Council Meetings - Regular Meeting

our regular council meeting. And council, before I turn to you for uh an approval of the agenda, I'll just like to welcome all of our residents as well as uh Commissioner Victor Iverson from Washington County and Mayor Clark Faucet from Hurricane City and then representatives from Hurricane City and the NO and our residents. So, thank you for being with us today. Council, we do have uh one uh open meeting item and one close session item and that is the extent of our agenda. I'll turn to you for a motion. So, made have a motion by Councilman Ivy. Second. Second by Councilman Coats. All in favor? I.

The agenda is approved unanimously. Our first and only item of business is a presentation and discussion on the Purgatory Road and Bridge. uh Washington city engineer Paul Mogul and Hurricane City Engineer Arthur Leberon will present to the council. Gentlemen, Give me just a second. If not, I have Elden on back up hopefully. So, let's see if this goes. You want the good stuff as soon as it shows up. Let me try to see. Uh maybe

you know we rely on our engineers for technical conversations. There. There we go. I think I got it now. But we rely on for technology.

I'm like it doesn't mean anything can do technology. Oh yeah. All right. Maybe. Okay. All right. Well, thanks. Um, I have with me Arthur Learon from Hurricane City. He's the city engineer in Hurricane and here to give a brief update on the Purgatory Road project. Um, this is a regional transportation improvement that Washington City has been coordinating with Hurricane City, Washington County. Um, UD do was involved in the EA. So, there's been a lot of agencies that have been involved to improve connectivity, safety, and long-term growth capacity in the Purgatory Flat area. This project is a multi- agency effort. Uh Washington City, Hurricane City, and Washington County are coordinating planning, design, rightaway, and construction responsibilities. Environmental clearance has already been addressed at the federal and state levels. Funding will come from a combination of regional, local, and state transportation sources. The key point is that it is not a single um entity project. It's a coordinated regional infrastructure investment. Uh the project development. The selected alternative identified through the environmental assessment is a new three three-lane roadway connecting SR9 to Southern Parkway. Where possible, it uses existing alignments, but it will extend south through Purgatory Flat and include a new bridge approximately 400 ft long across the Virgin River. The need for this project is dri driven by limited north south connections in this part of the

county. Some developing areas currently have only one access point which raises both safety and emergency response concerns with planned growth continuing. Improved access is necessary to maintain mobility, reduce congestion and ensure reliabil reliable emergency routes. And here we get an overview of the preferred alignment uh of the project and where it crosses the different uh municipalities. And then the next six slides were taken from the environmental uh assessment document or the EA which was done in 2019. And these next slides will have a zoomed in look into some of the key areas. So that's just kind of an overview of where it's at. Yeah. Hey Paul, I this isn't a question to create a roadblock, but the the route there either follows existing roads or or you know dodges existing uses with the exception of the the western rock pit. It seems to just cut right through their project. Has there been any discussion about how to how to accomplish that part?

That is a good question. And as far as discussions with Western Rock, I don't believe that there has been any discussion with them.

Come on. And then just, you know, the routine. Yeah. Thanks, um, council for having me here. Um, I have so many things that I'd love to say, but some of it's got to be on the record. So, let's and we all know Arthur Learon. Well, I don't know some of you, but I I will say this for the record. You need to have Paul give his how to get beat up in um Gunnison speech.

We're going to add that to the next meeting, Paul. Um but to answer your question, um during the EA process, we had public scoping meetings as required and and we collected comments from the public. And so Western Rock was notified. Um I'm I'm pretty sure they were sent a personal invitation to come to our scoping meeting and give their say so about the project. And so we have a record of of that correspondence in the EA. Uh, I don't think that it's um something that they were very embracing of, but I think they see the the greater need of the public for this road at the end of the day. So, I'm I'm sure we'll be able to make a deal with them to get it done.

Right. Of course, you've heard my side of the story, so I'm sure that there's still going to be some complex conversations. I probably missed council the again. So the it was finalized in 2019. So we started it in we started that process in 2015 actually. So it it was a long process and uh we went through a lot of iterations and there's a lot of history. I've been working on this with the county since 20 2007.

Is is there a time frame? I mean does it need to have an update or is the 2019 sufficient? Um so in my world the 2019 study is is good. Um usually with environmental studies um the the different agencies will look at the how old it is and if they've had a policy change or if there's been something that's changed then we'll generally have to go through and address those changes. But I've never heard of a hard and fast oh it's expired. Okay. Wonderful. So, I didn't want to

Yeah. Let's carry on. Are you Are you handing the baton off here like a winter Olympics bathlon race or what? Speaking of races, the first time I met Crest Daily was in the middle of the St. George Marathon. That was uh Yeah. Was that a um I was in front and then he caught up with me and I stayed with him and then he ultimately uh left me. So, Arthur let me win that day. Usually I concede Um anyways,

okay. Yeah. So, um the these are actually exhibits from the EA. This is on the very south end. So, you can see on the screen that's the uh crossing. The Virgin River sadly is not 400 ft wide. Like all of our drought issues would be um that we wouldn't have them if if Virgin River was 400 ft wide. But we do have to span the the flood plane. So, that's why the bridge is so long. Um, but on the left side of the screen is the off-ramp uh for the Southern Parkway there at the Long Valley um interchange and and then there's Washington Dam right there. You can see the label. And then continuing um to the north um it goes through uh Western Rock and somewhere in that area that label that says Landfield Road, that's probably where Schmelter Drive is in Washington. I

I wish I was a little more familiar with my Washington city geography, but I think that's what it is. Um and then we continue up on through. So Arthur on on the Western Pit, I mean it's a pretty big hole, right? I just it's hard for me to get my bearings on where this road's coming through. Would it be a lot of fill in this area or is this an area that is relatively undisturbed of their pit? No, you can actually see the the fill lines on that. Just a we had a preliminary um platinum profile for it. So, you can see the fill lines there.

I see. And it doesn't differentiate different differentiate between cut and fill. So I'm sure some of those are cuts, but they Horox helped us with this preliminary design and they they tried to optimize the the route. Um and then we get up into Hurricane. So um at this point right there, you see the little red dots and you see 26. So 26 the road doesn't exist but from 27 and up through the road exists. So we pretty well finished um the roadway um in hurricane in Hurkins's m municipal boundary except for right up here at the very end. So um just to get your bearings straight on this one, those two buildings right by Highway 9, those are the driver's license division and the DMV buildings. And right now the flow of traffic goes directly into um the fairgrounds and this exhibit shows the reconfiguration of that flow so that it would go onto Purgatory Road instead. And we anticipate uh that this will be hopefully a roundabout, but we'll see. We're we're actually uh the next slide yeah talks about um our our state of funding right now. So Hurricane City applied for federal aid money several years ago and we were actually able to make a deal with UDOT where they took the federal money and they traded it out at a 20% discount to Hurricane City. So, we just get cash from the state and and we don't we aren't fettered with all the federal um

guidelines for expending those dollars. So, we have 374,000 to put towards the project. And we also have 100,000 in our fiscal budget for the this year to put towards it. And then we've been working with Washington County over the years to put us put aside um ride-of-way acquisition funds. So the COG funds amount to $623,000 and uh we can actually develop um some design enough design with those funds to be able to produce rightway instruments to do corridor preservation. So we have about $1.1 million available to us for design. And we have a we've went through the process of consultant selection and civil science is that consultant. They've given us a design cost proposal of $955,000. Uh that the scope of that um cost proposal is to develop 100% construction drawings for this reconfiguration in Hurricane City. So we'll get a a bidable plan set out of that and then from uh 26 on down all the way down to the end uh we will have 60% design which will give us what we need along with um the legal descriptions and right-of-way acquisition instruments to start going after right ofway. So, that's what our current um effort is. And I think that we're um just like one council meeting away from approving that uh a contract with civil science to to kick off that design effort. So, um I don't know if there's no Oh, thank So,

we're not there yet. Um, so I guess the the the reason why I'm here with you is uh at the uh invitation of Mayor Staley was to talk about getting this connection made and as soon as we can to get across the river and get that connection to Smelter Drive done so that we can route the the big trucks where they really should be, which is on Purgatory Road instead of on Country Way, right? And so we've had we've gone through several iterations of cost estimating for this and the cost to make the connection is anywhere between 25 million and $40 million. Um I think that out of this design effort, we're going to get a lot better refined estimates. And I think that there's some phasing that we could look at doing that could help, you know, allocate funds to to the most strategic place, but that bridge has to go in in order to solve the problem that Washington City is experiencing. And that's going to cost 15 20 million probably. Um I think we'll have some better numbers for you soon

on top of the 25 or 40. No, that's part of it. Part of it. Okay. So you could if you could go in with phase one at least get through to SR9 10. Yeah. And so

and just to and to just to kind of bring you up councilman to some of the period when between your terms um we've been working with the city of Huracan and the county on this for some time and um we felt like that this is kind of like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can't have one without the other. So for us, and I appreciate Arthur mentioning that the the bridge is a a critical piece for the road because we don't want to add to that traffic on the country way.

No, I I understand, but I I ask in this regard, right? I I understand the bridge is critical, but if sometimes getting a bridge across a wetland and getting dealing with the core of engineers can take a little bit longer, right? So we if we can move forward with the roadway, we at least start to relieve some pressure till the being able to go in. We would have to probably discuss, you know, truck routes and things like that to mitigate some of that pressure on country as you're very aware of. But, uh, Arthur, your phase one is the bridge or phase one coming from the hurricane side. So, I don't have a phase one necessarily. Okay.

I do know that in the short term, we are going to do this project up here and get that intersection reconfigured. And I I estimate we're going to be into it about $2 million to do that. Um but down here on the on the south end to to alleviate the truck traffic that's on Country Way. This bridge is a key component to that. There you're not going to alleviate any of it. Like zero of it is going to go away unless this bridge is well unless unless you make the connection from Smelter Drive north to Hurricane because

well potentially you could have more traffic in country if I'm not I'm not disagreeing with that as well. I'm just saying that's why I asked on your phasing. That's actually what we what we had anticipated the phase one would be um back when Mike Shaw was the public works director and then we had a a discussion with the new guard at Washington City and we decided, hey, we're not going to do that. We're going to just push across the river, which I'm all ears to do that. I think that's the ultimate right. It's just how we how we all come up with all the money we need to do this kind of project. Well, that that's the other thing we need to talk about. I I feel like this effort is is a lot bigger than any one of us. Yeah.

And we really need to send a diplomatic mission to other people that have money. Well, and to to your point, Arthur, I I just would like to recognize too I and they're they're not on live, but I know that they're watching the streaming. So Jeff Razer from Senator Curtis's office is on and then James Levit from Congresswoman Malloyy's office is on too. So we are looking for you know community funding funding at the federal and state level. But that is an interesting conversation council because

does that does a phase one you know north connection to smelter does that alleviate traffic on country or does it add traffic to it? I don't know the answer. Initially I felt like the thought was without a bridge it adds to it. So, but I do think ultimately those have got to go together. But I think this is a good healthy conversation to have.

But there's also things we can look at and I'm sure Arthur's thought about it. I'm just think through my mind of phasing is the bridge is the bridge cost and you want to build it to full size right off the bat. But there's ways we can do two-lane road for a while and then as people develop along it, they can add to it like we do all our other roads. So there's the phase in that aspect, too. It's more of getting the connection. I do think adding it to the north is big, but we're getting a lot of uh traffic from the east side of Hurricane that comes and the west side of Washington that come down the southern Parkway and then run down Country Way instead of going and this would help alleviate that to have the bridge in place. So, I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying we know we have the big lift of the bridge which is a big lift and it's 15 to 20 million whatever we're saying but then look at phasing options to minimize the roadway along this section just to get the connection of a two-lane before any development happens along

we in we intend to to tackle it just like what you're saying with just put in a spine road and then when the property develops out we'll we'll link arms with the development community to to have them do their part. And do do you remember just offhand on that well would be Huracans's west side, Washington's east side. How much of that road goes through the county? Is it a significant portion of the unincorporated area or I'm looking at the commissioner, he's giving me a slight nod kind of, you know, deep cash on those maps, I think.

Yeah. I mean, I would love to have uh someone from the county. We have Todd Edwards here and also Victor Iverson um if they want to come up and talk to that point for sure and as a work session happy to do that. Also Myron Lee from the MO if you have some things to add to this with your expertise to have you jump in.

I I just wanted to say a couple things though um before I give up the mic for a second since I know that we have some folks online from the state and and the the United States. Um we have put we've put grant applications in for there's a there's one grant called raise that we actually paid um a consultant $30,000 I think it was from from no planning funds to put a grant together and we thought we were going to do well and we got denied and then I've made two efforts for uh community funding and I've learned from those two efforts failing twice that in order for us to be in a good position, which I'm not going to tell um Congresswoman Malloy how to do her business because I would love for her to give us uh some money right now, but to stack up well against other projects, we need to have ride of way. That was the clear message I got from the folks in Washington DC is that we need to have the right of way and then they're going to be a lot more inclined to to give us some outside federal funding,

which makes sense in the fact that they don't want to give you money if you don't can't actually physically build it.

And so that's when when we put together another application for funding from the COG so that we would have enough money to get enough design done to do rightway acquisition. So that's that's kind of some background on on those and and I would love to continue to support efforts to apply for grants, but just you know the I know the state legislature has made special appropriations for projects and probably the most familiar one to us would be uh what just happened in Tokerville. Um, I think that Washington even got a a special appropriation for the George Washington Parkway interchange.

It was the first time in the history of Washington, I think, that we that we got a little bit of funds from up north, but we're grateful. So, I'm I would really love to just petition the whole council, you know, flex your political muscles with with the state legislature legislators that you know, and let's put together a a plan to try to get some money from the state for for some help with this.

Before you leave, council, let me just kind of take your temp on this. I mean, I wanted this was a conversation that we had over at the Dix Transportation Expo. I know Council Bellison was part of that conversation, too. there know councilman Ivy serves on the no we've been talking about that but I just wanted to get your temperature and I mean this is a collaborative project and also before we finish would like to hear from commissioner Iverson too from kind of representing the county just kind of your feedback on this on the need on the the you know the desire etc

you know mayor I I'm so happy that our friends are here tonight to help have this discussion because it is needed it's needed by both municipalities and the county It's part of our growth. We're a little bit grown into a corner,

but what I would like to propose, mayor, is some kind of a coordinating committee to work on funding between all the partners because you mentioned some of our good partners in the federal government and state. Um, I know we send emails, but I think if we had a collective resource that we could get those conversations held and and like um I know your mayor and good mayor from Hurricane and Commissioner Iverson if you even to work work out the details on that, but I think that's going to be the the cynch pin right there. I have total faith in our engineers and ability to build it, but the funding is something I think we need to be front and center on right now. We needed it. We need it yesterday. you know, the impact to our residents on country way. You know, it's real. We've been out there. We've seen it. We know it. And uh I would just stress that that we need to give all hands on deck to get the whatever financing is available. We know the big beautiful bill help helped curtail some of the monies that we could have gone after for this. But having that happen, it means that we just have to work harder to find what's there and to get this done.

Thank you, Councilman. Further thoughts? Well, my I have similar concerns as you do is if we don't have the bridge, if it would if we did part of the project, if it would just cause more traffic, you know, where they're already having issues on country. So, that would be one of my concerns if to move forward without the bridge. I think it would just exaggerate the problem on the way. Thank you. You know how much they got for Tokerville, the project there? I don't It was over 30 million though. 36 36 I think they had to go back and get some more but it was at least 30 million.

So councilman just to make sure I understand you're another way to phrase it is if the bridge comes with the road and alleviates traffic from the county and from the city on country way and puts it onto Purgatory Road and bridge that would be something that you would support. Okay. Thoughts on this side? Arthur, what would it take to actually model that in without the with and without the bridge and and have them build it? Because I mean, we see the model. It's so it's a Yeah, I don't think it so much easier when it's actually running, right? It wouldn't be that hard to do. And I'm sure that we could have get some some answers on that once we kick off this this design

because we do have some traffic engineering built into it. I just know that if you look at what exists on the north and the south of this, we have two state highways that we're connecting up and through and we're linking up two industrial areas. Washington has it, Hurricane has it, and then we have the fair county and the county has plenty of industrial and then there's just so many rooftops down there in Washington that would likely have business up in that light industrial area. Plus, they they want to go to the demolition derby and so make it easy for them, right?

But it is compelling to say that we connect two state highways, SR9 and I believe the Southern Parkway is SR7, right? So to connecting those on a on a collector road like that,

I feel like that's where the state really has a nexus um where where this is actually beneficial. When Hurricane City, before the Hurricane City joined the the Dixie MO, we did a study on a few of these roads um that we were master planning, including Purgatory Road. And we have a heat map that shows how the existence of Purgatory Road affects regional traffic on I-15, SR9, SR7. And it's really amazing how it reduces trips on like telegraph. I mean it really it really has a positive and SR9 I bet too. Yeah, for sure. So anyways, before you leave Council Bell,

nothing important. I was just going to say I mean I I I'm drive through countryway at least a dozen times a week because it's convenient, but this would be way more convenient to me to where I bypass it. So, I mean, the hope would be to get as much at least out of that residential area, but certainly to be able to take a better built road. So, um, doesn't really add anything, but my thoughts. Thanks, council.

Thank you for the presentation. It's it's really needed. like Councilman Bilist and I drive on country a lot for work and it's just, you know, we need we need a change as soon as possible. So, appreciate your work on this. So, thank you.

I'm excited that the design's underway and let's get the ride away so we can funding. I think what we had talked about and just kind of casually but now more formally is as Washington city elected folks and staff, we want to just put our full support behind Hurricane City because you have the history and the expertise on this to move forward as partners and we're hoping that you know the county will jump on as well and I think collaboratively on kind of this east side we can we can pull this off. What else would you add before we give some others an opportunity? I think I've said my piece. So, I really appreciate being able to be here and I'll stick around, you know, if someone calls me back up.

Thanks, Mr. Edwards with the county. If you'll just state your name for the record.

