Council Meetings - Regular Meeting

job meeting started. Today is Wednesday, February 11th. We are at Washington City Hall in the council chamber. We have three items on our agenda. Council, I'll turn to you for a motion to approve the agenda as outlined. So made, mayor. Second. Motion by Councilman Ivy, second by Councilman Coats. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? The agenda is approved. First item of business is from our good friends uh with the Washington County Fair Board. I understand Ruff and Jud and Susie Lafel will give us an update and some exciting information about what to expect. Hi Susie.

Hi. Hi. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council. Thank you, THAD. [laughter] Um, I don't know if you've had these packets, but Ruffen just brought them to Councilman Belliston. Just a little um just some messaging that we want to share with you from our commissioners about the county fair and that the county fair is the longest running county event over 165 years in Washington County. Um, and we're really proud of that, not only that tradition, but that legacy. Now, Susie, I hope you're going to share just a little bit more on that. If not, I'm going to have to interject of the history of the Washington County Fair.

Yes. It was started in Washington City because at the time it was the county seat. Thank you, John D. Lee. [laughter] And it was started in his home. You You thought you were going to trick me. Huh, Mayor? I just I'm just testing you. I didn't want to have to say it. So, I'm glad you are. Here where Dixie began in Washington City is where also the Washington County Fair started with John De Lee in his quote unquote mansion as they called it. His home Yeah. [clears throat] John De Lee and then Robert Coington right there together.

Yes. Right there at that at that time. And they wanted a place where people could bring their leather and their goods and kind of showcase everything that they had to offer at that time. And um if you go to our website, there's a history of it, but it talks about how the days were long. It was hot. Um and and I appreciate the heat um having [clears throat] done a county fair in August and then I appreciate it even better when we don't have the heat after moving it to April. So um there are there's a lot of really cool history with the county fair. Um L Daget who at one time in about 1919 he was kind of everything in the county. He was an assessor, he was an attorney, he was a commissioner, he was a judge. Um but at one time the county fair was going to go away and he said let there be a fair and we have had a fair ever since and we're very thankful that it has evolved and moved and adapted um [clears throat] and from hurricane from Washington to St. George to hurricane where it is currently um it is again more than an event it's a legacy um it's a place where our local businesses can showcase um their talents of whatever services they provide. Um, it's one of, again, like I said, the largest opportunities for businesses to showcase their wares, as well as our local talent. You all know that we have enormous talent. Lots of great bands and dance groups and vocalists, and this is a time where they can come to the fair um because um we love having local entertainment on three different stages. Um, just some really fun numbers. I already mentioned it's the longest running event in the county, but this last year um we had over 50 unique retail vendors that participate at the county fair. 38 different bands are featured, 23 unique performing groups on our different stages throughout the eight days. 2,000 more

than 2,000 locals um quilts, art, fine arts, home arts were entered into the county fair. And every single item that is entered, the county gives back cash. So, not only do you get a ribbon, but you also get cash when you turn in your items. Um and we've paid out over $16,000 last year to our residents when they bring in their items to showcase. Um we we love having our youth on property during the county fair and we always do fourth grade field trips. Um those that go to state they go to Staley Farm in November for farm field days and the other half of the fourth graders that don't go to Staley Family Farm, they come to the county fair. And last year we had 1,121 fourth graders on property during the three days where they learn how to milk a cow and they learn that a chocolate milk doesn't come from a brown or chocolate cow. Um we teach them where wool comes from and how they get clothes. We teach them also how to eat better through our create better health in that program. And then they get this year they're going to actually watch pig racing which will be really fun for them. But we are super um proud of our field trips this year. We're celebrating like many of you and and here in Washington City, America's 250. So we will have our Colonial Village at the Washington County Fair. Um we'll also have fifth grade field trips through the Give Me Liberty program that will be on property learning more about um our American heritage, our our country and and that legacy. And then finally, um, the Washington County Fair as part of our our mission statement. We hope that we are honoring the past and showcasing the present and inspiring the future. And again, it's more than uh an event. It's really a legacy and really a tradition for us and our hopefully our residents and our citizens here in Washington County. One fun fact, I'm

going to say it before Ruffen gets to say it. As part of America's 250, we are having free admission at the county fair. We want everyone to come and celebrate. I know your jaw dropped, Kurt. I love that.

So did mine. [laughter] But um to help celebrate America's 250, we are encouraging all of our residents to come to the county fair at no cost. So they can enjoy our entertainment and they can enjoy um our local agriculture that we have that comes to the fair and our exhibits and they can come back multiple times throughout the eight days April 10th through the 18th. I want to introduce you to Ruff and Jud. He's one of our board members. He's going to talk a little bit about some things that we hope Washington City can help us with.

Thanks Sus. Um I've I've been a part of this fair board for a couple years and the amount of effort that goes into it is awesome. you guys know planning your cotton days and other events here too, so you kind of have an idea. But, um, we're really hoping to showcase the our local communities, our cities, um, some of our townships, other places that are part of what makes Washington County great. So, I come kind of with an ask probably hopefully some coordination um, of a way that we can communicate or we can work with Washington City to get a display for Washington City there at the county fair. um you've done them in the past. It's nothing new. Uh we'd just like to be able to know who to best leaison with and what we can do to help support setting up that display to really showcase the Washington city heritage and the future of the city. So that's kind of our ask. We also were looking for feedback from you guys as far as what you've seen or noticed that has gone on or has not been good or bad. I know we've received some from

Kurt,

Councilman Ivy. Councilman Ivy, Mr. Ivy, the Mr. um in the past and and we we really are hopefully welcoming any other additional feedback, suggestions, things that you guys have noticed that we can do to help improve the fair, but also, you know, make it a safe and a fun environment, especially where we have this year with [clears throat] everybody being allowed to come, it being a free event and hopefully getting more people involved with the I will say this, we always mention cash prizes because we all like cash. Um, well, the movie theaters don't take it anymore. So, [laughter] uh, but we are going to be giving out a people's choice award as well as a fair director award for the best display for the city. So, okay, we want to put Washington City up against all the other cities out there and see who can come up with the best display and hopefully get the most people there so they can vote for you, too. So,

is it like a seed seed uh display? We kind of Yeah, we used to do the seed displays. We don't have the platforms for them anymore. We kind of took those off because the storage of it was such. But really anything um a lot of cities do their I mean we have Santa CL that does their Swiss days. They bring a they brought those big cows before. We've have people that you know just do simple pictures from the past. We've had we also have one city like literally just pulls off some of the pictures on the wall in their office building and brings them and sets them on some easels. What? So really just kind of leave it up to you guys. Um but if there's some way we can help you know with some ideas even happy to do that as well. So

we we are happy to participate with the display uh we I will get you the contact for that but council your interaction your feedback with the with these individuals about the county fair. I love the fair. So I'm excited and I like the fact that it's in April now because August was kind of hot. So we do too. It kept it kept me for go from going for a lot of years and yeah, I should be used to it by now. So yeah, good.

Awesome. And and really um we have there's a number of ways to contact us, but if you do have any, don't hesitate to reach out via email, call us, whatnot. Um we really are looking forward to to partnering better with the cities that make up our county and make it a better place. Wonderful additional feedback. You know, I just I just like to say that I had a a few years that I helped out with the county fair and I really enjoyed it. I learned how much work goes into it. Susie, you do a great job. Thank you.

I don't think anyone else in the world can do it. You do a great job and you manage everything so well. But, you know, as I those two years that I was there, I realized that it's not just our county. people travel far and wide to come to our fair and I agree the date was a great inspiration to change and it was great to have that secondary road that goes through,

you know, by uh by the landfill. That was a great thing. So, no, I I just really appreciate your board and everything you do for our county. I love the fact that we're trying to remember our his history, our heritage, and it's on display there every year. So, I I really appreciate the fair and everything that you guys do. We did we did research two years ago. Was it two years ago we did and about just over 25% of the people that come to the county fair are from out of the area. So we have quite a large showing from those people just coming to visit, you know, adding an additional part to their trips down here or whatnot. So wonderful. Council, anything else?

Again, a couple of things. Um, it was our honor to host the the county fair parade for a few years when life got crazy and everything got locked down during CO. We are freedom loving people here in Washington city. So, we kept it open and it was our privilege to host that parade for those years

and we hope that you found a a a good spot for that to land. Unfortunately, just with the opening of our Main Street interchange, it just dumps too much traffic. So, we've had to just cut that back to just two or three parades uh per year just because of the impact it is on our our police and our staff. And then also um so for the last four years, Jordan Hess, legislative affairs director, he has put on that display there and I'm confident he will be willing and ready. I'm thinking of like a where Dixie uh began kind of themed, you know, if this is a competition, we uh we'll uh we'll be in the game. So,

nice. Nice. You guys have the upper leg already because we like it. So, yeah. They say that not to say that. Well, we we appreciate you. It is it's a it's it's it's a wonderful event. It does uh bring a a large local and and part of the population out and and some from other places and we like that you share the name with Washington City and Washington County. You guys do a great job and we appreciate you. Will we will be involved and do we have involvement there a liazison or have we does Councilman Ivy been involved with that in the past or do we just just in the past just communication with us directly? All right. just just keep us posted and we'll uh

and we'll send out more emails too, but if we have that one specific person that we can say, "Hey, yeah, Jordan Hess, he's handsome gentleman there with the sounds plaid shirt in the back." Get in touch with Jordan, then hopefully we can relay anything that needs to come to you guys through that. So, thanks Ruffin. Thanks, Susie. Appreciate you guys. Next item of business is the Washington Dome study. I'll invite our assistant leisure services director Paul Walker to come up along with Thomas McMurdy with uh is it Avenue Consultants. Correct. All right, gentlemen.

Yeah. Good afternoon. Um we came to the council I think last spring to introduce the Washington Dome study. We got some grant money from the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation to kind of look at the Washington Dome, kind of see what we could use it for, what's the best use for that with all the development coming in around it. And we spent a lot of time with Avenue Consultants and city staff and the BLM having steering committee meetings throughout the year and this is kind of the culmination of that. So, we'll turn the time over to Thomas and we'll be here for any questions you guys may have. Wonderful.

