bring this back kind of to the RDA. We would meet with this developer again and then there would sort of be like a developer agreement and we can contract, the developer can contract that out with an attorney and he can put that together and then Matt would be able to review it. But there would be certain stipulations in the agreement like we would want to see this percentage develop we would want to see exactly this type of activity in this piece or this parcel so that's all thing or you know kind of like an MOU that's all stuff that would still be ironed out we don't have any of that at this time.

But in that MOU, does it talk about tax increment?

Well, no, because we don't have... Well, we would make sure that it doesn't, right? Yeah.

And then if they wanted to in the future, they would have to create a new MOU or go before each entity, tax entity?

There's a whole process for that, so it would be a thing.

Chances are that wouldn't happen. Right. They don't want to do another RDN. Right. You know what I mean? With money.

But never say never, right? I know.

Because.

True. People change. We've learned that. Elected officials change. Yeah.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions?

And I think everybody is not surprised by this, right?

I mean, I hope it does help them get funding to revitalize that area.

I'd love to see that main area get developed into something really nice. That would be great.

Well, and just remember that Tooele City owns several properties on Broadway now. So in the MOU, we could work out some sort of dealer sharing where they develop and we lease land or something like that. So there are a lot of possibilities.

Yeah, she's exactly right. The mayor's exactly right. It could be a lease thing. It could be a purchase thing. It could be maybe a lease with option to purchase after a certain date or after what's developed percentage-wise, that kind of thing, too.

It opens up a lot more possibilities. Yeah. Good. Okay. Thanks, John. Thank you.

Thanks, John.

Our last item is a closed meeting. We do have a closed meeting to discuss litigation and or property acquisition. I will entertain a motion to move to a closed meeting.

Mr. Chair, I make a motion we move to a closed meeting.

I'll second. We have a motion from Councilman Hanson and a second from Councilman McCall. We'll take it to a vote. Councilman Gossett? Aye. Councilman Hanson? Aye. Councilman McCall? Aye. And Councilman Brady? And I vote aye. That passes 4-0. It is 625, 626 p.m. now. We will recess here and reconvene in the large conference room for a closed meeting.