I'm Todd Edwards. I'm the public works director for Washington County. Uh you can see from the the map up there those red lines, Washington City has somewhat convoluted uh boundary on this side um where they bounced around some ground in Western Rock and also some ground that the Water Conservancy District owns. And so we would anticipate as this road is built uh that we would hope that Washington City or Hurricane would annex those areas. you're much better at development than we are. Can provide services a lot better, sewer, water, everything else. Uh we do have a significant portion that runs through the the county landfill that area that's shown there and also the shooting sports park and of course our um fairgrounds and legacy park up that's in Hurricane City itself, but but is a a very important uh part of the county infrastructure. So, so we realize we do have a lot of that property that runs through the county. The developable part we would hope will will be funded mostly by development as it occurs. Uh the sewer, water, everything else that needs to go along with this road. Um there is some BLM property in there that we're going to have to get right away through. That's always a challenge. Um but can be fairly inexpensive. There is a lot of money from the COG uh for rightway acquisition and so we've we've put that towards this in anticipation of determining what the rightway is. The COG um used to be set up to where it just purchased land, but we've allowed it to help in these studies in order to to determine the rightway so that we don't have to buy entire properties and then decide where the road goes. We'll decide where the road goes first and then try to acquire the property that we need. Just the property plus the slope

easements, those kind of things so we know exactly. And so that's why I'm excited about this study right now. It will define exactly where it goes and then we'll have, you know, the cog brings in million and a half dollars a year approximately uh through registration fees on your car. And so that's what it's there for is to get this right away before it develops before we're trying to take out homes and and things like that while it's fairly inexpensive property. So we're excited for the study. Uh we realize the bridge will be a a very expensive and the county doesn't have the funds to pay for that. Um but we would anticipate um putting our full support behind any efforts we can to get additional funding. So

very well said for me. Yeah. Questions for Mr. Edwards. Any thoughts? Thank you very much. Well said, Commissioner Victor Iverson. Hey, it's good to be on this side. Um I just really have to hand um give a big hand to Herk and especially Arthur because even before I was a county commissioner, he hit me up on this project as as well as Myron Lee. And um you know, nothing is that easy anymore in Washington County. We we sometimes the easy decisions maybe they were made well it doesn't seem like anything's ever been easy so I won't say that or inexpensive

or inexpensive but the time is right now to to start working on this road. I think it's it's critical that we start to secure those rightaways and so the study will help us but we once we get that done we need to keep moving. I'd encourage um uh Washington city to to focus on that connector route from from country country, country road over to this road because that's the conversations we've had before. Washington City has asked this question and it's a good question. Well, you know, how does this impact us? I think I think what's happened over the last couple years is you guys have seen such growth over there and you have a lot of pressure on that on that bridge that was only built for residential community and now you have industrial and everything and plus we have the landfill. It is true that the county doesn't have a substantial part of it inside of our boundaries, but we do have the fair and we do have the fair grounds and it's it for a long time has been a problem for us when we get so many people over at the fairgrounds. We've had to open the road through the landfill because we just don't have secondary access. And you you know what your fire chiefs tell you about that. So,

I don't see any in here right now. So, we're probably okay, but when they show up, we'll for my one-third of the vote on uh the county commission, I just I want you to know Washington County is behind this project 100%. Let's get the rideaway secured, get the engineers to tell us how much it'll cost, and then uh we'll go from there. So, anyway, thanks for convening this meeting, mayor. Appreciate. Well said. Thank you, Commissioner.

Uh Myin, and then Mayor uh Mayor Faucet, if you have anything to add. I'm Myron Lee with the Dixie MPO, the Metropolitan Planning Organization. Uh our our goal is to help the cities and the county and the state work together on transportation facilities. This project has been on our phase one needs list for over 10 years. um we've we've seen a need for this road in in in that time um grow as you're as you're seeing on the ground here in Washington City. Um the MO programs about $3 million uh uh to projects every year. Uh and this is one of them. We we helped fund the environmental assessment uh for for the area and we wanted to program money for the design but we were told by our federal partners that we couldn't do that unless the uh money to construct the project was already in line and we didn't have that at the time. We still don't. Um, but as Arthur explained, that money was exchanged for state funds that that are now available to go forward with this study. We're fully supportive of this study. Um, I think it's necessary to get a good cost estimate, not just to build the whole thing, but to to maybe present a plan on how it could be phased in over time. Um,

can I ask a question? Sure. How difficult do you think it's going to be to seek those federal funds? Excuse me. How difficult do you think it'll be to seek the federal funds? So, the federal funds that we have available from our no is $3 million a year. We're not going to be able to do the whole project, but we could participate. Okay. Those federal funds I I didn't know talking about, right? So, so the money that we program are federal funds. Okay. Sorry for that misconception. Tell them what year we can get those. Well, we program our money out four years four years ahead. So, we just finished programming our 2030 funds. Can we have the next four years worth?

Um, I would encourage you to bring a request to the MO. Yes, absolutely. No, we want it when St. George isn't here. Well, if they're not here, it's a slam dunk. Who has that assignment? It's a lot of pressure. Yeah. But but yeah, we're we're very supportive of this project. Uh it's it's uh it's going to need to be a shared expense for all of us and it it it will uh it will tax our budget. So um we we kind of have to link arms and and go at it together. That's kind of the Dixie way, isn't it?

That's that's what I'm told. That's what that's what I've experienced over the last several years. Thank you. Thank you, my any more questions. Mayor Faucet,

Mayor Clark Faucet, I know that Arthur is pretty well explained to you. I think where we we've been we've been working on this for a long time and seen the need for it um a lot because of we only have one way in and out and that area is developing a lot more is with the industrial as well. And so we see a need for it and have been wanting to do something as as soon as we can. But we appreciate the partnerships we have with the people in Washington County. The county and Washington had good relationships and we'd like to be able to continue that and partner with you in any way we can to get this done for our mutual benefit. So I think we're we're solidly behind it. Obviously, there's a lot of funding to have to be gathered in order to make this happen, but I'm happy to work with you and and with the county and try to raise funds in some manner or another through some source to be able to get it done. So, appreciate your help and support.

Well said. Thank Thank you, Mayor. Hey, Jordan Hess, you you uh work as a legislative affairs officer for the city. um you just kind of talk and you've been back at DC with Senator Lee's office and uh can you just talk to us a little bit about maybe some of the connections we might have with Senator Curtis's office and with Congresswoman Malloy and kind of some of the funding approaches and avenues we might have.

Yeah, I've I've already reached out to um get the ball rolling on an official funding request through Senator Curtis's office. Grace Simmons in his DC office handles these types of requests. He sits on one of the committees that provides infrastructure funding for roads and bridges. That's the main reason I went through his office is that he sits on that committee. It would have jurisdiction. They just wrapped up all of their funding appropriation requests for this budget year and now they'll start the process for next the next fiscal year. So, we will be part of that next fiscal year request and um that would have to be approved, you know, by his committee and then passed as probably part of a a larger package of bills and then go over to the house and pass in a funding bill there. But, um yeah, that ball is rolling and I've I've already made contact with his staff.

So, Jordan, on that uh the funding because right away is such a big deal, is that going to affect being passed on that right away with them. If we have the right away, then then that probably makes it easier to get the

Yeah. I'm just wondering, are they going to kick us out because we don't have the right away? Cuz I mean, they're going to be under design for six, seven months, I would say, eight months, and then then they start working on right away. By next year, we might not even have the rightways identified fully yet, depending on how fast they can do it. But that's where I'm bringing up the question. I'm glad we're moving forward. Even if it doesn't get passed this year, it helps for the following year. I just wondering if if they have a hard rule about right away or not. And they just barely concluded the process for the next fiscal year. So, we've got 12 months. If we can get it done in the next 12 months, that gives us a better chance. But if not, then we can just do a repeat request.

Arthur mentioned that that was one of the challenges previously is not having the the ride ofway. So, that sounds like order of operations. That's got to be near the front. Councilman Henderson, did you have something to add? You leaned forward and we were waiting for your wisdom.

Join join Jordan up there, Arthur. And yeah, so I actually thought about this and I'm glad we uh something um stimulated the right part of my brain. Uh, I I feel like in order to get the ride of way, we're going to have to hire an agent and aggressively go after finding out who's a willing seller because that those willing sellers when we can make deals with them, we can use the COG funds. And so we we would be uh ahead if we hired a an agent to get get find the willing sellers, get the appraisals done, and get those deals done. We'd be able to do it very quickly. can help point you in the right direction cuz we had the same problem along the canal trail. Got 65 easements. So,

and we got 64 of them. Did you hire an agent to help you with that? Yeah. I I just And it wasn't the right rideway. Like, we had the rightway figured out and the easements written and all that. And then we had this group go do it and they basically hit off all the little stuff. And then the hard stuff you had to bring in people like Paul or Paul and Barry to come and Jeremy figure out the final. Most of the time. heavy hitter back there. I think that should be part of our plan though is agree. I think it's a good plan. Arthur Todd,

uh the county was able to secure uh Sheepbridge Road funding through a congressional earmark exactly like what you're asking for now and it was subject to getting the rightway. So, it's not a hard fast rule that you have to have all of the rightway in place, but I think having the alignment and knowing where you're going to go goes a lot way long ways towards making it more comfortable for Congress to approve the funding.

And and while you're there, I I know Councilman Ivy had mentioned, you know, how do we coordinate this? I think that's an interesting question where we've got three, you know, separate entities. How do we how do we coordinate and work as a as a unit? How did you see that from your role, Todd? Uh we've kind of let hurricane run with this phase of the project um with the environmental assessment. Uh they were kind of the primary driver of that also. And so I think we let them actually contract with the uh consultant. Uh COG funds can then go back to Hurricane City to reimburse them for their costs or they can just send the the bill straight to the cog. So, so that's that's been our um best approach is usually better if you can have somebody responsible to do it rather than everybody standing back and letting waiting for somebody else to do it. And Arthur has been willing to take that point. So,

yeah, that's what I'd encourage you now for this phase of it. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, once the once we have the rightway established and like I said, we hire an agent or something like that, we may need to redis it. at that point. But we could again probably use COG funds that have to be reapplied for. But we can definitely that's one of the things that the COG could pay for would be an agent to to go out and actively encourage people to to come to the table and sell a propert including the surveying and defining the areas and Okay. Yep. All of that's included and that's pretty much included in this contract now is getting all of the rightway documents done, exhibits, legal descriptions so that you

I think the thing that we found at least on a much smaller scale but with our historic canal trail just just the consistent attention to it. Yeah. And the and just chipping away little by little with the coordinated effort. Didn't you find that councilman? Yeah. Yeah, I mean it took us a few years to get to that point, but then once we got it, we got momentum and it went fairly quick once we started pecking away at it. But it it took that time. So, I mean, once once you have that stuff figured out as far as the the locations and areas, I mean, I think we could help with working toward that, getting those easements.

And I think most of the land owners along here will they would love to have a road and utilities and everything else run to their property. is certainly going to increase the value of their property. So, I don't think it'll be a hard sell, but just have to realize that the cog can only only sell to a willing seller at the appraised price. We can't can't pay more and and it has to be somebody that there's no threat of condemnation on. Well said. Thank you. Thanks,

Jordan. Councilman Ivy has a question for you. So Jordan, I think that with the senator and Grace as they come back here, it might be really good to meet together, the key people from the two cities and the county, and maybe even go on a little field trip and and kind of show them what we're talking about and why this is something that is a priority. And I might suggest, mayor, that uh Jordan has good reach into DC, has friends there, and knows the senators well, and maybe we could uh we could ask him to run on this as far as the uh the uh monies that we could gather from the federal agencies just so it's can coordinated together.

Yeah, I think you'd be a great resource and and again we're supporting you know Arthur and Hurricane City but this is a team coordinated effort and we bring all of our skill sets to the table. Yeah. And I have been texting back and forth with Jeff who is listening in from uh Senator Senator Curtis's southern Utah office. And uh Jeff, if you are still listening, we would love to get, you know, even a couple minutes on the senator's schedule next time he's in southern Utah. Take him out and show him this area and and just the the need that exists.

Thanks, Jordan. Uh, is there anyone else who have from staff that has an interest? Blake, anything? Or John, anything that you'd have to add to this?

I don't think Oh, sorry. I'll wait till I get up here. Um, I don't think there's a whole lot more I can add. We've definitely looked at this and and uh I think putting it together, we're starting to head in that that right direction of where we look at it as a as a whole project. I I see, you know, it makes sense to be able to, you know, do two lanes or something to get there and and then you can do some additional things um as development and other things come in. But that bridge is is just I'll restate it. It's very critical to have that and make that work. um adding more to an already other problem that we have over in Country Way is just really going to be tough. But um but certainly I think having all that coordination together that's that's going to help a lot because we really haven't had fully I mean we've been talking about different things like that but but you see that price tag and just as us as a city looking at it we're like if we're just us we can't probably make that happen. So we definitely need the help.

Yeah. um to be able to do that and it just regionally significant in this area. So, it's very important that way. Thanks, Blake. Well said. Questions for our public works director comments? All right. Thank you. Um Paul Arthur, anything else to add? This is this has been your presentation.

So, a couple things. Uh number one, um trail connectivity. So, we have an active transportation uh plan that's uh regional that connects along Purgatory Road like the Sullivan Trail and connecting up to the fairgrounds and across the river to um into Hurricane. So, this this corridor is also for trail connectivity. And then just one last thing to kind of make this memorable if it isn't already. Um I've read I read this story by Pat McManis about Bad Company. Has anyone read that one? So, so his mom always told him, "You can always tell when you're in bad company if there's a wave of enthusiasm that ends in catastrophe." So, I think we've had a wave of enthusiasm, but I don't think it's going to end in catastrophe.

Good company. We're in good company. So, thank you. Well said. Paul, I'll give you the last word. And uh No, I think everything's So, Paul, you got to end with the Gunnison story. Yeah, that's exactly right. Councilman, you got to come clean on that. That's a That's a whole presentation in and of itself. Uh I don't ready for that right now. That's Yeah, that's a whole thing.

Um just kind of an idea. So that bridge across the river is a key component to it all. Um, otherwise we're throwing a lot of traffic onto countryway, which I don't think we want to do. The bridge is roughly about 400 feet. So, I was just doing a comparison. So, the Southern Parkway George Washington Boulevard interchange that we did, the bridge on that is just under 200 feet. It's like I can't remember like 160 180 feet long. And the just the construction alone on that was roughly about $10 million. So double that 20 for that bridge, you're probably somewhere in the ballpark of a $20 million bridge just for the bridge, let alone all the other all the other stuff. So just kind of rough ballpark idea of where we're sitting funding wise for this. And yeah, it regionally significant. it'd be a a great asset to the this side of of the county and the community and um would would be great and just re-emphasizing that bridge.

Okay, but that be all I got. Anything for Paul? No, I just I just know that you know there are when we were doing Washington Dam Road, right? You got a couple of property owners down there that have wanted to remain in the county for whatever reasons. I don't, you know, it's unfortunate when you got to go try and get land acquisition and they're not willing sellers. Right. So, Right. Uh or for an annexation, but Right. And then we're going to have to go down that road.

And and like Arthur pointed out, like during the the EA of this, all the property owners were sent uh notification of this, so it shouldn't be too unfamiliar to them. Now, however, that's been several years, so could be different property owners. So, but how long do you think the bridge approval would get would take? Approval meaning like does Well, I mean, I asked earlier, right? The mall the mall drive bridge was almost 20 years from when they started looking at it before we could get it built. Yeah. Just the female.

So, it kind of depends on where the funding is coming from, you know. Uh, if it's local, there's less I'm going to say less things that less restrictions. If it's on a state level, there's more restrictions. Federal, there's even more restrictions. Uh, if we have if we get federal funds on this, there will be it could take some time. Okay. We'll keep we'll keep uh chipping away at it. We'll figure this out. Uh thank you everyone. Uh very good, very healthy discussion. Um appreciate everyone making time to be here and and be part of it. Um the next item on our agenda is to move to close session. Council, we do have need to go into close session for purchase, exchange or lease of property. And I'll call for a motion motion on that item.

So moved. Second. Have a motion by council member Henderson, a second by councilman Bellison. We'll go roll call beginning with councilwoman Caspersonson. Hi. Ivy. Hi. Coats. Hi. Henderson. Hi. Melison. Hi. We'll move into close session and we will reconvene for our regular meeting at 6:00.

It's 6 o'clock. We'll get started with our regular meeting. Today is February 25th, 2026. We are in the council chambers at Washington City Hall. Our meetings are streamed live at washingtoncity.org/meings and archived for later viewing. We appreciate our ongoing support of the Interfaith Council. And I see uh a re reverend, I'm guessing, with the Good Sheeperd Presbyterian Church. Okay. I have yet to meet you, so you'll have to introduce us uh your uh yourself to us when you come. And then I've invited our police chief Jason Williams to uh lead us in the um in the pledge of allegiance after the invocation. Reverend, I invite us to be together in a uh attitude of prayer. Almighty and gracious God, we give thanks for the many blessings of this day and this glorious place where we live. We give thanks and praise for all the ancestors and pioneers who have made this place possible. And so tonight, we pray for your wisdom and discernment as this council considers issues of public safety, care for community needs in light of the demands of services growing and also for insight and sensitivity in long-term planning for the good of the region. Lord, these are complex and weighty subjects, and you've called us to be faithful stewards of precious resources for generations yet to come. So, as this council meets to discern and govern, we give thanks for the gifts of their time,

talent, and commitment. And we pray that whatever burdens and distractions they have may have brought into this time may be set aside in your tender care. Give us peace, oh God, that we may rejoice in your goodness to us and to all of your children and be thankful in your love revealed. And I pray all this and more in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. We sure appreciate that. And will you also tell us your name? We we got to know Reverend Klingan, but I understand you have So I am Reverend Celeste Lassich.

Reverend Celeste Lassich. And because Lassich seems unpronouncable to most of y'all, it's usually Celeste. Um, and so I'm the interim pastor with Good Sheeperd Presbyterian. So I'll be with them in this transition as they're seeking wonderful their vision for the future and their next long-term leader. Wonderful. Uh, and a beautiful prayer. Thank you for your ongoing support. Thank you, Chief. Please.

Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Repeat after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you,

council. I will make note that we do not have need to go to close session. That said, I will call for a motion to approve the agenda as outlined. So made. I have a motion by Councilman Bell. Second. Second by Councilman Coats. All in favor?

Any opposed? We do not have any announcements that I'm aware of. Council, is there anything between now and our next meeting that should be announced to the public? Seeing none, we'll go to the next item which is declaration of abstensions and conflicts. Is there anything to declare this evening? Seeing none, we'll go to the consent agenda consisting of the approval of the minutes from the city council meeting of 211 2026. I'll entertain a motion on that item.