Sure. Awesome. Council, good evening. I do have a slide presentation that's up on the monitors. It's about it's about um 20 slides or so. Um feel free to, you know, interrupt or ask any questions because I wanted to um specifically show you a lot of the feedback that we got from the public, your constituents, and what we heard in doing the the feasibility study on the dome. Um and then get to kind of the the final results um that type of thing. So, just to kind of start, our Washington Dome um study area is shown here on the map to just kind of give you a sense. So, it's it's really just the dome. Um, one thing I would point out here is the vast majority of the land is BLM land. And so, BLM played a a critical partner in this study. They they came with a bunch of their resources as well as, you know, the city had a bunch of Elden and Jordan and and mayor, you were there. A bunch of city members were a part of the study as well. On the south part of the study area, there are um private um there's private land there. Um, and so we wanted to make sure that we reached out and tried to communicate with them as well. But just to kind of give you a sense of like the study area for the dome and what we were kind of like looking at and working with um as part of the study, we began, [clears throat] excuse me, we began last spring and the one of the first things we did was kind of like develop a vision and goals so that we knew what we were doing with the feasibility study. Like what are we sitting out to do? And our vision was to expand recreational opportunities and amenities on Washington Dome. That's kind of like what we wanted to accomplish. And then we set we had three goals and and that was to develop a trails and access plan jointly kind of with public input and that's why I wanted to show you all the public input and what we heard from them. Then we wanted to vet any recommendations we might have with a full steering committee made up largely of Washington city and and BLM. Um Greater Zion Leslie participated as well. And and then the last thing was we wanted to give you guys enough information that developed cost estimates so that that this the idea of this plan isn't it's not a

commitment to to do this but it's the idea of like like to give you guys a a path going forward to to set this where you can like bring it directly into your parks and trails plan or at least give you the guidance of of what you need to do for like the next steps to like advance the study. And so those were kind of the goals of of what we wanted to do and and I believe we we accomplished all three of those things. You know, the first goal was really about kind of like getting information and vetting it with the public. So we wanted to make sure we did kind of outreach early and then throughout the study and then at the end as well. And so we we we tried to do both inerson and online outreach. Our inerson outreach started at last year's Cotton Days Festival and then we also did a series of one-on-one meetings. I think like 9 to 12. They were at specifically targeted groups. So, for example, we met with HOAs of like the homes in the area. We met with uh Sububa mountain biking people. We met with backcountry horsemen for people who might have equestrian uses on there. We met with uh ATV groups. Uh we met with the the gentleman who has grazing aotments on the BLM land. So, we really kind of those one-on-one meetings were about, you know, targeted stakeholders. And then we ended with a a fall event in the park where we had kind of, you know, the plan put together online. our our target was to to build a website that is still up. It's Washingtondome.com and and to do a community survey and and hear from a broader, you know, the broader community that way. And and um and then we also had kind of a comment map where people could give us specific comments throughout the study. So that was kind of our focus for the outreach. Um this was these are some photos from uh the cotton days last year. So, last last April, we were out there talking to people and, you know, asking them about about the dome. One thing that was interesting to me is is the board on the right, we asked, you know, um, do you use Washington Dome for recreation? And 75% of the stickers that people place there were no. So, there's a real opportunity here, right? A lot of your

residents want to get out and recreate. We kind of saw that, but many of them aren't doing that on the dome. So it it does represent, you know, an asset, an amenity, an opportunity for people. Um, this was the website that we built, the washingtondome.com. Again, you can you can go there and still see things. We had, um, a community survey that we published and then, you know, we we managed online. We ended up getting over 200 responses to the survey, um, which we were pretty pleased with. Our goal was to get to to about a hundred and we ended up with about 200. We we did the survey kind of over the summer. I've got a few of those results to show you the the full results. You can kind of see in the study, but one thing we asked is like, well, what recreational activities are you doing on the dome? Is it just for, you know, hiking? Um, and then you can see that we had about 20% of respondents used, um, did some motorized recreation. Um, but the vast majority was hiking and mountain biking. And then the others, um, you can see the 10% said other, the vast majority of those simply said like trail running or walking a dog. they were still like pedestrian activities like you know active um movement activities. One of the big things we wanted to kind of hear from the public is what do they want? Like and so we asked it a couple ways and and one of them was what would make your visit to Washington dome more enjoyable? Like if you go out there to recreate like h what how what could we do to make it better? And um the number one thing was just designated trails that you can see it on the far right. And then adjacent with that is a trail loop. So having a singular kind of trail loop um was something that was you know really desired um as well as just more designated trails. And you can see the other things that people voted for, you know, wayfinding, parking areas, restrooms. Um, and then those who said other, I listed a couple of them on there. Um, and some of the comments that we got from the people who wrote other, including, um, you know, having water stations, um, talking about the

steepness of the trails and making them maybe more accessible and keeping motorized activities off of the dome. And that was something that we heard um, several times. Um, and so like here are just a couple of of quotes and and that we kind of heard from just people. You could write whatever you want, you know, what would make it more enjoyable. You can see stabilizing steep trails and kind of making it more accessible. Um, restricting motorized vehicles. Um, you know, an area, the top one, an area that you can drive to so that you can get there, right? So, if you don't live in the neighborhood, how do you actually get to and then recreate on the dome? Um, and you can see that person also mentioned trail heads, trees, restrooms, parking lots, all of the amenities that you need to like really make it like a great park and not just, you know, um, just a trail. And then, of course, there were some that that, you know, had other thoughts. You can see that one on the bottom right that just said, you know, please leave it natural. Um, and so, um, they didn't want to draw lots and lots of people to the dome. So, you know, we got a good kind of representation from people uh in terms of um you know, what we what they wanted to see. We didn't want to overlook the idea of impact. So, if people were like, hey, we don't want this here. We want them to to give them an opportunity to voice any potential impacts. Hey, this is going to be u impactful. So, we asked, you know, how might people how might this be impactful to you? Specifically, you know, thinking about all of the homes that are there kind of, you know, on the on the west side of the dome. Um but you can kind of see from this graph the vast majority basically said that there is no impact. Um 28% literally said no impact. 15% said like na like they just like there isn't any available. Um 12 that said other were basically all like none no. And then the impacts that people did identify again which is less than 50% were just some litter some trash and then a few um identified noise as well. Um and then the vehicles parked in my neighborhood were kind of a smaller percentage as well. I will tell you often times giving the people an opportunity to vent or to complain is

usually people like to do that and so you usually end up with lots of responses that are like oh this is going to be bad or impactful. The fact that less than 50% of the responses mentioned didn't impact at all I thought was incredibly positive that people largely see this as as just beneficial and not there's no real negative. Then we worked through the summer with all that input to kind of put together the plan. We brought it back out to the community specifically in the park to kind of look at this. At this point, we had kind of a final plan of like where the trail is going to be and how we can kind of address it. And we had a bunch of other people come and then they provided some final input on the exact plan and what we needed to get to and that allowed us to like, you know, make some final adjustments. So, so that's kind of like a lot of of what we heard. Now, let me kind of show you like the final plan. Um, if you asked me in like a single picture, great, show me the plan. This is it. This is kind of like our final map and list of exactly what we would recommend in terms of trails and amenities, including trail heads, parking lots, um, you know, some viewpoints, benches. You see them as picnic tables, but really you can think about as just being a bench to rest. Um, including like a fully interconnected soft surface trail um, system and and a a rgeline trail. ridge trail um is something that was really important. It kind of exists today. People are up there, you know, it's it's a key element of of people who want to recreate on the dome. And then another really key element is the green kind of um paved loop around the base. That paved loop is designed to follow about the same contour, so it doesn't have a lot of grade changes. You know, it kind of goes in and out kind of being as flat as possible. Um and then we've put together um a detailed project list. um with um our assumptions. I I would just mention if you look at this, you're like, "Oh, wow. There's 19 projects. It's $5 million." This is not a commitment. I think about this as being like a 30-year

plan, something to like work towards, you know, for a long time to come, just like part of a master plan that we can like slowly build to. Um in terms of like the plan, a few other details just to kind of give you a sense. That green loop that kind of goes around the base of the dome, we designed to be a trail like this. We looked at 10 feet fully paved and about two to five feet of clearance on either side, right? So that you clear probably 20 ft of land that you'd have to like clear and grade and then pave a 10-ft trail. Um there's some complications that'll naturally come with this including some bridges or little things. We ended up following that the contour kind of around the mountain. Um, and then we have a general cost estimate and that is specific to you here in this area of um about $760,000 uh a mile to kind of build that. And it's about five miles. It's a little bit more just over five miles to kind of build that that loop. But there's a few other kind of paid connections to where you know we show parking lots and people kind of get to. And then we have soft surface trails that we plan kind of throughout. We followed the best um practices for how we do this including C cross slopes and drainage. I'll show you on a subsequent slide. We looked at exactly how many rain events we have up there and how we can com accommodate for water so that if we do implement nicer trails that they can be maintained or they don't get washed away. And so, you know, we looked at that um in terms of how we would do that. These soft surface trails, you know, they accommodate um mountain bikes. I'm showing a jogger, but it's it's pretty standard um mountain biking trail um for the cyclists who who would be out there. And then we put this all together in a packet in a report um that you can kind of see. We tried to make it um as easy to follow and understand. I will tell you our goal was to kind of keep it at about 40 pages and just get kind of the correct stuff. I think it ended up being about 50, but you know, we have very clear outcomes. We've put together like

a lot of uh pictures and drawings and like clear pathways for what we want to do including like capturing the existing conditions and what's already out there and and ways we want to move things forward. Um we did a lot with BLM to look at their grazing aotments, the fencing, the rights that they kind of have. Um we also I'll show you on like the next slide looked at um any teeny species. There's a sand paper plant out there that they kind of observe and monitor. We looked at that how that might impact our trails. I mentioned we looked at precipitation. This graph in the upper right are the exact number of days that have noticeable precipitation on Washington Dome over the last nine years. Um trace amounts has to be at least a hundth of an inch to even register. And besides this, we also looked at major rain events. I mean like a hundth of an inch is not going to impact the soils too much. But you know if we had like an inch then it would. So we looked at all those and there was there was very few of those ultimate rain events. That was something that we considered. You can see our contour map. We took all of the feedback from the people into consideration. We put together an infographic for what we kind of heard and then everything that we kind of met with everybody. Did kind of exhaustive trail planning both with the contours and the slopes. We match this to other areas including the bearclaw poppy in Washington County, South Mountain in Arizona to make sure that we're getting the right balance of trails for population and the grades as well as you know that that they would be um not all black diamond like we looked at like how the trails would individually rated whether they're you know green and blue all of that stuff kind of went into it. Uh here's that sandpaper plant there in the middle. We did 3D elevations just to give you a sense of like all of the work that kind of went into um coming up with the plan. We didn't want to overlook amenities. We looked specifically at like how we do signage, trails, bathrooms. In fact, in the upper right, there's a rendering of a parking lot with just a simple uh toilet, bench, and wayfinding sign on the mountain. That's just an AI

rendering of what it could look like that would like, you know, we kind of put on the north side and connected trails. We've got an amenities plan that also has a separate dollar amount for those things um in 2025 as best we could guess to just kind of give us a sense of like what you know do the public really need to be able to to recreate out there and take a look. We put the entire final plan together. This is it. I just wanted to show you if you haven't been to Oh, wait one second. I pull this over. No.

Well, I was just going to pull up the website and say if you go to washingtondome uh.com right now, um we've pulled down the information and we just have the final report. So, if you go there, you can click anybody can go get the final report. You can download it. You can take a look at it. It's it's available to the to the public. Um yeah, we're really pretty pleased with with how it came about in terms of the final building plan. And kudos you you know to you, Mayor, for participating as well as your whole staff. They have been great to work with. I will tell you we could not have done this without the help of all of your staff in terms of the feedback and listen, you know, getting the public involved and all that stuff.

Well, and and I appreciate that Thomas and and you and your team and your expertise, but I also want to recognize I think Trista is here with the county. They were a big part of everything and also, you know, we had multiple members of the Bureau of Land Management that were were right involved there. So, it was really a collaborative effort and certainly Councilman Caspersonson's part of that, you know, trails uh committee, so she's been a big part of it. Um, council questions, feedback for for the the engineer, the, you know, staff member here on this. This is the time to vet it and talk about it and give some direction.