Mayor, I will make that motion to approve the consent agenda as printed. We have we have a motion by Councilman Ivy. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilman Bellison. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? The consent agenda is approved unanimously. We'll move on to section five of the agenda, which is resolutions. Item 5A is consideration to approve a resolution accepting an annexation petition known as the Adams annexation. City recorder Tara Pence will present to the council on this item. Good evening, mayor and council. Um, we received an annexation petition for the Adams family parcels in Washington Fields. I'm sure you're all familiar with where those are located. Portion of it, it runs along 20 East and then the other piece is along 3090 South. Um, this will bring it with the initial piece is a island right in the center and then the peninsula. So, this will close those boundaries there. The total is about 140 acres. Um the applicant has already did the initial part where they counting mills notices of notice of intent and this is the council's first step where you give the acceptance of the petition so I can start the hearing and notification and certification process.

So are there any other unanex parcels whether it's this applicant or other applicants that are kind of in that general vicinity? We do have the one other parcel um that's near the temple, but this is the that that one is not an island. The this will be the final island piece and then the peninsula down at the bottom. But that one already came in or is it it's the church piece. It's not this is two parcels. So this is bringing both of those in with one annexation. Okay. The both the Adams pieces.

Okay. Council, any additional questions for the city recorder with respect to the 140 or so acre annexation? I had one other question. I I talked to the applicant earlier because typically it comes in as zoning, but I'm not seeing like an exhibit on the zoning for it, but this will have zoning with it when it comes in as an annexation under PD. So, it'll come it's going to come back to you with a public hearing after all of the other after I do all of the other requirements through the state and then when that comes back in with the hearing, you guys will determine what zoning I I've talked with the applicant a little bit and I think that

they want to come in with an an a PUD, but it'll just it'll have to go back through the process to get all of the all of those things in place, but it'll be just like a a PUD with an undetermined plan. you still have an opportunity if they wanted to refine that plan a little bit or or tweak the zoning a little bit or or that applicate that portion of it has had to have been made at this point. So that it so they can't come in with a like a specific PUD because it has to go through land use. So like with lots and all those things. Is that

understand what I'm what I'm asking is we we have a PD design but sometimes there's a a PD commercial portion of it PD residential portion of it. There's or it's broken up in in that designation. That's what I'm asking. Not not a not a PD plan. Yeah. That would all come back through again through the zoning request.

Okay. Well, Tara, this is great. We you are getting very experienced in annexations as of late. So just for for the information tonight is the first step. So this is the council um would be your vote would be to approve a resolution accepting an annexation petition. That petition uh when it comes back to the council will include a zoning designation as well as a public hearing on that. And we certainly appreciate the Adams family and and know that they have a long history and heritage in in the Washington fields and also can appreciate their reasoning for keeping some of that agricultural land in the county for many years. But uh uh council, this is for you to chew on. I don't think there's much to chew on this really. Um if there's not any further discussion, I'll call for a motion to approve this resolution.

I'll make the motion we accept the annexation petition known as the Adams annexation. You've heard the motion by Councilman Coats. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilman Bellson. Did was there further comment? I didn't mean to cut. No, no. I was just going to jump in and make a motion, but he beat me to it. Sometimes he's a pretty quick gunslinger there. You've heard the motion by Councilman Coat. Second by Councilman Bellison. It is a resolution. So, uh, we'll begin with Council Member Ivy. Hi. Coats. Hi. Uh, Henderson. Hi. Bellison. Hi. Caspersonson. Hi.

That is approved unanimously. And if you're here for this item, um you don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting. If you have other places to be, you're welcome to be excused. That was pretty quick. So, the next section on the agenda is public hearings. We'll have three public hearings. And I just uh just for a reminder, we looks like we have some some of our good residents here in in attendance tonight. And we uh appreciate you being here. and we want to hear your voice. I will just uh as a reminder to all of us uh state that uh uh we uh did receive um online comments for some of these items and I'll be more specific when we get to those items. And I'll also just as a reminder this is an opportunity for the council to primarily listen primarily listen and for the residents to to speak and give their their feedback. Uh I found the uh most well thought and well spoken comments can happen in about three minutes or so. Um, that said, we'll move to item 6A. This is a public hearing and consideration to approve an ordinance for an easement abandonment located at 1141 East Lost Ridge Drive, Chapperel Heights, Lot One, uh, public works assistant director John Hinky will present. And by the way, we received no online public comment on your easement, John.

That's good to hear. Good evening, mayor and council. Thank you very much. Um, we have a correction for the uh Chapperel Heights uh plat during construction um the originally intended detention pond. We found we could do some other storm water functions uh features and stuff and make it work. Um with that um we need to get abandon the uh pee that went around the detention pond. It'll eventually be replplatted with the the uh pee moving back to right behind sidewalk on the front of the property line. We would respectfully request to vacate the current easement. Are they eliminating the detention pond then? Is the detention pond being eliminated as well?

Yeah, we we eliminated it during construction and it just kind of got missed on the plat when we finalized that. So, council, you've seen the revised plat. You've read through your packet. Uh, any additional questions for Mr. Hinky? Seeing none, I'll turn back to you for further discussion and or a motion. It's a public hearing. I guess it's public hearing.

Is it a public hearing? Thanks for keeping me honest here. Um, at this time I will open up the public hearing on item 6A. Anyone speak uh wishing to speak on the uh easement abandonment? Uh this is now your opportunity to come forward and share your thoughts. Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing. And now council, I will turn to you for additional discussion and or a motion. Here I'll make a motion to approve an ordinance for an eman abandonment at located at 1141 East Lost Ridge Drive, Chefel Heights Law. You've heard the motion by Councilman Ivy. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilwoman Caspersonson. Because this is an ordinance, we will again go roll call beginning with council member Coats. Hi. Henderson. Hi. Mellist.

Hi. Caspersonson. Ivy. Hi. That item is approved. 5 to zero. The next item of business is 6B. This is public hearing and consideration to to approve a resolution providing the creation of the corner post public infrastructure uh district. Economic development director Rusty Hughes will present to the council on the proposed district.

Good evening, mayor and council. you have um there there has been a little bit of work on this done already. They came in for a um for a zone change that's in line with the general plan. They're doing PUB zoning and they had some uses that were approved and they're going to elaborate a little bit more. They've um have a presentation, but tonight um we're here um to talk about the property located on approximately uh the northwest corner of George Washington Boulevard and Washington Fields Road. This is the lower 20 acres um there on that on that piece. And it's currently undeveloped. It's planned for PUDC commercial use with a grocery anchor and then some other uh complimentary retail around it. Um tonight the purpose um is to consider uh consider approval of a public infrastructure district. And the purpose of a public infrastructure district for the for the public is it's a separate local government entity created solely to finance public infrastructure needed to serve the development. Um and there's some important points to remember on this. Um one is that it's for eligible improvements that are constructed to city standards and then dedicated as required with any development. Um the other thing that I think is really key to remember is that there is no financial obligation to the city. Um city revenues, credits and assets cannot be pledged as security for for any PID debt. So it is a debt instrument and um the district operates independently and dissolves once the obligations are paid. Um so the formation of a district enables financing of infrastructure that's not otherwise feasible um for another public entity to undertake. And

this particular piece has quite a bit of public infrastructure um uh required on all three sides. And so I um as staff I do do recommend approval for this. Uh it's gone through quite a bit of a review. We do have outside counsel um that reviews this. Uh Gilmore Bell is our is our contracted outside council that has reviewed it and then we also have a municipal advisor of Zion public finance. It goes through an extensive review by by staff um our our outside uh consultants and then um will be presented tonight by the developer and their consultants. And um for the public um I'd also want to just stress that um a public infrastructure districts allows development to proceed while and this in this case a a 100% commercial development um in a in an area that that is um general plan to be commercial and has already received a public a I'm sorry received a zone change for uh for a PUD and but those costs that are incurred, they benefit the they the costs go to the benefiting properties, which means that advalorum tax benefits, I'm sorry, the cost goes to only participants within the PID area. So, they will outline the PID area. There's no additional tax to to anyone around that area. So, it's basically an extra tax that they tax themselves. They agree to tax themselves to help pay for those upfront significant infrastructure costs. But they will go all over all of that in detail. And I'll just introduce the team here. Um the applicant is Evergreen Development and uh Matt Nielson is here. He's got a few other people I'll let him introduce. And then um they have their financial adviser which is Marcus Keller from Cruz and Associates. You you may remember him. He represents the developer in this. And then we also have a municipal adviser

again that's that's on the city side. Okay. Any questions? Thanks Rusty. All right. Thank you, Matt. Good to see you again. Thanks, Rusty. Mayor, council, it's good to be back up here. Let's see it. Just click through it.

There we go. Uh, I'll go through this presentation pretty quickly. Rusty did a great job introducing the project. Uh, I'm here from Evergreen Development. Tyler Carlson was on his way here and his flight was delayed too much so he's stuck in Denver at this point. Um Erica and Ian with Evergreen uh you know from past projects. Um with us today Ally Blossom is here with Piper Sandler as Rusty mentioned. Marcus Keller with Cruz and Associate and with WB Blair is not here but Betsy is here in uh in Blair'sstead with the finance team. Um, really quickly in case just kind of a refresh on who Evergreen Development is, uh, we've been developing for over 50 years, we, uh, we've done over 600 projects and about 280 different municipalities throughout the United States, primarily focused on the western United States. Um, these projects right here, these four projects just highlight a few of our recent projects. Yeah. Go ahead.

Um, go ahead, Councilman. Of the projects that you do, how many have you do you retain them all? How many do you retain? How many have you sold? Um, I would say it it depends on the market and what's going on. We primarily build to then sell the project after completion. Um, I would say we maybe hold 30% of what we do after it's fully stabilized and complete.

Okay. So these projects right here, Mesa, Arizona, we recently completed a Safeway project with a 57,000 square foot Safeway with additional supporting retail around it, including local restaurants, um, Denny's, AutoZone, few people like that. We're working on a 315 unit development in Farmington, Utah right now that's under construction and nearing completion. Uh, we recently bought a shopping center in Saratoga Springs, Utah. That was a former grocery store that we reenited with Vasa Fitness and then refurbished and redeveloped the rest of the center. And then we recently completed a project here in Washington with Panera, Quickquack and Cypress Credit Union. Panera and Quickquack are built and completed and Cypress is uh under construction right now. This gives an overview of the project which I know you know where it is but northeast corner of George Washington fields. Um, we are close with a 56,000 square ft ger to take the anchor spot and then we're anticipating about 27,000 square foot of additional retail round which will include restaurants, coffee, bank, retail sales, convenience, automotive, all the similar uses that go along with the a standard grocery box. This gives just kind of an overview of how it'll lay out with the approved accesses all around with internal roadways with that ger taking the far back northeast corner. Um this is a an overview of our project timeline. Um the uh the PID and the or the PUD was approved last time. The PID we're hoping gets approved today. Entitlements we're going to be kicking them off quickly with bond closing on this P the PID. um end of this year, we're hoping to start uh horizontal infrastructure first part of 2027 with

our grocery anchor opening 2028 and a full project completion in 2029. Um I just wanted to mention Evergreen buys to develop. We don't buy to land bank. That's not the business we're in with our investors. We have a fiduciary to move quickly for them because we don't make any money until the project is completed. So there's a lot of developers, particularly in Utah, that land bank projects that come in, buy, sit, and then just wait to see what happens. But we are actively moving forward as quickly as we can with this project. Um, so we're hopeful to get these projects up and going in 2028 with finalized in 2029 to get that sales tax coming in. Rusty hit on this a little bit, but this site in particular faced a few challenges when we started underwriting this project, particularly

Matt, can I can I add kind of some unique challenges? Really?

Yeah. Yeah. Unique challenges. Um there's three different roads that border this site. All of them need to be widened. All of them need curb, gutter, sidewalk, or in this instance, a trail um system along there. Uh so in addition to the road widenings, curb, gutter, sidewalk, dedicated right turn lanes, um we also face a pretty high cost on bringing sewer line in. We're bringing sewer line from about 800 ft to the north. That's offsite down um down uh uh the uh from the north up at the Staley property down to our property. Um there's been a couple comments on Camino Royale about safety issues. So, we just wanted to point out that there is currently no curb and gutter sidewalk along Camino Royale, which obviously that will be installed with setbacks and everything. So, we're hoping that improves safety as well. Um, the other part of this, which doesn't necessarily count as public infrastructure, but it is adding a a significant cost to the project, is that screen wall that goes along the north end of the property. It's about 1,600 feet of a six-foot block wall as per city code to install, which is adding a pretty substantial cost to the project. Again, pit improvements, pit funds can't be used for all um costs associated with the project. They have to be specific to public infrastructure costs, which would include the road, sidewalk, trail systems, things like that, but not necessarily the screen wall. But I'm just pointing that out. Um this is a breakdown of our total infrastructure costs, not just the public improvements, but the total infrastructure costs. But again, you know, riding widening the roads, internal roadways, rideway landscaping, utility infrastructure, and storm water collection and detention.

Yeah. Yeah. Um so you've got masquerading and earth work. Mass grading and earth work is just including the total infrastructure cost, but not necessarily what the pit proceeds will go. So the left table is just total infrastructure cost, not necessarily the PID uh the public infrastructure broken out. So public infrastructure will be particularly used for what's highlighted to the right of that, not necessarily the total bill. So we have masquerading earth work uh unfortunately won't be able to be used towards those bid proceeds. And the plan is to construct all the roads at one time, right? Correct. To have it all done.

Yeah, we we want to knock everything out at once. It's a lot more economical to do that for us. So all the road widening will be done at the same time. Uh the blue area highlights where the PID boundary will be. Again, it consists completely of commercial. There won't be any residential included in this uh PID boundary. The PID boundary, the max mill levy that we're going to put on this property is 5 mills per the the uh local ordinance. It's allowable up to 10 mills, but we're going to cap that at 5 mills for this project. Um, just to highlight a couple key things from the governing docks of the PID. The PID boundary cannot change moving forward. Um, again to reiterate, the PID is to finance and design construction of public infrastructure and nothing else. And that public infrastructure goes towards roadways and uh helps improve nearby residential access and safety. Uh this gives just a quick economic tax overview and economic impact to the pro uh project. We're anticipating that by year 10 that this is adding an annual average 444,000 in sales tax to the city. Um the impact fees alone that this project causes or uh is allocated is about 675,000. We're anticipating that it creates roughly 246 new jobs. That's a very specific number obviously, but that's just what we're calculating out. 246 new jobs, which reduces the need for people to commute further away from home. Um, and then down at the bottom you see the current taxable value of the property at 4.8 million and then what our estimated taxable value is in 2029 after the project is completed. Um, that's all I had on the presentation. I tried to move through that pretty quickly, but I'm happy to go back and elaborate and answer any further questions. and we have a good team here that hopefully between all of us we can answer any questions you may have on it.

Oh, well done. Council, what questions do you have for Matt before we move on to Marcus?

So, the one I I guess maybe the one thing that kind of gives me a little bit of pause is is fact that you are selling it, right? Because whenever you do a P A now, it comes with a new tax or or specific to that project. And um you know there's a couple residents here that are in Coral Canyon. They're like, "We didn't know we had this extra tax." And they've been paying it for forever, right? I understand on the commercial side, they're a little bit more savvy and so they they get that better. But, um, in other projects and other areas that you guys have done, you know, how many use a pit pit in pit um, component that conversation go on the sales side?

Yeah, absolutely. So, in Colorado, where we've used these primarily historically, it's called the Metro District, but it's the same exact concept. On every single one of our grocery deals, we've had to layer on a metro district or a PID in this instance to make the deal work into pencil. Um, with the nature of these commercial projects, our tenants are paying the real estate sales tax on that through their uh triple net fees on these projects. And so, that's very very clearly disclosed property tax,

the property taxes in the letter of intent and throughout their lease. And so they do have the option to agree to that or not agree to that. We haven't had any issue in our other projects of having tenants agree to that. As you said, commercial tenants are much different than residential tenants in that they have a different understanding of what the property tax and additional fees are going to be. That all get lumped into what's considered their triple net cost with their common area maintenance, utilities, and taxes. And in this case, the additional layered on uh pit tax on top of that. And when I say we hold about 30% of what we do, we have to be pretty flexible in a project like this because there are certain tenants that want to buy and there are certain tenants that want to lease. And so the ones that will only buy, you know, there's a lot of banks, there's a lot of institutions like that, we sell them those projects and then on the ones that we lease, we decide which ones we're going to be holding and which ones we're going to be selling. Um, sometimes it makes sense to hold them and sometimes it makes sense to to sell them off depending on what's going on. I actually appreciate that distinction, Councilman, that you made, but and I also just point out that on an institutional level, you're well informed of the lease or purchase option.

Yeah. Uh, further questions for for Mr. Nelson. Um, would you like Marcus to present next? Absolutely. I'll get this to the end right here. And would you guys go easy on Marcus this time? Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. No, I'm just I'm just teasing Marcus. Matt did a great job. I I really don't have much else to say. We Councilman Ivy is saying no. Does that

No, no, that's all right. I'm here to take all the punches. So, uh, no. We We appreciate your consideration with this. We We feel like commercial is is really what the best and highest use of PIDs can be used for. It doesn't affect your residential users. It expedites commercial and then uh hopefully brings in the the sales tax dollars that uh you know, cities desperately want and need to to continue to run and function at a high level. So, we we appreciate this. Happy to answer any questions. Um the the process today, Betsy can probably go into more detail if there's additional questions, would be to to hold a public hearing to see if there's any comments from the public related to the PID and then uh have for consideration after that a resolution for the

Can I before we move on along on this too much, can I just point out for the record that um I believe Betsy Fowler was Dixie High School class of 95 and probably one of one of the best point guards to wear the the royal blue. It's nice to see you again. Um, Betsy. Yes. I She was She was Robin to your Batman, though. It was It's nice to see you back in back in Dixie back home. Anyway, sorry about that. We

No, we appreciate it. It's, you know, Betsie's been actually great through this process. She She knows Washington very well and uh we we lean on her a lot when we have certain questions, particularly pertaining to this. So, you know, she's great to work with. You guys have a lot of great people from this area. So, yeah. council. Uh, any comments, uh, conversation, questions with Mr. Keller? So, I've come a long ways on pit since we first met. Okay, perfect. Realize now that there are places and times for them, and I appreciate you being here. Obviously, one one concern that I had at first, maybe not so much now, is that potential buyers, whether they lease or they buy, they're going to be paying for this infrastructure lift, right?

And they'll be proportioned out and they'll make those payments whether it's a lease or a buy. And those numbers are very um accessible to potential buyers or renters as that can be incorporated into their business plan from the onset. So there's no hidden costs or fees.

Exactly. It has to be disclosed as Matt had mentioned throughout the entire process. Um as you know, businesses are much more savvy, more sophisticated than a than a typical residential buyer and they they look at all those numbers when they're making their calculation to see if it's worth going into that area. Um, as talking with Matt and learning quite a bit about this, particularly with commercial, too. I mean, a lot of businesses anticipate, particularly in the Colorado market, that this structure will be in place to help with the funding of those horizontal infrastructure. So, it's it's definitely not something that'll catch at least the the big box store or hopefully anyone offg guard because of the disclosure, but many people are already accustomed to that process. So, an unforeseen situation. Yes, sir.

Hypothetical. Let's say that we uh can we approve this tonight and you start to build out and you find it hard to get that grocery anchor. Yeah. Or get the footage that you asked here. What happens in the event that this was approved with those specific uses?

Yeah. So, the the idea is that this will always be commercial. Whether that commercial pit maybe comes back for some changes with maybe reszoning as far as like putting different things different places, I'm not sure about how that process may go. But as far as the city's concerned, the pit itself will never I'll even take your thing one step further. Let's say the bonds are issued at that point, which more than likely we won't be able to issue the bonds until we have agreements in place with those tenants, particularly the big box store. So that's going to be a condition that Piper could talk a little bit more on about at that point. But you know at at any point during this process if if something happens either a slowdown in the construction complete collapse in construction whether as a economic market or just specifically to this area those pit bonds are designed so that that tax levy will always be affecting only those users never the city. So what would happen is that that max mill levy of the five mills would be into place and let's say it only gets halfway built out or maybe it's the projections a little bit slower. They'll continue to tax at that five mills and it will be done through the time period of the PID. So at the end of the PID once it matures in that 30-year time period typically there's a 10-year runway to keep collecting if all the proceeds or all the bond payments haven't been made. But once it gets to that point after 40 years the loss goes down to the investors. That's why they're getting between 6 and 7% tax exempt rates on this, which is still better than most horizontal uh infrastructure lenders, but that's why they're paying or getting a higher interest rate because there's just more inherent risk. They're buying into a development project. And so sometimes developments are slower. Sometimes, you know, knock on wood, they just don't work out. We don't believe that'll be the case here because of the market here in in Washington city and and kind of the need in this area. But um at the end of the day, at least the city can rest assured that nothing negatively will ever come back to the

city in the form of a financial bearing or credit. The city bears no financial responsibility for this project. Exactly. Under any conditions. You you said it in one sentence what I rambled on in about a whole paragraph. So Councilman Ivy uh knew the answer. He cut right through it. He he just wanted to hear you say it, Marcus. Uh further questions. Councilman Bell, I got a couple. Um, one is since you're the numbers guy, how much of the triple net would be uh would be a per square foot value for this pit. I might have Matt come up and talk about that if that's all right. Yeah, I don't know that off the top of my head.

I'm just curious for my own sake because I deal with a few triple nets here and there, right? So, because I don't know and I and I haven't dealt with a pit before. They the last one that got run through was run through before me. The other one is on the board of trustees on the board composition. It says we're appoint they're appointed by the city council. So we just picked three people that are now the board of trustees or how does that work? Well, Betsy can talk about some of the technicalities if you want to go into that detail, but they're appointed by the city council by what's already included as part of the governing document packet. So those will be the three uh land owners that are currently involved as part of the development. Um, I believe it's Matt, Tyler, and COO

and and the CEO COO. So, you're appointing them, but it's it's it's basically by the approval of that resolution that you're appointing that board. So, then you get get the project done and you guys sell it in five years. Then it's the buyers, they the city council has to vote to say that they're the new trustees. It'll always be the land owners of those properties after that point. Yeah. Okay. And I believe Aaron Wade is on the line. And I'm not sure if he's able to connect in or not. He could go into more detail. He represents. Do we do you feel like you need more detail on that, Councilman?

Okay, perfect. But but it but it'll always transfer to the land owners. So again, the you're appointing it basically by adopting the resolution. But then after that time, once it's sold, new owners, if it's sold from Evergreen, then the new owners would be on the board. If Evergreen keeps it in their portfolio, they would continue to remain on the board. after the bonds mature um over that 30-year period, then the PID would dissolve and then obviously would no longer exist and and all the stuff. So, we and you guys move forward and then we pretty much wash our hands of it. Well, we we hope you would come visit the stores and and spend lots of money.

You know, we're going to come you know we're going to come spend some money, but I mean we got to keep you from shopping in St. George. That's true. Well, so no, but also from from an oversight perspective,

but as far as an oversight perspective, you're exactly right. These are designed to be standalone infrastructure. This designed to be standalone local governments. I mean, the whole reasoning for the PID was because of issues that had happened with prior special assessment bonds prior to PIDs where the actual city issued the bonds and even though it was in name only, you know, tell that to to lawyers, right? So, this is a complete 100 degree or percent separation from the city and allows us to get the cheaper financing by just pledging the land and those property taxes within that area.

And if a buyer came in and said, "Hey, you know what? Here's a project, but we don't want the pit. It's got to be satisfied before, you know, or through the purchase or whatever, that could actually be done, too." Correct. if if that big box store who's going to re really be kind of the bread and butter of this whole area as you saw by that commercial development came in and just said, "Hey, actually we're just going to cut a check and and we don't want a pit. We don't want levies." That would that's something they'd negotiate with Evergreen, but yeah, they could potentially either pay off a PID that's already existing to fees the bonds and then we would there's no prepayment penalty for is what

there's a six-year lockout period, but if they negotiate it because like I said, they're going to have that have that in place prior to the bond issuance on it. But if they came and said, "Hey, we don't want to deal with a PID. We're just going to front the cost for this infrastructure." I'm not sure if that makes sense in the commercial world, but if they said that, then great. Then that's solving all the things the PID could finance anyway. So there wouldn't be any reason to have a PID or finance infrastructure if it's already being paid for with cash up front. So okay, good questions. Does that answer Sorry. Does that Okay, council. My my question does is about the agreement. You keep bringing up 30 years, but it says 40 years under under here, correct? So, what's what's the is it explain that a little more why it says 40 versus the 30 you've been talking about.

So, in the bond community or in the investor community, they we issue the bonds for 30 years to those investors, but they want a 10-year runway because in the cases that perhaps the development doesn't produce as much as they'd assume property valuewise or slows down. So basically, if for whatever reason those bonds aren't paid off within that 30-year period, there's some acred interest that was never paid, then the investors have the right or can basically dictate that that mill levy keep collecting until they're made whole. So that's why we call it a 30-year bond within an additional 10-year runway. The hope is that, you know, after that 30 years, everything will have been done great. Bonds will be paid off, but the investors require that kind of as like a little insurance policy for their for their money. So, so that's kind of where you get that 34 year separation. Sorry, 30 and 40.

Any additional questions for Marcus? Thank you. Is

there anyone else from Evergreen who would like to speak to the council before I open up the public hearing? At this time, I'll open up the public hearing for item 6B, which is consideration to approve a a resolution providing for the creation of the Corner Post Public Infrastructure District. Anyone in the audience wishing to speak to this item may come forward now. I will for the record note that we did not receive any electronic public comment on item on item 6B. At this time, I will close the public hearing and I will turn to the council for further discussion andor a motion on this item. You see Councilman Henderson changing his glasses. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion. I'd like to make a motion that we approve a resolution providing for the creation of the Corner Post Public Infrastructure District.

You've heard the motion by Councilman Henderson. Is there a second? I'll second that. Second by Councilman Ivy making amends with Marcus Keller. We'll go to roll call on this one beginning with council member Belliston. I Caspersonson. Ivy Coats I

Henderson. That is approved on a vote of 4 to one and uh we appreciate your investment in Washington and we have all the confidence in the world that you'll make us proud on the corner post project. And Matt, I hope you have another chance to go uh camping with your family. I know we were up north and ran into you and your kids at the uh I think it was a Chick-fil-A and you're loading up before you spent Wait till it warms up a little though. Okay. Every summer

and uh um I know many of you may have traveled a long way. So at this time if you'd like to be excused, we would be happy to see you next time. The next item on the agenda is 6 C. This is a public hearing and consideration to approve a resolution imposing the emergency services sales tax sales and use tax in the amount of.33%. City manager Jeremy Reddd will present to the council on this item. Mr. Red.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate Marcus for warming us up and talking all this uh finance. I just feel like it was a really good come together moment for for some dead. I'm kind of going too far now.

I I want to start off a little bit by channeling my inner Thad. If you'll give me a a second here. Thad loves to tell stories and history of Washington City. But one of the questions that I've I've received from from residents and also from city council members this week is kind of why are we here? Where did we come from? and and why do we see ourselves sort of in a position where we need to make some adjustments potentially. And so here's a couple of pictures and we have a few fire and a few police personnel here, but I want to go back as far as 2006. And if you see the picture on the upper left, that's in front of our building there. Th that was our that was our fire crew back in 2006. And and the the gentleman in the middle was was Chief Tandy. He's a fire chief. And then and then some of you will recognize um the two firefighters on his left, our right, and the screen.

Those were our three full-time fire employees in 2006. The others are part-time. And then

what we had in 2006, we had mostly a part-time volunteer fire service that certainly doesn't didn't provide the the level of service that we have today. And then if you move to the to the right hand screen, this is the most recent 2025 picture of our fire department. Um, in those 20 years, essentially, we we now have 28 full-time employees in our in our fire service. The the difference and the thing that's happened that's that's the big change is really moving from that volunteer, part-time, small town type fire department to to what we have today. So, I think that's a little history and and I get to pretend like I'm fat a little.

Jeremy, is it kind of fair to say, and I'm not an expert in fire, but is it fair to say also that during that same period of time, part-time and volunteer fire service, you know, kind of that historical hometown fire service, it just hasn't been as practical or as implemented.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think Chief Evans could talk more to that, but certainly the training, the the equipment that that the way that they have to be trained and and prepared for for today's uses and fires, much much different. And it just really doesn't lend itself, especially in a city the size of Washington City, the second largest city in Washington County. We we certainly couldn't still be doing what we do with a volunteer part-time um fire department. And and I would say that the economy has something to do with that, too. people don't have the kind of time that they used to have or the jobs where they can they can spend that kind of time training without being compensated for it. It's just too hard to make a living anymore to be able to do a lot of that. And and not to be outdone because chief uh well okay here's another slide that kind of shows again this was back in 2007. You see we have we had uh older apparatus and older equipment and and here's some of our guys. I believe this was a training fire that they set so that they could do some training. But again, you're you're seeing a a much different fire service than what we see today. And not to be outdone, Chief Williams would be would be frustrated if I only showed fire pictures. So, this is a little bit more history. Here's 2006. The reason we have these pictures, 2006 is when Washington City went from being served by Washington County Sheriff's Office to having its own police department. and and uh you see Chief Keith there in the middle in the back row. And at that point, they went from the the sheriff to 16 officers uh that served Washington City at that point. And today, you can see from the picture in the bottom right, we now have 41 sworn officers and then and then quite a bit of support staff that are on that back row that help take care of our our service. And

isn't our current sheriff one of those officers? I don't know the history as well. If you could one of that, but but that was our original. I don't know if I can make it any bigger from my either, but I know he covered when it was with the county with the sheriff and they covered Washington. I know him and R and Sheriff Brooksby was Okay. Okay. And served as part-time officer as well.

So I I think I highlight the growth both in both in the department size but also in the types of issues that they see and the types of crimes that that we see now as a as a larger community that we perhaps didn't see in 2006. some of the things that our police department are involved in. Um we do we help with bomb squab, we help with SWAT team, um drug interdiction, drug task force, major crimes, you know, internet crimes against children, all those types of of things that back in 2006 just weren't weren't in the the cards for our police department as they started. So along with that, I I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but we've had a lot of residential growth in our city. And it's and you know, these are not exact numbers. We we try to come up with our best population numbers, but it's hard to get everybody to sit still so we can count them. So we think we had about just under 30,000 people in 2018. So I'm now going back seven years, and now our population is is just over 48,000. Uh the mayor likes to say we we double in size about every 10 years and that's what we're seeing here. About 63% growth in the last seven years, but about every 10 years in Washington, we double in population. Um I took some of the big numbers and tried to distill them down into bite-sized pieces that I can understand better. Right now, between public safety, which is police and fire, it costs the city about $265 per resident per year to provide that public safety uh service. The way that we pay for that is through property tax and sales tax. And right now, our property tax levy is $99. We collect $99 per resident per year of property tax. And that, as you know, property tax is 100% paid by Washington city residents.

We we Jeremy, we haven't done a rate increase. So, how did it go from 91 to 99? I'll explain. Is that the commercial? I'll explain when I get there. Okay. Hang tight. Hang tight. It's very exciting. I'm an anxious person.

No, it's good. And then the additional that that isn't covered by property tax is covered by sales tax. And we collect about $24 per resident in sales tax per year. And that sales tax is all shoppers and visitors to our community that that spend money in our community and also outside of our community um in the entire state of Utah have have some bearing on that sales tax. But if you take that $2499, that's $33 that we collect in taxes. Of that $265 goes to pay for public safety, which leaves just $38 remaining per resident per year to cover all the other general fund expenses in the city. The most glaring there are the parks, trails, and streets. those are the largest, but it also covers things like the justice court and you know the other more minor um cost centers for the city that are general fund. So, uh Council Belliston pointed that out. Back in 2018, we collected in property tax $91 per resident. We haven't increased our property tax in the in the at least 25 years. I I we've tried to go back. We we have not increased that rate. But what we are able to you take the same rate you take the same amount of money but we we every home or business that is built is new growth and that does add to our property tax role. So right now we're collecting about $99 per resident which essentially is because in the last seven years we've built more commercial. We've also built larger and more expensive homes. And so those new homes that are coming on the market pay more in property tax because of the value of those homes. So what we're seeing is property tax has gone up by 9% whereas inflation at the same time has gone up by 29%. And property tax is not built to be inflationary. It's built

to be cover your growth and that's it. So it it is meant to be flat. That's the way it's designed. Any questions so far on that? You have another one or were you just Okay, nice. You know, I used to go to the auction with my dad as a kid up in Cedar and you did something like that at the auction. You might walk home with You might have just bought a cow.

Jeremy, what's the average household? Is it Is it three people per household? Is it two? Yeah. 2 three something like that people per household. Okay. So on average a household pays we we say the average the average home in Washington city right now is around $550,000 value taxable value and they pay about $250. You say 250 of Washington city property tax. But right here you're saying 265 plus the 99. That's just the property tax, right? That public safety cost is the total cost per resident. No, that's everything. That's how much it costs us to to

per resident to provide public safety. So, you take the property tax and the sales tax to help pay that. And then you're saying it's 265 per year per home. Per what it costs us to provide? Yeah. People in your house, it' be $265 times three is what we're is what we pay to provide you police and fire protection. Is that okay? So, just breaking that down in in 2018, we used 62% of our taxes to fund public safety. You can see it's steadily gone up where now in 2024, 2025. This is combined property and sales tax.

This is yes, combined property and sales tax. And public safety meaning combined police and fire. We're now we're now spending 87% of those taxes on public safety. So, the costs have gone up. the taxes have not gone up as fast as as the growth in in expenses and so we're spending more of that tax money on and I see somewhere that the projections are 89 for 2026 2026 it go up to 88 89 depending we haven't approved that budget yet but that's the that's the guesstimate Jeremy part of the reason for this is because property taxes don't uh keep up with inflation because They're they're designed to be flat.

They're designed to be flat. So your sales tax does because as as goods and services cost more, they're a percentage of those goods and services. So they will they will move with inflation. So sales tax in this instance is better for us in an inflationary time than the property tax, right? Better as far as collecting more revenue. Yeah.

So this is another graph that you've all seen. And we we talked about this in our in our council retreat and this just shows if we take 2018 as the base year, it shows the growth in percentage and you can see that uh the red is is fire. Uh the purple is combined fire and police. The green is police and so those top three lines are the are the growth of the public safety uh sector. And then the bottom two are your pro your sales tax in blue and your property tax in orange. You can see that they're growing at a much slower rate than than public safety. And Jeremy, we want to note that the the one spike in red was COVID funding money, which this this showed us or

that spike right there was CO funding, and we purchased a fire engine with some of that CO funds. We didn't ask for that money, but we didn't say no.

We did put it to good use, and now we're paying the inflation for it as everyone is. So in o October two 2025 um Washington County had spent a lot of time working with our our representative Elison to uh enable a local option sales tax and that was passed by the legislature in in October of 25. That gives the city new flexibility to fund local public services through an optional sales tax rather than relying solely on property tax increases to to make up that difference. Specifically, this bill allows us to fund emergency medical and fire services. And what it allows is up to.33%, which is 33 cents uh 33 cent tax on $100 purchase if the governing body approves it. So, this this group would approve that or it can be up to a 1% um tax increase, sales tax increase with voter approval. and that would be used to support staffing needs, fund apparatus and facilities, and essentially stabilize our long-term fire and EMS operations.

Um, let me excuse me, won't that also include police in that? Oh, this this particular 33 is only for emergency medical and fire services. It's that specifically calls that out 33. But if you take money that is currently being being used for these purposes, you can take some of that money and fund other general fund purposes with it. But this particular 33 has to be used for emergency medical and fire including police. You're saying I no this No, but the like if you if you take the 33 and apply it to the cost of fire service.

Yes. It frees up some of that money for the the tight margin for other services and police, police, streets, anything else that Yeah. So the other question I have is um that's the same with the voter approved 1%. Correct. Yeah. Anything under this bill and there was a windfall in that 33 then then you can say okay well now we have we know we have these other capital needs that we can address because that funding is there where whereas we didn't have that prior to Thank you. Yeah. Anything any any increase that's done with this with this particular bill is for emergency medical and fire services, but any money that's currently being spent on that could be repurposed if you

and the 33 is on discretionary funds. So, it's not on Yeah, that's my next slide right here. I get I didn't mean to get ahead of you.