I just have uh with respect to the private property owners that are there, how did those conversations go? And did you look I mean because there would have to be land acquisition to do this, right? Uh maybe uh not necessarily. There's ways to have um you know easements and agreements that aren't actual acquisition. Um you know

well but it cuts them I mean it essentially cuts them off from the use of their land too. It might. So the I will tell you the pave trail. One of the things that we that we looked at and worked on was um if there was any potential development in the private land um and and I had us one of the the maps showed the developable land and the area that's above 2933 feet where basically there's there's no water. It's above all the water tanks because the gravity feeds for the tanks

and and so it's been identified by the city as kind of like undevelopable and that's where we put kind of that pave trail kind of follow that contour. So it was above kind of the developable land. It does go through um private property kind of on the south and so yeah it would take some additional effort to like work through that. Um whether it's through acquisition or kind of easements or the trail could simply stop. In fact in that area we looked at having the the soft surface trail that was kind of like higher you know that could exist so you could still kind of complete the loop. In fact, I imagine that the pave trail like if if you were to work towards this, that's the type of thing that you would do peacemail over like years almost like the Jordan River trail that they built up in Salt Lake County. It took lots of years to kind of work through building like a mile here and it disjointed and a mile here and then kind of making that connection. I suspect that that you might have, you know, a similar process

on your uh proposed trails map that you show the paved and unpaved trails. What trails are there currently right now?

Yeah, I've got a there is a map of existing of existing trails. That existing trails map. Um, you know, we looked at kind of the scars on the land because if you look at an aerial, you can kind of see, oh, there was kind of scars here and here and here, but we actually used the all trails app, which is kind of like the dedicated Yeah, it's that one on the far right. Those are the existing trails. Oh, sweet. Thank you. Um, and so like that Ridgeline Trail is there today. you know, people can can walk it. It's almost like a twotrack. There's like like old kind of ATV or sideby-side kind of ruts that are kind of through there. There are several others that exist out there where there's like you can kind of see tracks, but these trails that you see on the far right, these orange ones, those are the ones that are that are designated that you can get from the All Trails app that it tells hikers to go and use are are are those trails. We looked at preserving many of those, specifically that ridge line, which is critical. Others of those aren't um really sustainable. they're too steep, they're not in the right place, they they don't follow like good trail practices. And so we we've cleaned those up.

Yeah. When we met with the BLM, they were really helpful. Um the feedback we got from them is just because a trail is there doesn't mean it needs to stay there. Um they said take this opportunity to build the best best trail system possible. Many of those trails, as Thomas says, were were created by ATV riders or something and so they're not good for pedestrian uses. So part of what the BLM said is if you need a trail in this area, just cuz one's there doesn't mean you you maintain it. We can make a trail that works better for for multiple users. So Paul, what [clears throat]

with the BLM? What is what is the steps with the BLM? Because usually they take long time to get anything through them. So what's the steps on this type of process? So we had the master plan. We had a couple options with the with the BLM that um we didn't get too far into. Um we can RPMP this land or we can develop it with partnership of the BLM. Um with both those processes, we would need to do a an environmental study. And so that's the the next thing we're looking at is um depending on the feedback we get from this, we'll use this plan to apply for grant money to do an uh environmental study. That would be the next step.

Well, did you already apply for that money? Um, we've looked into applying. We've, um, talked with the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation. They have another ROI, outdoor recreation initiative grant that we've, we've looked into and we've done some stuff with them. Um, we wanted to get feedback from the council before we um, bid [clears throat] off something like that. So, we're kind of in the middle of that process right now.

That's great. I I just have a couple comments and questions. I like the pave trail around like you know I mean plus or minus as you design that that can be figured out the and I think I mentioned it last time and I can't remember what I mentioned was the restrooms they're just the vault restrooms that are more BLM style but it seemed like they're heavy on the north and none on the south. Is there a reason for that? Is that Yeah.

And and it's just my experience with trails is it's nice to have a restroom when you start, right? If you start on the north, that's great, but there's nowhere really to start. The one restrooms across from Long Valley, but I don't think there's a crossing across the parkway. Like, so I don't know if it's more beneficial to move one of those to the south area. I don't know. I'm just thinking starting locations. People like to use the restroom before they get out and recreate. you know, uh, Councilman, that's a good comment. Um, that's the type of thing that, you know, as we put together kind of a draft plan, um, what actually gets built like years from now, we'll adjust quite a bit. Um, yeah, you know, even even like the trail locations themselves. We kind of did our best based on what we had, but we we didn't survey it. There's no actual topo. We didn't do soil samples. And so, as they get into like environmental and you get into like engineering, inevitably there's going to be adjustments. there's a real opportunity to continue to look at the south. You know, one of the things that that there was a lot of question of um what's the majestic tanks? There's also a question of do we include this motorized area that that area like the whole southside is probably there's an opportunity to revisit it.

I like I like the idea of the loop trail. I think that's a good pave like a good paved trail. I I think it's good. I I like the plan. I really did. I just that was one thing that caught me. And then it didn't seem like there was a lot of connectivity to the south. So, and it and again, like you said, it's a start. It's it's a working plan, right? It's not a total done deal. I just as we work through this, that's one thing I I mean, we have our Wheels Park and stuff down there. I want connectivity with pave trail to get somehow to this, not have it off because I look at these paved trail accesses, which are good on the northwest, but they're just to residential neighborhoods, right? like there's not which is good for all those residents but we have a lot of residents to the south and very little residents to the north except I guess we have long that would have to go into the interchange so I maybe not two or something. So, those are just things that I'm

coming evaluating and looking at, but and then I know Paul, we talked about we are working on our this currently isn't in our impact fee master plan, but we'd have to maybe evaluate that with our next update and how we manage that. Yeah. So, we are planning on updating the parks and trails master plan this this budget year. So, that's something the the timing works out really well for this to be added

on this. you know, so far we haven't spent anything, right? because other than some time because it's been with the Utah Recreation Grant, but can you just talk long-term and it it does help me get some perspective when when Thomas you explained that this is a this is a long-term project, but but certainly from my standpoint, I've been to areas in Nevada and Arizona where there are prominent landmarks like this that they have preserved and protected and then found a way to implement appropriate recreation And I think I think this is very um um what's the opposite of shortsighted? I think I think I don't know if visionary is the right word, but I think we'll be smart to be looking ahead and planning for the future in protecting this area. But that was a long way to get to my question was how do we pay for this over time other than than impact fees? I mean, I I know that, like I say, the countyy's been a great partner and and is starting to step up and and this is certainly something that would be very beneficial countywide. Are there some creative ways that we can do this without, you know, footing the bill?

As as we've stated, the Division of Outdoor Recreation, they have a whole series of grants. And the unique thing about some of their planning grants is there's no match. So this one the the grant we got for this project the grant we will apply for for the environmental study will have no match. So the city won't have to outlay any funds until we are prepared to to build some trails. Um at that point impact fees would be used but also we would continue to ask for grants from the Division of Outdoor Recreation. They've got grants specifically for trails. TRT

TRT the county has been a great partner for for these type of projects. So, we would continue to to reach out for other grants to make our impact fee funds go as far as as far as they can. Forward thinking was the word, by the way. And I like what they've said is that I mean, we have a list of all these projects, but it doesn't all have to be done at once either, right? like you could do, okay, we're going to bid off half the pave trail this this, you know, we're going to do the west side versus the east and then work toward things and and when I hope when we look at our impact fee when we don't need that, we don't need any more impact fees that we unless we need them too. Parks is a hard one, right? Because those are wants but needs at the same time. Very expensive impact fee already is quite high.

It's already high, right? So, we have to look at our other needs in the city as well. So again, I hope when we do our impact fee study, it's not, hey, we're just going to throw this whole project in at one, but when you look at the cost of this versus potential park, I mean, parks are four to five million. It's like building a whole park just in gong area.

Just to add, I've spoke with staff about this and the cost that they have here. um according to some of the staff members that these are underestimated costs that once you get up there and what you know how the trails are and everything up there, it could be a lot more than this. And um I've talked to Paul a little bit about um different options of maybe not doing all of these trails because I feel like people are already enjoying the dome as it is and there's no cost to the city because that's another consideration is the future maintenance costs, you know, the yearly cost and and then if we even have the equipment to be able to get up there and to maintain, you know, trails like this. And so, um, with Paul, he was talking about, well, I guess can you talk about maybe the trail, doing a pave trail, how we discussed maybe from Long Valley to connect it to like this, wasn't it the Star Valley? You wanted to maybe talk about doing maybe a a pave trail from there that would have that connectivity kind of from the

Yeah.

skate skating park. The great thing about this plan is we can take whatever whatever parts of this plan we want. Um I think the canal trail is like a good example that's seven miles long. We've done it in several projects. We've gotten um grants for that. We've had great partners. So this I think if we had maybe one side of we start with one side of the pave trail. Um, we have a a gravel parking lot to maintain access. Like that could be an easy place to start to maintain some connections between some of these neighborhoods and between some of the existing natural surface trails and a place for some for people to access it. I think that would be like a great start and it would be a fraction of the the cost of the entire project. But we could have something like that and we could build on from that or may maybe that's sufficient. Cool.

Yeah, because then you're maintaining access to for people to continue to enjoy it, but then we're not adding, you know, continual cost to the to the city. And and then I feel like this is something that's been done when you look at the Red Cliffs Reserve, [snorts] there's usually just a parking lot and you can go and enjoy at different points, different access points that just there's just a parking lot and then you go and explore. Yeah, that's a great a great point at trailhead and some some way finding would would be a great start.

Yeah, that's I was going to bring up they do a good job of wayinding, right? Keep people on the right path and some of the old four-wheeler trails they kind of block off and those are those are fairly inexpensive things you can do. But I agree, don't put a lot of money into maybe improving some of these trails unless there's like a section that needs to be redone or something. But I like where you're going with it. I think it's a good to keep keep it down. We want it to be enjoyable and we want it as natural and every time you take any equipment up there, it's hard to keep it natural.

Good comments, good common sense approach, biting off more than we can chew. But I agree that having that long-term 20, 30-year plan and and then just that being having that vision to be forward thinking and, you know, preserve that and, you know, kind of protect from the additional scarring because it does have some natural beauty in its own way. But it's good conversation. Council, anything else? Councilman Bellison, Councilman Henderson, anything else to add on this. Councilwoman Caspersonson, Councilman Ivy, anything else on the conversation?

No, I appreciate the information. It's something that, like I said, it's going to take a minute to kind of really understand what's needed and what we can afford and what's available as for funds for us. But I do really appreciate the conversation. These are things that we can't overlook. You know, they have to be dealt with now. so that we actually preserve them however we choose to do. At least we're having the conversation. So, I appreciate it. Well said. Mayor, can I council

I was just going to say I your presentation and the you know the p the stuff that was in the packet that I read through it was really nice, really simple, user friendly, understandable. So, great job on that. I thought it was really, really well done. So, thank you. So, I think what I'm hearing from the council, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm hearing that we like this overall concept, but we don't want to go crazy. We don't want to spend a lot of money. We don't want to cause ourselves a lot of uh uh ongoing costs in terms of maintenance and things, but we recognize that that it does make sense to protect and preserve that area and to implement some recreation and just kind of define where that goes. uh council, do we have your support to give uh Paul and his staff kind of that that nod that go-ahhead for that environmental study if that can be done by grant?