That's okay. That's okay. So, um, one thing that's different about this particular sales tax as opposed to every other sales tax is this does not tax groceries and unprepared food. And then it does not tax prescriptions and fuel, which are not also not taxed under regular sales tax, but but groceries and unprepared food do not would not uh be taxed under this bill. So the taxable items would be retail sales, meals at restaurants and eeries, entertainment, those type of things, but not groceries, prescriptions or gas. So essentially 33% would generate approximately $2.7 million in new sales tax revenue for Washington City each year. Those funds would be used to support the current EMS and fire expenses, staffing, apparatus, facilities to stabilize those long-term needs. As we talked about, we've we've discussed a lot of in in depth the long-term needs that we're going to have to have eventually as our city builds out, including new uh new at least one to two new fire stations, the apparatus that go along with that, and other needs. So, if we took that same 2.7 million and you decided that, okay, we didn't have this particular bill that we could use to do sales tax and you wanted to do property tax instead, that would be a 50 58% property tax increase, which would would hit just your Washington city residents. And that's not what we're recommending. Um, and again, by doing that, we would move the percent of taxes used for public safety from that 87 88% down to 75%. To a more reasonable level,

but that kind of fixes the problem that we have now. That doesn't that doesn't create a lot of headroom for um, you know, again, we we have a fire station down in the fields that we need to address and and that doesn't give us much option for that. That's correct. It doesn't uh we still have to change. It helps it helps stabilize where you're at right now, but it doesn't create a lot of long-term How do we go?

Well, we continue to work on our long-term planning. We've talked about doing um our redoing our impact fees to make sure that we have that those those uh fire stations and the apparatus that we need, they're allowed to be impact fee eligible. So, we would address it in ways like that. But it's a small pieces of the no impact fees can address, right? Because like the fire station on uh Dam Road was always uh it was built as a volunteer fire station and not a man fire station. So it's there's shortfall in that one. Correct. And that that's not impacted. These other ones could be.

Yes. Any anything that anything that's directly related to new growth can be impact eligible. But essentially, we're just trying to take building blocks and we're trying to take little pieces here and there and and fund our long-term needs. And and I would say Washington city's always been really good at that. So,

just as an aside, if you if you say, "What have other cities done that are like us?" Well, St. George has is ahead of us, so they have a lot more sales tax than we have. And we we recognize that. Back in the day, everybody went to town to spend their money, right? They have a lot more sales tax. What has Hurricane done? hurricane uh took and put their fire into a fire district along with a lot of other uh sort of westside communities, east side communities, and and they put in a big property tax. And just for the sake of argument, how much did that cost the Oregon residents? Because now they've got the special service district and the other that

it more than doubled their property tax. So that essentially that's what they did. They they created a district, they added property tax, and then they've also added sales tax as well to help fund that.

And you so the Washington way, and this isn't new, but just I like to bring up a couple of points. We've always I I look at council, former council member Turk here. We've always asked our our employees to kind of do more with less. But even as the second largest city in the county, and you've heard me say these numbers before, we are about 17% of the population. St. George is roughly 51% of the population. Sales tax revenue that comes to Washington is around 11 or 12%. So we're about five or six points lower than our population. St. George collects around 67% of the entire county's sales tax. So their excess of 17% when I looked at these numbers, it's been a few months. Their excess over and above their population exceeds our total.

Yeah, mayor. We've been funding their police and fire for years. And and it's not an excuse. It's just that as we've grown residentially and we haven't and the commercial has lagged, we've just continued to have to ask our our employees to continue to do more with less and and they do a great job. But even if you look at, you know, firefighters and police officers per capita, we would be probably well below, you know, state and national averages. But it's just challenges of a growing city. I I shouldn't have digressed, but I I think that's important to note that we've always I mean, anyway, I'll let you continue, Jeremy.

No, I I think it's really good and and that is the Washington City way, which is we're going to squeeze everything out of the dollars that are given to us that we can. We we may not have some of the advantages that others have, but we that's fine for us. We can do it our way and we'll make sure we do. And Councilman Ivy's fond of saying, you know, we need to look under the couch cushions and and I think when you see that percentage, you see that that we've we've been able to continue to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and and make do with what we have. And and that's what we'll continue to try to do. And and that kind of goes to your question. What do we do long term? We'll we'll continue to put those pieces together and building blocks and and we'll do it like we've done it. and eventually we'll be able to to get the uh the services that we need.

But I don't know that there's um a solution in all of that. I don't know that there's a solution in this, but but there certainly this seems to have a little bit more light at the end of the tunnel than this is this is not a silver bullet that I'm recommending here. This is not a big massive boost. It is it is enough to stabilize things and help us get forward for a few years to so yeah keeps us treading water instead of moving forward at least we're not drowning if it keeps going the trend is that

right now with 11% of your budget general fund to run the rest of the city your nostrils are about all that's out of the water right so I

I would say there's some departments that would agree with you in that in that assessment now let me talk about why I would recommend a sales tax increase as opposed to a property tax. And and and granted, when Hurricane and the and the fire district did their work, this wasn't available. So, they they chose to go that route. But, um Rusty did a lot of work for us. We have a a tool called Placer AI that measures where where people come from that shop at our largest retailers. And they're all really interesting when you look at them. We can't share individual data on individual retailers, but approximately 85% of the visits to our our retail, and you're thinking exit 13 or exit 10, Green Springs. So, you're you know, all the retailers there, approximately 85% of the visits to those retail outlets are from non-residents. So, that's either uh residents that live in other areas of Washington County and specifically St. George has a big impact on that because it's on their border and and visitors that come to our area to spend money as well.

Jeremy, how does Can you tell us a little bit more about Placer AI? How does it come up with 85%. Yeah. Well, I'll I'll tell you how it comes up with the data. Um I don't know how much Rusty wants me to, but they use cell phone. She's on deck, Jeremy. We'll we'll we'll we'll see how your answer is, but she's she's in the Essentially Essentially. A it's a program that tracks people's cell phones as they move around. So they know they know where people come from, they know where they live, they know where they shop, they know where they go after they leave the area. It's it's a little bit it it can be this particular this particular tool is is cell phone data.

They use a particular app or is it like if you you know how oftentimes you'll see like ask app not to track. Exact. It's exactly that. And so if the those that are using those who those who haven't put ask app not to track those are that's correct. So sometimes you're necessarily be using an app or do you do have to be using an app when you install almost any app and we're getting a little far field but it'll say is it okay if it tracks you while you're using the app or all the time and if you don't opt out of that then this is those apps sell your data to and this is where you got this

aggregate all of that data and tell you they can tell a lot about your habits not as an individual but as an aggregate they can say 85% of the people who shop at these places Now, some of them are even higher, you know, like like if you had a certain burger chain that was off of Greenspring, it's even higher. It's in the 90s that of one that you So, it's even higher because it's off of I-15. A lot of people stop, they they get their hamburger, they get back on the freeway and head where they're going. And so, we we have that data.

So, for interest sake, I mean, this is it's cool what they can do. It's scary what they can do with cell phones anymore, too. But when when Councilman Turk and I and were on and you know for mile post 11 uh which is now mile post 12 um they actually had to come in and put Bluetooth antennas all over the city and they could tell where cell phones were going because they had put all these Bluetooth antennas and they did that data so we knew what the the cars were actually doing for for that. But to hear that they actually have it just AI through the the interwebs is I got all my settings now.

Maybe I'm maybe I'm giving up too much inside baseball. But but the city subscribes to that service and and it's been very helpful in a lot of ways to help see what's happening in our in our community commercially. Um but the reason I like that is is this allows everyone using Washington City services to help participate in paying for those services. So, we have a lot of visitors. We have a lot of other people that come visit and use our our police and our fire and our parks and our trails and and we like the cost as well.

Hey, Jeremy. And maybe Chief could help us with this. We probably service a lot of out of town people when we're when they're here recreating and stuff. Can you tell us a little bit about that? like maybe like a rough percentage of you know on a busy weekend is 50% of the calls out of towners that are visiting or tell us about that.

Uh so we have a tougher time uh tracking that specifically uh because we don't we don't do any billing for our people uh and so we don't really track uh that as well. Uh some of the agencies around us do um and actually the the number is 85%. uh 85% of the call volume uh on the medical side. That's the easier one. Is that interesting that it lines up with the

It was super interesting. Uh was the number that they came up with of uh of the call volume. Chief, while you're up there, when we were looking at the maps for the fire coverage a couple of years ago when we were talking about the same measure to, you know, for funding, it was my understanding that we had the good coverage at the time, but then so I was just wondering why we didn't start if there's going to be need, you know, on the south side to have another fire, you know, just to have another building there. How come we haven't put that into, you know, for the impact fees just yet or are we good still now with the fire coverage?

So, you got a couple of problems there. Uh, one is the impact fee studies, which of course it has to be done, all that kind of stuff. Uh, when that last impact fee studies, uh, we didn't uh we didn't have property that far south um because it wasn't in the city. So, you can't uh couldn't collect impact fees or add it as a piece of the city's impact fees because it it wasn't part of the city. And then of course that fulls that whole southern end came in with the uh with the development that's out there and and and exactly why uh city manager red was talking about one of the other pieces would be to to update that for sure. So as far as the fire coverage now what would you say how are we looking right now?

So of course we have two different standards that we try to meet. Uh the first one is through ISO and that's our insurance piece. Um that one's a hard rule. Um, and it it's five road miles from a station and uh, and if you're outside of it, it they don't you can be a couple feet outside of it. And of course, a good share of the uh, the southern part of the city is outside of five road miles for sure of station 62. That's the farthest we go south. And then the other standard we we try to do is uh, 90% of a a response district uh, within four minutes. Doesn't matter if it's a medical or if it's a fire. um 4 minutes of drive time. After that, it's uh a lot of times it's not too much of an emergency. Not a lot we can do. Um the the easy and hard number we know is in that true medical emergency, you can you can go about 6 minutes without oxygen and after that uh some irreversible damage starts and that 10 minutes. Um there's there's nothing anyone can do. And so trying to keep those that number down because that's just drive time. You know, they still got to recognize an emergency. They got to call 911. you got to get to the the people, all that kind of stuff. And and we know the same things with fires. Uh unfortunately, uh due to the changes in what we put in there, they just they progress significantly faster. Um used to be in the olden days, uh they would say we probably had 5 to seven minutes to get out of our house if it's if it catches on fire. Um and and it suggests today that that's two to three minutes. Um because of how fast it progresses. And of course once it gets so far there's there's nothing we can do there either. So so those are kind of the two things we try to to use as far as those two standards um to make sure of. The ISO is uh is one that that the mayor would recognize for sure uh because he gets to hear about a lot um and and and a lot of times we see those those commercial occupancies. Um uh we so as an example um when dollar moved over

into St. George, they so they won't move into a city that has an ISO rating of uh of um below four. So some of the the big companies have hard lines in there. So we try to meet all those those pieces. So, it's it's really come because the city keeps expanding similar to uh what you started tonight with expanding or or bringing in another piece of annexation that that doesn't count in and wasn't considered in that uh that infrastructure, you know, as far as our impact capital.

Yeah. We couldn't count any of that as as possible needs for capital improvements. Yeah. So, so I I I guess one one statement and one question. Um, you know, the other there is a couple of different groups that are trying to expand into Warner Valley. And I mean, that's certainly going to be a real challenge, you know, if they're moving that direction because that's definitely I mean, that's even further, right? It makes it even worse. But the question was is when was the last capital facilities plan done for fire? So well the the the last study we did seven eight years ago I think it was I think it started in 2019 if I remember right.

So we try to update those update those about every 10 years. So started in 2019 would have been completed 2020. We we completed it in like 2021 but it was it got put on hold during COVID and took a couple of years to complete. But yeah, it's like a lot of the others. It was by the time it was done, it was outdated. Yeah. So, Chief, we have two uh properties for future firehouses. One at exit 13, one in Dr. Horton. Do we have any others that I can't think of?

No. With those two properties, uh actually, um as it as the city currently sits, not talking about Warner Valley, um because um that would actually fulfill both of those two requirements. Um Dale's phenomenal uh in GIS. Uh we can place things in the map and and he can map that out now and and show us that four-minute circles and where we start to miss them. And uh and really in those two locations um you you you cover essentially 90% of the city um with that response. And we cover the whole city with our five road miles. Five road miles is a little easier. And then of course as the city really goes then the the fourminute piece starts to change a lot. But uh really as you look at the city uh some of that will will improve as some of the infrastructure goes in too.

Thanks. Good comments, good questions. Anything else for Chief? Thank you. All right, Jeremy.

Well, I'm almost finished. Um, so based on all that, what you've heard tonight, my my recommendation and the resolution that you have in front of you tonight, uh, my recommendation is to approve the resolution imposing an emergency services sales and use tax of.33%. That's my last slide. Council, do you have any questions for the city manager before I open up the public hearing? Seeing none, I will just uh make note that we did receive three uh electronic online uh comments of various opinions. At this time, I will uh open the public hearing and invite any of those wishing to address the council u before they deliberate on this item. I just um remind you also just uh to state your name and uh we uh we are grateful that you're here uh providing your feedback and you've heard the same information that we have tonight. So council, the time is yours to come forward. Um uh residents, it's time the time is yours to come forward and speak to the council. The public hearing is open. Not not your first rodeo, Councilman. You know the drill,

Jeff Turk. And I think I'd lots rather be up there than down here. I was a little nervous to be honest with you. Anyway, thank you, Mayor and Council, for the opportunity to come and speak with you tonight concerning this. I I find it interesting uh simply for the fact I won't go back to 2006, but I'll take you back about a couple years ago, about two and a half to be exact, during a an election campaign cycle where uh EMS services were brought up as a concern of future needs that were going to be needed there. um especially involved with the the discussion around the new park that was going to be built around properties that were being purchased into the downtown and the monies that were being expended uh from the city at that point in time and saying is do we really want to do that? we were going to have these issues. And I remember that being part of that discussion that was discussed throughout the the campaign and and um a couple of those council members who sit on the council at this time uh uh wrote in writing and said, "I will never um support a tax increase because we're going to we're going to grow our commercial sales tax base uh to support that." I'm here to remind you of that. that as citizens we were told through our concern, don't worry about that. We we we've got money coming. We're going to do this and and here we are two and a half years later having this discussion. I also um was glad to hear Councilman Ivy is saying, "Let's look under the couches for every nickel and penny we can find." Uh I I'll poke the bear a little bit. I poked the spare along since I've I've learned about it. I can find you $100,000 from this council right now. And that's simply by the council members undoing their insurance package that they gave themselves a few years ago. And and I guess when you start to ask us as residents to to incur costs and to help you in a squeeze, I

would ask for you to do all you can do to squeeze uh for us as residents. Uh I know that we talk about this being a sales tax and it's not just the residents, it's from outside people. I agree with that. Um, but also it, as we heard tonight, we we want to encourage our people to shop Washington. I shop Washington. I've been to Costco maybe twice a year. That's all I go to Costco. I buy a little toilet paper and a a paper towel. We don't even use that word here.

That's right. That's what I say. And and uh so anyway, I try and shop Washington. We encourage our residents to shop Washington. And also, we put a sales tax on. we've we taxed our citizens. And so again, I I appreciate the opportunity to to address you. Again, I hope that u those of you council members that that put it in writing what you would support will remember that and stand up and see the men that you are and not that we were politicians campaigning. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff. And again, appreciate we we don't clap in in these types of settings, but I do want to express my appreciation to you, Jeff, for your years of service and and and the many um difficult votes that you made and the leadership that you provided. Uh residents, time is still yours. This is a public hearing. We we would love your feedback. Um we uh would would rather you not be redundant, but make your new points and come on forward and and say what you want to say. And just remember to state your name as well.

My name is Craig Minnick. I'm with Gold Cross Ambulance. Um my my comment might be a little bit premature, but in the public hearing notice, um it stated that these funds would be used for ambulance service. So I just want to remind the the council and the mayor and the residents that Gold Cross Ambulance, who covers about half the city, we do that at no cost to the city. um those fees are are charged to the end user only and those fees are regulated by the Department of Public Safety. So if this is something that that you're looking at getting into um know that currently there is no cost to you for that service. So um again just wanted to make that comment now. Wonderful. Thank you sir. Mayor, can I ask him a question before? Sure.

Can I ask you a question? I'm sorry I didn't catch your name. Sorry. How many um like what's the timing that you get to emergency calls with you guys response times? Well, we have no we're still operating under an emergency contract. I believe we have an MOA, right? A memorandum of understanding. Not with us. We don't have anything. We're still operating under an emergency contract and and so is Hurricane. Um we would be happy to enter into a contract with the city. Um, in doing so, we would put ambulances in the city. Right now, there are no ambulances within your city limit. That's correct.

We understand the arrangement with Gold Cross and we understand the arrangement with Hurricane Valley and we appreciate you supporting. I know frequently our firefighters and like chief said 80 plus% of our calls are medical. Often we're there. We our uh EMTs, paramedics stabilized and then we appreciate your your involvement with the transport. I feel we have a very good relationship um with the the fire department and with Chief Evans and I'd like to see that continue and and certainly if this develops into something that we can get into a contract we would move ambulances into your city

um and provide even better coverage. So I don't know the numbers. I know that we our goal is to on every response is to get well under nine minutes. Um that is a that is a national standard. Um, and so that's what we'd like to see. Thank you. Thanks, Craig. Next. I know many of you, so I'm just waiting for you to get up. I

mayor, council. Um, I was just up here, but I'm also a resident of Washington City. Um, I appreciate the comments made by the Gold Cross um, representative. Um, mayor, she never stated her name.

My name is Rusty Hughes. Um, I live over I've lived in Washington City for about 25 years and raised my children here. Um, I didn't expect to speak today, but I do want to mention um that I h, as many of you know, I um my first week on the job was pretty rough. And some of the men and and some of the women that aren't here anymore saved my life. And um, at the time I was very fortunate because I I received I had a sudden cardiac arrest at work and they were able to revive me. and um get me the help I needed and get me to the emergency room right away. And since then, I had a few other events. I had an arhythmia and it caused this very dangerous arhythmia that if I didn't have an ICD or if I didn't have emergency care right away that um it was really scary for my family. So, I just want to mention that it it I was also very fortunate that I had double coverage at the time. I had just ended a job and started a job here. So I actually had se uh I was covered by primary insurance and a secondary insurance and that was very fortunate because it paid those very very expensive medical bills all except for one and that was the ambulance ride. So um and I had several of those. So you do pay out of pocket for those ambulance rides unless you have catastrophic. um to the point where um there were times where I had events. Uh one was during the marathon was really difficult for us to get there and I refused to go in the ambulance because I was concerned about the financial burden it was putting on my family. Um when I went with the fire department, it's paid through tax dollars that spread out. So I just wanted to note that and I don't mean any disrespect. I really all my family are EMTs. they're they're volunteer firefighters and and and that and so I just wanted to note that just

for public record. Thank you. I don't for clarification. I I I think it's the law says that the funds can be used for those services. I don't think that that's a stated we have a plan that we're moving that direction though. It's something that I think that we as a city ought to be looking at. Right. Correct. and and this.33% sales tax certainly doesn't contemplate us moving to ambulance because I don't think that gives us the ability even at the 33 to even move towards that direction. Good clarification councilman. Uh further public comment, public feedback before I turn back to the council.

Hi Okay, I've given a grade and then just if you'd state your name. Sorry, that's always Thomasson. Usually, Councilwoman Caspersonson reminds me if I forget to Yes. I I didn't I didn't catch your name. Sorry. You said McKenzie Thomasson. Thanks.

So, I'm a resident and I'm a homeowner home owner in Washington City. Um and I felt compelled to come here today and uh just speak to you about the uh tax increase. Um, I feel like I'm here for more people than just me. Um, and I mean no disrespect when I say this, but um, you don't often see people my age representing us or even at these meetings. And I feel like we're kind of getting crushed by a lot of these um, decisions that have been made. And often um, we aren't even here to speak to you guys, to tell you our um, you know, our point of view. So, I wanted to come and just share um some concerns that I have. Um and I I wrote it down because I wanted to make sure I made every point. So, I hope that I won't take too much of your time. Um but

of course, we're you bought a home. What neighborhood we're at? Um I'm in Sienna Hills off of I'm your neighbor. Which one are we are we neighbors? Well, let's not get We don't get all the information public meeting, but let's suffice it to say that you're neighbors. have a great neighborhood. Um, good to know that. I did not know that. Um, so anyway, I Hey, Mackenzie, if Councilman gets a little rowdy, you let me know.

I It's It's good. I I like to see the passion. Sometimes I want to see more. I'm like, "Ask questions. Drill these developers. Do it." Um, anyway, I like it. So, I just wanted to begin by saying that I I am a very busy mother and I just want to come here today and talk about that proposed tax increase described as one that we is supposed to maybe hopefully only affect visitors, but I just wanted to say I think we all know that there's no possible way that we could guarantee that. Um, and there is no reliable way to really actually know that those numbers and projections are real. We all know projections are smoke. And what really I feel like were being said is, "Hey, can we take your money?" And we're like, "No." So, um, so I just wanted to say many of the mechanisms suggested to separate visitor spending from resident spending simply just don't exist in practice. tax revenues are collected at point of sale, not by checking someone's residency status. So, this means local residents who shop, eat, or stay in our city, I feel, will inevitably absorb the increase whether we are visitors or not. Um, we already live in a state with relatively high uh overall sales tax rates in Washington County combined. Um I think we have about a 6.75 or more on everyday purchases um before any new local increases are added. So at that same time cost of living in Utah is climbing particularly for families like me. It's really hard to stay here and I personally know that we are losing families because we just can't hack it here. Specifically people who want a single income and want to have a parent in the home. It is really hard. My my husband and I make a lot of sacrifices to keep me in the home and we feel squeezed and he makes a very good living

doing what he does and we are making way more than our dream salary was 5 years ago and we're just not feeling it. It's hard. Okay. So asking for us to pay more is is just not a great argument u for any reason in my opinion. But so the reality for us is housing prices in Utah have increased. Everything's increased and now we're saying, "Oh, now we got to increase taxes." Um, and so, um, I I hope that we could explore other other things and I just wanted to bring some of those to your attention if you will permit me. I'm not by any means an an expert, but I feel like growth usually should pay for growth. So, one of the most common principles of finance is just that. So, I actually did some research about some of the things that other cities have done um because I have noticed that a lot of other cities have been trying to cut costs um while we're like talking about increasing. So, some Utah cities, it said, increase or properly calibrate impact fees on new development. Um, they require development uh to fund roads, sewer, water, parks tied to their projects. They use development agreements that shift infrastructure costs away from existing residents. Um, many Utah cities already use impact fees effectively and um, I would love to see us explore more of those options before we just go straight to raising taxes. And like this gentleman um brought up, we were we were told that that that wouldn't happen and we would love it if we could trust you guys with that because I truly just feel like um we want to trust our representatives and know that you guys have our our best um intentions at heart, which I I don't know all of you really well, but I I'd like to say that

you do. And the last thing that I just wanted to um to say is that there is a very big gap between um the generations and who holds the wealth. And so sometimes my generation feels that decisions are made in a way that is very tonedeaf to what our lived experience is. Which is why I felt compelled to come here today and just let you know that it's not easy raising a family in this economy the way it is and especially here. This is a beautiful place to live and I know many of us would love to be able to stay here and live here and make it better and build it up and not be sold out for people that are just coming here for a profit and not building up this beautiful community we live in. So, thank you so much for your time and please make the right decision for us.

Thank you, McKenzie. And um well said well said comments. uh after the public hearing, I'll put the city manager on the spot just to share a little bit about how we already implement a lot of those tools that that you mentioned in your research. Well said. Oh, commissioner, you know, we served on the planning commission years ago. We started we start the same time. Yeah, we did. Yeah. But you were the senior, which is entirely appropriate. I know you better state your name for

Okay. Li Shepard. Okay. Couple questions I have is what is the sales tax throughout the county? Is it 6.75% in all the other cities? We're going to put Jeremy on the spot. Jeremy, if you'll answer the sales tax and uh generally on property tax. Yeah, 6.75 is the the general property or sales tax throughout throughout Washington County. It varies slightly. Uh, Springdale has a higher tax, but typically in our area. Yeah. So, we didn't you say hurricane added that too, though? Uh, Hurricane Hurricane Valley Fire District either has added it or or is in the process. I don't know if they've started collecting it or not.

Well, then the 33 then they they would that would is going on at their city. I I am aware that other cities, St. George, for example, is looking at the 33 curve as well. Okay. So, that was one of my questions is would we be different than everybody else? because I don't think that's a good place to be cuz people would say, you know, I don't want to pay seven over there when I it it doesn't make sense to be different.

Um then my other comment was it kind of seems like a little bit of an accounting gimmick. We use the.33 to free up money so we can use it somewhere else instead of saying if the money is for this purpose which I know it is for a purpose but also you stated it would be available use that money so we could make have have other money available to spend in some other way and the reason why you want to do that is because this can be voted in by the council and not go before the public to be voted on. So, that seems a little bit maybe disingenuous to me. Also, um, have we looked at projected commercial sales tax revenue because I think we have some projects that will be coming up and and what is the projection of those of that sales tax revenue that we will be getting um for future to to meet our future needs.

Jeremy's making notes and I'm going to ask him to answer those questions for you. It's nice to see you again, Jeremy. You've got those notes for after the public hearing. You might have to turn the pad to the next page. Welcome. Hi. Um, I wasn't planning on this at all, but your name. Oh, my name. It's always the I forgot my name. I'm old. Uh, Charlotte Ride. W R I D E. Hi, Charlotte. I just had a couple of questions mostly on the impact fees. Does any of those go into the emergency services?

The short answer is yes. But what we're talking about here, and I know we're socialist, but we're and Jeremy will expound, but we're talking here is funding primarily ongoing, but there is a component for for future capital projects like stations and apparatus. Yeah. And that eventually will run out when everything's built up, but who knows how long that will take. for a long time and then in I guess I don't know if you call it transate or pillow tax um for the short-time uh rentals or hotels. Does any of that tax go to any of this? Yeah, the TRT tax. And we'll have Jeremy respond on that as well.

Okay. He's going to earn his wage tonight.

After the public hearing, he'll answer all those question. Okay. I'm sorry. Um, now if the 33% was approved, is that ever going to be able to go down or back? Do you want to give a quick answer on that? It's a 10 year. It lasts for 10 years and and then it has to be reapproved.

Okay. 10 years. Um another state that I lived in in other counties, they kind of did this kind of thing and saying they're going to have this much fund for this and that's going to free up more like you were talking about before. Um so take this money so it'll free up the funds for the other projects or other funds. And then this other state I was in, that didn't work at all. It had to do with school fees and our school monies. Um, I can tell you what state that was, but I won't go into all that. Does it start with C? Pardon me. Does that state start with a C? Yes. And it's not Colorado.

No. Yeah. Okay. But anyways, it's Connecticut. And I Oh, and I live in Sugar Plum, so I'm a resident. Um, see what I was going to say. Um, lost my thought, but thank you. Um, if I had to pick either one of those, I I don't like either one, but I really don't want the property taxes to double. That'd be terrible. U, but um I wish we had another option on this. Can I make a comment?

Yeah, go ahead, Councilman. just and it's just more for clarification. So, we're only talking about Washington City's property tax. What I'm talking when you say double, it's not like well 50% or 58 Yeah. of Washington City. That's not the county. Like our bill is like a small portion of what your actual property tax is for the year. Like Jeremy mentioned, it's $260 a year for that's Washington Cities. And the county charges you up to like $1,500 $1,600 for the schools and all that, too.

So, just just realize it's not it's not like say your bill was $2,000 a year. It's not going to another $1,000. It's it's it's the city's portion, which is a lot smaller, but I don't think any of us here are proposing to do that. It was just that was an option that that is an option. Okay. So, just I just want to make that clear to the public because it can be confusing. You know, if there's been talks about if you change the property tax around or lower it doing one versus another, I'm concerned that the property tax if you say you're going to lower it in one area and then raise sales tax in another, the perception will be great, my property tax is going to go down by this much when it's really just a small portion because Washington's portion is so small.

Okay. Well, I appreciate you guys and like u Mr. Turlick. I've been on that side of the table before on a very small city council, but I appreciate all that you do for us. Thank you. Thank you. Well said. Well said, Rhonda. You've been waiting patiently. Well, I made a comment online. I don't know why. Of course you can. You were You were one of those three uh various comments. Did you like the various? They were kind of all over the place. Awesome. I love that. Yours was very direct. Well, yes. Thank you. I

And very polite. And very polite at the same time. Try to be direct and polite. That's that's it. So, hello friends. I'm Randa. Rhymes with Panda. Last name Todd. Someone thought my name was Randa Panda. They're like, "Your name's last name's Panda." And I said, "No, my name first name rhymes with Panda." So, anyway, I'm not going to go over everything that I submitted online um because I know you you probably didn't get to see it. Okay, fantastic. But I did want to touch on um I think our county takes way too much of our TRT tax and that was one of the comments I made and I'm wondering if we can rally behind and go over to the county and say please let us use some of the TRT tax for our community. Um and if we get all cities behind that, I think we might have some success. So that's something I can help lead the charge with. Um or for um I know

No, they don't. They don't. But maybe the purple hair will soften them or something. I don't know. Um, I also appreciated what Jeff Turk said, how, you know, I know many of you ran on not raising taxes and I appreciate that. Um, I think we can also, and this was also mentioned, dig deep. Let's find where we can hold off on some projects or hold off on some spending or something like that and wait for these projects that are coming in. We don't like the growth, but it it happens and we have to have that to sustain these taxes. So, let's just see if we can hold off, see what with these projects coming in if that will help, you know, with the money that we need for emergency services. Um, and then last is I'm working three part-time jobs and my husband works a strenuous job and with these tax raises, there's many in our community that are struggling and I would probably have to go get another job and I don't have time for another job. So, please, let's let's look at the budget. Let's reconsider some things. Let's see where we can get wiser in our spending. wait for these projects to come in and then maybe revisit this at a later time. Thank you.

Thanks, Randa. And I already knew that your name rhymed with panda. Who else would like to speak this evening? Brinkerhoff. Mike, I I've seen you itching there in that chair and I

by inviting you up, I'm saving that carpet. I think some of you know me. Name is Mike Collins. I've been here 14 years and I've watched the city grow exponentially in the last 14 years. And I hate to say this because I love you all. I think you're doing a great job. my utmost respect, but I think you guys have failed us as a city. You have not planned for us this city to grow correctly. Okay? We're lacking infrastructure, much in infrastructure. We're lacking I I just think the the growth growth rate is is terrible. We're not keeping up with it. You can't keep up with the city. and by raising rates, raising taxes, and eventually I see property taxes going up or some other tax, some other fee to pay for all this. And I just don't think it's right. Now, most you know, I live in CO and 82% of the residents of Coran are retirees. All of us retirees have to live on a fixed income and fixed budget. And as one of the other speakers said a while ago that they have to live on a budget, they have to learn to cut corners, cut costs. So my question to you as a city, city council people, what have you done to cut costs and save us money so we can plan better for the future?

Thank you, Mike. Thank you guys. Appreciate you.

I haven't seen you on walks lately with your little dog. I haven't seen you on walks lately. It's probably me. Knee problem. So Clay does it. Okay.

Tammy Brinkerhoff. Um I just want to advocate for home ownership for a quick second. I have a client that I was working with last night on getting into a place. The only place they can get into is new construction because of the $20,000 um housing grant available to first-time home buyers. That's the only way they can get into a house. They have decent jobs combined. They're making $50 an hour. And for them to get into a $370,000 home, which is the least expensive pretty much other than a condo, they have to have this $20,000 grant. So, where we are throwing things at impact fees to cover these things, which makes sense for new growth and stuff on paper. It doesn't make sense in reality. So, we have a whole generation, just like Kenzie was talking about, that can't even get into homes that are going to be living with their parents for a really long time. And just for the irony, $370,000 is equivalent to the cost of rent for a three-bedroom home in Washington City. the amount for the mortgage is the same as the rent and the only way they can get into that is with that $20,000 grant. So, I implore you to look at under the cushions. I think that's such a great phrase.

We also add in the ashtrays of the city vehicles.

Those too. Yeah. And in the dryer, whatever. But it's I can see this I can see this from both sides where the city is in a really hard spot because you've got to come up with some funds somehow because the cost of everything is going up. We've got to look at it from all angles though. So we've got kids who were going to be leaving here because they can't afford to live here. We're going to have a giant influx in the Midwest because that's the only place they can afford to live. And we're going to lose a whole generation and we are gaining a whole different generation which is the retiree or the people who are self-employed that can afford the homes now that we're building. And I saw that our median home price is 550,000. That is absolutely not true. As a realtor, I see the inventory every day.

That's not the average. And the majority of people who are paying the expensive, you know, the $900,000 for a fourbedroom home on a quarter acre, just for an example, those are people who are selling a home somewhere else and coming into our area. And the only way they can buy that home is because they sold a home somewhere else. So, we've got to figure out how do we do this without robbing Peter to pay Paul? How do we make it work for the next generation? And how do we make it work for the existing generations who are here? And how I mean I it seems like a silver lining to charge the 85% of the people who are visiting here. It seems like a really great idea to do that in the property t or in the sales tax. It's just a really fine balancing act that needs to be walked. And if there's an additional study that can help the residents understand this better, that would be great. I know that costs money. Also, you've presented some really imploring numbers tonight, and I appreciate that. On the surface, it sounds like a great idea, but when you look deeper and look at who we're serving and who lives here, look harder.

Thank you, Tammy. Well spoken. catch catch me sometime. You know how to get a hold of me. Um, this council has done some remarkable things with attainable housing. Um, we're constantly uh in contact with Steve Waldrip at the governor's office. In fact, I'll be at the capital on Tuesday with some of the projects we're doing. But I want to show you some of the creative things we're doing with while uh with the private sector and the state to try to um re reduce that barrier to home ownership. you'll be happy at least on a small level of trying to, you know, figure it out. Anyone else?

Well, I I I really appreciate the thoughtful comment. Um, Jeremy's going to do a wonderful job answering those questions. Um, but I also appreciate got a couple of I mean, we love you, Chief, but we love your firefighters more. You see a couple of our firefighters in the back there kind of heads down and inconspicuous. And we appreciate appreciate your service. And we know that we know that you put your life on the line uh to keep this community safe. And we know that we ask you and our PD to continually do more with with less with levels of staffing, but yet we expect these response times. And it's just hard. Like it's just really hard to try to, you know, make it all work. Um, if there's no one else that wants to speak tonight, I'm going to close the public hearing before I turn to the council for further deliberation and ultimately a motion. I'm going to ask Jeremy to go through his notepad and answer the questions that were so well posed. I'm closing the public hearing now. And Jeremy,

thanks, mayor. And and I I want to echo the same thing the mayor said. Um this was this is a really complex issue as Tammy brought up. It's that she talked about sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's all a balance. You know, one one thing that we do if if we if we raise impact fees, that impacts the cost of housing. If we raise taxes, that impacts the cost of living. We we completely understand that. But I I also appreciate the kindness and respect and and the dialogue that we have here tonight. Um I want to address a couple things and if I if I miss any of your comments, I think I have I think I have all the questions. But um first one U McKenzie I I certainly wasn't trying to uh to say that this would only be on on visitors because that's not the case. and and you you adequately explained that if we increase sales tax, it increases sales tax on everyone who shops at at any retail establishment in Washington city. We're hoping that at least it it shares that burden with others where property taxes only on Washington City residents. So, it it certainly affects everybody. Um sales tax helps share that burden. impact fees are interesting because um all of us eventually also pay impact fees in the cost of the housing and so we do want ongoing ongoing growth to pay for itself and I think that's important but as as Tammy brought up when we do that it increases the cost of housing and it makes it harder for people to live here so it's a balance one other thing that that we mention when we talk about impact fees is that those are only used for new infrastructure so impact fees can be used for to build a fire station, but they can't be used to maintain it to pay for firefighters to to continue to pay the fuel and and the different things that we need. So, can't be used for ongoing costs only for infrastructure. Um, I think some of the other questions, Charlotte, I used to live in Sugar Plum.

It's a nice area, really beautiful spot. um the the TRT we we so one thing one thing that I think a couple of people brought up is yes when we impact when we enact this particular sales tax this particular sales tax only be used for emergency medical services or fire but what we're saying is that all the other sales and property tax can be used for any purpose so we take this particular tax and it can only be used for EMS and fire. That frees up that where we're now at 87% of our of our taxes going towards public safety. It frees up some of the money that's that's already going to public safety to use for other uses. So, it takes that percentage down from 87% to about 75%. So, it it can feel like you're moving the money around and that's exactly what's happening, but it frees up some of that general fund money for all the other uses that we have to to spend it on. Um, I would say just on that, Jeremy, too, and I know we have a few other funds, but like we have a lot of miles of road and street maintenance, just like just basic services that are general fund expenditures.