I think if you can get a grant then I don't see why not. It doesn't [clears throat] talk just really quickly about the two options and are they would they have different both I'm assuming they'd have a different process for both of those two options that you mentioned with working with the BLM. You said there partnership orship or RPN. Yeah. Yeah. Are they both the same process? Essentially, you'd have to still do the environmental study. The environmental has to be done for both processes. Um, one of the processes it remains BLM property and we we help maintain the amenities on it and the other one it would become city property. So, that's I think the biggest difference between the two options. The environmental has to be done regardless.

But you don't see them giving up the property, right? They they mentioned that as an option. Um the problem with that is we would have to do an environmental for the entire area, not just where the trails are. So it would be much more expensive and then the city has they've got full control of it, but they have to maintain completely everything on the property. There was enough endangered species on that mountain like plants that they wouldn't entertain it anymore. So So that particular plant that sandpaper is not a TNA species. So it's not threaten endangered. It's just as sensitive and so I think it's not as strict. I know it's just conversations we've had about water tanks and stuff on that hill. They kind of Yeah. blew us off in

it might be tricky. There's the grazing aotment. There might be archaeological stuff too that, you know, that stuff's pretty sensitive. They didn't even share it with us. So yeah, I liked your term, Thomas, of a working plan. And then it seems like just, you know, I was at most of those meetings. It seemed like that the direction that most were leaning was partnership rather than RMPP, which which I think makes sense and and maybe that also helps us with some of the maintenance and other things. So, we'll just see how that goes. Anything else, council? Great. Thank you, Thomas. Of course.

Paul, you're going to be up here again, so don't don't get too comfortable. Next item on the agenda is the uh ball field concession building. Uh the city council along with some staff and some some members of the community from the little league and others. We met up at uh uh the ball fields by the community center and and responded to some feedback for some improvements there. And so, uh, the council gave some directive to staff and so, uh, Paul Walker, if you'll come and and just present on the items that are in the packet and get the council's feedback on, uh, and directive on this particular item.

Thank you, mayor. Um, as you said, we Thanks, Trista. By the way, did you have anything to add or just a thumbs up? Thank you. Thanks for being here. [snorts] So, as as you said, mayor, we we met at the current building. Um it's got some deficiencies and um kind of the consensus was that it's best to to replace that building rather than to try and replace it. So, uh the feedback we got, the three priorities were restrooms. You're saying replace rather than repair.

Replace rather than repair. Okay. A whole new building. So, um, the priorities where we were given were restrooms, concession, and storage. So, we came back with, uh, three options. We've got a smaller option, a midsize option, and a large option. And they all kind of have a little bit of, uh, different, uh, features. Um, Steven Beasley is here from FFKR Architects if there's any questions for him. But um it starts with the the smallest building is 1100 square ft and it's got um um a smaller concession building um concession area.

What's the existing square foot of the bottom level? Do you remember? The existing square footage is I think a third of the small building. It's like okay three or 400 square feet I want to say. Okay. Thank you. So you can see the layout. We have um six restrooms and a storage room in in this with with concession. Um the the larger size um is really similar to this, but it's got some covered or yeah, the medium size has some covered area over over the concessions. Um other than that, the the layout is is pretty similar. I think the dimensions were exactly the same cuz I looked at them.

Oh, for the inside of the building, but not the roof covering. Yeah. You just extend those that truss line out on extending it out. Yeah. The footprint on the the east side stays the same and we just elongate the building to to fill the space and it's still 1100 square feet, but have a shaded areas for on the sides. Yeah. So, this building will be will be a little bit longer and then we add some some uh shaded cover. Is that shaded area on the south side? It's on the east side. Okay. So, it changes the way it sits there. Yeah. And this could this could go either way. Rotates,

but the way the building and the the utilities are now, it would probably work best for this to face the the east side. So, the the concession opening would face east. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Which we can that can be determined. That gives you some shade from that westerly sun.

Yeah. And then Elden, if you can go to the largest one. Um, this one um, we talked with maintenance and our recreational staff and some of the feedback we got on the concessions is a larger concession area would be better. So, this this building has a larger concessions and just a little bit different style of covering over the the concession area. And this one has a a viewing deck on the the second floor. So, they're they're all different. They're all different sizes, all different um city manager box up there. Yeah. Unruly death. Unruly deaths. Did you put the

It might be unruly just to go up there. So Paul, are we sure this can fit in the middle? Um, we have not done any civil engineering yet, but this footprint will fit in the the space in the space. Okay. Yeah. What about what about cost estimates for any of the three cost estimates? Yeah. So, we reached out to a couple builders and just to to get some estimates off of the plans. Um, again, this hasn't gone out to bid or anything, but the small building is approximately 500,000, maybe under 500,000. Um, the middle building is more in the $500 to $600,000 range, and the larger building is in the $600 to $700,000 range.

That's really good information. Yeah, it's good. So, when I I look at this and you're just looking for feedback, right? So, I'm going to give you my feedback

on I like I think the things we're after is is we know the building's bad and we need to get restrooms, right? I like that there was I mean it's the same footprint on the bottom besides some additional stuff. I like we have six bathrooms. We have a mechanical room. Um and then a little little room for the little league storage which is fine. I feel like it's a small space but maybe that's all they need. I don't know for the maintenance of our little leagues. But in the concessions, I just I don't think we should put grles. We shouldn't put that kind of stuff like refrigerators and cabinets top cuz every time we put money into these things, they just don't get used. Like we need counter space for people to put up their cookers or whatever they're going to do.

We don't need fryers, plug in a microwave or warmer, but we do need fridges, right? So, it makes sense to put some fridges in that are used and then counter space to plug in their nacho water. Which one are you on, Councilman? They're all the same pretty much. You just pull up the floor plan. We've got different size concession areas. This one you I'm talking the smallest one. Okay. So, I'm just looking at the smallest one. So, the smallest concession area would be sufficient.

Yeah. Cuz cuz I feel like this is just my experience looking at these is that they're always nice and it'd be great, but then they don't get ever used because no one wants to clean them or maintain them or deal with them. and they want a grill, they can bring a barbecue or something that they pull out of the little league storage for the couple hamburgers, right? Like [clears throat] smaller in that nature and then um if they're not getting used, why build them? I'm wondering. No, no, I'm not saying I'm saying don't put in a griddle. No, I'm build counter space. So, because they sell candy bars and stuff like that and Okay. I was just wondering cuz I don't ever I don't ever see it get used either like at Sullivan or like it never gets used at all

in counter as far as I'm aware of. Anyways, it's always a little league. Yes. But it's just really in poor shape right now. But Sullivan I haven't seen them used either. That's what I'm saying. It's better to have counter space to sell and they can put their boxes of chips or boxes. But you got have some fridges for the drinks to keep them cold and stuff like that and to store it because I know a lot of these leagues will like

hey I have this shelf I'm just recollecting from the high school right the concessions there I had to work there a few times and they have a fridge and it's like this shelf is football this shelf is soccer no one touched like and then they have their they just have countertop and plug in a microwave and you plug in your nacho warmer and you and then your Chick-fil-A sandwiches show up in a bag right so it's just kind of stuff like that and it keeps it more simple and reduce some of the cost of that hire. So, I I don't disagree with you uh and that we don't necessarily need to put them in, but I think it's important to plan for it. Put the rough ends in so that you have the option road. I mean, I would do that if it was

you're talking like the outlets or the amp run even if you just run a conduit for the power or run the gas in there. Makes that makes sense. just put the provisions there so you've got options down the road, right? Just just the way these buildings have been like I look at St. George City and how they've they're I went and looked at theirs and I've talked to some of them and they're like, "Yeah, we'd never use it." Said he'd cook me a hamburger if it was a griddle. Well, but then who's going to clean it? Cuz Brett's not going to clean it. I've done pancakes with all these guys and I end up doing the pancakes while you're all busy. So true. there. I'm just saying like those are costs that I think we can help keep it down [clears throat]

and but I don't I never disagree with putting more conduit in a building because you never know, right? Like throw the conduit in, get that stuff. So, um Paul, I got a couple questions for you. um outside of the building if you figure out what costs are going to need to go into the site, you know, over and above the building for, you know, infrastructure, pulling, plumbing, asphalt, things like that.

Yeah, we've talked about um this is just for the building. No site plan or no no site changes. Um this will probably also need another 20 to $25,000 of civil engineering. um this building where it will sit, we've got the irrigation lines that go through for irrigating the ball fields and and getting the utilities right and stuff. So there there'll be another $25,000 20 $25,000 uh cost for that power over that building.

Yeah. So, we're looking at um [clears throat] 700,000 for the nice building, another 250 300,000 bucks in the site to kind of get it prepped and ready to to be able to do it. We're looking at a million dollar project, right? Give or take. Yeah. Give or take. If you do the big one, just big one. I I I think I mean, fairness, Steve, you could have made them all look similar, but [clears throat] big one looks a lot nicer. I don't know on the big one though that I wouldn't just do the whole roof as a viewing deck. You know, pull pull up that large one, Elden, if you don't mind.

The way the fields are laid out, three of them are are very close to each other and the fourth one is far away. So, if we had the whole thing of viewing deck, you still wouldn't be close enough to that fourth field to really be able to see it very well. Well, but I mean, you have enough people would want to watch the the the three that could see it fairly close. And I mean, this is a flat roof, right? So, I kind of look at and think, well, you know, which kid's going to jump on top of the flat roof section? The next next thing you know, you got a leak in your roof, right? I mean, it'll happen. So, you just make the whole thing viewing deck then and it is what it is. That was just my thought. Just state your name there again. Yeah, Steve Beasley with FFKR. Welcome, Steve.

Thank you. Um, yeah, we would just have to find somewhere to put condensing units, right? whether they're ground mounted and we try and screen them or mount them up high on the wall so kids can't get into them. But that's what it is condensing units and mechanical stuff. Yeah, there's ways to I guess you can put a some sort of a gate or some sort. Yeah. And we can definitely shrink that. The the issue you run into with these upper balconies is if you exceed 750 square feet, you have to provide two exits. So then we're doing two stairs, stuff like that. Right now I think we're at like 680 or something. But all right, something to consider. That's fine. Yeah,

I think this is a little bit more in line with what we talked about, right? I mean, I I I don't know that the concession stand needs to be as big, but I I don't really like the big one. I think ground level bathrooms concession stands plenty in my opinion, but I mean, I feel like if between 500,000 and a million, I'd rather stay around 500,000 on this one. But

um the only the only benefit that I see from the upper deck is, you know, when you got um coaches or or people that are with the scoring or things like that, they get a little bit better vantage point when they're trying to watch those games and and uh I don't know if you want to call it regulate them, but call them out, you know, things like that when you're calling to the different teams. Good feedback. Council, additional thoughts on on these options.

So, I'd like to just talk for a second about the medium option. I think that the shade that's provided there is very economical for the cost of the building. You know, it would be I think it's important going forward to get those final numbers because there's not a huge range for the for the three. The first the bigger building is it's really attractive and it has two stories and and nice very appealing. The middle one looks kind of like what we've have now but yet nice shade around it. I love the fact that we have the six bathrooms in all of them because I think that was probably the council's biggest concern. I look at the smallest one and I'm just not sure that one's um enough for what we're trying to accomplish going forward because you see what happens on on summer evenings. Those are those are um packed and and so I do like the idea of a little extra shade. For me personally, what I would like to um focus on is the cost between the uh the large and the medium to see if the value for money because I do like elements of both those designs. But I I do like the the shade on the middle one. I like the concept of having um some some growth room for the the larger one and having some space. The upper deck is just open. Is that It looks like there's a handrail that's just open on the top. Is that correct?