Yeah, I I think streets are a really good example. um our developers come and they build streets. We have street impact fees, we have traffic impact fees, and those are great for helping to build the the initial infrastructure, but then when we have to come back and maintain that infrastructure in perpetuity, we need we need the tax dollars to do that. And that's what that's what some of these other tax funds go towards. Um before you move on from the TRT tax, um just to mention that that tax can go towards anything. It's not restricted funds. And then when TRT our city transient room tax our city transient room of the TRT goes to the county

and we got $387,000 last year yeah and my question is with the new hotel opening you know when we had another one of the questions was like the projected sales that are going to be coming in have you considered with the new hotel what that could potentially bring in for those TRT taxes. Have is that something that you've looked at? Yes. So, I mean, if we have a new hotel, it it can add to that like you said 385,000. So, it'll it'll produce additional TRT. You think it will I don't know what this all covers because that also covers vacation rentals. So, do you think that TRT

that new hotel that could potentially I mean it's have you done projections for that new not for the new one hotel? another new hotel and then the future approvals that we've had also. So, so the city TRT can can be used for any it's it's technically to help offset tourism related impacts, but it can be used for anything that the city deems necessary. So, I I think that adds all the questions. I think that answers the questions that were asked. We talked about impact fees, TRT, um, development agreements.

Um, I mean, it's similar to impact fees. We we ask developers to to pay their share of of cost as we start. And again, that that's great to to get the initial buildup, but it but it doesn't help with the ongoing costs associated with running a city. Okay. Council, any additional questions for the city manager? If not, I'll turn to you for further discussion on this item and or a motion.

One thing that I I feel like hasn't really got answered is the future commercial. Have you done projected sales tax revenue for future commercial approvals? I think I think every time we do a commercial approval, um Rusty gives us an an estimated sales tax revenue and we saw some tonight on the new project, but um what what typically ends up happening, we we do collect more in sales tax, but it's again, as you can see, over the last 10 years, it's we're spending more and more of that on public safety, and it's not we're not going the other direction, put it that way, with the new revenues that are coming in. Fair to say though the the new commercial and the new the new development in that regard also increases the demand on the public safety um component as well. So I mean it's yeah we're bringing it in but it's not it's not going to solve the problem because there's additional dam demand that it places on the on the department.

I think that's a fair statement. Council Ivy,

you know, when um Speaker Schultz opened the session this year, he got up and he gave a a really impassion speech about cost of living in the state of Utah and how difficult it was for young families, for retirees. And I really listened to it to the point where I actually found the recording and listened to it again. and he challenged state agencies to reduce their spending. And as I listened to him, it resonated with what I see here. I think that uh cost of living is probably at all-time high. And I know as a city we've tried really hard the last four or five years to increase our sales tax base to the point where we were rated number one in the entire nation a couple of times for wallet hub on on the best city to small best small city to start a business and all thing all those things add up. uh the way these lines are converging. Um I just feel like I owe um you as citizens a very direct response.

I don't feel like that I will ever um be able to raise taxes myself. I feel like that as far as citizens, I think that's something that you need to know. All the ramifications, all the things that we're trying to do in keeping our community safe with our firefighters, our police, our all of our services. And you need to make that decision with us because we've seen this chart play out for the last several years. And every year it creeps a little bit closer and closer to maxing out our general fund balance. But for me personally, I try really hard to stay in tune with um those people that I just mentioned. You know, I'm I'm retired successfully and I'm I'm very thankful for that, but I know there's a lot of people that are not. And I I just do that because I find in my life that being direct is better than questioning. And so in saying that, I don't want to offend anyone or make anyone feel like that I'm being bold to anything. But that's where I'm at. I think if taxes are to be raised, it needs to be raised by our citizenry in a environment where you have the right to choose and look at all the answers and all the information and decide for yourself. I know I've looked into it. I've studied hard. I've talked to even your president, Mr. Moffett. I've and and and what I'm seeing is is we've got to do something. It's just I was hopeful two years ago that our sales tax projections would stay above this need. But our firefighters, our police officers, they need to be paid for what they do. It's not easy work. We need firehouses. We need coverage. We need safety as well. And I don't want to turn this into an

epistle, but just understand that that's where I'm at. I wouldn't have been able to vote for this tonight in the vote, but I wanted you to understand why. It's not because I don't see the need for the public safety. It's just that I understand that it has to be a bigger decision than just me. Thank you, Councilman Jeremy. Just a a thought. Did How many firefighters did did we bring on last year? Uh I don't I don't think we added any last year. We added no fire. Why didn't we add any firefighters last year? Because you see the growth. Yeah. Well, we don't we don't have the budget to Okay. Thank you.

budget in it for this year either, right? How many will we add this year? Request to add firefighters, but if if No, that's just rhetorical. I'm just I appreciate all the conversation, but I just my point is math. So, I I think uh Council I um comments were a good lead in, right? I mean, are you're turning it over to us to have our car? Yeah, this is your Yes. This is

like I I I think everybody up here has been struggling with this and and I I uh I've been certainly struggling with it because I you know because you know for other reasons, but I I think it's fair to say so I I asked Tara today. I said, "So when did we raise taxes?" And she says, "We couldn't even find a record of where we established the taxes in the city." So, it's been that long on the property taxes. Can I can I add something to this, Councilman? Sure. Of the 15 cities and towns throughout the county, if you include separate fire district property taxes, Washington City is the second lowest. Can you pull that? Only New Harmony is lower than us. Can you pull that graph

from property tax? So, combined with fire district and Right. I mean, I you know, certainly that's an option, right? we go we we go and do a separate district and that's going to cause everybody's cost to go up and and everything else. I think it's fair fair to say um that our guys have pinched five nickels out of a dime and I don't know that there's any blood left in the turnup, you know, and and and Jeff was here when we were doing it. We're asking them to pinch every penny back then, right? I mean, it's been a struggle for a lot of years

and on that we pinched a lot of pennies and got on council. We had to buy three firet trucks cuz we ran those trucks into the ground as much as we could, right? So that's an additional cost that's added in the six years I've been on council is we had to buy those fire trucks and I should say two and a half because half was paid and they cost twice as much as they would have had we bought them anyway. That's another conversation.

So the frustration that I've had with a lot of the TRT, you know, bring we we have uh a little bit of TRFT. Um but the bulk of the TRT is collected. It's the city that administers to and and and creates the taxes with our our bodies. Um we deal with the infrastructure of it. We would deal with the public safety costs of it. It's our citizens that are impacted by the tourists, right? It it's our our people that are uh dealing with the traffic and and and the headache of it and the money goes to the county and then the county doesn't redistribute those but those monies in a fair and equitable manner. And maybe if some of that money was coming back to the city that that we didn't have to put into, you know, park maintenance or some of the other areas, maybe we wouldn't be as impacted as we are, but but we are. That's where we're at and that's the reality of it.

Um, and so, you know, again, I've cut and diced this about as many ways as I possibly can think of. And I and so Jeremy gave us some numbers. Um, I took Jeremy's numbers and I I deal with spreadsheets on a regular basis and so I I I kind of took his numbers and I just broke it out in ways that I can uh that in my mind make sense. Okay. And so I said, okay, you know, where's our property tax? Where's our sales tax? What are our police expenses? What are our fire expenses? What you know, what are the what are the increases? You know, what where are we at with no change? if we add the EMS um you know if we put it on the vote and and let the vote I think it's fair to say that if we added that if we voted tonight to add the.33 EMS I don't see where we fill the gap to get healthy I I think we can help tread water but I don't see the gap where we fill it to get healthy right but if we put it on the ballot and it goes to a one I think that's we don't need that kind of money. That's way way way too much. So, what I've kind of put together, what I'm proposing is the residents here realize that their daily costs are are X, we have if we take the number of the sales tax that we get and we apply that 15% 85 and and maybe it's a a 20% 80% maybe it's a you know, type of a ratio. is somewhere in that range. 15 to 20% of the sales tax collection is from our residents and the other 80 to 85 is from non-residents. And and quite frankly, all of us have been funding St. George City's police and fire for our whole lives.

Well, you you you heard me say that their excess sales tax revenue over and above their population exceeds our total.

Well, sure. and we've had an aversion to doing commercial in the fields for example and so they plant a lens on our doorstep and we all use their lens. Well, you know their their Costco is parked on our doorstep, right? And so we use their Costco. WCO is going to help pull some of those dollars back in. Um there's, you know, obviously we have another project that we, you know, assuming that ends up going until there's concrete in the ground, it's not going, but we assume those will help bring some of those dollars in, but they're not a guarantee at this point, you know, and so but this is a guarantee we can move forward. If the voter decides, they shouldn't get something for nothing, right? Or or they they shouldn't have to give uh on a sales tax and not get anything for it. So, my proposal is that we that we drastically cut the property taxes uh if the voter decides to implement the 1%. If they do that, it's a windfall for what we need. Um, but if we're able to couple it with a property tax reduction of 50% for example, which is what I

of the city portion

of the pro of the city portion of the property tax, that's my proposal is we cut 50% of property taxes if the 1% goes through. At the end of the day, if you take those ratio numbers of what our citizens provide for our sales tax base, it is a net tax cut. Yet at the same point in time, we're adding s significantly to the future of the community and we can start doing that long-term projection for fire station, for ambulatory services, for some, you know, Warner Valley, what's going to happen there in that windfall, and and it does free up some of those other areas, right? I mean, my my goal isn't for our residents to pay one more penny in in taxes as as a whole. My goal is to shift the burden from my residents to the to the tourists and the non-residents that are actually causing us a lot of the problems that we're having to deal with and fund because through a property tax mechanism, it's only our residents that are funding it, right? Does that everybody's along with me? And I I think there's been enough conversations going around that I think everybody kind of gets the gist of it. But from the public's perspective, if you if you can vote for a pro a sales tax increase yet get a corresponding if not more property tax cut that offsets your basis on a day-to-day ba, you know, day-to-day time frame. Um I I think that's a win for for both. It's a win-win for us to be able to fund our EMS and and fire and it's a win for the people in their daily lives. And if you look back to the property tax um component of their house, right? Let's say somebody on average, it's 300 400. Let's let's say it's 400,000 uh or $400 a year in their property tax collection that actually comes to

Washington City. If we do a district, it's that's going to jump to 600 or, you know, thereabouts. Right. Well, the other fire district in Hurricane is that that that is actually higher than their city property tax, the district property tax. They pay more for the fire district in the Hurricane Valley than they do for the city property tax on that line item on their property tax. So in that in that line item, right, if if and we don't have that line item in Washington.

Exactly. But if we give them a 50% tax cut, that's a $200 bill that's that's off of theirs. They would have to spend $20,000 in discretionary spending within our city to break to back to even. That's why I say it's a net tax cut because if you go dollar for dollar based on Jeremy's numbers and I wish I had what was it OD? What was the thing that we had sitting here where you could put a paper down and raise it up and down because I don't have this electronic Osmo or OD or something. Oh, you're talking about the old the old Elmo that we used to have that Drew used to have down here. put something on Elmo and everybody can see this. Councilman Turk, you remember the Elmo? It was Drew's favorite.

It was the worst. We used to have like a a plat that was photocopied and it was so digitized you couldn't see a dang thing and Elmo's trying to put it on the screen and nobody can see anything. Anyway, we're way past that. Now, if you take today's dollars based on the, you know, what what we've what we know to be true, right? It's still a almost a n almost a million dollar $900,000 tax cut to this community if they vote the 1% in. And we're able to shift some of that to the non-residents and the tourists. And maybe we can claw some of that from the St. George residents when they come over claw that that back from St. George residents when they come to Winkco. And I hope they watch our public hearing tonight to to hear that,

right? Cuz we've been funding their parks for a long time. I'm sure all the other municipalities are watching this. All right. Proceeding tonight. I told Mayor Hughes he watches, so he'll probably text me and and tell me. Tell her I said hello. Well, this is interesting, Councilman. This is uh this is interesting data. But I I think I think if we're going to and what I would like to make a motion to go that road when time comes, but I think if we do this, it's also important that we tell the public we're serious, right? That

Yes. put it on the ballot, you know, do a resolution to put it on the ballot. But I think it's also important that there's a a corresponding resolution done at the same time that says we as a council commit to cut your taxes, your property taxes by 50% if you vote the sales tax in. And so it's on paper, we're on record more so than I promise in a campaign type of a thing. You know, you vote to help us out with this issue and we're going to vote to help you out in your daily your daily cost. So, let's It's I look at it this way. Not disagreeing with what you have, but when I look at it, I go, all of this is a tax. Property tax, sales tax. It's all taxes, right?

I understand. We're trying to shift the burden onto non-residents, but it's still taxes on everybody, right? We got to protect Washington City residents as much as possible, but it's still all a tax. I'm not for the 1%. I want to make sure we can cover our needs and that's where I'm at with our our fire. That's that's what I'm after. I I agree with you. Right. But in my mind and and you know, again, I've played with the numbers quite a bit. Let's

I don't think 33 because of because of the cost and because of where things have gone and because of we've allowed ourselves to get so far behind our curve, right? But let's say we go to 0.5. We're only going to do we're only going to adjust enough. We need the voter to get us there, right? And we're only going to adjust enough to go to the 0.5. Well, then I can't offer my people an offset to to reduce their costs, right? I don't I don't think you're see I don't see it as a a a net loss or betterment. I really don't. I see. Okay. So now instead of paying.33% on non-discretionaries, I'm going to pay 1% on it all. So my taxes go up because I try to shop in Washington as much.

I do too. Yeah. You're going to drop my property tax by a 100 bucks and I'm going to pay 200 by adding the 1% in in sales tax for discretionary. Now me, I have a small family of three I have three boys and you should I mean I know this doesn't eat food but they go like to go out to eat and my bills are massive when that comes you know with that many people. My last house I didn't think was very luxurious and and I was paying over 400 to Washington city.

My current house the the county it's way more expensive or value is way higher than I think it is and I'm paying over six. So it's it's more than the hundred bucks, right? And again, like I said, if it's if it's a $100 bill, it's $10,000 in discretionary spending to just to get back to even if it's a $200 bill, $300, whatever that is. I guess all I'm saying is that you can't the retirement for the retirees that are here that aren't out there doing a lot of discretionary spending, it's going to be a a significant net benefit to to them.

And just for the record, I I'm not opposed to looking at all ideas, right? I'm just trying to be devil's advocate of saying, okay, I look at my family and they're just we we have a lot of discretionary spending when it comes to that stuff just because of where we're at in our lives, right? I just don't think you can pigeon hole it to one one way. What are you saying then? We don't have to do something. No, you know, we have to do have to do something. I'm not saying we don't. I'm just I'm just being devil's advocate to you. So,

I mean, it's okay. And and and we've discussed offline. We've discussed implementing the.33 today because we know we have the gap that needs to be filled and then putting on the ballot. I think you completely destroy your your your the conversation if if if we make the decision to raise the taxes today and then we say, "Hey, believe trust us. Let's raise it again in November." You know, I I just think you you if you're explaining yourself, do it once. Don't try to do it twice. Well, I agree. But I'm I had no intention of raising it twice. I don't want to raise it at all. But when I look at the

I look at the So this is this is the options I look at, right? So I wrote down options just because it helps me think. Option one is approve the.33 sales tax. Option three, go for the 1% sales tax. Okay. Option uh got them out of order, but you could do a property tax increase, which I think all of us are no way because it'd be too much, right? Um, option five is go through the impact fees, but again, that doesn't do maintenance, but it helps with some of the overall cost. And then the last option is don't do anything and just have lower service for the community. Which would you which what do you which one would you prefer? Which where would

which where I'd like to go? I'd like to do a little bit of everything to make it work better, right? Like I I wish we could not raise property tax, but then we'd have to look at our impact fees, but impact fees are a tax, too. That it's just implemented differently. I don't know if I have the exact answer, but I mean.33 seems like the least impactful and affects 15% of the residents or versus the 85 that is outside. If I can give if I can if I can if we can do it this way and provide more of a cut in property tax than the entire 1% would cover, I I would prefer that versus the 33 that doesn't reduce any of the daily any of the property tax at all.

I like where you're going with this because for me, I can relate to so many of what was said here. you know, we have a a family of six and you can just feel the there's a heavy tax burden in for families in Utah and you know, just to go back to what the Utah House speaker said, we're the we have the ninth priciest housing market and then we have the 14th highest tax burden in the nation. And so the Utah House speaker was asking agencies and departments to identify 5% budget cuts, you know, because they're recognizing that families are struggling living here. And so for me, I was an absolute, you all know, I was an absolute no. I wasn't wanting to do this increase because I don't want to add to the tax burden. But if we could do something where we're lowering the tax burden with doing a a lower property tax and so the residents who come here are sharing the cost burden and I feel like it would make a difference for residents because it's not it's not going to be taxed on food or gas, you know, and so it's going to be spending that it's it's not on the the cost that you need like every day. And so if we could low lower the tax burden on our end and do something to help with this with this issue, it would be I would be more supportive of it. And I don't think we're ready to make, like you were saying, I'm not sure what motion you were going to be making, but I think we should make a motion to deny this and then go back to talking through the budget and talking about the different options and even discussing the impact fees for the new stations that we need because we talked about needing new fire stations, but that's not something that we've seen with discussing new impact fees for those. Councilwoman, I want to make sure I understand. Um, and I appreciate you being clear. I appreciate actually all of you council saying these are tough conversations. Um, and I have, you know,

four adulting children that I hope can buy homes and live here and all this. You talked about the conversation or the kind of the the Councilman Bellison proposal of cutting down the property tax, the the portion that goes to the city. Are you then saying to um enact the sales tax then as the offset in order to provide ongoing funding for for fire and EMS?

Yeah, I'm saying we should look we should look at different options like this is the first time really we've had a discussion about this. We had one really one meeting to discuss this where we were given a um a presentation and then we haven't really had much discussion, you know, going through do going through the bud budget looking at ways that we can make some different cuts. So, you like the idea of adjusting property taxes downward and sales taxes upwards? Yeah. I just want to look at all the the different options that we have and really dig deep in the the budget and see where we can make adjustments and different things.

Um I don't want to argue other than I I know that there's a shortfall for the 2026 budget and there so there's a time component too and if we can get it on the ballot this year we can have plenty of conversations you know throughout the year but on on on some of those areas because I don't disagree with you we need we need to look at all that on on a regular basis but um I I I don't know that we're I think we're a little behind the power curve on time component especially if we got to get it on a ballot measure right so there's that concern and we're in a budget cycle right now that has to be addressed by is it April or it has done

oh now we expect our city manager to bring up and Brian to bring forward a budget to us based on priorities well and they've got a budget they got a forecast and they got a budget based on a forecast of what revenues are coming in and and and I just threw a wrench in their you know idea of what they want to see happen too we bring you the budget by March We'll have you a preliminary budget that's balanced and so we'll balance it based on what you give us. Right.