That's right. and you access it from an excess an exterior stair. My only concern on that and it's maybe this is the elementary teacher in the or whatever. But you know this area is is a nice nice part of town. You know it is. But you're going to have kids there when there's probably no adults around. Mhm. I just would be I would just keep in mind that we need to um build this with the idea that we need to make it kind of vandalism proof. Not that we have that problem in the city, but there's always maybe one or two from out of town that come in that might do Well, yeah. People come in from other areas and or even safety.

Yeah. Not over the rails. Yeah, that's true. That's my thoughts, Mayor. I I think that the I think the bottom line when you get the site plan, you get the dollars together. If it's negligible between medium and large, I can certainly have that conversation. I do think the small one is probably not quite enough for what we're looking for. And uh if we're [clears throat] going to do it, we want to do it right. We don't want to have to redo it or feel like we underbuilt in another five, six years. So that's kind of my thoughts. Steve, can I ask you a question on the on the medium one there? You're not showing any condensing units on it. So, they're mounted up high on the wall. Are they? Yeah. Well, can we can we freshen the elevations up on it a little bit?

Yeah. So, we wanted to give you budget friendly and then Hey, shoot for the stars, right? No, I don't know. Not that we need to shoot for the stars, but I think you can I can think you can freshen the elevation up just a little bit, even if it's um just mixing it up a little bit. Yeah, that's that condensing unit on the back on that top right picture. Okay. Anybody want a budget comment? Sure. Are we not wanting to talk about?

So, right now we've got this. This would definitely need to be a wrap tax item. I think that's the only way we'd be able to fund it. We have about $1.7 million in our wrap tax fund right now. We get about a million dollars a year is what we've been collecting in wrap tax the last couple of years. So, you're looking at that range. And we have about just over a million dollars worth of improvements or or uh maintenance items that we feel are really necessary at the community center this year. Get a new pool liner. That's about a million dollar million dollar purchase. And so so you're looking at about about $700,000 plus another million that will go into it in the next budget year. So just it might be instructive just to potentially just set a set a limit and say look this is how much we think we want to spend on this and then maybe with the feedback that that you've given to the architect and to Paul they could come up with something that that kind of fits within that.

Well my my feeling back years ago when they did that let's set money aside for you know improve your hard improvements was spec exactly for things like this right? So even if you drew it down, it's because you you're trying to do stuff like this that you wouldn't have an opportunity to do otherwise. Absolutely. I think it's a really good use just recognizing that we've talked about trails. We've talked about I mean there's just a lot of things if if we spend, you know, if we go for the stars or I can't remember what your comment was, you know, we shoot for the moon on this one. That will be something else that we wouldn't be able to do. What you're But what you're saying is with with the money that's supposed to come in this year, there would be enough to do, you know, both this and the and the improvements to the community center,

you might keep those funds down, but then next year there's still another million to to start bumping that back up. And this is going to take, you know, this going to take a few months at least to kind of get pulled together. One thing I'd love to see if I mean, maybe just for me from a budget standpoint, if you could give me a number to put in the budget, we could put that number What is uh so you're saying we have 1.7 right now? 1.7 and I have a million that needs to go out. So we have about 700,000 and we'll add a million. So 1.7 is kind of the number of that number. Are we anticipating any of that the wrap funds to be used for our remodel of the Main Street Chapel?

Potentially some, but it's it's going to be minimal just because of the funding of the ability to to use them on on that. be recreation, arts, and parks. And so it limits what we can do with the chat. It'd be good to have a discussion about the pool liner to say, is it at the end of its life? Is it f to have a discussion about that before we start putting it in the budget for it? I'll come forward to this group. I'm just letting you know what's out there. I know. I mean, I'm just saying like just be good to know how Yeah. Look, we're just wondering of like what you said the pool liner, but that did you also say that there's other items that are going to be included in that million that you're asking for.

There's always wrap tax things that the city needs, you know, we need to take care of. Sometimes we've done um like we have some parks that need to have their their play structures replaced and things like that. So, we that's what we use wrap tax for generally.

Yeah. Can Elvin, can you pull up just the floor plan on the on the medium size? One thing that um so I was on the circuit with a softball player until she graduated and broke our hearts that she stopped playing. Um one thing that I've noticed at those ball fields that are really helpful is some place for storage. A lot of times there's a little at or something that can go in and drag fields and then also a place where you just keep some equipment and just you know a little chalk uh bucket on wheels and a few things and then also on those when we get these tournaments coming through in little league it's nice for the umpires to have a little place to go. Sometimes you'll see a little you know garage door go up or a little area. So I guess my question is I mean we h we still have those other restrooms and we recognized when we were up there that we don't have lighting but a lot of the games are played during the day. My question is do we need the six restrooms or could some of these also maybe potentially be area for storage and you know umpire? I guess maybe that's a question for you Stephen.

Yeah. Uh I think you could take convert some of those restrooms over to be larger storage. you know, if you're trying to get an ATV or something like that. Sometimes what we see cities do is they have a separate shed or a or a golf cart or whatever, you know, that pull the the but you know, you've got four fields there you got to maintain and prep and, you know, hoses and and you know, softballs and baseballs and stuff. It's just nice to have some storage. Do you have any storage on site already? Yeah, we've got an existing building that we Is it the building or is it the ConX? Um, the Lily uses a ConX. The the park has has a building that they use. It's Why can't I outdoors? It's on the north side. Oh, close to the ConX. Yeah.

And we keep our grooming equipment in there. Um, this would be more for the little league used custodial storage, things like that. This is a a place.

Then I would just then my comment if if the storage is taken care of, then I do think it's nice for those umpires have a little bit of area to in between ball games. They work really hard to have a little bit of a break between I just if if but it's not the end of the world if they don't. But I'm just saying if do we need six restrooms? Can I also ask a question? And maybe um I don't know who to ask this to, but I've been to a lot of different types of games and we don't always have a you know a concession and so I'm just wondering why is there a need for this? What if we push get rid of the concessions and have more place where people can be out of the the sun and gather and and enjoy the games because the you know the soccer games that I go to the just the different you know flag football games you know there's not always concessions and it's still enjoyable time with your family and and so I don't know why we need concessions myself. rule though that says

Amy ought to be able to get a hot dog. That is an unknown rule that I was unaware of. [laughter] But I think what what I've seen a lot lately is an easy up and a grill and a cooler. And there's your I'd say baseball typically has concessions more than other sporting events. I agree with you. soccer doesn't gap as much as but every time I've been to a baseball game there's a picnic table out there selling stuff like [clears throat] so to have a place I I get having a place but in baseball I see there's more concession than other type of events is what I've seen it's just I don't know about it's the way it's played or I don't know what it is but that's what I've seen

guess if if it's a it's a rule then well there's the song buy me some what is peanuts and cracker jacks. Neither of those require We're talking hot dogs and hamburgers, but I don't know. I do like your idea of making it limited and small, not have if we are going to do it.

You know, I I'd like to comment just briefly on what what mayor said. I can see what you're saying, Mayor. I think that in in most all scenarios, if you have two men, two women, or two, you know, four bathrooms total, that would feasibly probably be enough. But I don't know that it's a huge expense once the plumbing's there to add another bathroom. And you never know when one might get something flushed down at the plugs and you need an extra one that you can open and shut that one off until maintenance can come and look at it. But I think just the overall idea of the middle building, the bang for the buck kind of thing, it just it lends it lends itself to me. I think it's a kind of that good middle ground where Washington likes to be. We don't want to overspend, but we want to provide. Again, you think of all the people there and you think about the uses that we have in our city. I doubt there's a place that's had greater memories than our ball fields. So, anyway,

something to think about. I like uh counting some coats because if we put friers and grles and things in there, then we got to do the HBAC to go with it, you know, which gets kind of spendy and fire suppression and all that stuff. So, I mean, there's some good scents in kind of leaving it simple. I like the mid I like adding the shade because we don't we never have enough shade here in the town. So, I I like I like the median one. I don't hate the other one. I just hate the price. But do do you feel like we have enough storage with the mechanical room and the little league storage? Feel like that gives enough space for the umpires, staff, council?

I would say that's not space for the umpires. Do we just not have space for them? I I don't know. I don't know how that works. How much time do they need? Most of the time in all the events I go to, they're just under a shade tent off in a corner anyways. But that's but I have you can put a folding [clears throat] chair in there for them if you've got the covered the covered area. Don't they just mostly want to get out of the sun? They want to be away from the the fans. They got to get away from and they and they and they change and they they're there like I I don't know. Maybe I'm was a little too ingrained there. Maybe that mechanical room could, you know, be used a little bit for for some area there with a little bit wider door and a little bit of, you know, access in for them to put some chairs and put their gear in there. And

well, you can definitely use the it just I mean, it's labeled as little league storage, but we're not getting rid of our the containers over there. That's going to be the little league storage, right? Like I would assume that would stay because that's just their storage. Yeah, I'm sure the little league would like as much storage as they can get, but it's where do we draw that line for them? Maybe you only maybe that's a little bit of both, right?

Maybe we could consider rollup door on the mechanical room just to try to be worlds. If we do need to store a width of the room looks, what's it 74? You probably could put get a rollup door that could access that if it was thought that it was. You could always take a piece of the concessions if you wanted if you if it's that important to get a little place away. But I like that idea of like a little roll up on the mechanic area just so they have a little bit of room, a little bit of privacy if they need it. They could go to the community center.

Community center's not far. Truck up the or the library or the conx. probably need to push that mechanical room wider though or their truck. Yeah. I mean, you probably right now you're at 74. You probably need to push it to 10 foot in order to make that happen. What do What do you need the rollup door for? If we already have a building that takes care of our mate or even just a wide door, the mechanical room is more

for all the, you know, all the thick stuff. Yeah, we may be hesitant pulling a golf cart or something into that mechanical room because all the the exposed fixtures and piping and stuff are in there. Okay, council list uh does someone want to try to summarize kind of some what I'm hearing is that we're leaning towards the middle medium option. I I guess my other question is is is this uh is this a a wrap priority for the community? Um and is there just kind of a general direction that you want to give staff as a as a council as and to Jeremy as he puts the budget together? And

I' I'd love to have even just a doesn't have to be the final number, but just a placeholder. You're thinking five, six, 100,000. What is the Well, the problem is the if the small is five and we're not on that, it has to be more. But I want to make sure we're covered on the stuff we need that we have to do like the liner. So that's a million. And so my mind kind of ran to 750 to be adjusted upward. Yeah, that's kind of where I landed. Priority for me. I think it's

been 30 years retirement. it uh after touring the building. I mean, it's borderline safety hazard over there, I would say. So, um I think we're there. Yeah, I I I think it's a priority for me, but I would say, you know, do you like that medium option 750? Is that kind of where you're landing as medium option? Councilman Bellison, your thoughts?