But right now, correct me if I'm wrong. Right now, if we implement the.33, then you can balance the budget. If we don't, we're dipping into rainy day funds because the shortfall is there. So, the de the demand and need is there. Yes, you're essentially correct. I mean, we we can do different things, but we'll always bring you a balanced budget. So, how we balance it, there's a lot of different ways as Councilman Councilwoman Caspersonson talked about, but but yes, we we won't be we won't be addressing any of these issues in this budget if we don't

and understand Councilwoman Casperson, you know, we're going to be having those budget discussions over the next next several months. And, you know, the the the vote is by the public, they can go up, too. Um the other the flip side to the property tax um two things on the property tax side. One is most of the people have a an escrow and so while it's an annual property tax it it where it's escrowed it does go into their monthly budget or their monthly payment. Um the second one is where it's discretionary. If you're the type of person that buys a car every every year, don't buy a Hyundai every year. Go buy a, you know, a Toyota maybe or or something like that. But if you're the type of person that buys a car and keeps it for, you know, six, seven, eight years, the year that you buy the car in Washington City is is going to be you're going to be one on the high end of the spectrum, right? you're not getting a tax cut, but all other years you are going to be getting a tax cut tax cut because it's it's discretionary in that manner, right?

Councilman Henderson, and and it doesn't affect food. So, we have not heard from you yet on this and I appreciate this this uh robust conversation.

Thank you. First of all, Kenzie Tomlinson, right? I appreciate your comments. Those hit home with me. Um, I've got three kids and six grandkids that live here and they are struggling, you know, just like they're the same age as you. My kids are they're they're struggling to make a living and uh paid the bills. So, I appreciate that. That was uh that was a great comments. Appreciate you doing that. Um, I think all of us up here despise the idea of uh paying raising taxes. you know, it's just awful. I think it goes against all of our natures to do that because I know all these people up here very well. Um, but at the same time, we've got a money problem, a math problem as the mayor said, and that we that we have to do something about. Um, I love Councilman Belliston's uh ideas on this. Um, I especially uh like the idea of lowering property taxes. Of all of the taxes that are out there, property taxes are the most despicable because um you never truly have freedom of homeownership when the government has a lean on your property. Basically, even if your property is paid for, anytime we can lower property taxes, I'm in favor of that. So, I I really love that part of it. The other part of it I love is that this idea shifts the burden of some of these taxes to people other than the residents of Washington City. And so whatever the math is, whether it's 75% or 85%, I don't know, but the majority of the uh discretionary goods, as Councilman Belliston said, are purchased by people

that don't live here in Washington. And I like that idea. I love the idea that the tax is not on food, pharmaceuticals, or gas, because that's important. So, you know, I uh I I like the idea of um thinking about this a little bit more, having a little bit more discussion on it. When is the deadline for putting this on the ballot, Jeremy? Do you know that it has to be done before August? For August. So, I would I would say our our budget is the the sooner deadline, but we can we can do with what we have at that point, but August 20th is I'll up for the shoes.

Doesn't the budget have to be approved by May? Something has to be approved by the end of June by law. End of June. Okay. We're always a little ahead. We try to approve it. It's a way to not get behind is be a little ahead. Um council, let me just throw out some idea. We can keep this conversation going. We we we've got all night. Um if needed.

Tara, did you like that conversation that that comment my recorder upstairs? Um, but I would say there's been some good points. These are these are, to use a wrestling synonym, these are tough uh issues to grapple with. Um, if the council I think one thing we agree on is something's got to give at some point unless we want to lose the level of service that that equates to quality of life. Something's got to give at some point. We don't know exactly what that looks like. Frankly, I am not opposed to the manager's recommendation. But if you're not prepared to make a vote tonight and you're not sure exactly what to do, we do have the option to table this item. We've had the public hearing. We can table this and and I will commit as mayor to add this to future um agendas for conversation uh and get to a point where there's at least a a majority or if not consensus on how to move forward. My my my preference would be to table versus deny because because a denial goes back to square one and and it and if we table it um it keeps some pressure on us to keep the conversation going. We can always vote to deny it when the table comes back up if if I've seen council

deny I'd rather at least table it and keep the conversation uh going rather than take a step backwards. And I think no matter what, we're gonna this is gonna be at the forefront because we're going to be going into our budget and then if we deny it then it's going to be we're gonna have another public hearing which I think is important too. It can be noticed and so we don't know what we're going to be coming up with for the next public hearing, what decision we're going to be making, what we're going to be voting upon. So, I think it'd be good to deny it and then have a a noticing of a new public hearing and so people can be aware of it again of what the next decision or what the next proposal is going to be potentially.

It might be difficult to table because we don't know exactly the date when we'd want it to come back. So, it's a good point from a seasoned councilman and I you're these are all actually really good points and I'm just kind of the facilitator right now. Um on land use councilman's absolutely right. You've got to table to a date certain on something like this. You don't have to by law. Correct me if I'm wrong, city attorney, but as I understand, you don't have to table to a certain date if we want to continue the conversation. Well, when's the first date? The first city council is March 11th, right?

The first meeting in March, second Wednesday in in March 11th. make a motion that we table till March 11th. You heard the motion by Council Bellison to table until March 11th. And I'll make a substitute motion to deny. Don't know that that she can make a substitute motion. If there's not a second, I will deny a resolution imposing the emergency service sales and use tax in the amount of 33%. You've heard the motion by Councilwoman Casperson. I'll second that. Mayor,

I have a second by Councilman Ivy. We have a motion and a second. So, we'll need to vote on this. We'll do roll call beginning with Councilwoman Caspersonson. So, an I vote is to deny. A nay vote is to keep the item alive. Hi, C. Sorry, just vote would go back to the original original motion looking for a second. Okay. Uh, council member Caspersonson. Hi, Ivy. Hi. are in there. Coats. Nay. Henderson. Nay. Belliston.

Nay. So the motion did not pass. So now we So we still the substitute motion did not pass. We still have a motion on the table which is to ironically table this item until March 11th. And so that would need a second before voting on that item. Can I amend my You amend your motion to table. You can amend the motion. Go ahead. Okay. I'm going to amend my motion to table to March March 11th that on March 11th we come forward with two resolutions. Okay. One resolution to put this on the ballot and the second resolution to also reduce property taxes by 50%.

I think we need a little more clarity in your in your motion. What do you mean put this on the ballot? Put the uh 1% sales tax option on the ballot

to put the 1% sales tax option on the ballot. let the voters choose the path forward, but also come forward with a a a resolution. At the same point, assuming our our city attorney turned around and and got anxious, assuming we can do this, uh bring another resolution at the same time that says we as a council are going to cut your property taxes if this does go through. So, you're saying a resolution or resolutions that would take a 1% sales tax to the voters and if the voters approve that that the council would then move to uh reduce city property taxes by 50%. Correct.

I think I think what I hear the council member saying is the item on tonight's agenda be tabled to a date in the future in March for further discussion by the council. And I think what he's saying with the other motions is just asking his colleagues approval to add a second agenda item to that meeting that address with the resolutions addresses the other items. So those are so those are separate items. I see that and they would be on first time impression on an agenda at that time. Is

that accurate that that works? Do we do we need to do on on a resolution like that? Does that also come with a public hearing? This is really interesting because you only set your property tax rate once a year, right? So, we're going to be setting a property tax rate here in the next couple of months, but you're talking about something in the future. So, essentially, you're just you're just making a resolution that that that isn't necessarily binding, but it's a resolution is what we intend. This is the direction we're going to head to do. You

not be required to have a public hearing as I lead the read the law. If you put in the 33% you have to you're required to have a public hearing. One one% to the ballot the ballot becomes the public hearing and you're not required but you certainly can have one anyway. That's accurate to my reading as well. So if the council wants to exercise the lower sales tax rate, the legislature requires that you must have a public hearing before you do that and and have a dialogue with your residents. Property tax rate. No sales tax.

Okay. But if if you say we want the voters to decide, you can pass that in a resolution that does in a meeting that does not have a public hearing because the legislature bakes into that option that the public hearing is via the ballot. Okay. And so back to council members motion, I do think we need to address the table specifically from tonight's agenda and that item as to when it will come out. And then I what I think he's asking is just you know a nod of the head so that when we prepare the agenda for that meeting we also include these other items. Okay. So I I understand. So um I'm going to ask ask you to restate your motion here in just that council. Oh I just got confused.

But but let me let me try to rephrase it again. What what I'm committed to do is to to um city attorney has heard about the resolutions that you're asking for. I'm committed to add those to the agenda. So really your motion, if you want to restate your motion, would be just be back to your original to table this until March 11th. And and honestly, what I what I see is a train that is running out of track at some point. So council, this is these are discussions that you need to have and uh I support you in having those discussions.

So council member, I'm trying to get to where I think you were going, which is on March 11th, we'll have this item on table recall and two new items. One of them would regard uh a council decision to send the 1% to the to the voters for a ballot decision. The other would be a resolution by the council committing to the me to the public that if they passed the 1% resolution that the city council would commit to reduce their property tax,

then then if the mayor says that he'll put those other two items on the agenda, then then I'll just leave the motion at that we table till March 11th. Um, I my ask a the question I was asking was, do either of those two resolutions need to come with a public hearing? Because Councilwoman Caspersonson's concern is that that she wants to have another public hearing on it. And so if if it did come with a public hearing on either of those two resolutions, then then we can have that on March. Okay. I didn't I didn't address that. Let me get there. So not only a public hearing but to have like the noticing is is what's important.

So on the 1% there is no statutory requirement to to do a public hearing. And so if you didn't do a public hearing that resolution would not fail for failure to meet a statutory precondition on the 33%. If you didn't have a public hearing and passed it, it would fail for failure to meet the statutory precondition. Resolution to the voters where you just make a commitment for a future action that doesn't require public hearing. But in next spring will provide will require a public hearing. So, if we did a resolution that says we're going to cut your property tax and then next spring we didn't fulfill that into the bargain, we're going to have a public hearing and it's going to be I I would assume fairly heated. Would you agree?

Yeah. Yeah. Um it I would though add that it has been the practice of the planning commission and the city council in this city that an item that included a table for a included a public hearing is tabled. There's also a discussion of whether they want to continue the public hearing to the table date on the theory that the public came to give us feedback today in a public hearing and if we're going to table item to another one, we would let them give us some more public feedback on the next one. It's not it's not required by law to do that, but that has been the practice of the of the public bodies with the city. Okay. For for today's You mean

for today's item? I'm fine if we continue today's public hearing to March 11th as well. I just don't want to deny and then go back to the drawing board and and this and that. So, if we want to continue the public hearing, mayor, if you're okay with that. So, I I I am the referee. So, I have a question for staff. Is March 11th enough time to get all this stuff prepared? I think we could put those those two resolutions that he referenced together by next week to have it on the March 11th meeting. I will entertain a motion um on this item. Really give us time to really dive deep into the budget different options and convers. We're going to we're going to discuss it. Sorry, Councilwoman. I didn't cut you off.

I just say we're trying to discuss it, but it sounds like there's already been made up this is the option we want to go. I'm not solidified 100% this is the option we should go. I don't think it's a bad option to look at, but I'm still on the 33 may be enough. That only affects that that doesn't that doesn't give any net benefit to our residents. That does. Well, whatever.

Okay. These are the hard decisions. No matter what, it's an increased cost wherever you look. It's what it is. And if we want to keep the level of service we have with our fire department, we have to do something. Would you rather I'm just trying to say like if you're expecting it, if we're have a tight time frame, I'm not trying to to shorten it. If they think they can have it ready, but if we want to have disc more discussion on it, you work session before the meeting so we can have discussion on it too. put them on both and then and work on I just want to make sure we have enough time to discuss it if we're throwing more options out there.

You the council has got to pass a budget by by the end of June and that budget has got to be consistent with the level of service that the council wants to provide and instruct staff to provide. So at this time all I can tell you is the train is running out of track. at some point the level of service that we're providing uh we won't be able it won't be sustainable um with the revenue that we have. So um that's that's what the city manager brought forward a solution. Uh that's why we had this public hearing. This is why we're grappling with this issue. And so I'm happy to follow the council, the majority of the council's lead on how you want to proceed next.

So So the motion is to to move it to March 11th. And then I need I do I need to put in that motion that we're going to continue the public hearing. Uh if you want to do that, that would be I I what I hear from your colleague down here is that um I'll add that to my motion for March. I think that would be a smart I think that's fair. And that I think the public that are present also deserve to know whether you'll whether that opportunity will be on the next meeting too. Motion indicating whether they can come and speak next time will help them know. I think it's a it's a I'm I'm fine with it being a new open public hearing. If you're asking my opinion, continue the public hearing.

What I'm hearing and I know you can come back and every and we can start over maybe five opinions here. What I'm hearing is to table to March 11th with a continuation of the public hearing. But you need to make that motion. I I unfortunately can't do that or Ana can't vote. But and I'm making my motion to continue to March 11th with a continuence of the public hearing. All right. C council, you've heard Councilman Belliston's motion to uh table item 6 C until March 11th with a continuation of the public hearing which I will open and close once more. Is there a second on this? Second.

I have a motion by Councilman Bellison, a second by Councilman Henderson. We're going to go roll call beginning with Council Member Ivy. Hi. Coats. I. Henderson. Hi Bellison. Hi Caspersonson.

So we have uh an approval to table with the continuation of the public hearing on a 4 to1 vote. And that was the most fun we've had a council meeting in a long time. Um at this point we're just going to move right along the agenda um with item seven. This is report of officers from assigned uh committees. Uh we'll start on my left, your right, with Council Member Ballast. I had anything, Councilman Henderson.

Yes. In the last uh since our last meeting, I had a mosqu or a meeting with the Southwest Mosquito District and uh we just kind of reviewed the budget for the coming year and uh you know, one of the best things about the district is I have people, you know, I'll tell them I'm on the mosquito district board and they're they're like, "We don't have mosquitoes here." You know, but I'm like, "Yeah, exactly."

Exactly. see what I'm doing here for you. So, anyway, it's a really well-run board and uh it they even rival Brian on keeping the books uh up to date. So, anyway, I enjoy serving on that committee. So, thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Coats had any committee meetings since last meeting, so nothing to report to that.

All right, Councilman Ivy. Yes, I was at LPC two weeks ago and uh had a had a very good conversation with several bills that we're tracking. So far, we've been been batting a thousand and getting bills that we don't like turned back and getting ones we like passed. So, we'll continue with that. Um for MO, um they're starting a process to formally collaborate between municipalities and the county to update the vision Dixie document that was done in 2007. So, mayor, I would ask who you'd like me to include in that to kind of put those documentation together so that we can get part of those discussions. Um, like I say, it's it's the vision Dixie document.

Let's let's sit down after the meeting sometime later this week or next and discuss that in further detail and make sure we're well represented. And I actually really appreciate your service on the MO there and thought we had a really productive discussion on Purgatory Road and Bridge today. So, yeah, I appreciate that, Mayor. Yeah, we did have a good conversation. I appreciate Hurricane City being here and Washington County to have a discussion that uh speaking of big lifts, that's that's another one that we that we've got in front of us that our residents deserve our best efforts. It's like chewing a gobstopper. Never stops. Thank you, Mayor Councilwoman.

Well, I think I'll start with the our events committee. Jordan informed me that he's been getting a lot of donors for it. And so I'm really excited about that. The number of people that are contributing to our cotton days and it's going to be a really he's the chair and he's doing a really good job at leading that and it's going to be really exciting. I'm looking forward to it. And then I also want to mention, you know, there's someone on this council who's rather stingy with their committee assignment. And so I scheduled a time to go. The parks department was really nice to meet me and the group of kids that I teach and we planted some trees today. So I kind of technically had a a shade tree committee meeting today

trying to horn in on my business. What's going on? Yeah. I just want to share how appreciative I am of the parks department. They were They're just the What variety of trees did you put? There were several and we named them all and so I know that's going to go into the record some of the names that the girls did, but it was just like we were they were just treated the girls so nice and we talked about, you know, the trees and and they actually invited me to come to one of the committees next time. So I No, I would never want to replace. It's a good committee, right? We love it. You're always invited.

Thank you. I didn't mean to call you stingy, but anyways, I'm just appreciative of all the the work that they do and I appreciate the time that they spent today. How are we coming with cotton days? Are we going to be ready?

Of course. Jordan, do you want to say anything? I'm really good at using people for my to get my committee assignment report. Yeah, the committee is moving full steam ahead. We've added a lot of really great new items this year like a drone show and a children's entrepreneur market. And um it's going to be a lot of fun. And as Councilwoman Caspersonson uh mentioned, we've been able to raise about $20,000 from outside sponsors in the community that want to have some skin in the game and and see our cotton days be a success this year. So, we're rocking and rolling and meeting every couple weeks and and it's coming together really well. Wonderful. Thank you.

I'm also excited about having groups from our community come and perform. So, we're going to bring a lot of families and um kids from our community and the play. And the play. Yes.

Bringing it back to the old gym. It's going to be awesome. Thank you. Um I'll just um you know, this is one of those projects that this council is very well aware of. We've been working on it for four years, but it's the RS Southwest Logistics Center, and this is down by the by the regional airport. And tomorrow, we're going to go tour uh two buildings that uh are around or in excess of 400,000 square ft each. These are high-end uh distribution manufacturing space, and there are three additional buildings uh of similar size. um in the permitting process and we'll soon begin construction. Um when we're talking about quality of life and trying to balance competing interests, the RS Southwest Logistics Center will will provide um jobs for this community, jobs that provide a living wage. And so I'm just really proud of the work that you've done as a council on this. And and I for one am really excited for for that extension of Washington's Road to open up. I'm excited to see those see those buildings and as as Rusty said in her invitation, you know, take a victory lap on the hard work that we're doing for the people and and this will this will provide jobs and a little bit of revenue to the city and hopefully take a little bit of that pressure off from from what we're trying to do to keep people safe and and keep this to be a great place to live. Um, that is all I have from my committee, which I guess was economic development committee. Um, Jeremy, you keep us well informed. What would you add tonight with your city manager report?

I think I speak for everyone in that you've heard lots from me tonight, so I don't think I'll add anything to my report tonight, but thank you. We will anxiously await your email on Friday for anything else that comes to mind. Uh we had a close session after our work session. So we do not have need to go to close session this uh this evening. So I will call for a motion to adjourn. So made motion by Councilman Ivy, second by Councilman Henderson. All in favor? I we stand adjourned unanimously.