I like the big one. go big or go home. But that's just me. I mean, but I I was up there, you know, you're going to be 800 to a million on that project. And I think that's what was kind of in my head from the day that we were out there walking it was was we're going to be right in that range. So I my my concern is that we we go too big and then it it [clears throat] ends up being more than a million, right? Like sometimes I'm just trying to it goes my thing is we can say a million paycheck. No, but

paid that much. So [laughter] if we have to start taking out of our employees pays. That's my concern is that if we say okay it's a million and then we do all this stuff and it comes back at 1.2. It's like so I'd rather air a little short and if something well that's my concern. We tend to have budget creep more than we have anything else. If if you kind of give us a number, we can we may have to value engineer to keep stuff below that, but that would give us something to shoot for. Councilman Caspersonson and Councilman Ivy, I would say the mid-range 600,000

as a priority. And I like the middle. I like the middle model. Gives us a little bit of a buffer. If it does go higher, we're still shoot for 600,000. And does that give you even enough to do the to do the tie into the sewer lines and all the other utility? I think it I think it gives us a rough budget number and then if we have to come back and talk specifics once it's bid out, we certainly can do that. But that helps it from becoming. Yeah. You know, so divided two that want six, two that want 750, and one that wants a million. It sounds like we're going to hit in the middle. [laughter] So is it 700? Like I don't think 600's enough with all the site improvements we have to do. 700. Okay. Can we do it for 7?

750. Feel like I'm at an auction now. 700. Stephen, I think uh when you get all the site work in there, you're probably go for seven. Yeah. For the middle one. Like you're saying 750 is probably closer to over seven with He said he said originally seven. So let's go with seven. Let's go seven. I'll flip. Two for seven. For seven. Fair. Sounds like Paul's not getting that extra vacation this year. You know what?

I really like the options and I appreciate this that we looked at options and pricing and and but so thank you Paul and thank you Steve for those and uh council. Thank you. This is good work. Appreciated the site visit. Appreciate the feedback and doing your job up here. Well done. That is the last item on the workshop agenda for tonight. So, uh uh before I call for a motion to adjurnn, I'll just make note that we'll reconvene at 6:00 for our regular meeting. And I don't anticipate that being long this evening. So, council, I'll turn to you for a motion to adjourn. So, made have a motion by Councilman Belliston. Second.

Second by Councilman Coats. All in favor? I All in favor? [laughter] We're adjourned.

with our regular meeting. Today is Wednesday, February 11th, 2026. We are in the council chamber at Washington City Hall. Our meetings are streamed live at washingtoncity.org/meings and also archived for later viewing. Our city manager, Jeremy Red, will offer the invocation this evening and Lieutenant Fenona will uh lead us in the pledge of allegiance after that. Mr. Red, our heavenly father, we're thankful tonight to be gathered here in this city council meeting. We're thankful for the the blessings that we enjoy, for the favorable circumstances that we have to gather tonight. Uh, Father, we're thankful for our country, for our state, and especially our city of Washington. We're thankful for the the people who work and serve and uh take care of our great community. At this point, Father, we ask a blessing to be upon us. Please help us to have more rain and snow in our mountains that we may be able to fill our reservoirs and have a productive summer this year. Uh we ask for thy blessings to be upon the leaders that will make decisions here tonight and those who will present uh that they may make decisions that are in the best interest of our community. Uh again, we pray for these things and do so in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

To the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We do have need to go to close session this evening uh for pending or potential litigation and thank you Lieutenant Fenona and city manager Redd. Uh that said I will call for a motion to approve the agenda as outlined. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Councilman Coat. Second by Councilman Bellston. All in favor? I.

The agenda is approved. Announcements. Monday, February 16th is President's Day. The city offices will be closed, but our fire department will be working. Tuesday, February 17th is the Dixie Regional Transportation Expo. that is at the Dixie Center from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 pm. Is there anything I may have missed, council, between now and our next council meeting on the 25th? Okay. Next item on the agenda is declaration of abstensions and conflicts. Anything to declare? Hearing none, we'll move to the next item, consent agenda. This consists of the approval of the minutes from the city council meeting of 12826 and consideration to approve the board audit report from January 20126.

Mayor, I have reviewed the minutes and the board audit report. It looked to be in order to me so I can make that motion to approve the consent agenda as it's outlined. You've heard the motion by Councilman Ivy. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilman Belliston. All in favor? Any opposed? The consent agenda is approved. Next item on the agenda is a presentation of the audited Washington city financial statements for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025. Chad Atkinson with Squire will present. Mr. Atinson

All right. Mayors, member of members of the council, it's good to be with you this evening. Uh before we get started, just wanted to announce officially that uh Hinton Berdick, the uh former CPA firm here in in St. George or the surrounding area, uh joined forces with Squiring Company uh officially on January 1st, 2026. So that's why we're having a presentation by Squireing Company tonight. So we have now have offices in um Oram, Salt Lake, and St. George. So happy to be part of the new organization and for the most part uh as far as auditing services go for the city. Uh things will continue as usual. I I'm I'm still the engagement partner. Still have the same personnel working with me just a different name. So any questions about that before I get started?

Okay. Congratulations.

Thank you. I wish it meant a pay a pay increase but I don't think it did. So just a merger of two great firms. So, um, first of all, I'd like to start with just a couple of thank yous to city staff. Uh, this has been an unusual year for, uh, the audit in terms of, uh, switching softwares. Um, Pepper and Brian have been logging some overtime to make everything happen with the new software. So, we appreciate their efforts, especially this year. Uh, we we worked really well together. I think communication went really well between the auditors and and the city. Uh given the added workload with kind of transitioning everything, um we communicated well. We were able to wrap it up as quickly as the city could move through that transition with the software. So, we're thank thankful for that and exchange of information and everything else. So, as I go along tonight, uh there may be some time where we need some management insight. So certainly welcome that as I go. Uh wanted to encourage the council and mayor to review the management's discussion and analysis which is in the beginning of the document. That's a good summary of the year's activity for fiscal year 2025. I'll go over the audit reports and findings and then some financial highlights. And I've changed the the uh presentation a little bit from previous years. Hopefully it's it's an upgrade. Um a couple of things that we did that in fiscal year 25 that were well just one more thing to mention we converted the city's um we helped them to apply governmental governmental accounting standard number 101 on compensated absences. So this has to do with uh promised leave that is paid to employees and uh went through all the analysis with that with city staff had some

exchanges back and forth and helped the city to successfully implement that. So that's that can be found also a disclosure on that in the notes to the financial statements. Okay. So I'm going to go over um you should have received in your package um a governance letter. That governance letter is just a uh it's a it's a standard required communication to the governing body, which is the city council and the mayor. Um there were no problems or issues in that standard communication and if you have any questions about that, you're certainly happy to reach out to me and I can answer anything about that. Um the independent auditor's report is on page one in your financial statements. We issued an unmodified or clean opinion on the financial statements as expected. The report on internal control over financial reporting that's on page 85 and we're happy to report that there were no uh material weaknesses or significant deficiencies noted that uh were pervasive to the city. So that's a complimentary thing for um city manager, city finance office, everybody that's involved in the in the processes of the city um are doing a good job. So we appreciate that. And then finally, our report on compliance is on page 87 in your in your document. We issued an unmodified or clean opinion on state compliance. We didn't come across any um non-compliance issues in our work. So, any questions to that point? Okay. All right. So, now I'm going to go into just a few financial highlights. Um, if you wanted to review just the operational changes um from fiscal year 24 to 25 to see the revenues and expenditures for your governmental funds, you would refer to page 20 um that has the statement of revenues, expenditures, and

changes in fund balance. Proprietary funds are on page 24. Again, the same thing there. Revenues, expenses, expenditures, and changes in net position. Um, I'm I'm not going to go into the details of that tonight as this is meant to be a highle um review, but I will um hit a couple of things as it pertains to fund balances and net position. That's on these following slides. Um, what this is meant to do is to take a a five-year look at your fund balances in um your major funds and to just see where you're at at a point in time. Might be a little bit small on the screens. I hope that you can see this, okay? But over the last five years to see whether your fund balance is growing, if it's go if it's going down, if projects are affecting it, that kind of thing. So, this this first one is the general fund. Just a couple of things here. The total fund balance for the general fund is at 15.3 million. The unassigned fund balance is currently at 8.2 million and that's about 6 months of reserves um on hand for the city. The absolute bare minimum that you should have in a city's general fund is two months. So you're you're currently at six, which is great. The restricted funds, as you can see on this graph, are at uh 6.3 million. that's set aside for class C road and transit. Those are specific revenues that come into the city's general fund that have to be spent on uh roads and transit. So those are restricted. Then there's a little bit of assigned fund balance. Um this is set aside for the health premium rebate. And then finally your your final number here is your non-spendable which is is money that's already been spent to purchase inventory. So that's where you're at at the end of fiscal year.

Chad, on our fund balance, historically we've talked about a percentage. Do you know what our fund balance percentages at that roughly 15 million? Does that put us I know there's been some difference differences opinion. I just did the math. It was like 11 12%. Okay. 12%. Yeah. So I know at one point they the legislature at one point didn't want you to be over 15% or 20%. So 11 or 12 is about right. It's it's a little more complicated than that because it's your unrestricted fund balance as as a percentage of next year's general fund. Okay. So, it's Yeah, it's what what Brian will get you the number. He knows. He told me today

and you can even get that to me later, Brian. I'm just There's no rush. You don't need a calculator now. It's It's higher than 11. It's 20 23. The max is 35 that this Okay. So, that's changed over the years. Max is 35. We're around 23. Good enough. There is a bill talking about dropping it again this year. Senator McCay has another bill, but they they moved that percentage around. Yeah. The point I think is they the municipal government extension of the state the funds are to be used for the benefit of the residents. Correct. Yes. You don't want to get it too high or you there's a there's a top end of that where you'll get a finding. Sounds like we're right in the sweet spot. All right. [laughter]

Okay. Thanks for the questions. Um, next slide we've got is the capital project streets fund. This was a major fund during fiscal year 25. Fund balance went down just a little bit uh 96,000 and at the end of the year it's at 16.1 million in restricted funds. This this uh capital project fund obviously varies depending on the capital projects and use of that money. So no major issues here. We're going to hit the water fund um for a moment. All of these funds, by the way, there were no budgetary findings, but all of these funds operated within in their approved budgets. And uh for the water fund, the change in net position or the net income for this fund was at 18.4 million, but it's important to point out that 11 million of that was donated infrastructure. So developers are constructing this uh infrastructure and then handing that over to the city to maintain. So um the net investment in capital assets is your top number here. It's 83 little little over 83 million and this is up mostly due to these the donation of these um capital projects right for the water fund the the things that are there to serve um the water residents those were donated to the city. So that that bumps that number up. Some of the major improvements were the Long Valley tank and booster pump and then as I mentioned donated infrastructure.

Can I ask a quick question? Sure. Why do we calculate the asset value? Um in in the proprietary funds they want to want want you to keep track of not only the operations but also the capital assets that are involved in delivering the services. So that's why they're on the balance sheet that you can see everything that's involved to deliver the service. So um isn't that usually a function of t being taxed? Like I have to show my assets for you know tax purposes but the city doesn't pay taxes. So I'm I'm just curious why why a city shows that.

Yeah. Um just it's the standards that that we follow. It's the a typical balance sheet for the accountants do it. Yeah, that's how the accountants do it. Okay. Yeah. So, how can you tell which fund is a I mean, is it just by the numbers you guess? Because it doesn't really say whether this is like the uh infrastructure or cash.

Um how how can you tell the difference between the funds? Okay, so we just went over the governmental funds and so those do not have assets included and now we're switching over to the business type funds they call them. And so you'll see a number on here for each of these funds that has to do with capital assets. And that's just the bricks, mortar, lines, whatever is needed to deliver the service. And uh that that increases by additions to the infrastructure and then it also goes down depending on if the infrastructure gets old and depreciates then it will it will go down and it also includes any uh debt that's associated with that. So that's why that top number can kind of fluctuate in in the in the case of the city. The city's in great shape because you're getting a lot of infrastructure donated and building the system out and you have the opportunity to deliver to more residents. So you'll see the the numbers look great on all of these funds. Does that help?

Yeah, a little bit. Okay. All right. Let's go to the sewer fund. you'll have have a similar trend here. Um the net investment in capital assets is 45.7 million and there were donations in this fund as well. The donated infrastructure was 5.6 million for the year including the Washington field sewer uh trunk line and other improvements. uh the restricted the restricted net position or restricted funds that are set set aside here are at 6.1 million and that is unspent impact fees that are on hand. You can see it went up from the previous year. And then your final number um here is your unrestricted and excuse me I think I got that mixed up. Nope. Put my glasses on to see here. I'm sorry. I've got the restricted me mixed up here. So, the restricted is your bottom number there. A little over a million dollars in unspent impact fees. And then the unrestricted was increased from the previous year. That's at six uh 6.1 million and that's 24 months of reserves on hand. So, pretty good shape in the sewer fund. Okay. Electric fund. The electric fund its net investment in capital assets is 42.4 million. that top number this fund increased its net its net income for the year was uh 10.6

million and 6.2 of that was donated infrastructure. The restricted is um consistent with the previous year. Uh it's 397,000 and that is set aside for debt service reserves that are required by the lenders. And then your unrestricted was up um 2 4 million uh from 17.4 to 19.8 and that's 12 months of reserve reserves on hand in the electric fund. Okay. I hope hopefully this is helpful and you're certainly welcome to you know review these and then ask questions later. U I can answer any any questions later or via email. The storm drain fund it operated within its approved budget. The change in net position in this fund or the net income was 4.8 million and 4.4 million of that was donated infrastructure. So the net investment in capital assets was a little over 32 million in this fund. The restricted was consistent with the prior years. Uh there's 2.4 million in unspent impact fees in this fund. And then the unrestricted was down just a little bit from the previous year um at uh 436,000 down and it has 11 months of reserves on hand in the storm drain fund. And then this final uh slide is just um just cash over a period of time. Cash will go up and down depending on capital projects and other major spends by the city and and uses. So governmental cash was down uh just a little bit 760,000 from the previous year and business type cash was up. Uh overall cash was up 5.1

million. So financial trends seem to be northeast trending uh for the city. So congratulations on that. That that means you have a you know responsibility or opportunity to use those funds for the future of the city. So appreciate the opportunity to present tonight. I've got my contact information on here, updated email address. U I also wanted to give a shout out to Victoria for being just a faithful, steady uh part of the city's audit for the past, I think, three or four, maybe five years. Um she's been doing a great job and appreciate her assistance and the team getting this done. So, any questions that I can Yeah, I have a couple if you don't mind.

Sure. I don't know if you'd call this an anomaly or a trend, but it seems like a lot of our um budgets that are listed here kind of bottomed out in fiscal year 23. Have you noticed that? 23. I Yeah. And I don't know that I have the I just history on hand. This was after CO. I just don't I can't think of what would have you. It's all right. I just I just wanted to point it out that on several of them fiscal year 23 they kind of bought them and they've been coming up ever since. So

um if you don't if you don't have I don't want to put you on the spot but that that's something that caught my eye. And then would you just talk for a second about the effectiveness of our internal controls kind of list what those are and how they work because we have a lot of residents that'll be listening tonight's tonight's council meeting at home. They might want to have some idea of what those look like and what they're for.

Okay. So each year we re we review the process for major financial processes within the city. Um we review any changes to those processes and then we also perform walkthroughs of those processes. So we understand the process with the client. Uh we work with with staff to understand any changes that are happening there. And then we go through and actually walk a transaction through to make sure that it goes from the origin [clears throat] of the transaction all the way through to the financial statements and where it's reported to make sure it's classified correctly. It's in the correct period. All of those assertions that as we we give an audit opinion on assert based on assertions that things are accurate, complete, classified in the right spot in the right period, all of those assertions happen. So the internal controls are really key to that and making sure that they're flowing correctly. And

so internal controls aren't just to make sure that there's like any fraud or anything like that. They're not just for that. there actually to make sure that money's recorded where it needs to be so that we have an accurate picture and that it's processed properly. Yes, they're primarily that's what they're for is correct financial reporting. Can they be used to catch um fraud or errors? Yes, they could be used for that as well. That's not their primary purpose, but that could be a part of an internal control in in internal control process. Sorry. So, that's all part of a good working system within the city. Thank you. Yeah. Further questions, Councilman? Any additional questions, council? Thank you, Chad.

Okay. I like that we're trending northwest. A lot of capital projects, a lot of fiscal discipline, good internal controls. Brian, you and your staff do a great job. Appreciate you and Jeremy, thanks for uh overseeing what they do. Anything you'd like to add, Mr.

Yeah, that that's the comment I would make. um switching to a new accounting software has been a major obstacle and challenge for the for the finance department and Brian and his team have just done a tremendous job and this is his chance to get his kudos and his you know take a bow but to to go and this is I think at least the third year in a row that he's done that without without finding which you know sometimes things pop up but just they run a really clean shop over there and uh it's a great department so we appreciate them. Thank you, Brian. It's exactly what we expect. Keep it up.

Uh, thanks to one of the officers for the city, I had the opportunity to test the controls at the at the clerk's office upstairs, the justice court. So, I I got to do cash receiping and observe that. So, I want you to know that. Okay. [laughter] So, so they are working working as planned. Paid in pennies. Did you bring pennies to play pay your No, I did not pay bring pennies, but that would have been good. So, I Yeah, I personally observed it my myself this year. So, [laughter] point well made. Thanks very much. Thanks, Chad. Our finest Washington city resident and auditor.

Next item on the agenda is a resolution consideration to approve a resolution approving the settlement agreement between Michael J. Hall, Penny Hall, and Mike's Welding, Inc., the Halls, and Washington City. We go from a CPA to an attorney, Mr. Signaler.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, my voice is not super strong yet after a weekend illness last weekend, but you you all have been advised of this matter as it's come along. This this settlement agreement results from a notice of claim filed by attorneys for Mike's Welding and and Mike and his wife. Um it proposes that the settlement amount be $22,895. Um that the settlement discussions indicated that that amount would be used to retrofit the front yard and the driveways so that they're more accessible um to future commercial traffic and use. And I would suggest that that's a good investment for Washington City. That is a busy corner. It's a spot where better driveways will benefit both the landowner as well as those that use it and those that drive by. And so with that, I present to you any questions you might have about the matter or the resolution.

Council, the resolution's in your packet. You're aware of the item. Any discussion on this or someone ready to make a motion? Mayor, I'll make a motion we approve item 6A for the settlement between the and Washington city. You've heard the motion u by Councilman Coats for the settlement of 22,895. Is there a second? Second that, Mayor. Second by Councilman Henderson. Let's go. Roll call vote beginning with Council Member Bellon. I think it's important to note that we've all a couple of times already. So yeah, Bellis and I Henderson Coats. Hi Caspersonson.

And mayor, I may just mention for the public that the city council's met with me in close session at least three prior times to discuss the details of this and so it's not being rushed through tonight. Tonight's just the formality of finalizing the document. Thank you council for your support. Thank you Mr. Sigmiller. A report of officers from assigned committees beginning on my left, council member Bellison. Uh, so the flood control authority has a new chairman me under the bus the other day and so I now had that one. Congratulations. And I want to state that we had our first nay vote ever. And can you guess who it was from? One of you two.

It wasn't from me. And he said nay nay to himself. He didn't even want the job. But I I made my my uh I made my claim. I'm already a chairman on one board. I don't need to be on two. And then the other two fought it out and Bellaston won.

Well, I I love to see that leadership from this elected body. Tell us a little more about it, Councilman. Well, [clears throat] so flood control authority as you know uh governs any waterway that goes through multiple cities within the county and it allows us to do uh seek larger funds u and grants from um you know bigger entities to where the the the cost match is uh at least you know 4:1 uh sometimes up to 10 to one where we've got other entities sending money to our county and cover those costs and it's, you know, mitigation up and down the waterways to keep them clean. So, when we do have a flood event, we don't have the massive backup of debris and whatnot. Um, the other day, you know, we spent the day kind of going through a refresher because we had a couple new board members and so it was more of kind of bringing them up to speed about what's been going on. And, uh, last fall I sent, you know, I believe I sent it to the council on a ACE report that of one of the cleaning crews that comes in and does that. and those are usually a 50-50 match uh where they'll come in and and volunteer their hard work to clean debris out. So anyway, it's actually a fun committee.

Uh one thing that I jump in, Councilman, is I think with some of the federal funding going away that ACE crew is becoming more available I think they had a need and we wanted to get more area cleaned up. So we said yes and they got on it. So, they'll continue to clean the rivers and stuff as much as they can. But we have more rivers to clean than we can clean with all the invasive species that have been brought. One of the ones that was interesting was the fragmitey that's coming that you see. It looks like a cattail. Yeah, that one's an invasive invasive that's kind of taken over.

Similar to the salt cedar in the fact that it's not from the area and it's it's a real problem. It chokes off the river. So it's definitely we got to take care of these rivers, but it is interesting to see how they do change with just I think grow growth around too.

You remember in the '05 flood down coming down Santa Clara River and and whatnot. I mean there was huge trees that were coming down and there was a there was at one point they had a track on the bridge just pushing them down as they were to go under the bridge. They had an 80 foot tree come through full canopy that was coming down the river that they had to use track to get underneath. But um now they go through and they they cut those up in a you know one two foot section so they're not a problem and they don't they don't dam up and and back everything up and and destroy uh houses and and uh infrastructure and things like that. So well great congratulations. Uh keep keep those waterways clear.

Anything else? Uh nope. I'm good. And we probably miss miss Mayor Rosenberg and his many years of service there. I imagine he's still showing up to him uh in his role as a as an engineer. So we're not losing his lead. Yeah, he's he's still there. It's just now he doesn't get a vote sometimes. Yep. He's not he's not a voting member anymore. Um and then Santa Clara Mark Hendrickson's now on that board. So he took over for uh um

Councilman Shakespeare. And then uh we see Mayor Rosenberg at the water district still too which is good. So good to have that experience involved still. Councilman Henderson. Thanks Mayor.

And I had a a good meeting with the shade tree committee this afternoon and the uh the guys [clears throat] at the parks department won an award that we found out about today. So I want to read read that to you. Uh this award is from the Utah Community Forest Council and Washington City is the 2025 community of the year. And so I took a picture of the plaque and I'll just it says Washington City exemplifies leadership in water-wise urban forestry under certified arborist Paul Walker who presented at the Utah Municipal Forestry fall workshop and led a tour of two innovative parks. The city employees The city employs two ISA certified arborists and requires arborulture training for all full-time parks and recreation staff. An active tree board further strengthens planning and implementation of resilient, attractive public spaces. [clears throat] Site highlights. The Boilers Park built around a natural warm spring. Uh this park showcases elegant water-wise design. Desert adapted trees provide shade and structure. Plantings minimize irrigation needs and the layout balances recreation with sustainability. It demonstrates how smart smart species selection and irrigation design create cool usable spaces in a water constrained landscape while preserving a unique desert oasis. [clears throat] Excuse me. The other one is Great Bryan Trail Head. Serving as a gateway to Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, the scenic trail head integrates drought tolerant trees and native understory to provide shade, improve comfort, and models sustainable planting practices. It supports recreation and habitat while conserving water, ensuring long-term community

benefit. Washington city's professional staffing, active governance, and innovative drought resilient projects make it a standout candidate. So, [clears throat] congratulations to Paul and the whole crew over there. Good job. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman. That's awesome. Councilman Coats.

Uh yeah, uh we had our county solid waste meeting on Monday. uh basically regular business. But I think some things to note is that it's running pretty efficiently. Um a couple weeks ago we talked about the batteries, brought that up, recycling batteries. One of the things they're going to start doing is uh printing it on the garbage can that says no batteries as well. So any new garbage cans that go out will have that reminder reminder information on it. So you might see a little change there. Um they finished the landscaping up front to make it look a little better. But it's pretty much standard business. So not too much to report. Can you also share um a little bit about the geo fencing with the uh

Oh yeah, drivers.

That's a good thing. So based on our discussion last time with the concerns from the residents about country, I reached out to Republic to say, "Hey, what are you doing on your end to to mitigate your truck?" Because in our contract, they're not supposed to send garbage trucks down that unless they're doing garbage for that area. So they actually, and I didn't know they were doing this, but they're putting a geoence around Country Way and the drivers get flagged if they're driving down it and they're not supposed to per their route because their routes are um GPSed where they're supposed to go and they specifically reroute them around except a few trucks. Now, we can't control the other dumps and we can't, but we are doing our part on that and I didn't realize they were doing that. So, I appreciate that they were doing that and sending them the right direction and making their drivers go on the roads that we allocated. So, it was kind of interesting. Now, they admitted it just flags it if someone drives the wrong way, but it does affect that driver's route, like I don't know, their performance review or something if they're going the wrong ways and stuff. But, I think they have been doing their because I think a lot of the that garbage can truck traffic could get worse. I think they would go that way to go to backs way of hurricane and stuff like that, but they are forcing them down Telegraph.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Councilman Ivy. Yes, mayor. I'm going to start my report. Uh David, do you have uh that video ready to go?

I do. Two seconds. So, I'm just going to let this run and then we'll explain what it is after. [clears throat] [music] [music] Here's the second verse.

[music] Texas. [music] [music] I know I'm free.

[music] [music] That's okay. David, can you pause it right there? [music]

Thank you. So, we'll leave that leave that screen up. The gentleman at the piano is our attorney general, Derek Brown, and the lady to your left is his wife. Um, she was a Davo. Um, and she's leading the music and helping out. That is our youth council. The night that we arrived for our capital trip, we went to the attorney general's home and we had ice cream and a really a a good a good time with um you see the young man on the right of our attorney general with the uh I'm not sure what that instrument is.

Trombone, but uh this was how we started our our trip off to our capital trip. This was a great this was a great experience for these kids. I'm sure that they'll never forget it. But my my report tonight, mayor, is just about our capital trip and I just want to kind of go down and just kind of discuss what we did there. Uh this was a great, we call it a jam session, but you can see that the kids were engaged and really felt right at home in in there. And to see an attorney general, I doubt there's another attorney general in the entire United States that would take that time to spend with our kids and to be so warm and inviting and open with them. So, we really appreciate them. The next morning we had breakfast with a lobbyist firm and the kids were able to ask questions and we had breakfast there early early in the morning and was able to have a really good conversation. And after that, we went to um the capitol where we found an empty room and was able to have a mock bill running. And uh you'll notice that uh our our council segiller's daughter is on the right of the screen up there with the with the segular blonde hair. And she was one of five or six of our youth council that were acting as legislators. Then we had divided up the rest in in a teams that were for the bill and against the bill. And the topic the topic was an actual bill that ran a few years ago was on whether your children should be vaccinated or not. And so we kind of lined lined them up a little bit and talked about the process and um the kids really engaged that and they really I think learned um Jordan set that up. We appreciate all that Jordan did on this trip as well, but he he gave them the documents and kind of we both kind of went around and told them what the process and and had that discussion. Then after that, we um we went to committee committee discussions where we listened to higher ed and criminal

justice appropriations. And then after the the the latter, Senator Owens stayed and visited with our youth council and asked questions and and talked had a really good open conversation. Um he's he's a good man and and took some time with the kids and I think they really enjoyed that. They asked him some some really pertinent questions. And then after that, each each one of our youth council members were able to sit on the floor with um in the house with our great legislators, you know, with Colin Jack and Joy Leon and and Brooks and and Walter. They're just they're really good representatives. They're they're proactive on and they're engaged and they're informed and I I feel like we're very well served by by them. Um, then we were able to meet with the lieutenant governor in the gold room and the kids really enjoyed that. They got some pictures taken and asked some really fun questions and kind of hard questions and the lieutenant governor told them that Washington's one of her favorite places because she has a daughter that lives here and she gets down here all the time and she loves to be here. And then then the last thing we were able to meet with our Sunshine Caucus, the same legislators I just mentioned, but uh and ask questions there. But I just wanted to reach out or just to say over the airways tonight how proud I am of, you know, Tess Tess did a great job. Michelle, they're just great leaders. Jordan took a lot of time to set up a really nice trip and and and kudos to Annie Simkins that's just a wonderful youth council leader. she takes her she she puts her heart and soul into it and I I'm pretty sure that um that these kids will never forget this experience. You know, I I texted the attorney general after and I just said, "You give them an experience tonight that they'll never forget." And I I truly believe that it's something that for these kids

to see on a very fundamental letter level what makes our country go, what makes our state go, how the city gets their authority and how we work. I think is invaluable. We have one uh youth council member that has already left high school and he is acting as a um

an intern with uh Representative Elison and he actually was there helping the youth council back and forth off the floor. We also have a great mayor in the youth council. Mayor Brown is now considering that filled. But I think the the star of the uh event certainly don't want to embarrass her because um she's been quite quiet, but uh dad's daughter really really shown some depth of thought and maybe it's the upbringing that she's had with an attorney father, but she asked some really good questions and and it seemed like that she really enjoyed that and maybe there's a future there that she'll she'll uh grab a hold of. But I know I took longer than usual, mayor, but I wanted to share that we have a great youth council. They represented our city so well. They were dressed nice in their jackets and they represented the city very well and uh it was a pleasure to be with them and again appreciate Jordan and Annie and Michelle and Tess for their for their time that it took for this trip. I think it was well worth it.

Well said. Thank you, Councilman. I understand the city manager even made an appearance up there too and then peeled off for some for some other meetings. Councilwoman Caspersonson. Uh neither do I. We'll go to city manager report. Uh thank you, Mayor Elden. Can you switch it so I can um as is the tradition, I have my yearly Washington city management report. I think like to go over just a few things. I think there are some interesting um there's some interesting things here. If I was going to pick a a word for 2025, the word I would probably use for our city is steady. Um, I think it was a steady year for for the city. We we saw a lot of really similar numbers to the year before. One thing I want you to look at on the bottom left there on this uh this graph, I changed this up a little bit. This shows our property tax compared to our our neighbors in the county. And what I added this year is I I put including fire. So, I took any of those uh areas that are covered by a fire district and I added their additional property tax just so you can see um Washington City is just barely above New Harmony as the second lowest property taxed uh city in in the county and we're just lower than St. George and and Washington [clears throat] and St. George do not have fire districts that represent them. uh most of the others do. And you can see, you know, compared to a Tokerville or a Lurk or a Hurricane, we're we're half to a third of the property tax that they would pay for a similar size residence. Just a different way of looking at at things and how you provide those services. Our service population, we talk about that's the population that we serve when when everyone's here and using the second homes and vacation rentals, but we're around 48,000 at this point. So,

the city continues to grow about 200 residents a year and that's been pretty steady for the last little while. Um, I think we do that with a pretty conservative approach. You can see our our full-time equivalents is what FTE is. You take all of the staff hours and divide that into full-time and we we had two extra staff members to take care of those additional 2500 residents and that is up to 344 total. Residential building permits you saw was up by about 40 from the year before. sales tax per person's up slightly. Everything else is pretty steady. Community center, you know, 444,000 plus visitors to the community center is pretty pretty amazing for how how much that center gets used. I mean, how do you track that?

They track it because they they count every person that comes in either pays or they they

not because sometimes you have ball games and people just come in like so there's always the Saturday events too that we're not tracking as well. There's probably more. There's probably a lot that we're not catching, but um you can see police calls for service was up. It was response times are down slightly, but but the response times for both police and fire are staying in those acceptable ranges. One thing that we added this year, we added miles of trails. You can see we added four miles of trails, but the city's up to 36 miles of trails, which is a quite impressive number. Um 217 acres of parks. So, we added 15 acres in in this year of new parks. So, that's I I think it's it's kind of neat because you all of this stuff happens in the course of a year and you don't always see it until you sit down and and track it like this. And we've been doing this for quite a few years. Um, page two, the back page. Again, we had a list of accomplishments that was three times this long, but I cut it back just to sort of the main highlights. So there are more, but you know, finishing the canal trail, finishing the George Washington Plaza, we removed 12,000 square feet of sod. Um, our our community development building departments are now fully staffed and hitting plan redu exceeding the plan review deadlines that the state sets out. We issued building permits for the RS Southwest Logistics Center. Uh, the new accounting system that we talked about, the main street exit 12 opened. uh we did a major waterline replacement project on the north end of town and and the medians in Washington Parkway. And then you can see the city goals that we have for 2026 include again more trails, more parks, another power substation and power lines, um up updating city land use ordinances, some new water tanks. There's just a lot going on in every department and you all see that, but it's really nice to see it kind of in a in a larger larger uh format here. The other thing that's kind of interesting to look at is in these in these graphs

here of all the things that the city does only 27% 28% is general fund. The rest are the business type activities that the city runs with the water, sewer, power, electricity, all that. And then you can see in the bottom one that the thing that stands out to me is only 16% of the revenue that the city collects is in taxes. And so we've been really conservative that way, but we were able to run a lot of of our city with other revenue sources rather than rather than just relying on taxes for our residents. But I think I think another successful year, a steady year for the city. I don't know if you have any questions, but this goes up on our website. You have many years worth of of these reports that you can go back and compare how things are going compared to how they've been in the past. But that's my report, Mayor, unless you have any questions. Anybody? Well done, Jeremy. This is excellent information and really a testament to to uh the leadership here in the city and the the efforts that are made by everyone. Council, any questions for the city manager on this report or comments about this? Seeing none, we will uh we do have need to go to close session for pending or potential litigation. I'll call for a motion uh to that end and then we'll do a roll call vote.

Second. Have a motion by Councilman Bellison, a second by Councilman Coats. We'll begin roll call with Council Member Henderson. Hi. Coats. Ivy. Caspersonson. Belliston. Hi. We will move into close session. Thank you. I mean You're